StephBiscuit
Well-Known Member
I've been riding at my local riding school (Saltburn) for the last ten years - been riding for 12 and I normally have lessons and help out on Thursdays for a free beach ride, however, on Sunday I joined some of the liveries and another customer on a fun ride.
We went to East Cowton where one of the former liveries moved to after getting married last year where she has a couple of stables at home for her horse and her daughter's pony. We went in the wagon and it took about an hour to get there. I was riding Rosco, a 15hh Appaloosa who is on working livery - I ride him occasionally in lessons and on the beach. He's a friendly boy but can be very stubborn.
When we got to Lizzie's house, we unloaded the horses and got on before setting off. We went down some tracks before turning off into a mini wooded area and then we went into a field and cantered along the edges. We cantered through a few stubble fields on the hack (two hours) and it was great fun.
When we got back to Lizzie's house/yard we loaded the horses back into the wagon before having our lunch in Lizzie's garden - there is a farm shop on site at the stables and they made our sandwiches - before going back to our yard, off-loading the horses and turning them out.
My question is - how to you teach a horse to be patient and wait calmly to go through gateways? Rosco kept on bucking each time we had to wait, and, although I stayed on, it did become rather irritating and embarrassing having to apologise to people nearby! I think that he was either excited about being somewhere new - he spent most of the ride jogging and flinging his head around which he doesn't do normally in lessons or on the beach or worried that the other horses were going to leave him behind.
His owner had taken him up the woods near the stables last Sunday and apparantly he was bucking all the time and taking off up the woods with her. He didn't really take off with me - apart from the attack of the pheasant - but he was quite strong and i had to keep his head up in canter as he felt like he might buck otherwise.
We went to East Cowton where one of the former liveries moved to after getting married last year where she has a couple of stables at home for her horse and her daughter's pony. We went in the wagon and it took about an hour to get there. I was riding Rosco, a 15hh Appaloosa who is on working livery - I ride him occasionally in lessons and on the beach. He's a friendly boy but can be very stubborn.
When we got to Lizzie's house, we unloaded the horses and got on before setting off. We went down some tracks before turning off into a mini wooded area and then we went into a field and cantered along the edges. We cantered through a few stubble fields on the hack (two hours) and it was great fun.
When we got back to Lizzie's house/yard we loaded the horses back into the wagon before having our lunch in Lizzie's garden - there is a farm shop on site at the stables and they made our sandwiches - before going back to our yard, off-loading the horses and turning them out.
My question is - how to you teach a horse to be patient and wait calmly to go through gateways? Rosco kept on bucking each time we had to wait, and, although I stayed on, it did become rather irritating and embarrassing having to apologise to people nearby! I think that he was either excited about being somewhere new - he spent most of the ride jogging and flinging his head around which he doesn't do normally in lessons or on the beach or worried that the other horses were going to leave him behind.
His owner had taken him up the woods near the stables last Sunday and apparantly he was bucking all the time and taking off up the woods with her. He didn't really take off with me - apart from the attack of the pheasant - but he was quite strong and i had to keep his head up in canter as he felt like he might buck otherwise.