We've had two rides, one bad and one good. M and Zanza rode with us again and we set up the barrels to have some fun. Socks was pretty good, probably the best behaved out of the three of them, but she was getting crazy competitive and hot because M and I were taking turns going around the barrel. I realize there is going to be a certain amount of excitement in barrel racing, but my rule is that Socks cannot get crazy excited before we have a run. She gets stupid when she's excited and when she's stupid we make mistakes. You see some barrel horses that are rearing and trying to bolt before a run and I don't want Socks getting to that point.
Zanza didn't like the stirrups M was using and threw out one massive buck between barrels. I'm still impressed she stayed on, I would have gone flying. Jimmy...oh Jimmy. Finding a bit for this horse has been impossible. He was started in a sidepull, then put in a D-ring snaffle. He kept chewing the snaffle and playing around with it until he got his tongue over it. So I tried him in a French-link snaffle. He was even worse than that one. I tried him in Socks' bit, a curb and he went well in that for a few weeks and then he kept chewing that one. So we ended up getting him a curb with a copper roller. He was fine with that for months and now all of a sudden he's chewing it and messing with it all the time. So we tried him in a regular curb again...but the same thing. I am running out of bit ideas... I think I'm going to try him in the D-ring again and hope for the best.
Anyway, in the end, we all agreed to just stop riding. It just wasn't going to work out that night so we decided to try again another day.
After that we just walked around the hay field, which takes much longer than it sounds. The ride was about two and a half hours long, Jimmy's longest ride outside at the stable.
Unfortunantly I don't have much to say on Artemis, even though this blog is about her. I haven't been doing too much with her besides the same old, lifting her feet, leading practice, getting her used to blankets and such all over her. She hasn't grown taller but I think she's starting to look a bit older. Other than that though, nothing new with her.
5 comments:
Gah! Bits can be horrible things, some horses will take just about any bit and some horses are SUPER fussy, or their mouths aren't right for certain bits. I'm having a bit problem at the moment with Sunny =/ Hope you find one that suits Jimmy. Sugar was like that too, but worse so in the end I just got a bitless bridle for her.
2.5 hours is a LONG ride just to walk around a field! We used to have a huge field behind our old place that I though was huge and that only took about 1 hour (if we walked lol).
I'm really beginning to hate bits. I don't want to go into something I don't really know...since you know, I don't know how to use it properly and I don't want it to hurt him.
I've always wanted to try a real bitless bridle on him but no one sells them around me.
Lol yeah, we only did a tiny bit of trotting but that field really is huge. It pretty much takes up half the road that the stable is on.
Horses can be so fussy. Wow, glad M stayed on.
The weather has been great for riding, hasn't it? Now that the crazy wind has finally died down.
I think we need to see some recent pictures of Artemis. I want to see this head of hers. Do you think she'll inherit her mom's?
I had to order our bitless bridle off the internet, because nobody sells them near me either.
The problem with buying them on the internet is that it can be hard to tell if you got the right size. They have measurements and everything, but I had to search for a site that gave you a 30 day money back guarantee, incase it didn't fit properly.
Ally- Thankfully, she didn't inherit Socks' head. I mean, I love Socks and she is *obviously* the most beautiful horse in the world...but her head is a big block...true story.
Megan- I've debated ordering one off the internet, but Jimmy has a weird head. It's hard enough finding bits that fit him, I'm worried about spending the that much money on a bitless bridle and then having it not fit him.
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