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when it comes to "know it all" men it always makes me chuckle!!
9 times out of 10 they dont ride themselves but they are always sooo ready to dish out their unwanted/unhelpful advice.
[/ QUOTE ] That is sooooo true as well! I know several like that! They don't ride themselves but have a wife/partner/child/relative who does and think they know everything. Advice usually tends to be along the lines of "it needs a damn good gallop/get yourself an ex-racehorse that'll go faster/why do you only walk and trot along the lanes/of course it's safe to ride even though there is black ice on the roads". The sort of person you'd love to stick on a big, spooky, lively horse and take out for a brisk hack!
This particular guy that seahorse is talking about does have a horse but in the 2 years I have known him I have only seen him ride once and then someone had to help him put the bridle on!!!!
there was a girl at the yard where I kept my mare, who used to constantly tell me to sell my horse because I was scared of her and couldn't ride her. She even got a "For Sale" form from the local paper and filled it out for me...
Several months later, she was still on at me to sell my mare, because I was scared of her, someone else heard her and suggested she shut the *uck up given that she was so scared of her own pony that she'd not ridden it for two weeks...
I've had "advice" on everything from what my horse wears when it's tipping it down and blowing a gale in the summer (apparently no rugs even though he has no hair to speak of in the summer and has had a bout of rain scald with a previous owner), how much I feed my 16.2 warmblood (from someone who owns a nervy TB who barely eats anything) where I get changed to ride (I come straight from work and get changed in my tack room on the yard - apparently I should get changed at work even though this isn't convenient and all my clothes are at the yard from the morning change - this comes from who a person who has someone else do their horse in the mornings), whether I should put a bucket of water in the stable even though there's an automatic drinker - 'cause I like my horse to have a decent drink if he wants rather than waiting for the intermittent water supply to fill up a tiny drinker!
You name I've had advice on it. The ironic thing is the two people on the yard who are the experts at giving this "advice" are probably the two who are most scared of their own horses.