Learning to ride...

<raises hand>

 

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:51:26 +0000 (UTC), "Krusty"

Wot he says.

Also if a horse is pulling, don't just pull back - it needs to be more
give and take, otherwise it'll just set it's jaw against you.

And if the brakes fail, try to steer into a circle.

 

On a sweaty summer's day in Hong Kong with ill-fitting jodhpurs,
skinned knees resulted in my case. Bloody agony.

Reminds me of when I first started riding: a gangly lad on an army
Borneo polo pony.

We were trained to trot & canter over cavalettis, and sometimes a foot
would rap the crossbar. *My* foot.

But I reckon you're right abouot being bandy-legged: I'm sure it's how
I stayed on when, later when I'd graduated to ex-racehorses, they got
a bit uppity.

Never done that

"This camel has no hump!"

 

I always got the one with the martingale on account of being bigger
than the other kids.

 

<flinches>

 

I personally used to find (it's been many years) that they had to be
'just right' but slightly too short was better than slightly too long,
otherwise I'd find myself at the trot desperately fishing around for a
loose stirrup.

 

I'm actually surprised at how many here have ridden.

 

How else do you think they got around before the internal combustion engine
was invented?

 

Bwahah.

<thinks>

Hey! Wait one goddam minute....

 

Last time I rode a horse it had a western sadle. Can't for the life of
me figure out why those aren't more popular over here, much harder to
fall out of.

 

Heh. My best friend in school was an Iowa farm boy. I don't know how a
yokel like him wound up in a posh SoCal beach town, but he did. He had
a few horses he kept in the back country. Big Red was a tall,
beautiful Arabian. I rode Red a bunch. He was trained well, Steve
could get that horse to move by clicking his tongue, by talking to
him, with knee movements, and just by waving his hands. He'd stand by
the corral and talk to Red and the horse would do whatever he was
told. I could ride Red. Over the years, I've ridden a few other
horses, but I'm not a horse person. Jump ahead a few decades and now
one of my best friends is a horse woman. We went for a ride not long
ago. She put me on Pendragon, another Arab. Yeah, well. Pendragon is a
lazy, stubborn, arrogant prick. He knew instantly that he was smarter
than me, and he wasn't going to put up with any of my shit. I coaxed
him, goaded him, tried to kick his ass - no deal. The fucker made a
fool of me. That's OK. I have machines that'll do what I tell them to
do at the flick of a finger. Screw horses.

 

Back when I was riding, they were second mortgage territory. They're
also no good for jumping, which is what most youngsters over here do.

 

Expect sore legs and arse the next day. Riding a bike uses completely
different muscles. A hot bath/spa for after the ride is a good plan.

Fraser