As Mia trains my hands to her satisfaction I keep finding myself going back to Piero Santini’s discussion on hands in his books, “Riding Reflections” (1933), and “Learning to Ride” (1941).  Santini was a student of Caprilli’s, and his books were the first ones in English explaining the Forward Seat, back then the new system of riding.  In an earlier blog, “Another Blast From the Past--Caprilli on Contact“, (…

I finally found and got something I have spent decades looking for, a leather fringe brow band.  I was drooling over the Smith Worthington sole-leather treed jumping saddles and started looking at the bridle gear on their web site when I found it!  Luckily my tack store has a relationship with Smith Worthington so I was able to order one.  This week I have introduced all three of the horses I ride to this new piece of gear.  I am happy, happy, happy.  I had sort of made one…

Last week I was all buzzed up, I had gotten Merlin to move!  I sat and thought and thought over what Mia had taught me about the importance of tongue movement.  One thing that occurred to me was that maybe I was not giving enough rein to let Mia’s tongue move freely since my fingers on the side of the pushing hind leg were moving maybe a millimeter further than with the other hand, and I decided to try moving my fingers forward a little bit more (like a ¼ inch) to see if she…

Sometime last week while I was thinking about my lack of progress with Merlin I got to thinking about how a horse moves with his whole body.  As my body gets more together with riding at a walk I’ve noticed that when:

     The horse pushes off with his hind leg,

     The front leg on the same side is moving forward (and the top of the shoulder moves back),

     The horse’s barrel on the same side is moving out to meet my leg,

     The…

Ah, this week everything returned to normal, I got to ride three times this week!  Hurrah!

Since I had not gotten to ride Merlin for two weeks I had a vague hope that Merlin would decide to move.  When I approached him while Shannon was grooming him he greeted me with a nose bump and generally did not seem too upset to see me.  Shannon said that she had no trouble catching him today, so when I mounted him I was full of hope.  We got Merlin through the gate…

A few weeks ago I was in a used bookstore trying to find a horse book I didn’t already have and that might teach me something new.  The only one I could find was one written 30 years ago on race horse conditioning.  I got it, I wanted a new horse book!  When I got home I was looking through it and found a whole chapter on the walk.  If you have been reading my blogs you know that when I ride I walk a lot.  With my MS I just do not have the energy to do much more, usually I…

Luckily for us in NC the weather decided to switch back from early summer to spring, so this week we have cool mornings and the afternoons will be pleasant.  The horses are still shedding so that they are not completely unprotected from the cooler temperatures.  Plus the gnats did not descend upon us until I started my ride.  Yeah for cooler weather!

Merlin was not very cooperative with me today.  I do not know if he is afraid that his…

When I got to ride Merlin today I did not have big hopes since he “got away” with standing for 15 minutes last week.  As usual I waited for Merlin to sigh, and then I did my escalation of my driving aids, WALK, light squeeze with both legs, then a light touch of my spurs.  To my utter surprise Merlin started walking after making me wait only one minute. …

     When I re-started riding Merlin 6 weeks ago Shannon warned me that Merlin would not move for anybody.  I told her I had thought over what I had done earlier and that I had decided that I had to change the way I rode Merlin, and that the BIG change was that I was willing to wait for Merlin to move from simple and light driving aids.  I also told her that I was prepared to ride him 5 times before I…

The weather here in the sunny South has been 20 degrees F higher than normal.  The weather forecasters have been telling us that we are getting May weather, not March weather.  Due to this we are now getting some bugs that are bad in May, namely gnats.  Millions of gnats.  Gnats in the ears, gnats flying up nostrils, gnats getting behind my glasses, luckily there is fly spray for the horses!  I am going to have to dig out my ear nets for the horses.  I just wish there were head nets…

This was not a very calm weekend, I got awaked by a robo-call at 3:00 AM Saturday morning about a tornado warning.  Luckily the local TV stations were following the weather so I saw that the real bad weather was not headed toward me and after an hour I finally got back to sleep.  Saturday when I woke up I learned that a tornado had passed a around 10 miles to the north, destroying several houses and pulling the…

When I went out to Debbie's stable Wednesday I had my notes about the low release for jumping in my pocket.  While Debbie was finishing a stall I read them to her and asked her to help me during the lesson.  Last week during my non-lesson ride, when I tried the low release on Mia I "heard" Mia ask me what in the world I was doing (Mia is a horse who tends to halt whenever she does not understand anything new.)  I obviously needed eyes on the ground!

After we got out…

Long, long ago, when I first read of jumping horses I dreamed of effortlessly sailing through the air on my trustworthy horse.  Needless to say my first jump (accidental) was a horrible wake-up call as I lurched all over the horse's back (I did stay on but the jump was only one foot.)  Years later when I finally got my first horse I was DETERMINED to learn how to jump.  Having learned about the Forward Seat I finally got one week of lessons at a FS school and from then on it was a…

I got to ride today, last night Shannon suggested that we see what the weather was like at 10:00 AM, and when I woke up it was 19 F.  By 10:00 AM  the ground was still frozen so I asked if I could come out and make sure all my new tack I got for Merlin fit and Shannon said fine.  Well the 44" girth was just small enough (the Wintec Wides take a dressage girth) but I better get myself a shorter one for when he sheds his winter coat, the Warm-blood sized running martingle was big…

I was going to have an adventure today but it rained all night and the ring is too soggy so I am hoping I'll get to do it next Sunday.  The adventure was for me to ride Merlin again at Shannon's place.  Merlin is an 18.2 hand grey gelding, half Dutch Draft Horse and half Irish Sport Horse, a BIG GUY.  He came to Shannon's with issues after being used as a lease horse for a few years.  I used to ride him years ago, and the last time I got up on his back was April…

I don't believe it, I wrote my blog and published it and it all disappeared except for the title.  I feel like crying, this has happened to me about five times in the last few months.  Well, here is trying again.

I was supposed to get a lesson on Mick on Wednesday but Debbie called me earlier in the week saying she would have to go pick up a horse in Maryland.  I asked if I could just ride Mia and Debbie said…

Horses have opinions about how their people handle and ride them.

Unfortunately many people think that horses have absolutely no RIGHT to have an opinion about anything a human does.  Whenever a horse has the courage (or sheer desperation) to protest its treatment people talk about resistances, stubborness, balkiness, bad attitudes, etc., etc., etc..  Since horses are obviously "inferior" to humans in wisdom and knowledge, horse were never granted the right to…

When I got up this morning the rain clouds were on the other side of Charlotte and slowly moving toward us.  Hearing only the occasional drop on the roof I got ready to ride and made it out to Shannon's farm.  And my luck held, the rain decided to wait and I got to ride Cider.  Cider was happier with me than last week because this week I did the proper thing, dragged the heavy (for me) mounting block over and I MADE SURE the saddle and pad were in exactly the right place, centered…

As I got back into riding years ago I knew that my horses had started objecting to my hands years before as my undiagnosed Multiple Sclerosis got worse.  Once diagnosed I finally understood why, it was because my hands had gotten too bad to keep contact like I used to.  I decided then that the only way I would ever be able to ride with contact again was to listen to the horses, and to find areas where we both could agree that riding with contact could be pleasant for both of…

As my body changes due to my Multiple Sclerosis I often loose the "feel" in my hands.  I usually don't pick up on it immediately since everything feels normal to me, but the horses do!  First the horses try to adapt, raising their heads a little, just enough to turn the steady contact into intermittent contact.  Often this is enough to make everyone happy for a while, but if my hands deteriorate further the horses get more emphatic, either refusing to move into contact…