Gun Dog Forum

As I have mentioned, about 2mos ago i bought a gaited mare. I bought her on a whim from a horse sale where i saw her ridden. Well...... in my ignorance/excitement 24hrs later I decided to ride her.... My wife and father in law between them have 50+yrs experience with horses and never said I should wait. Maybe they decided that the only way to learn is to try, or since there was nothign on TV they were bored. Long story short she shed me about 3 times and the last time I found my self crawling across the round pen drooling on my self with what turned out to be a couple cracked ribs. I did however stay on her long enough after that to get off on my own. It was discovered after contacting the prior owner that she had been green broke and put to pasture for about 2yrs when her owner died.

We started over from scratch.

Well last night after working her in the round pen till we were both worn completely out I managed to ride her a couple laps around the pen with no negetive side effects!

JIm

Congrats of making head way. One word of caution though...the more you "wear them out" before you get on them, the better shape they get in. I wouldn't suggest doing that for a very long time.

Richard Winters has a good video for the back yard horseman great foundation and helps get a stable minded horse ..

Josh and John lyons are gurus also but they set up for someone that has more facilities then the average joe

and I hated those Unauthorized dismounts ..hips lower back and shoulders pay for it dearly today

Quackaddict is very correct though nothing like a physically fit horse to last longer on the rounds of energy in the back then propelling on the hind end moving forward and not trying to do what evolution taught them to do for survival and that was get the predator off the back.