Yesterday's ride

Cleaned and rode out at our home barn yesterday. I rode Curly for a bit (I was nervous.) and E tried out English tack on Monte for the first time.

As she described the afternoon's activities to her dad E said, "It was the best ride ever!"

Need I say more?

Horse eating grocery sacks...

Found out yesterday that Monte is not so fond of plastic grocery sacks. E pulled him out to the round pen for a little conditioning when she discovered this fear of his. So now our lucky guy will get to go through some desensitizing exercises with a grocery sack until he gets over it. :)

Curly is getting much better at having his hooves cleaned. He still puts too much weight on the back ones, making it difficult for me to hold them up, but he willingly lifts his feet now. I also practiced leading him a bit and found that he is trying to be a bit more attuned to his handler (me). We wouldn't win any blue ribbons in the show ring, but at least he stopped and started at approximately the same time as I did.

Lessons on Monte

We trailered Monte out to Black Walnut Farm Thursday afternoon for his first riding lesson with E. We discovered that he is not the calmest animal to haul; he stomped his feet, rocking the trailer, for much of the ride over.

We were running a little late, so E had to groom him at the riding arena rather than at our home facility. She quickly learned that the expectations are higher in the realm of English riding instruction. With previous lessons, the cleanliness level of your horse was really a personal choice, and she has always limited her grooming to picking hooves and getting the dirt off the parts of the horse that come in contact with any tack. Anna told her that in the English world, some instructors expect the horse to be show clean. It is considered a sign of respect to both horse and instructor. Thankfully, Anna does not expect quite this level of cleanliness, but she did ask that E be sure all signs of visible dirt be removed, including any mud that is dried to the outside of the hooves. Since Monte is essentially a white horse, she understands that he will have stains on his coat. But no dirt is allowed! E got to work...

This actually allowed Monte more time to acclimate to the new arena. He was calmed by the grooming and was ready to work when she led him through the gate.

E used her Western tack, as this all we have at the moment and it is all that Monte knows. E and Monte worked on staying on the wall and not cutting the corners. They also practiced walking diagonals across the arena. This all sounds so very simple, but until the horse and rider are in sync, it can be difficult to accurately "steer" the horse.

Yesterday, E tacked up at the horse barn and practiced these skills a little more. Monte was very energetic, so she spent some time in the round pen first. He's so much easier to move and responds to her much more quickly than Curly ever has.

Practicing "new" skills...

I was curious what his actual height is - when asked lately, I've just said, "He's small!" And he is. The tape we used put him at 14.3 hands. It's not the most accurate measure, but I bet it is pretty close. Curly, on the other hand, is closer to 15.3 hands. (When we arrived at Black Walnut on Thursday, the barn manager asked if Monte was the horse that E had grown out of....she was a little surprised when I said that no, he was the one she had just gotten. I'm sure they think of him as a little pony when compared to the huge warm bloods that most English riders use!)