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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2014 11:20:30 GMT -5
Welcome Kwmartin! Sounds like a great ride!
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Post by vsolubo on Jan 8, 2014 12:07:59 GMT -5
I am not riding right now; Colt would have been my cold weather horse, calm & surefooted. Neither Bear or Marie would make pleasurable riding right now. Marie just can't keep her head on where her legs are & Bear gets really cold backed. Wanted to ride the other day (before our deep freeze), but it was mud sliding on frozen mud.
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Post by ghostrider on Jan 8, 2014 13:56:01 GMT -5
V, this is the snowiest Dec/Jan we've had for a long time. Kind of sucks but I know the farmers are happy about the nitrates. Better to be safe than have to take off even more time with a broken bone.
Welcom kw, we had a visiting pastor from Kentucky who raised and showed Paso's also the lady who bought a corral from us owned a bay paso. Very pretty horses. Yes anytime I ride Buddy bareback I discover why it is I saddle before riding. LOL
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Post by cyndi on Jan 8, 2014 13:57:51 GMT -5
Sounds like fun, Kwmartin!! Welcome here I'm kind of an advanced beginner, too, and a couple of years ago I took lessons on school horses and asked if I could take them bareback, to help me with my balance. I liked it a lot. It's not quite the same on my wide mare, though. You'd think it'd be more comfy, and it is, but my legs don't hang as far down on her side as they do with the fit school horses, so I tend to wobble a lot more.
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Post by ghostrider on Jan 8, 2014 15:58:00 GMT -5
cyndi, I'm almost 5'10 and Buddy has such a big barrel all I can do is balance above, there is almost no hanging on with legs.
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Post by Kirk Martin on Jan 10, 2014 14:56:25 GMT -5
Pasos are known to be pretty wide. Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm 6'2" so my legs come a little close to dragging when riding a 14.3 hand Paso. My friend has a really green 16 hand Paso that she's training. Looking forward to trying him out when he's ready for me or vice-versa. The horse and I have spent some quality time in the round pen and he's coming along .
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Post by luvmymorgan on Jan 11, 2014 10:42:23 GMT -5
GR & KWM, ok-now I really feel short I'm 5'3" & really like my short, stocky 14.2 Morgan. haha Not sure how much I'll ride this weekend. It's going to be really nice weather but I have a bunch of stuff to do around the house. I'll check back later to see how everyone is doing.
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Post by cyndi on Jan 11, 2014 12:43:05 GMT -5
I'm with LMM, in that I feel really short! I'm 5'4", and I, too, like my stocky 14.2 mount
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2014 15:24:22 GMT -5
I'm in the short club. I'm 5'3", too. My girls are 15.1, and 14.3. I can get on them both, but the shorter one is easier. Thankfully I can still pretty much just hop on them both, unless I'm wearing lots of winter clothes, LOL.
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Post by ghostrider on Jan 11, 2014 18:28:32 GMT -5
Boomer is wide too, he is only 14.3 (my sons horse) and mostly retired. But he takes a 32" cinch and wears an 80" mustang winter blanket.
I like my big drafty mustang. 16hh and stocky all the way down to his hooves. Most people think he's a big QH but when you tell him the herd he comes from has a lot of Percheron blood they see the Percheron in his face.
I'm planning on riding a bit tomorrow. Going to wrap my knee, use a mounting block and when I get down I'll simply throw both legs over and slide off. Yeah I've been thinking about it all the way home from work today. Winds blowing and it's warm today upper 50's? going to hit 60's tomorrow though and I think a bit of road riding will be okay.
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Post by cyndi on Jan 13, 2014 14:00:24 GMT -5
I rode today!! ALL BY MYSELF!!! I am not the bravest, and I have never ridden "unattended" with an English saddle (they are a bit foreign to me at this point), but today I tried out that borrowed saddle and I rode Fanny for almost 30 minutes (I got on a off a couple of times, so it may have well been 30 minutes)!!! I did some groundwork first to see how she'd be in the arena, because there were wind gusts that may or may not have caused her some angst - as an aside, D says her horse is always spooky in the arena because they can see things between the boards. She seemed okay, and I did a lot of leading, turning and backing exercises. Then came the moment of truth...to mount! First time I got on, I had the stirrups set too short, and she walked off before I even had my foot in the other stirrup Oh well, it was a good time to tuck in the one rein and let her walk in circles for a bit until she stopped. Worked a bit on halting and so on. Got off and lengthened the stirrups. Second attempt, she didn't walk off before I got my foot in the other stirrup! Dang it, they were still too short! I think I finally got it right on the third try. lol I found it harder to estimate the stirrup length with these stirrups than I do with Western. Anyway, I felt pretty secure, and although the saddle slipped laterally a bit, it was easy to shift it back into place while on her. I watched a video on YouTube about a week ago, and it was called "how to ride an uncontrollable horse", or something like that. The gist of the video is that the guy never gave the horse a chance to become 'uncontrollable'. If the horse made the slightest motion to do what he was not asked to do, the guy asked him to do something and never gave the horse the chance to become uncontrollable. I used some of that today, and I never felt that Fanny was going to take off on me, or anything like that. What a confidence booster!! We practiced turns on the haunches and the fore, backing up, and we even did some trotting in a small circle. At one point I just used my seat and legs, and Fanny responded wonderfully!! I didn't set up pylons, but had imaginary pylons in my mind and we did serpentines around them, as well as did circles around them. Feeling pretty good about the ride
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2014 16:29:34 GMT -5
YAY CYNDI!!! Good job!! Now keep going! I know you can do this, girl!
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Post by ghostrider on Jan 13, 2014 18:59:38 GMT -5
Congrats on your ride cyndi and on keeping her busy. I'm sure you're on cloud nine. So the saddle did slip? were you able to adjust it tighter? what do you think of the saddle fit?
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Post by luvmymorgan on Jan 13, 2014 21:17:20 GMT -5
Yay Cyndi! High Five! Each ride, no matter how long or short, will build your confidence. Way to go!
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Post by cyndi on Jan 14, 2014 9:20:44 GMT -5
Thanks everyone! GR, the saddle did slip, but the girth was about as tight as I could go - I could hardly "tighten" it in order to release the buckles when I was taking the saddle off later. Apparently there is some compression of the saddle once you're on, and you can tighten the girth from the saddle, but I wasn't about to try that just yet The slippage was minimal at least.
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