Horses(Anyone Own One?)

[Cowgirls Rule]

[Cowgirls Rule]

Yay! I rode my horse bareback double. I haven't done that in soo long. It was fun. Apparently my horse hopped up a little bit, not too much. I didn't feel it though.

[Cowgirls Rule]

Ewww! I had to clean my horse's sheath today. It was soo gross.

[MuteAppeal]

I've got two boys that have to get sheath cleanings so I feel you there. Nothing like being up to your elbow in gunk to make your day.

There are now two extra horses added to my to-do exercise list. Originally it was just one that the owner wanted to ride but wasn't confident getting up on him just yet. He's a Polish Arab. X TB, so I guess that makes him an Anglo Arab. Hasn't been rode in at least two years and that's just what the current owner knows of since he's a rescue and that's how long she's had him. So at 15 he's going back to school to relearn the basics, the go back and pretend he's never been bridled basics because I discovered that he had learned to evade the bit by tucking his chin to his chest at some point in the past which means zero control. Got to put the steering back on him, but once that's in place he has some nice, big looking gaits that I bet feel great to ride. If we get far enough before I find an actual job I'll be starting him on barrels since that's what his owner would like to do with him.

The second is an extremely overweight breeding stock paint mare that looks more like the pounds are being packed on her for foaling rather than a riding animal. It's even sadder because she's somewhere around large pony to small horse size and she waddles XD. The owner found out I ride other peoples' horses and asked if I'd ride her to help her lose the pounds. All that stored fat means a lot of extra energy, but she's too rotund to get away from me very fast. She tried bucking and I don't think we even made it off the ground due to the fatness.

[Vitani]

Oh Mute...I'm crying with laughter right now picturing the little waddler trying to buck, it reminds me so much of a darling little Welshie where I used to work...Since there weren't a great deal of young riders and she was too small even for me, pretty much the only excercise she got was on the lunge or being ponied...

She couldn't get airborne either and it used to crack us all up...And would look so pitiful in a bare paddock that your heart went out to her...But just like people, being overweight in horses can have serious issues, so your new charge is lucky to have you riding her



Would going bitless help Mr Locomotive?

[MuteAppeal]

I'll laugh along with you. All three horses in her field are plump or rolly-polly though they are eating no more than any other horse on the farm, less in some cases, and have the least amount of grass in their turnout of any horse on the farm. I'd be afraid to see how they would blimp up if they were out in one of the big grass fields. She's going to need to be worked up to longer rides to gain some stamina before we can go do some hill work and hacking in the pastures, a twenty minute ride is pushing it right now.

I don't know that going bitless will fix the fact that he evades pressure completely and is fighting cues to give to pressure on both sides and I only know beginning bridle training using a snaffle. Also, I would want to practice going bitless on a better broke horse that would tolerate some safe experimenting first to make sure I could use one right since the only thing I have access to is a mechanical hackamore that belongs to the barn owner which I've heard can mess up a horse temporarily or break their jaw if used wrong. It'll just be a lot of bridling him and getting him to give while I'm still on the ground until he shows he's getting the lesson. A little trying given the humidity around here, but should be worth it. He's pretty good at giving in a halter so it shouldn't be too much of a jump for him to get that bits are for listening to, not running through and ignoring. Unfortunately it's all guess work as to what caused the problems since the only thing known about his training was that he was at least started english and supposedly threw the woman training him once and she refused to touch him again after that.

On an interesting note, he was a little better behaved the time I rode him when his owner wasn't around. When she was there he planted himself and actually refused all forward motion for a while. I think I can label him at least 50% spoiled rotten at this point.

I do love the ponies, but give them a couple weeks of being forced to work again and they'll probably dread seeing me coming, especially her royal fatness who will not be feeling very lucky until she's skinny enough not to get rump rash when she walks

[Vitani]

In the right hands a mechanical hackamore can be a brilliant method of control, its used very widely in stadium jumping, but in the wrong hands it can have severe consequences...I personally haven't used them purely on that grounds - It can be hard to tell when enough is enough, I've seen horses literally go over backwards because of them.....But in my own personal experiance I had a great deal of success with the cross under/over bridles...I'm english trained and I know you're western so not sure how that would go...You'd be more in tune with a bosal I think....Any bitless bridle can be extremely severe so its definately not something for a complete novice but you seem well experianced so....

I think with anything, its a softly softly approach...Alot of riders disagree with that ( don't want to cause arguments ) but I've just found that if what I'm doing isin't working with horses....Its 99% of the time my fault and it can be as simple as changing the smallest of things....Gah, I'm rambling >.<

If he yields to a halter, is it possible to get him out in an arena/empty paddock and try riding him in a rope bridle? Someplace safe so that a bolt won't do much damage...If he listens in that, then the problem is most likely being spoilt, like you said....Most horses ride ok after a period of nothing, but some get it into their heads that they were never taught anything in the first place lol....Can you lunge him bitted? If he'll lunge with a bit in his mouth and the line attached to a cavesson, then its not his mouth....But if he gets uppity when theres no weight on it, might be he had a heavy handed rider at one stage...

I do go on, sorry Once I start talking horses its difficult to stop lol



I just wanna hug lil fatty...Plump ponies just have some special kind of cute, I don't know why.....If you've got someone really calm that needs gentle work, could you pony her off him/her? Great way to get 2 jobs done at once, sometimes the chubbier ones get snarly about being ridden till they slim down...Just a thought

[Cowgirls Rule]

[MuteAppeal]

Tom kicks only when I have someone else helping me do the sheath cleaning. Otherwise all it takes is scolding him when he starts shifting weight and thinking about it to make him stop and then I can do it alone. I have to clean him often or he gets dry and flaky. Must have extra sensitive skin or something.

I couldn't find a current picture of the pudge, here she looks like a more reasonable size. Prince is on the left and rolly-polly Lily is in the middle. She has since blimped up to where she looks more like the other paint mare in size, maybe bigger. She has a wide chest anyway so now you see her coming at you and she looks like a tank.

At the start of summer I could have ponied her, but there were only two calm horses in the barn that I would trust and have permission to ride. The one had to be put down after a bad stifle injury and old man Tom is lame.

I'm not so much experienced as I've got a pretty solid group of old horse people around that I can get help from once I've hit a wall and at least enough knowledge to know what is a bad idea when going through books and websites looking for ideas. Common sense tells me tying him to the side of the saddle to force him to flex and give is a bad idea as much as he protests. He'd he on the ground thrashing in no time. Prince is actually the only completely greenbroke horse I've ever taken on so a lot of what I'm dealing with in Kermit I've only used partially because my guinea pig had a solid foundation other than he use to fight turning left and acted mad as a jack rabbit for the longest time. All the other horses have always been coming off a long break and just not wanting to work after seeing the saddle free life. Kermy will be the second tough case, curse you bad habits, unless he sees the light, or something (I expect to come home one day to find I've been given an armored car complete with tax free money before I'll hold my breath on that).

I don't know If I have the equipment to lunge him bitted, I'll have to check and try it if I do. It wouldn't surprise me much if he had a heavy handed rider. I don't know why the thought is that you need to put all your weight into something like a stop. If they don't want to stop the thousand pound animal is going to win against the fifty or so pounds you can put on the reins every time. And then once they see that you are nothing more than a bump on their back that they don't have to pay attention to anymore you end up tugging to get them to do anything at all.

We must have the same syndrome cause I don't tend to stop when it comes to horses either. You can see my family go blank faced and glassy eyed when I give them the horse report. Wonder if it's contagious...we should go try to rub it off on some others.

[Cowgirls Rule]

Ha ha! We have two horses at the barn that are tanks. One's a mustang, palamino(sp)(I always have trouble spelling that color. lol) she's got a wide chest and if you look at her from the front, her shoulders are smaller than her butt. The other one's a blue roan and has quite a temperment, she's a quarter horse. She's such a tank. When she was little, it was just so funny to watch her becuase her hind end was so much bigger than her fore-quarters.

[Cowgirls Rule]

[SisKate]

[Cowgirls Rule]

lol. We usually have the vet do it, by one of my friends at the ranch where I board my horse decided that she was going to clean a lot of horse's sheaths. Once of those sheaths was my horses, and I happened to be there so she made me do it too.

[Vitani]

Sheath cleaning was never the highlight of my week either...But its a neccesary evil...Mares are so much easier in that respect >.< Without getting into the "ruder" aspects of it lol, once they get used to it most don't seem to care either way......One gelding that was new to the group had never been cleaned in his life, and the build up of dead skin and oils and everything else that makes up the gunk was so bad that he visibly strained every time he peed, because he was rubbed raw.....And I swear, after the first time which must've hurt, but he was a gentleman through the whole process, bless him, the difference was amazing



Mute, does Kermit ( thats the Anglo, right? Lol ) juggernaut only at speed, or in all the gaits?

[Cowgirls Rule]

[quote="Vitani"]Sheath cleaning was never the highlight of my week either...But its a neccesary evil...Mares are so much easier in that respect >.< Without getting into the "ruder" aspects of it lol, once they get used to it most don't seem to care either way......One gelding that was new to the group had never been cleaned in his life, and the build up of dead skin and oils and everything else that makes up the gunk was so bad that he visibly strained every time he peed, because he was rubbed raw.....And I swear, after the first time which must've hurt, but he was a gentleman through the whole process, bless him, the difference was amazing


[quote]

Nice! My horse was such a pain in the but. I prefer geldings over mares, just because I've been dealing with mares throughout the summer.