Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Hi. Hope it's not too late to respond to this.hope you are checking back and doing some learning!

 

Sounds like you are writing about me and my first distance horse, Star. he was a 10YO when I got him. jig jig jig, sideways, up and down, just about every direction but forward. haha, Central Region riders still ask me if I'm ok on trail with him and it's been 8 years now that we've done this, LOL.

 

Even though your horse is 10, my guess is endurance riding is too much too soon for what he knows or what he's ready for mentally or emotionally.

 

I took Star out on his first ride 3 months after I got him. We still were getting to know each other. I spent the first two years just trying to get him to settle down and remember that he had a rider on board. Sometimes it took 20 miles to get his brain engaged.

 

If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to start competition. I would have ridden him on trails more alone and with groups. i would have camped out with him. i would have put him in lots of situations to help him learn to handle things. But hindsight is 20/20.

 

Now I have a young mare that eveyrone has asked, when will we see her on trail? She is 5 and just did her first little CTR last weekend and did beautifully. None of the jigging and acting up i got from Star on his first dozen or so rides. I took my time with her. She learned to campout. She's been on group trail rides. We've logged hundreds of miles alone. She's been in a parade and to horse shows. I'm not a show person at all, but figured the trailers, horses, people and activity would be a good learning experience for her.

 

I'm glad i took time to develop her mind as well as her body before asking her to start competing.

 

My advice would be to slow down, and take some time to develop your horse and YOUR riding. I had ridden horses for 30 some years, but I took time off to take dressage lessons. It helped us immensely. When I was a better rider, Star was a better horse! Imagine that!

 

Good luck. Hope you and your horse do well.

 

chris

Ridecamp Guest <guest-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Please Reply to: Marie mdl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> ==========================================
>
> Hi, I have a very eager 10 year old grey arab gelding in his first endurance season. We just completed a 40 miles ride. The problem is that he gets very excited, and although will respond to my seat, legs and reins, he does so by side-passing, "tiggering", jogging... being a complete pain, and furthermore, not doing any favour for his final heart rate...
>
> Has anyone dealt with this, and does it get better the more rides he'll do? - He has so far only done 5 rides: one 20 miles, followed by two 25 miles and a 30 miles and finally the 40 miles. He is ridden in a KK Ultra training bit.
>
> Thanks for your imput.
>
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net,
>  http://www.endurance.net.
> Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
> Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp
>
> Ride Long and Ride Safe!!
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Kansas State Motto: Ad Astra Per Aspera.. to the stars through difficult....

BayRab Acres
Paola KS
913-731-5947
http://pages.prodigy.net/paus