My fellow equestrian blogger at Love && Horses recently posed the questions: If you could choose to do ONE THING on horseback, both in general and on your own horse in particular, what would you do? What is your FAVORITE thing to do on your horse?
Something that would never happen, but that I dream I could do on Knight is to take him to a racetrack and gallop him.
I have not yet experienced his gallop and that I know of, there’s not a place nearby where I could just let him go as fast as he can–which I’m guessing is pretty fast considering his sire (dad) won the Breeders’ Cup Classic not once, but twice! (Google Tiznow and you’ll see an impressive specimen of horse handsomeness).
Knight did win one race in his rather brief career.
Warning: gratuitous Knight-promotion photo below. And yes, that is Victor Espinoza on board.
There are trails adjacent to our boarding facility, but they’re kind of mountain wilderness trails. I’ve never been on them, but perhaps there are some nice flat open spaces where we could do that. Gallop.
The racetrack idea is fun because the footing would be top notch, freshly groomed, etc. I am a footing worrier (ever since I broke my nose when my previous horse tripped and fell at the canter and I landed face first) and so even if we do make it out to the trails in coming months, i would probably never feel truly comfortable letting him go as fast as he can. Note to self: get to know the trail riders at barn because they will have the scoop on the footing and if the ground is too hard, level enough etc.
I am in love with Knight’s canter. There are so many versions at this point, but the relaxed, soft, not-too forward version is pure poetry. When I tried Knight out to see if I wanted to buy him, when I cued him to trot he cantered. I didn’t immediately get him to come back and do what I asked and trot. I was so enthralled with his canter, I just kept going and I think I even started to giggle. It was so fun. I knew he was the one for me.
So now that we’re three months into our partnership and still working on basics, I’m content with his canter. I’ll save the gallop for some time in the future. 2015 is around the corner, you know.
If you’re a blogger, feel free to join the hop. If not, still feel free to pipe in in the comments section below with your fav thing to do on horseback. (Or your favorite thing to watch others do on horseback–yes, that was meant for you, Mom).
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I'm Susan and this is my horse Knight. We have been a blogging team since 2015 and we're glad you're here. Tally ho!
oh wow – sorry to hear you broke your nose – and I am not a horse owner – and I have no idea of how our blog paths crossed – but I am glad they did and I enjoys this tag read. 🙂
Peace
That is so sweet of you to say. I know I’m technically supposed to write for my horsey niche, but I like kinda giving people who aren’t necessarily horse folks (yet) a glimpse on the crazy people like myself who are just a little horse-obsessed. Thank you for following along. I really appreciate it!
And by the way, breaking my nose was one of the best things to happen to me. I’ll have to explain that in another blog post. I literally got to select the shape of nose I wanted since it broke and was crooked and required surgery. I literally found a picture of a super model and showed it to the doc and said, “This one.” Tee hee. A miserably painful experience, but with a good final outcome.
that is so cool – because it is another example of how good things come from accidents or illness. – oh and I have been making an end of the year 2014 page on my blog – (messing around with photofunia) and here is the one for you – lol
https://priorhouse.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/for-susan-saddle-seeks-horse.png
That is very cool. I love it! Thanks! I have to check out that site. I used to have students make Wanted posters for history class. Like they’d study some person from history such as Emperor Qin or Ghandi and then they’d have to make a poster that lists the person’s traits and what they’re “Wanted” for such as “Wanted: Emperor Qin for burning Confucianist books.” Students would DIG that. And I would find it fun too.
oh how cool – well the site actually has tons of different ones – like galleries and billboards – but I picked that one cos it kinda matched the equine feel. <3
here is the page I am working on – I have made a lot more but might not get them up til later this month.
http://priorhouse.wordpress.com/blog-buds-2014/
Love your ‘one thing’!! Would be so happy/and secretly scared to let my OTTB out all the way
I have always wanted to do that too! It seems like so much fun! I’ve wondered about how to go about doing that. One time while house hunting there was a race training facility next door, and one of my first questions is, do they let outsiders in!?
I share your worry about galloping on a trail ride… One time I was galloping my horse and he stepped in a hidden hole and bowed a tendon 🙁
i love your description of Knight’s canter! re: galloping around, the best places at my barn tend to be along the big pasture fence lines. the lanes tend to be wide enough to keep trees off the fence, but not so wide that i get that ‘big scary open space’ feeling. maybe there’s something similar at your barn?