Rachel

So, I've been giving lessons to my neighbor in exchange for cleaning 3 of my 5 stalls 5 days a week. Lately, though, I've been wanting to quit the lessons. Here's why:

For the first year, the lessons were on my horses. I like my horses, because they listen, are trained, and my neighbor couldn't dispute me on how to cue the horse(she is very into Clinton Anderson and thinks she knows more than she does). She now has her own horse that is green broke and she runs it a lot so itnever listens. She won't listen to me a lot on how to cue for things by saying "that's how Clinton Anderson does it" and won't try it my way.

Also, since she got her green broke horse, i find myself at a loss of how to explain things. I can train green broke horses, but it's another thing entirely to teach another person how to do it, especially when I don't like the horse.

I originally started giving her and her sister lessons to stop having to clean stalls. Now that her sister quit after she learned to wtc, I still have to clean stalls everyday. What's three more stalls?

she rides my horse i used to give her lessons on every once in a while. She knows that she is not supposed to ride her with spurs. What do I catch her doing today??? Riding with spurs!!! It made me so mad! She said that she doesn't touch her with them, because that is bs. She also won't brush all the dried mud off her and will get he sweaty when it is cold unless I specifically tell er not to.

I work for my trainer as a stablehand 4 days a week, 9 hours a day. I go over there two other days for a total of at least 44 hours a week. The days that I get home at a reasonable hour she has equestrian team (wahset) practices or I'm extremely exhausted.

However, I haven't quit yet because her parents won't pay for lessons and I am the performance coach on the wahset team and I don't want it to be awkward when I go to practice...

How can I kindly tell her that i don't want to give her lessons or ride my horse anymore?

So, I give my neighbor lessons on her horse she got a few months ago, named Jack.

Jack has a terrible problem with dropping his shoulders around corners, and he doesn't have a lot of training, and the girl doesn't either (she's only been riding for about a year on my very well trained responsive horses).

It's gotten to the point where she is afraid to canter him in my 60' x 100' arena because every time she canters on the 60' ends on the arena he drops his shoulders severely, then trips half way through because of it, and sometimes goes all the way down from the trip. He's even fallen down with her on him. So if she does canter him she likes to avoid the problem and let him walk on the short ends of my arena, which isn't good because she wants to do barrel racing and performance on him, which are both impossible if your horse can't canter a circle.

I've ridden him, and he is not a responsive horse. When I use my technique for picking up his shoulder- lifting straight up with the inside rein and out and down with the outside rein- he won't do it, and he barely does it when I use (a lot of) inside leg. He also doesn't have a lot of muscle because he was a rescue and was severely underweight.

I'm confident that if he was my horse I could fix this with what I tried, but I am a much more balanced and experienced rider than the girl is so I rarely have to hold onto the horn. When she rides him and he starts to canter she holds onto the horn with one hand (especially around the corners), which doesn't make her riding very effective, since she can't pick up Jack's shoulder like I can at the canter. She can do it at the walk and trot and it's been working well enough, though.

I was thinking of having her put him on a lunge line and making him canter in 60' circles to help get his balance on his own without the danger of anyone on him. Do you think that would help? Any other ideas? Thanks!

Or would you rather have someone else own you?

I'd like to be owned by myself, if I were a horse. My horses get excellent feed and supplements, along with daily turnout(with a buddy that won't beat them up or vice versa) and a nice clean stall to come into at night. Also, I'm not a rank beginner and I know how to ride horses well, so I wouldn't have to deal with that, either.

Okay, so almost 4 months ago, my mare had a surprise foal. I was really hoping that it would be a boy, because I had tons of awesome names for a colt. But, the foal ended up being a girl. She has tons of energy and is super sweet. We had her sold to a lady, so we let her name her, which she dubbed "Cinderella". Yuck. Well, the lady backed out and now we get to change her name!

I like the name Cricket, but my family doesn't. Here are a few pics of the filly:

http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/lubbeh/Baby%2...

So I do saddleseat eq at fair for fun with my horse in my icon, a 21 year old paint gelding. I took a few lessons in saddleseat a few years ago to get the gist of it, but I never got into it in-depth because my morgan that was riding then tore a muscle and all I had left to ride were paints. I remember how to hold my hands and the reins and all that, but i never got told where to put my feet for an eq class.

Anyways, in saddleseat, is there supposed to be a straight line from your shoulders, hips, and heels like hunt seat or western eq classes or is there supposed to be a chair seat?

I have to make an education poster for my fair and the ones that do the best are short and to the point. They have to be *mostly* understood by the general public. I don't want to use any of the examples below because usually 2 or 3 other people use those every year. I'm plum out of ideas though!

Examples:

"When the weather gets hotter, give your horse more water!"

"Keep your horse sound, ride on soft ground"

"A horse's teeth can be used to estimate its age"

"Horses need exercise too!"

"When your horse is lame, it's in pain"

"I need a manicure ever 6 - 8 weeks"

Stuff like that. This is easily the hardest part about fair. Thanks for your help!

Okay, so I've been teaching my two neighbors how to ride horses. One of them gets pretty much everything that I say and the other one- not so much. She doesn't retain the information I give her as well and it's starting to frustrate me a little bit.

This is because since the day she got on a year ago I've been telling her to quit swinging her legs and hold her legs steady and she'll do it for about two strides and then go back to the way it was. It's worst at the canter(which I don't really let her do much because of her pendulum legs), her inside foot probably swings almost a foot's worth back and forth then.

I've tried explaining it in different ways so that maybe it'd get the point across as to why it's important that you should keep your legs steady but it doesn't seem to register. I've also tried telling her different things to hopefully keep her legs steady(I've never really had this problem so it's hard to come up with stuff) but it's all the same result.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated!

you work with or ride a horse, you're either training it or untraining it? And that there is no in between?

One trainer I used to have told me that, and just wondering what people think about that on here.

I live near Portland, Oregon, and the farthest I've ever gone is to the show that I'm at right now- the Paint Horse World Show in Fort Worth, Texas.

Today, I saw people here competing that are all the way from Sweden and Australia! I can't imagine going that far for a horse show! It's hard enough going half way across the country, let alone half way across the world!

Therefore, it's had me wondering, what's the farthest most people have gone for a show?

It's happened to me, twice. Once when I was five, and the other time- today!

When I was five I got my first pony, and she was beautiful to me. She was actually and old scrubby looking pony, now when I look at the pictures, but when I got her I said that I wanted her to have a baby and it would be a girl. My parents laughed at the thought.

A few months later my pony was out in the field with what my mom thought was a goat. Upon further inspection, it was actually a filly! I was overjoyed- now I had two ponies.

Today, my mom went out to feed the horses, and when I got home from school my mom told me that Kitty (my horse) was bagging up. We bought Kitty last september as a rescue, and she had been a few hundred pounds underweight. I went to look at my horse and she is indeed bagging up. we called the vet to have her come right over and check to see if our suspicions were correct. They were, and we are now expecting her to have the foal within 2 to 4 weeks. It does explain why she hasn't gained weight very well since we got her.

Has this ever happened to you? How did you find out about it?

Last July we were looking for a baby sitter, bombproof, older horse for my mom to regain her confidence on(a horse bolted on her 15 years ago causing her to break a few bones leaving her scared to ride faster than a walk). We found the perfect horse, and quickly bought him(The one in my icon- He's 21 years old).

It turns out that practically everyone has done everything on this horse. He's done(and won) WP, HUS, HSE, HUS, Showmanship, Trail, Halter, Barrels, Reining, and now he's going to state for high school equestrian team in Drill. My Barn Owner used to ride him double with a friend, the girls I train with learned to show at the same barn he was at, my trainer saw him at shows all the time, a lot of them used to show him at fair/breed shows and they won everything, etc.

Whenever we take him to a local show, we have at LEAST five people come up to us and tell him that they used to own him/ride him/know someone that rode him, and that they love him a lot. It seems like he's started half of my county's show careers.

They also like to say that they don't like how his last two riders handled him. If you do something mean to him, you definitely have quite a few people that will dislike you! He is easily the most famous, well liked horse in the county.

Do you know of any horses like that?

I am a senior in high school, and I had to do a senior project. I chose to teach a horse how to do showmanship. I now have to do a 10 minute speech explaining what the project is, how I did it, and what I learned.

Unfortunately, I have to explain every horsey-term that I know of, even it it sounds common place to me- things such as a trot or a pattern.

I have a list of terms I know that I need to explain in the speech(which may expand as I go on), but I'm having a hard time explaining them in a way that isn't too verbose, and doesn't involve any terms that a non-horsey person may not know.

Here is what I can think of right now:

Showmanship (in general)

Pattern

Haunch Turns

Set Up

Backing

Pull Turn

Trotting

Polo Wraps

Splint Boots

Stud Chain

Halter

Inspection/Quartering

Mind helping me?

Well, I've been teaching my neighbor how to ride my 20 year old Morgan. She rides about 2x a week since September. She's a natural rider, and she picks up on thing pretty quickly.

Now she and her dad have decided that they wants to break a horse. I was against this because they had bought an Arab a few years ago that was an okay horse you could ride, and the dad made it so that it would rear if you set a saddle on it's back or tried to put a bit in it's mouth. The dad was planning on helping beak this new horse, and the girl has only ridden for less than a year and is planning be the first one on it. A few months ago she had bought a calm 3 year old Paint that had never been ridden before, and they built all new fences for the horse (but the t-posts didn't have caps and they turned them out in nylon or rope halters). I warned them about those things and they ignored me. Well, a few days ago, the horse managed to slit it's throat and it died. Now their family has decided they want to get another horse.

I offered to let them practically own my Morgan(after they cleaned up the pastr, of course), who would have been perfect for her. They declined, because they want to train a horse themselves so that it has no previous issues and it will be more "special", and my horse was much too old and wouldn't be useful for much longer (which is not true, she's peppier than my 3 year old I have). She also has a permanent limp from tearing her muscle, but it causes her no pain. It just looks bad.

The girl doesn't even want a horse with only 90 days under saddle, because she wants to be the first person to ride it. as it would be more "special". She's never sat a hard buck or a rear, and I'm worried that she'll get seriously injured when she gets on the horse. She won't have a safe place to ride the horse for the first time, either because my parents don't want the liability in my arena.

Is there anything I can do to perhaps convince her and her family to not get such a green horse? Or do i just have to watch the imminent disaster that is going to happen?

Last night, I read a question on here asking something similar to this. Since then, I've just been wondering how many people would do that because I'm going to go to APtHA and APHA Worlds for the first time in June(I'll only get to go twice) and I'm missing my graduation because of it.

I'm also missing my senior prom to go to a APHA breed show because I need the experience- I've only been to 3 breed shows total.

What would you choose?

Okay, so I have a horse I bought back in July. He's got good conformation except that he has a very narrow base - http://www.fallight.com/attach/1/1111094545.gif (Image A). It's so bad that his most comfortable way of standing is with his front feet together.

So my trainer had bought a new pair of splint boots that we could use because he hits his fetlocks when he moves around. They were too trashed to use in only a few months.

So now my trainer is going to have me wrap his legs in polo wraps, and then put medicine boots over that so that when he hits his legs he has a lot of padding.

My Questions:

Has anyone else has heard of putting on both Polo Wraps AND Splint Boots at the same time?

Is it better to just to have one or the other?

Do you think it'll be bad for his legs?

I apologize for the length! Here's some background on this situation:

Trainer A: I used to go to Trainer A about 4 years ago, when i had a morgan. She specializes in Saddlebreds and Arabs, and her students generally compete at a 4-h/small local show level. She helped me ton, and was super positive, never said anything mean about or to any one of her students, and didn't play favorites. I eventually stopped learning things there so I left. About 2 years later, I convinced my friend to takes his new QH there for lessons. She also helped him a great bunch(so now he's at the same level I was when I left) for about a year, but then she hurt her back and had to have surgery. After that, her personality changed. She is very negative (like saying something was horrible when it was only not very good), talks bad about her students to her other students behind their backs, and only wants him to ride his horse because riding another horse might take some of the focus away from his horse(a broke 17 yo QH that doesn't need to have lot of riding time).

In addition, last summer at 4-H fair, his horse spooked during showmanship which caused him to not be able to qualify for state fair. Trainer A and her other students were so disappointed in him that they wouldn't even talk to him for the rest of fair and put him on the outs. And at the same time, she was also mad at him for not being supportive enough of her star student( even though he was supportive), that overall did worse than him. She is always saying how great that student is, and hardly giving compliments to my friend. So my friend is getting very fed up with Trainer A, but he knows that if he left she would be upset with him because she has been working with him for a year or two and he is one of her better students(not that she says that to him).

Trainer B: Trainer B is the trainer I now have, that I met about a year ago. She trains WP paints, and has national champions in Equitation. She's very positive and much like Trainer A used to be before she hurt her back. I've been learning so much from this trainer and I still feel that I have tons to learn. So I got my friend to come meet Trainer B and ride one of her horses. He really likes Trainer B because she is so friendly and knowledgable, and would love to be part of her show team and go to breed shows. He also likes that shows know how to show stock horses, instead of saddle/pleasure types like Trainer A.

However, Trainer A is the coach for our High School Equestrian Team, and my friend doesn't want it to be awkward at the meets and practices. There are also open shows and 4-h that he would see her around at also. We know that if he did leave, she would not talk to him much if at all during the meets and practices- making it very awkward. He really doesn't like Trainer A anymore and hasn't for a long time, but he really hates drama.

How could he leave without making Trainer A angry?

So we bought this horse a few months ago that was a few hundred pounds underweight. When she finally had enough weight on her, we started riding her lightly. However, every once in a while she would be walking along and just randomly lay down then immediately get back up as if nothing happened. Also, when the farrier comes out she has a hard time balancing.

Well, we know that it isn't exhaustion, because we were riding her lightly.

So we had our chiropractor come out and adjust her, and he said that her body was "short circuiting" in the front end. The back end is totally fine, but every once in a while(it's only happened twice in the time we've had her that I'm aware of) the front end doesn't get a good message from the brain and just stops working for a second.

Our chiropractor has seen this before with a different horse, and he said that a few times of acupuncture should help a lot. He knew a horse with a problem like this and he was normal after the acupuncture.

So we are going to get someone out to do acupuncture on our horse.

But I was wondering:

Does it really help the horse and is it worth it to do acupuncture on horses?

So where I live it's below freezing right now (about 20 degrees), and my trainer won't ride any of the horses if its more than a couple degrees below freezing. She says that it can make them sick(for whatever reason) and if they get sweaty it takes forever for them to dry. It's also bad for their muscles(because their muscles are cold when you take them out? That was unclear to me).

We don't have heated barns(if we did my trainer wouldn't stop riding in cold weather) because this is the coldest it usually ever gets, but what temperature would be the lowest it would be okay to ride in?

Sorry about the length!

So my high scool equestrian team finally has a Performance(such as Hunt Seat Equitation, Showmanship, Western Eq, etc) coach this year. It's great for our team, as a lot of the kids really need the help.

The thing is is that a couple years ago I used to take lessons with my morgan from this lady. I stayed with her for almost a year, but then I went to a show where the judge had commented on things that should have been fixed a very long time ago. I left a few weeks later because I felt that I had reached my full potential with her as a trainer. Don't get me wrong, she really did help me a lot but I wanted to be the best I could possibly be because I want to make it on a NCAA equestrian team.

Anyways, a couple months later my morgan tore a muscle so I had to find another horse for 4-h, unfortunately, there aren't very many good all around morgans out there so my parents bought me a paint. This paint is very, very well trained and it takes a lot of effort doing everything exactly the way the horse knows how to be cued to get her to do her best.

So I've had this horse for almost two years now, and I know exactly how to make my horse work because of a new trainer I found. I do very well at shows and I like my trainer's way of training a lot, also this new trainer specializes in paints, rather than arabs and saddlebreds like the old trainer. Also, my new paint is trained in a very different way than what my old trainer taught me how to ride.

But I'm required to go to the team practices(it a rule to be on my equestrian team) with my old trainer, and she tells me to do things(like haunch turns or circles) in a way that will only confuse me and my horse.

When she's telling me to do those things that confuse me and my horse, I've tried these two things:

1) Ignore what she says and just keep doing it the way my horse and I know how to do something

2) Explain to her that's not how my horse is trained and show her how she is trained so that she knows and can help me later on

But then she gets visibly annoyed at me either way, acts like her way is the only correct way(even sometimes gives speeches about why they are the only correct way), then after the practice goes and complains about me to my friend who is taking lessons with her right now.

I mean, I would understand her getting so annoyed if she were my trainer again but it's only a practice and I don't know if she's accepted the fact that I have another trainer that teaches me in a different way than she does.

What should I do?