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Aug. 28th, 2012 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickConditioning today was more of the same. It's tiring but at least the weather has changed to more fall-like and lower humidity.
As we got back from conditioning, Liss came out of the house and told Cass to "take this kid riding". Now, it's pushing 7 PM on a school night. Cass has to go home and get cleaned up for dinner and bed/school tomorrow. So does Olivia. They do not have time to take someone riding, particularly not someone they don't know well. Cass says that she has to go home. Olivia (Cass's little sister, not eleven until November) says she will take the person riding. Olivia is not really big enough to supervise anyone at riding, especially if anything goes awry, and her mother probably will not be happy about her decision.
Eventually, Olivia's dad tells her to get in the truck. She does. I put her horse away. My horse is still out. The girl (17) still wants to go riding, even a short ride. She says she rides "a lot" and works at a horse barn and spends "a lot" of time on horses and takes lessons and jumps and canters and yadda yadda yadda.
I get Mariah out of the field because the kid is probably packing a buck eighty or thereabouts -- shorter than I am but rounder -- and Mariah is sturdy, fairly tolerant and not likely to turn out from under the kid even if the kid's chops are not all that. I put Kenzi's wintec saddle on her and I screws it down tight. (I'm doing foreshadowing. The phrase "screws it down tight" is used in the song Strawberry Roan. So that you don't miss the foreshadowing, I'm putting the link here for you. I agree that this is not particularly elegant or smooth but it's is better than having foreshadowing that totally goes over your collective heads.) I got a full cheek snaffle and put it on Mariah while the girl went to put on her riding boots, gloves and helmet (all of which she brought with her).
She stands on the wrong side of Mariah to get on. (Red flag.) I remind her wrong side and she goes around to the other side to get on, which she does reasonably correctly. Someone has taught her to ride with contact. Mariah knows how to set her head and does, without fussing, which tells me that the girl (Mia) has reasonable hands at the walk. Yay. I picked Mariah partly because she knows about contact.
Mia's lower leg looks good, not chairlike, heels down, moderate amount of leg on the horse. Her lower leg looks better than mine, actually. We cross the road. Mia asks Mariah to canter up the slight grade and into the alfalfa field, without warning. Mariah obliges. I am all like "Wait, stop, whoa! Sit up straight, pull back!" It does not look to me like Mia has any damn seat. Mia eventually gets Mariah stopped, but it doesn't look confident or solid. It looked to me like she was going to get run away with before she got a handle on Mariah. I was like "You really scared me, was that by accident or on purpose?" Mia was "I totally did that on purpose." Hrm.
We proceed at a walk to the pear tree and bear left towards the jumps. I put forth the "I know you ride a lot and all, but you'd be amazed at the number of people we get who say they ride a lot and are very experienced whose most-recent and applicable riding experience was not falling off at the pony rides when they were six. I'm not saying that you are in that group, but I only just met you and I don't know how you ride yet. I need about fifteen minutes, during which we will be warming up anyway, to check you out at various paces and activities and if everything looks good, then we'll go play jumps." Somewhat mollified, Mia agrees to this.
We pick up a nice medium-slow trot, looks okay. She's a little weight-forward (head and shoulders) on posting but her lower leg looks reasonable and she's got a decent rhythm right off. She's done this before. I'm like "Okay, sit up straight and ask Mariah to extend the trot a little. She's got a lot to work with there, you should have no trouble getting more." Mia asks for more, Mariah delivers. Mia's rein contact slips as she tips a bit more forward. At this point, Mariah picks up a canter. Mia has now tipped way forward, saddle is starting to tip practically over Mariah's shoulders. (Mariah is mutton-withered but this is typically not a problem for her. However, she's normally ridden by people who don't tip forward in distress. I honest to dog put the girth on tightly, not at the fist-between-girth-and-saddle looseness I typically ride with.) I'm all "Sit up straight, pull back" but she tries to pull Mariah to a stop by standing toes-down in the stirrups and leaning forward, which is not effective and exacerbates the saddle problem. Damn it. Mia tumbles off over Mariah's right shoulder, twisting the saddle on Mariah's back. It slides down to her side, stirrups banging her as she canters (rather briskly, I should add) in big counter-clockwise circles around the alfalfa field.
The alfalfa field is not fenced. There is a fairly busy hard road on the "towards the other horses" side of the field. Yikes. I halt Nick and dismount to stand quietly by Mia (who is crumpled on the ground) as Mariah's circles get bigger and faster for three loops and then get slower and smaller and slower and smaller until she is standing three feet from Nick, blowing hard and wondering if she should try the lush alfalfa. I gather up Mariah and fix her saddle. I check Mia out (Wiggle fingers, wiggle toes. Does anything feel broken? What did you land on?) and she's good enough to stand up. We walk a spell, horses in hand.
I put Mia back on Mariah. I stay on the ground a while to lead Mariah and get everyone settled. We do that a while and then I let go of Mariah but still walk alongside, just in case. Everything seems OK, so I hop on Nick and we jog a little. It's OK. Mia sits on Mariah and asks me to jump over fences with Nick (so that she can watch me) so I do that. We aren't all that but at least we can do the 2' fences without a huge amount of whining now.
We ride a little more, some slow-ish trotting and some walking, around the non-complicated sections of the field. Mia rides with contact and headset ALL THE TIME and keeps Mariah at a way slower walk than I find appropriate. Nick is quietly fussing at the pace but such is her nature and she's not being loud about her fussing. She's chewing the bit too much, is all.
Assessment:
Mia has taken lessons somewhere. I have no doubt that she has had some measure of formal training on the "riding horses" front.
What she rides at lesson is a school horse of some sort. It is a bigger, more lumbering horse that isn't half as quick or forward as what we ride. Mariah's forward surprised the hell out of her and she rides like she expects the horse to be about 1/3 bigger. (Mariah is not a live wire, either, not like some of our other critters.)
She has never ridden in a non-enclosed environment or anywhere with unlevel footing. She has no grasp of going up or down hills, let alone how horses need to use their head/neck for that sort of thing.
Her balance is not as good as she thinks it is. She cannot tell when she is unbalanced and she cannot recover when she becomes unbalanced at any speed faster than a walk. She depends rather significantly on her saddle to save her. I do not think she has logged any time bareback on a horse. (This would really, really benefit her. Mayhap I will suggest it.)
She may be "doing jumps" at lesson, but they are most certainly just the bare minimum beyond ground poles. She does not have enough seat and lower leg to stay properly steady and balanced over anything that would qualify as a "real" jump. (I do not have enough seat and lower leg to stay steady and balanced over "real" jumps, but I'm getting there.)
Her situational awareness and troubleshooting of issues is severely lacking. She has no problem-solving abilities, possibly because she has never had any problems of a horsey nature to handle.
For the sort of riding that we do, Mia is a rank beginner who needs a somewhat phlegmatic horse with a well-fitted saddle on robust withers. Jessie's in the field...
***
Further assessment:
I noticed that when I said "Mariah is the minimal-white pinto buckskin by the water trough" the horse that she grabbed hold of was Ceres, the solid bay with a small star, already wearing a halter, who was standing by the cow trough. Maybe she didn't hear me? I took the halter from Olivia and went to catch Mariah myself.
I noticed that she tied Mariah with an improper (not quick-release) knot.
I noticed that she didn't put the bridle or saddle on Mariah but instead went to put on "boots and gloves and helmet", leaving me to tack up her critter. I wonder if she can tack up a critter.
I saw her try to mount from the wrong side and still let her be in front of me crossing the road. My bad.
I saw her canter off on Mariah, get surprised at the forward and nearly run off with and I still let her go onward. My bad.
I saw her tip forward slightly at the slow-medium trot and still encouraged her to extend it. My bad.
But... she SAID she rode all the time. She has a prettier lower leg than I do. She can post and her damn legs don't move. How can she not sit a horse with legs like that? Why does she have zero balance skills? She said she jumped. She said she cantered. Mariah has not got a dreadful trot. It's actually pretty decent.
Crap. I want to believe people when they say they can ride. I hate being a suspicious nasty person. Looks like I need to spend some more time being suspicious nasty person, though...
Damn it, I do not tell other people what a great rider I am. I tell people I have some experience with horses, that probably I'm an advanced beginner level or thereabouts. I figure it is better to have people be maybe pleasantly surprised than sorely disappointed.
As we got back from conditioning, Liss came out of the house and told Cass to "take this kid riding". Now, it's pushing 7 PM on a school night. Cass has to go home and get cleaned up for dinner and bed/school tomorrow. So does Olivia. They do not have time to take someone riding, particularly not someone they don't know well. Cass says that she has to go home. Olivia (Cass's little sister, not eleven until November) says she will take the person riding. Olivia is not really big enough to supervise anyone at riding, especially if anything goes awry, and her mother probably will not be happy about her decision.
Eventually, Olivia's dad tells her to get in the truck. She does. I put her horse away. My horse is still out. The girl (17) still wants to go riding, even a short ride. She says she rides "a lot" and works at a horse barn and spends "a lot" of time on horses and takes lessons and jumps and canters and yadda yadda yadda.
I get Mariah out of the field because the kid is probably packing a buck eighty or thereabouts -- shorter than I am but rounder -- and Mariah is sturdy, fairly tolerant and not likely to turn out from under the kid even if the kid's chops are not all that. I put Kenzi's wintec saddle on her and I screws it down tight. (I'm doing foreshadowing. The phrase "screws it down tight" is used in the song Strawberry Roan. So that you don't miss the foreshadowing, I'm putting the link here for you. I agree that this is not particularly elegant or smooth but it's is better than having foreshadowing that totally goes over your collective heads.) I got a full cheek snaffle and put it on Mariah while the girl went to put on her riding boots, gloves and helmet (all of which she brought with her).
She stands on the wrong side of Mariah to get on. (Red flag.) I remind her wrong side and she goes around to the other side to get on, which she does reasonably correctly. Someone has taught her to ride with contact. Mariah knows how to set her head and does, without fussing, which tells me that the girl (Mia) has reasonable hands at the walk. Yay. I picked Mariah partly because she knows about contact.
Mia's lower leg looks good, not chairlike, heels down, moderate amount of leg on the horse. Her lower leg looks better than mine, actually. We cross the road. Mia asks Mariah to canter up the slight grade and into the alfalfa field, without warning. Mariah obliges. I am all like "Wait, stop, whoa! Sit up straight, pull back!" It does not look to me like Mia has any damn seat. Mia eventually gets Mariah stopped, but it doesn't look confident or solid. It looked to me like she was going to get run away with before she got a handle on Mariah. I was like "You really scared me, was that by accident or on purpose?" Mia was "I totally did that on purpose." Hrm.
We proceed at a walk to the pear tree and bear left towards the jumps. I put forth the "I know you ride a lot and all, but you'd be amazed at the number of people we get who say they ride a lot and are very experienced whose most-recent and applicable riding experience was not falling off at the pony rides when they were six. I'm not saying that you are in that group, but I only just met you and I don't know how you ride yet. I need about fifteen minutes, during which we will be warming up anyway, to check you out at various paces and activities and if everything looks good, then we'll go play jumps." Somewhat mollified, Mia agrees to this.
We pick up a nice medium-slow trot, looks okay. She's a little weight-forward (head and shoulders) on posting but her lower leg looks reasonable and she's got a decent rhythm right off. She's done this before. I'm like "Okay, sit up straight and ask Mariah to extend the trot a little. She's got a lot to work with there, you should have no trouble getting more." Mia asks for more, Mariah delivers. Mia's rein contact slips as she tips a bit more forward. At this point, Mariah picks up a canter. Mia has now tipped way forward, saddle is starting to tip practically over Mariah's shoulders. (Mariah is mutton-withered but this is typically not a problem for her. However, she's normally ridden by people who don't tip forward in distress. I honest to dog put the girth on tightly, not at the fist-between-girth-and-saddle looseness I typically ride with.) I'm all "Sit up straight, pull back" but she tries to pull Mariah to a stop by standing toes-down in the stirrups and leaning forward, which is not effective and exacerbates the saddle problem. Damn it. Mia tumbles off over Mariah's right shoulder, twisting the saddle on Mariah's back. It slides down to her side, stirrups banging her as she canters (rather briskly, I should add) in big counter-clockwise circles around the alfalfa field.
The alfalfa field is not fenced. There is a fairly busy hard road on the "towards the other horses" side of the field. Yikes. I halt Nick and dismount to stand quietly by Mia (who is crumpled on the ground) as Mariah's circles get bigger and faster for three loops and then get slower and smaller and slower and smaller until she is standing three feet from Nick, blowing hard and wondering if she should try the lush alfalfa. I gather up Mariah and fix her saddle. I check Mia out (Wiggle fingers, wiggle toes. Does anything feel broken? What did you land on?) and she's good enough to stand up. We walk a spell, horses in hand.
I put Mia back on Mariah. I stay on the ground a while to lead Mariah and get everyone settled. We do that a while and then I let go of Mariah but still walk alongside, just in case. Everything seems OK, so I hop on Nick and we jog a little. It's OK. Mia sits on Mariah and asks me to jump over fences with Nick (so that she can watch me) so I do that. We aren't all that but at least we can do the 2' fences without a huge amount of whining now.
We ride a little more, some slow-ish trotting and some walking, around the non-complicated sections of the field. Mia rides with contact and headset ALL THE TIME and keeps Mariah at a way slower walk than I find appropriate. Nick is quietly fussing at the pace but such is her nature and she's not being loud about her fussing. She's chewing the bit too much, is all.
Assessment:
Mia has taken lessons somewhere. I have no doubt that she has had some measure of formal training on the "riding horses" front.
What she rides at lesson is a school horse of some sort. It is a bigger, more lumbering horse that isn't half as quick or forward as what we ride. Mariah's forward surprised the hell out of her and she rides like she expects the horse to be about 1/3 bigger. (Mariah is not a live wire, either, not like some of our other critters.)
She has never ridden in a non-enclosed environment or anywhere with unlevel footing. She has no grasp of going up or down hills, let alone how horses need to use their head/neck for that sort of thing.
Her balance is not as good as she thinks it is. She cannot tell when she is unbalanced and she cannot recover when she becomes unbalanced at any speed faster than a walk. She depends rather significantly on her saddle to save her. I do not think she has logged any time bareback on a horse. (This would really, really benefit her. Mayhap I will suggest it.)
She may be "doing jumps" at lesson, but they are most certainly just the bare minimum beyond ground poles. She does not have enough seat and lower leg to stay properly steady and balanced over anything that would qualify as a "real" jump. (I do not have enough seat and lower leg to stay steady and balanced over "real" jumps, but I'm getting there.)
Her situational awareness and troubleshooting of issues is severely lacking. She has no problem-solving abilities, possibly because she has never had any problems of a horsey nature to handle.
For the sort of riding that we do, Mia is a rank beginner who needs a somewhat phlegmatic horse with a well-fitted saddle on robust withers. Jessie's in the field...
***
Further assessment:
I noticed that when I said "Mariah is the minimal-white pinto buckskin by the water trough" the horse that she grabbed hold of was Ceres, the solid bay with a small star, already wearing a halter, who was standing by the cow trough. Maybe she didn't hear me? I took the halter from Olivia and went to catch Mariah myself.
I noticed that she tied Mariah with an improper (not quick-release) knot.
I noticed that she didn't put the bridle or saddle on Mariah but instead went to put on "boots and gloves and helmet", leaving me to tack up her critter. I wonder if she can tack up a critter.
I saw her try to mount from the wrong side and still let her be in front of me crossing the road. My bad.
I saw her canter off on Mariah, get surprised at the forward and nearly run off with and I still let her go onward. My bad.
I saw her tip forward slightly at the slow-medium trot and still encouraged her to extend it. My bad.
But... she SAID she rode all the time. She has a prettier lower leg than I do. She can post and her damn legs don't move. How can she not sit a horse with legs like that? Why does she have zero balance skills? She said she jumped. She said she cantered. Mariah has not got a dreadful trot. It's actually pretty decent.
Crap. I want to believe people when they say they can ride. I hate being a suspicious nasty person. Looks like I need to spend some more time being suspicious nasty person, though...
Damn it, I do not tell other people what a great rider I am. I tell people I have some experience with horses, that probably I'm an advanced beginner level or thereabouts. I figure it is better to have people be maybe pleasantly surprised than sorely disappointed.
