What was your first gallop like?

Im trying really hard to remember but I think it was in a stubble field on my first New Forest pony Rocky, I must have been 10.
Scariest was on same pony when he took off with me on a bridleway I didn't know, we were galloping up to a brow of a hill and I had it in my head it was a cliff edge, remember the tears rolling down my face. Luckily it dropped off slowly downhill, I was only a kid then.
Adrenalin gallop was with my friend on two big cobs, neck and neck racing across some open fields - fantastic, it was one time I would have loved to not have to wear a hat just for that feeling of freedom :)
 
ohhh i love a good gallop, first one must have been when i was about 15 on a 13.2 pony called pippa who was a speed demon:D she used to stretch out so much to keep up with the 14.2 pony that she felt like she was only just skimming the ground. When i was later old enough to work there and lead treks our favourite day off treat was to hack up to the quantocks and go hell for leather across the hills:D

I confess to still liking a bit of a mad blast now and the big girl is only too pleased to oblige, 17hh thundering along is a bit different to the 13.2hh though lol, the field goes by a lot faster:D:D
 
Really chuffing scary!!! :D I was about 12. It was unplanned and I was on a really fast pony out hacking with the riding school! We were told "Steady canter" and I just remember hearing "Turn towards the hedge, TURN TOWARDS THE HEDGE!" followed by my instructor laughing :D
 
I had just started riding a 17.3 tb mare from a 14hh newfie. 'experienced' friend was told to walk on foot with me and we went up the track... And back. All was well until friend suggested I trot her once we had turned for home I remember it vividly; two strides of trot, one of canter and then full chocks away! I landed in a ditch half way back and YO said she saw the mare fly through the yard without slowing, stirrups flying and skreech to a stop at the front door! :o
 
Nah said:
Scary! My pony had bolted and nearly crashed into a gate!

Sounds like the time I went pony trekking in Ireland, me and my dad flat out gallop across fields and dicthes ( Dad had never really ridden before!) all I could think of was please let the gate ( which was a 5 bar gate to the yard) be open, luckily it was! We later found out that the ponies were regularly used for pony racing. Poor old Dad, don't think he's ridden since! :p
Click to expand...
 
Hi,

My first and last (so far) and unplanned gallop was almost twenty years ago. I was a test pilot for my local riding school and they'd just brought a pair of ponies/horses from an American theme park. They had been used in the Cowboy and Indian shows - and the RS put me on the Appoloosa. Out on the hack I was sent to the front to lead and he just took off - he wouldn't slow down so I just took the jockey position and let him go (screaming with glee the whole way :D).

Amazing and scary at the same time - it took me an age to slow him down to trot and to this day it's the highlight of my riding career - the Appoloosa in question eventually became the most sensible, beloved horse in the stable and my good friend at my current yard learned to ride on him :D:D:D:D.
 
^^^^BTW

I'm training my boyo up to do me a good solid gallop once he's fit enough - looking forward to assuming the jockey stance on a beach next year :D:D
 
Blimey, that's stretching the memory a bit... Must have been when I was about 6-7 on my old pony - he was a horror for tanking off.

But what I really remember as proper, proper gallop was when I worked at a NH yard in my teens - now THAT was power - and speed!! Like riding a ferrari - scary when you lost your brakes but pure adrenalin/exhilaration the rest of the time :-)

I do remember getting totally bogged off with one day on the gallops - we were going so fast my crash cap was lifting up of my head, only my chinstrap was keeping it on!

Them were the days...
 
It was great fun, I was on a hack on dartmoor when I was quite young, maybe 9? I'm not sure, there was me, my mum and the guide- who had a super fast horse and a crazy disposition :p (her and her horse) and decided to 'canter' up this hill- so we did, then off we went at flat out gallop for the longest stretch of moor i've ever seen! I think I was on a high for a week as I'd never been allowed to gallop :p
 
I just asked my mum, and she said "You loved it, but I have never been so afraid in my life". I was 8 and I was riding my grandfathers hunter. He was an absolute saint, which was why I was riding him, but the lure of a flat field and a little squirt flapping away like a mad thing on top of him was just too much for him! Apparently it was a very careful gallop, and he pulled himself together half way back to the gate and slowed down - but as a mother now, I can see why my mum nearly had a heart attack!
 
Come to think of it, my last horse Bamber who I owned 1972 - 1978, loved to gallop (whether I wanted to or not :rolleyes:) and so did I. We had such fun together.

Now, on my new horse Mollie I struggle to pick up the courage to canter. :o

It's a bugger, getting older. :(
 
[It's a bugger, getting older. :([/QUOTE]

Ooh - I wish there was a like button here. Why is it that courage seems to dissipate as we get older - or is it that our sense of self preservation gets stronger??

I used to love galloping the racehorses and jumped hurdles (but not chase fences, even in my teens I'd have paled at that) but now... a collected canter feels just about right thank you very much and a cross pole puts me in a blue funk!! And, I'm only 34 so not even 'old' by any given standard :-(
 
Sorry i wish i could really remember, but i was so young, i remember a bit, it was along the banks of the river on a straight about half a mile long..... And saying to my mum that he was so fast he could be a race horse .... He was a shetland :o:o:o
 
It was like flying.... And I couldn't see where the hell I was going as my eyes were streaming!! No wonder you need goggles!

I gallop as often as I can, I just love it. I'd be a jockey if I wasn't so fat.
 
My first gallop is both one of my favorite and most frightening horse related memories. There were five of us out after a friend's birthday party. Her family had horses, so we all saddled up for a hack. We had gone a fair distance when one of the girls decided to gallop her mare, and the others picked up a canter. We decided that as we'd all ridden before to have some fun with it and my friend asked me if I was ready to try something faster. I was riding a very reliable horse I adored and had ridden several times previously so I said yes and off we went! It was amazing, I felt like I was flying! I really never thought my girl could move like that. Then one of our friends in front of us had an accident and it was terrible. It makes it a very bitter sweet sort of experience, but up to that point it was wonderful.
 
My first gallop was in Iceland on a trail ride and was over far too quickly - I'm not even certain I made it up to a gallop! My second gallop was on a hack with my instructor and sister, we were meant to be cantering and I was on a hairy, steady, 15hh cob that I'd only ever ridden in the school. As soon as we started cantering he decided he wanted to race my instructors horse, put his head down and his little legs started flying! It didn't last very long but it was amazing, though I haven't had the chance to do it since
 
Smooth............I still think its the smoothest stride. But yes it is wind up the .....and off we go...not as brave anymore. If it happened now it would be because they took off.
 
My first gallop was at the British Racing School....it felt great. I don't count it though, the first gallop I really remember was on the race horse I've just bought.

I'd gone for a trial at a P2P yard for a job as a work rider, being a bit nervous about it all-I was sure he would bolt and I'd make a right twit of myself. I overheard the trainer saying 'we'd best make sure she can gallop' so I knew I was in for it! Just before we pulled out I whispered in the horses ear that if he looked after me Id look after him, and gave him a kiss.

We trotted the three miles to the hill gallop....well when I say 'gallop' it was actually the side of a huge hill, with no nice white railings to keep us on the straight and narrow and random spooky sheep wandering around.

We jumped off behind and he pulled like a train, I thought my arms would come out! Soom enough though he settled down, halfway up he was tiring but I just told him what a good boy he was and gave a little ask.....and he dug deep and just kept on pulling right to the top.

That's the first time a horse had ever really tried for me, and he never stopped trying from that day on. I didn't realise it was his first time back on the gallops after the summer break and he was quite unfit! Loved him so much 6 months later I've bought him....arrives on the 25th May and I can't wait!
 
Taffyhorse said:
[It's a bugger, getting older. :(
Click to expand...

Ooh - I wish there was a like button here. Why is it that courage seems to dissipate as we get older - or is it that our sense of self preservation gets stronger??

I used to love galloping the racehorses and jumped hurdles (but not chase fences, even in my teens I'd have paled at that) but now... a collected canter feels just about right thank you very much and a cross pole puts me in a blue funk!! And, I'm only 34 so not even 'old' by any given standard :-([/QUOTE]

Nowadays I'm right there with you on that ( although we did have a gallop last autumn across the stubble because I hate feeling old - amazing feeling but also very scary, as I couldn't get out of my head 'what if she stumbles, what if she stumbles....")

Can't remember my first gallop but I used to do lots , on every hack, and even bareback sometimes, fab times on fab ponies ... Ahhh the memories....
 
I don't remember it but I know exactly where it would have been at the lovely old fashioned riding school where I first learnt we had the lessons in a little paddock at the bottom of a hill ( the riding school was at the top ) on the way back from the lesson once you where good enough the ponies where allowed to gallop up the hll to the stables in a big group it was great fun .
 
First gallop was when I was 8 odd on my little welsh sec b and he bolted with me when we got into the stubble field. His little leggies were going so fast it and i felt so out of control, I was petrified then his bridle fell off :eek: don't know how on earth that happened!! I'm still extremely apprehensive being in big fields on a horse :( 2nd gallop was a planned one on my share horse when I was out with one of the other girls and her horse and it was amazing. Didn't feel out of control and he pulled up easily. Loved him!

I have my new pony now and one day hopefully I will trust her enough that I will get to gallop her but at the moment we are still trying to master a controlled canter in the school and although I'm sure that being out in the open will be easier for her to canter and therefore easier for me to control I'm definitely with the it's a bugger getting older clique! :o
 
Mine was this , cantering lovely over a field at 12 years old, lovely sunny day stubble...... OMG , off we went,,,,,, I said to instructor ' what the hell was rhat' ,,, your first gallop !!!!

Loved it but if it happened now without warning I would be scared to death :D
 
my daughter had her first gallop today...we were doing our usual hack and she has kept talking about galloping(and i knew she was ready on her 17yr old pony)...so we did our usual canter and i just pushed my horse on faster and she kept up........she loved it...she is ten years old..i am proud as punch of her now.....:)
 
RS hacks always used to canter in the same place (never likely to end well). There was one pony who used to anticipate this and go charging off. Once I realised he could be relied upon to stop in the right place I used to take advantage and go for a gallop rather than a canter.
 
On a RS pony (as an adult, just a small one!) that I was supposed to be trotting a 20m circle on... came off when we got to a fence - I thought he'd jump but he turned at the last moment. Massive skid marks on the ground and a broken tooth from sliding on my face!

Next time was on share Arab, in a field by self... the 'canter' got even faster than usual and when we came back to canter I suddenly understood about how 'round' a feeling it is in comparison to a 'flat out' gallop.

Loads on him after that... many even deliberate! Lovelly if you trust the animal/your seat/the ground :-)
 
I've only done it a few times what with just being a riding school person. I first really galloped (in a controllled manner) on a big old 17.2 called Sonny. I was in a lesson and there was only me, another girl and the instructor. We were on the XC course so there was loads of room and the teacher said 'shall we?'.

I loved it but was also slightly terrified. I'd love to have a blast more often! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top