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Aug. 21st, 2006 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickWell, Wren is sold. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that Liss told the new owners that she's broke to ride. (This not a true statement for any current value of true. It's possible that what she actually said is 'By the time you come to get her, she'll be broke to ride.') The new owners will pick her up in a month and a half. Seeing as how Wren has never even had anyone sit on her, I've got some work to do between now and then. I think we should be able to have someone sitting on her by the weekend, barring weirdness. I'll get on it after work tomorrow. It is an action item on my to-do list.
Not really. All the time at the sales you see green broke horses with "Thirty days professional training". This does not actually guarantee that the horse can be ridden by normal people. It just means that someone with a bit of clue has been working with the horse for about a month and that the horse has some idea of the proper way to behave. Frequently, every bit of the 'riding' in these situations has taken place in an enclosed ring or arena. The enclosed environment makes it easier for the trainer but not as useful to the buyer because he or she will probably be riding the horse out there in the real world, which is nowhere near as boring as a ring or an arena.
Now, I am not a professional horse trainer. I don't get paid for it. I don't do horses for strangers. Also, I don't actually break horses. I start horses up to and including the first or second ride and then I turn them over to La and Trys to put miles on. Partly this is because I'm still trying to put miles on the IRH (and do not want to spend my riding time not-riding her) and partly it's because I'm better at the ground work and less-good with the riding of green horses whereas La and Trys are the opposite. We try to play to people's strengths if at all possible.
Anyway, broke is a continuum for horses once you start messing with 'em a little. Horses are broke on a continuum from untouched by human hands to honest, unflappable, will do the right thing EVERY TIME, will take care of a novice rider (including refusing orders from the novice rider when he or she is asking for something that he or she cannot handle -- like, for example, will not run with a rider whose seat is unstable no matter how much the rider clucks and kicks). Of course, very few horses are as broke as that last, but I was fortunate enough to have ridden one when I was eleven years old. Shadow, who went to states in poles (a timed event like barrel racing), absolutely refused to canter with me until she felt that I wouldn't fall off. At the time, it was horribly frustrating and I hated her for being a boring pony.
It didn't help much that everyone in the local horse world *knew* Shadow for what she was and would not listen to me whine about how boring she was because they knew better. They would say things like, "She's like that because you don't ride very well. When you become a better rider, Shadow will become a more interesting ride. Now shut your mouth, child, and quit insulting one of the best ponies I've ever had the pleasure to know. How in the seven hells did you get them to loan you Shadow, anyway?" (The people who owned her were waiting for their next kid to get old enough for 4-H. They felt sorry for me and thought I could do with having a pony to ride. However, they were absolutely convinced that if I got hurt in the process, my dad would sue them to the ends of the earth. So, while their kid grew up a little, they loaned me a pony who would not LET me kill myself. -- I didn't learn this until about a year ago when I happened to mention to La that I never really understood why her owners had loaned me Shadow in the first place. They had other nice-enough ponies that would have suited, but they gave me the absolute best that they had, the Caesar's wife of ponies, and it had never made sense to me. La explained.)
Shadow, just so you know, never refused a jump in her life, autochanged leads, loaded into anything, never spooked, tolerated the five or six tries it took me to get her bridle on, didn't get hot even if we ran up the hill in the field ten times in a row, never bucked, stopped when I fell off, and didn't do anything wrong the entire summer I rode her. We should all be so lucky as to have boring ponies like that to learn to ride on.
I moved on to different ponies after that summer. The next-youngest family member in the family that owned her got to be old enough to show in 4-H and he needed a pony. Also, Shadow excelled as a for-new-riders pony and after the first year, I was not a new rider. When I was fifteen, though, I happened to hop on her again for some reason and I was floored. She was a totally different horse than the tired old mare I'd remembered. She was fun! She had power steering. She was quick -- fast and smooth and a delight to ride. She danced with a bow in her neck and teeny little airy steps, like she was all hot shit and *knew* it. Shadow taught me a lot of things, but the last thing she taught me was how damn much I'd improved.
But, y'know, back to the topic at hand. I'm not entirely sure what comes with green broke for horses. I don't know what it means. I *think* it means the following:
* Horse can be saddled and bridled without undue effort
* Horse understands stop (one-rein stop), go, and turn (direct rein) under saddle
* Horse can be ridden on not-very-stressful rides with other (well-behaved) horses by someone with a bit of horse experience.
* Horse has worked under saddle at walk, trot, and canter in a non-enclosed space (not a ring)
I'll see what I can do for Wren. We'll start tomorrow. As always, watch this space.
Not really. All the time at the sales you see green broke horses with "Thirty days professional training". This does not actually guarantee that the horse can be ridden by normal people. It just means that someone with a bit of clue has been working with the horse for about a month and that the horse has some idea of the proper way to behave. Frequently, every bit of the 'riding' in these situations has taken place in an enclosed ring or arena. The enclosed environment makes it easier for the trainer but not as useful to the buyer because he or she will probably be riding the horse out there in the real world, which is nowhere near as boring as a ring or an arena.
Now, I am not a professional horse trainer. I don't get paid for it. I don't do horses for strangers. Also, I don't actually break horses. I start horses up to and including the first or second ride and then I turn them over to La and Trys to put miles on. Partly this is because I'm still trying to put miles on the IRH (and do not want to spend my riding time not-riding her) and partly it's because I'm better at the ground work and less-good with the riding of green horses whereas La and Trys are the opposite. We try to play to people's strengths if at all possible.
Anyway, broke is a continuum for horses once you start messing with 'em a little. Horses are broke on a continuum from untouched by human hands to honest, unflappable, will do the right thing EVERY TIME, will take care of a novice rider (including refusing orders from the novice rider when he or she is asking for something that he or she cannot handle -- like, for example, will not run with a rider whose seat is unstable no matter how much the rider clucks and kicks). Of course, very few horses are as broke as that last, but I was fortunate enough to have ridden one when I was eleven years old. Shadow, who went to states in poles (a timed event like barrel racing), absolutely refused to canter with me until she felt that I wouldn't fall off. At the time, it was horribly frustrating and I hated her for being a boring pony.
It didn't help much that everyone in the local horse world *knew* Shadow for what she was and would not listen to me whine about how boring she was because they knew better. They would say things like, "She's like that because you don't ride very well. When you become a better rider, Shadow will become a more interesting ride. Now shut your mouth, child, and quit insulting one of the best ponies I've ever had the pleasure to know. How in the seven hells did you get them to loan you Shadow, anyway?" (The people who owned her were waiting for their next kid to get old enough for 4-H. They felt sorry for me and thought I could do with having a pony to ride. However, they were absolutely convinced that if I got hurt in the process, my dad would sue them to the ends of the earth. So, while their kid grew up a little, they loaned me a pony who would not LET me kill myself. -- I didn't learn this until about a year ago when I happened to mention to La that I never really understood why her owners had loaned me Shadow in the first place. They had other nice-enough ponies that would have suited, but they gave me the absolute best that they had, the Caesar's wife of ponies, and it had never made sense to me. La explained.)
Shadow, just so you know, never refused a jump in her life, autochanged leads, loaded into anything, never spooked, tolerated the five or six tries it took me to get her bridle on, didn't get hot even if we ran up the hill in the field ten times in a row, never bucked, stopped when I fell off, and didn't do anything wrong the entire summer I rode her. We should all be so lucky as to have boring ponies like that to learn to ride on.
I moved on to different ponies after that summer. The next-youngest family member in the family that owned her got to be old enough to show in 4-H and he needed a pony. Also, Shadow excelled as a for-new-riders pony and after the first year, I was not a new rider. When I was fifteen, though, I happened to hop on her again for some reason and I was floored. She was a totally different horse than the tired old mare I'd remembered. She was fun! She had power steering. She was quick -- fast and smooth and a delight to ride. She danced with a bow in her neck and teeny little airy steps, like she was all hot shit and *knew* it. Shadow taught me a lot of things, but the last thing she taught me was how damn much I'd improved.
But, y'know, back to the topic at hand. I'm not entirely sure what comes with green broke for horses. I don't know what it means. I *think* it means the following:
* Horse can be saddled and bridled without undue effort
* Horse understands stop (one-rein stop), go, and turn (direct rein) under saddle
* Horse can be ridden on not-very-stressful rides with other (well-behaved) horses by someone with a bit of horse experience.
* Horse has worked under saddle at walk, trot, and canter in a non-enclosed space (not a ring)
I'll see what I can do for Wren. We'll start tomorrow. As always, watch this space.
