(no subject)

[endlessrarities]

I have just survived an encounter with The Evil One, aka Softy.  I was supposed to be riding Molly, but she was so lathered up after the last lesson that she was pulled at the last minute.

Softy is a very attractive piebald cob.  Her markings are striking, and she looks like she should be taking part in The Big Country.  But she's got white around the eyes which gives the impression that she's a bit wild and untrustworthy.  It's not far from the truth.  In my experiences with her, I've found her to be a lazy wilful minx who gives riding school horses a bad name.  She has two speeds only:  zoom, and dead slow and stop.  And if you get on her wick, she is the archetypal Immovable Object.

Last time I rode her was three years ago.  Our hour long Battle Royale culminated in a hissy fit and four hooves parked solidly on the ground.  Nothing I could do would budge her. 

Today, I survived my encounter unscathed.  We had a few hairy moments, but there were none of the hysterionics from the last time.  I guess I've learned that an outright confrontation with Softy just does not work.  If you try and bully her into doing something, she will not do it.  Psychological warfare is required.

We walked, we trotted, and Softy was grudgingly obliging.  But my leg position went completely to pot and I felt like the experience put me back weeks.  If your whole philosophy is to be at one with your horse and to be a fluid partnership, you're on a road to nowhere if one member of the duo just does not want to be there and will not be persuaded otherwise,

But looking on the bright side...  At least it was better than last time:-)

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

In horses with wide blazes/horses with spots, white in the eyes can be perfectly normal rather than a sign of nervousness - one of the steadiest horses I've known had the white showing.

Softy sounds like a horse who can teach riders a lot - do less, don't use force, ride correctly. Very often they're highly sensitive horses - if a horse stonewalls like that, doing less is always the first choice.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I just don't get any enjoyment from working with an animal that doesn't want to work with me.

We certainly got on a lot better tonight than we did last time.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

If a horse is unwilling to work because they're uncomfortable - the saddle does not fit, they are sore somewhere - then I not only don't enjoy riding them, I will either scale down the work or get off altogether. (I've done that, £££ or not - if a horse is lame, I'm not riding it.)

If the horse is unwilling because it expects being ridden to be uncomfortable, I see it as my duty to show him otherwise; it's a service both to the horse and to the next rider.
Many horses who have had bad experiences with riding school riders are ridiculously grateful when they find a rider who rides light and gives precise aids.

They're not my favorite rides, but I love being able to make them go, and I do admit to a soft spot for a horse that will say NO when the rider gets too rough.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I think her attitude was 'sod this. I want to be somewhere else.' All riding school horses must get like that eventually - though her owners really do seem unusually devoted to their horses' welfare. Their animals get turned out most nights and only get used for a couple of lessons a day, with a couple of days off a week.

When my poor horse was a riding school inmate, he had two weeks holiday a year and was ridden up to four hours a day seven days a week. No wonder he died young.

Perhaps Softy has a secret talent for writing sonnets or quantum physics. Sadly, we shall never know.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Riding school work is hard for a horse - they need to adjust quickly, many riders are not very capable and unbalanced. On the other hand, there's no chance of one mistake having long-term effects- every rider is bad in _different_ ways, so if you keep the horse tuned up, they can live forever. In my experience, two hours a day is a long-term sustainable workload for a riding school horse - they can occasionally do more, but no school I've known that regularly used their horses for three or four hours managed to keep those horses healthy for long. (Hacking/trekking is different, but an hour in the school counts for two of those.)

It sounds as if you've found a great school. I'm a great believer in riding schools - think what would happen if all of those people bought their own...

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

The horse always comes first with them, and it's nothing to do with protecting their financial investment. That's why I wound up stuck with Softy yesterday, as the first choice was so sweated up after her lesson that she wasn't fit to be ridden.

My poor horse had a litany of problems which stemmed from his early years of living in a garage in a town and being exercised in a saddle that didn't fit him. His back started to stiffen not long after I bought him, and that was back in the days when equine chiropractors were a novelty. I did my best to keep him going as long as possible, but he was crippled in the long-term by a combination of navicular and ringbone.

He is still sadly missed.