Maybe I should change the title of this blog to “This Horse Life” since that’s all I’m writing about lately. This evening I rode a lovely chestnut/roan Thoroughbred mare named “Roxie”. She wouldn’t stand quietly enough for me to get on — I was being overly cautious since I didn’t know anything about this horse — but was very well mannered in the arena. She bended, lowered her head, gave to the bit. She leg-yielded, mostly picked up the canter as soon as I asked and always picked up the correct lead. She does flying lead changes easily. She’s steady over jumps and has a nice trot.
We jumped a small course over two low cross-rails and a vertical. My instructor was telling me to do one thing. Roxie was listening because she followed instructions, even if I wasn’t. She knows to go to the rail after a jump while I tend to cut corners. Once I understood the instructions, I realized that Roxie was doing it correctly but I was asking her to do something differently. We tried again and both did the course correctly. So that’s what a good round is supposed to feel like!
So I’m in love with yet another horse. They all have good points and bad points. Roxie probably will never jump higher than 3′, which is not a problem at all right now but possibly in a few years. I don’t want to buy a horse for now only to sell it later when I “grow” out of it. I want a horse I can grow into, yet I want it to be well behaved now, well trained, yet within my budget. Doesn’t everyone?
A horse, a horse. My kingdom for a horse. I am living vicariously through you? My daughter loved to ride as a kid and we often went riding, but horses often didn’t like her. She got scraped off against a tree in Mammoth, thrown off in Palm Springs, and other bad things. When she was really little we were riding in the desert in Palm Springs — all 3 kids and me and it was spring. The horse rental guy said not to get off the horse because of the rattlers. Christy’s horse threw her off and there was no way she was going to get back on–10 years old maybe. I had to get off my horse and put her on with me–while her horse galloped back to the stable. Wonder what all that is about?