Tuesday, July 24, 2012

A Different Kind of Ride

I was planning on taking the High Queen to the Pony Club schooling trials around the corner again this evening but I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to work on her loading issue so I decided to leave her home tonight and take Cowboy instead.

I haven't ridden Cowboy in a couple of months at least. So when super hubs and I saddled him up yesterday evening I was a little wary. Yes he's a laid back Appaloosa but he's also 4 and had only truly been broke since late April.  I was also going to ride him english versus his usual western tack.  I only wanted to walk and trot him around a bit to see how we both felt about riding together under english tack.

He was a little unhappy with the bit, a french link snaffle, his usual bit is an eggbutt. But other than that and one sort of I'm thinking about bucking hop he was pretty good.  There was a lot of head flipping, but that is just him showing his resistance to the amount of contact(super lite compared to the High Queen's contact) I had on the reins.

The thing I noticed most though was how big his walk was, and how unbelievably smooth his trot was.  I mean I love the mare-beast despite her loading issues, and her some days unpredictability but I definetly could tell the difference between riding her gaits and riding Cowboys.

I wasn't entirely happy with how the saddle felt though. I put my old Collegiate AP on him because the Pessoa has Seneca's narrow gullet in it right now. I had checked the fit of it on him before but I think having ridden in the lovelyness of the Pessoa for the last several months that going back to the AP made me feel out of balance.  I'm thinking I'll check the fit of the Pessoa on Cowboy see if the narrow gullet will work, and if not I'll just do a quick change and put the medium gullet in. My only other option is to ride Cowboy in his western tack. Not a deal breaker since I'm not taking Cowboy to the schooling trial to show just to act as a buddy for a friend's horse who has never done XC and is nervous by herself.

So that's the news from Eventing at Midnight, keep it between the flags everyone.

No comments:

Post a Comment