mayS
3rd Aug 2005, 03:23 AM
For those of you who may not know me, I'm a 30something woman who got back into riding this year after a decade away. Most of my saddle-hours are on school horses at the local lesson barn. I have horses of my own but neither are in perfect health at the moment, so I don't do much with them till they're feeling better. So basically my experience centers around school horse in a school arena setting.
Forgive my long post. It was just very exciting for me.
On Monday a friend who does dressage invited me over to her Fresian breeding farm to visit her horses. She has a gorgeous gelding who got to 3rd Level testing with her, and he's super-well trained. In my area any purebred Fresian is a rare, expensive, and beautiful sight to behold... so I was in horsey heaven!!!
I got the wonderful honor of getting to ride him. :D It was like being allowed to drive around all day in a brand new Ferrari. Gorgeous, responsive, powerful What a treat!
She warmed him up in her indoor riding ring, and then showed me a little about dressage. I am a beginner, and I am interested in dressage but have never competed. So once he was warmed up, she let me try him out.
He was a perfect gentleman, stepping toward the mounting block for mounting. I was in awe! I am accustomed to the grumpy school horses at my lesson barn. The lessonbarn horses have bad habits and not only have to be held by a 2nd person when you mount, they almost always jump forward or away just as you're getting on. Wow, what a difference!
I had to slowly work out where his "gas" and "brake" pedals are since he was so different from the school horses. I got him into a walk and trot and back to walk. It was so much fun.
My friend started explaining the dressage letters in the arena to me. She explained how you typically enter at A. On one of the tests you'd trot in to X and then pause. So for fun I tried that, and he has a bouncier trot than I was used to but it was nice. We got to X in the middle and paused. Then I asked him to trot on... and that's when things went awry. :eek:
I thought I said "trot" and he thought I meant "run away from the invisible mountain lion that I must've seen but he hadn't yet". He went from trot to fasttrot to canter, and I hung on for dear life. It's an indoor arena, so in front of us was the opposite wall -- a solid mass of wood and metal. At that point I panic and I'm shouting "Whoa", and I guess the shouting really got him going since he didn't slow down a bit. :p I'm sure I was terribly off balance at that point, and that wasn't helping him either. Recalling this, I just keep seeing that wall zooming up to me and wondering if I'm going to hit it.
Apparently he was so well trained he was looking for me for a clear order to turn left or right or do something. Dummy me was too busy looking like a poster child for the word "panic". Only feet from the wall his self-preservation instinct takes over, and I keep going. I slid into the sand like a baseball player trying to slide into home base. Zoom!
My sandy slide stopped just feet from the wall. I looked up. I was still alive. Yay! My friend is all worried "are you ok??" Other than panties FULL of sand and a few scrapes, I was ok. I feel on my side so how did both of my ears and my mouth get filled with sand? haha
I didn't find out till afterwards the poor horse tried so hard to do what I wanted, he kept on his course till the last few seconds. He couldn't make a decision in time and so he ended up falling down a little right after I came off. Poor guy! He's ok, as far as I know.
So say what you want about my foolishness for riding such a horse, it's ok. LOL I thought it was a great honor to ride him. I now understand the difference in training & response between my old cranky school horse, my own horse who's very docile and doesn't react, and a trained dressage horse. :)
She still wants me to ride him, if I am interested. I know that I need to get better as a rider and improve my cues/communication before I try him again. I'm just not sure how to make the jump from the naughty school horses to her finely tuned Ferrari of a horse. It's so hard to describe how different he was from all the school horses! He was so responsive, so finely tuned, and he *never* argued with the rider. (I am still in awe just thinking about him!!!)
Eventually I'd like to try dressage for fun, so do want to learn more about it and about how dressage horses are trained and ridden. I am just now realising how much I don't know about it, if that makes any sense.
Later that same day I went to my lesson barn for my normal Monday lesson. I tried hard not to let it bother me, but I was a little tense during my lesson because I kept thinking about the fall. I wish there was some way to block out those thoughts when I am on horseback! Someone needs to invent a magic anti-fear pill. :)
Anyway, I'm done rambling now. Feel free to share your comments with me if you want.
Forgive my long post. It was just very exciting for me.
On Monday a friend who does dressage invited me over to her Fresian breeding farm to visit her horses. She has a gorgeous gelding who got to 3rd Level testing with her, and he's super-well trained. In my area any purebred Fresian is a rare, expensive, and beautiful sight to behold... so I was in horsey heaven!!!
I got the wonderful honor of getting to ride him. :D It was like being allowed to drive around all day in a brand new Ferrari. Gorgeous, responsive, powerful What a treat!
She warmed him up in her indoor riding ring, and then showed me a little about dressage. I am a beginner, and I am interested in dressage but have never competed. So once he was warmed up, she let me try him out.
He was a perfect gentleman, stepping toward the mounting block for mounting. I was in awe! I am accustomed to the grumpy school horses at my lesson barn. The lessonbarn horses have bad habits and not only have to be held by a 2nd person when you mount, they almost always jump forward or away just as you're getting on. Wow, what a difference!
I had to slowly work out where his "gas" and "brake" pedals are since he was so different from the school horses. I got him into a walk and trot and back to walk. It was so much fun.
My friend started explaining the dressage letters in the arena to me. She explained how you typically enter at A. On one of the tests you'd trot in to X and then pause. So for fun I tried that, and he has a bouncier trot than I was used to but it was nice. We got to X in the middle and paused. Then I asked him to trot on... and that's when things went awry. :eek:
I thought I said "trot" and he thought I meant "run away from the invisible mountain lion that I must've seen but he hadn't yet". He went from trot to fasttrot to canter, and I hung on for dear life. It's an indoor arena, so in front of us was the opposite wall -- a solid mass of wood and metal. At that point I panic and I'm shouting "Whoa", and I guess the shouting really got him going since he didn't slow down a bit. :p I'm sure I was terribly off balance at that point, and that wasn't helping him either. Recalling this, I just keep seeing that wall zooming up to me and wondering if I'm going to hit it.
Apparently he was so well trained he was looking for me for a clear order to turn left or right or do something. Dummy me was too busy looking like a poster child for the word "panic". Only feet from the wall his self-preservation instinct takes over, and I keep going. I slid into the sand like a baseball player trying to slide into home base. Zoom!
My sandy slide stopped just feet from the wall. I looked up. I was still alive. Yay! My friend is all worried "are you ok??" Other than panties FULL of sand and a few scrapes, I was ok. I feel on my side so how did both of my ears and my mouth get filled with sand? haha
I didn't find out till afterwards the poor horse tried so hard to do what I wanted, he kept on his course till the last few seconds. He couldn't make a decision in time and so he ended up falling down a little right after I came off. Poor guy! He's ok, as far as I know.
So say what you want about my foolishness for riding such a horse, it's ok. LOL I thought it was a great honor to ride him. I now understand the difference in training & response between my old cranky school horse, my own horse who's very docile and doesn't react, and a trained dressage horse. :)
She still wants me to ride him, if I am interested. I know that I need to get better as a rider and improve my cues/communication before I try him again. I'm just not sure how to make the jump from the naughty school horses to her finely tuned Ferrari of a horse. It's so hard to describe how different he was from all the school horses! He was so responsive, so finely tuned, and he *never* argued with the rider. (I am still in awe just thinking about him!!!)
Eventually I'd like to try dressage for fun, so do want to learn more about it and about how dressage horses are trained and ridden. I am just now realising how much I don't know about it, if that makes any sense.
Later that same day I went to my lesson barn for my normal Monday lesson. I tried hard not to let it bother me, but I was a little tense during my lesson because I kept thinking about the fall. I wish there was some way to block out those thoughts when I am on horseback! Someone needs to invent a magic anti-fear pill. :)
Anyway, I'm done rambling now. Feel free to share your comments with me if you want.