Ride Share

Opie has apparently become a hot commodity. It started when I let a teen ride him for a faux-lesson, and then asked a barn mate to hack him around while I was on vacation for a week. 

Said barn mate ended up not having the time to do so after her initial ride which was fine, but when I got back she was like, "I can ride him for you any time!" I appreciate that, but you're not bringing any training to the table and I don't need an exercise rider since I'm here to do the exorcising exercising myself.

Then another barn mate, K, started begging to get on him because she's been stuck in the green/problem horse crash test dummy role for eternity and wanted to ride something already trained where she could work on herself. I finally caved and let her get on him this morning.

I got on him quickly first to talk her through my aids since I'm no instructor and have a hard time picking up on what a rider is doing wrong. I can see what the horse is doing wrong, and I'm sure if I was in the saddle I could fix it, but I'm not so good at communicating what I would do to another rider. Fortunately K has plenty of experience so she understood my vague, "Now I'm bringing this seat bone back and closing the outside leg and tah-dah we're doing this fancy thing." I showed her that the horse is very light and can go around with basically no reins while still bending and being round so long as you have him straight between your legs and are using your other aids correctly.

I let her go around and get a feel for him without much input besides the occasional "shorten your reins" and "turn your thigh in". She had a hard time getting him to keep the inside bend, and as he does with a new rider he wants to get fast to get out of using himself and they think, "Yay! He's going nicely forward!" Nah, reel that back in and make him work for real. 

reel him in and then let him out when he's actually using his booty
and then this is what you get!

The three of us were able to get on the same page by the end of her ride, and she finished up flatting with a super strutting trot that had her grinning and giggling. There was a two stride line set up across the diagonal so they did that three times with Opie being like, "NOW WE FLY, BITCHES" each time.

k was unfazed by the shenanigans

He got lots and lots of candy afterwards and then outside to enjoy the beautiful day with his dumb friends.

I'm not a big sharing person usually for a few reasons, the biggest being that I feel like I put in all the hard work/blood, sweat, and literal tears so I should be the only one that gets to reap the benefits. But I can relate to needing a win so in situations like I don't mind showing off what my horse is capable of--thanks to me and all my training that usually makes me want to rip my hair out lol.