My time with Willy is quickly coming to an end, so I wanted to get my mother out to come riding with me and to meet sweet Willy goat. We headed out around 1pm to the stable. I lugged my stuff out of the car and showed my mother into the "barn office" area. She offered to help carry stuff but since I already had all the tack arranged on me I said no thanks. I'm not used to have others here to help when I ride! We took the tack to the indoor ring then went to the tack room to locate the tack for Riddle. Susan had said there was a number on the saddle that corresponded to the number for the horse. We didn't see any numbers so I just picked a saddle with my mom that looked liked it would work with Riddle. I at least remembered the bridle Steve had used with him, it didn't have a number either!
We brought the tack back into the indoor arena, then took the halters towards Riddles paddock. The paddock only had a little chestnut in there. As we walked away to investigate the other paddocks I noticed a tall, dark bay gelding being ridden in the big arena. I asked the girl on him whether that was Riddle and she said yes....hmm. Okay....mom and I walked over to Susan's house and knocked on the door. She came to the window, already knowing, and said "Go ahead and use Two Socks".
We went over to Willy's paddock as one of his paddock mates was Two Socks. I walked up to Two Socks, and put his rope halter on, handed the lead to mom and went to get my horse. We led them both to the indoor ring and started to groom them. I put the leg wraps on Two socks, two were purple and two were red...only ones I could find. The saddle we had lacked the latigo's, so I headed back with the saddle to grab another. That one worked and I worked with my mother to cinch up the girth....I've been learning how to cinch the western saddles. After that we got the bridle on him. The sides were twisted, so I had to undo some buckles to get that straightened out and make the bit lay right in his mouth. I then finished tacking up Willy and led my mom out towards the mounting block. Up we both went in the saddles.
We walked around in the area near the indoor arena and then made our way over to the bigger arena to ride, mom was a little nervous since Two Socks, though 26, was pretty spunky and kept breaking into a little trot. In the arena Two Socks continued to trot and then try to break into a canter. Finally I decided to take him into the round pen and run him around, get him listening. He was licking his lips and chewing after a while so I hopped up in the saddle. The stirrups were pretty short so I opted not to worry about them and see what was going on with him. He was pretty good but tried to trot without a cue from me a couple times. I showed my mother how to do the quick "see-saw" on the bit when he wasn't listening or pulling ahead into the trot. I also showed her the one handed flex and stop so if he did take off she could use that.
Mom mounted up again and worked a bit with Two Socks. Things went better, she worked him around some of the barrels and ground poles. I ride Willy around her, keeping at a walk so as to not excite Two Socks. After we were done riding I took Willy on a few trots and canters in the ring for fun. Then we untacked the horses. We brought them back to their paddock, feeding everyone carrots and then my mom got to meet the cute mini ponies! We had a good time but it was getting home so we headed back. It was nice for my mom to meet Willy finally!
No comments:
Post a Comment