Hello.
it just so happens that my daughter fell in love with horses at an early age and so when she was 13 years old and responsible enough I bought her a horse and a Little paddock friend.
after about 1 year I started to think about also having a horse in my life and so i bought my first horse at 45 years of age.
My horse Shilo is a welsh cob, he was 2 and half when i bought him. i have done ALOT of ground Work with him and then unfortunately I had to have spinal surgery so his training stopped for a year. Before my surgury i was able to introduce him to saddel and bitless bridle and got him used to me sitting on him in the saddel and now comes a big BUT.
But, when i started to think about asking him to walk forward i FROZE. and then i doubted myself and gave up.
Now after surgery and recovery I am ready Again and have just completed a very successful join-up, but i still feel very nervous, I have worked very hard with Shilo from the ground and I dont want to ruin the Whole thing with being nervous- because he can feel it. I would like Monty to make some lessons for people like me who are nervous- by the way, i can ride my daughters horse no problems, so i think it is because i doubt my own horse training abilities- and plus that my horse is Young and inexperienced. I dont want to have another surgery!!
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The older nervous rider.
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Hi Dionne. You'll find lots of mentions of my herd of 4 in the threads. Humphrey is an old fashioned Irish cob, short coupled & whilst not overly tall, about 450 kilos of power. Humphrey sired Kirk, now almost 3 years old & Holy Moley born some 14 months after Kirk. I understand your nervousness & I suggest you copy Monty, exactly! Firstly, he supports the horses, gains their trust & then stays on the ground, letting a younger, fearless person do the sitting on. However, if the horse requires assistance Monty is there for them. The horses focus on Monty & then learn to carry the mobile weight of a rider. Humphrey is more actively attentive to me even though it's been Stan sitting on his back. He's never bucked since Stan started helping us. Your nerves will only calm when you are confident that Shilo is a safe conveyance & Shilo can only achieve that if the rider he starts carrying is happy to be there on his back. That's not to say that your presence on the ground won't be crucial in supporting Shilo & if your daughters horse is a quiet & confident individual, you two can help Shilo once he's ready to progress in his training by giving him a lead. It would be unfair to Shilo to expect him to cope with his introduction to being ridden & your nerves too at the same time so use some help but remain in control of the situation. Cheers, Jo.
My daughters horse now lives at our local riding center because she gets dressage lessons there and it's just easier that way, plus she is together with girls her own age and not her old mum !
So now I have Shilo at 3 and half years, Mammuth ,a miniature pony at 3 years old and Marco a Shetlands pony at 3 years- they are all boys ! and all are Vallak.
I have my husband to help me , but he is not a rider, I will just have to continue my lessons through the university and then I think that the more control I have and the more trust we get in each other will maybe be enough for me to feel that I can ride him without big nerves.
I will make a dummy rider first!!
Wow, I feel blessed that I have such a wonderful horse in my life, and what a journey we are going on,
Breathing Dionne, whatever you do make sure you're breathing is calm and relaxed. When you sit on Shilo, before you walk on or do anything think breath and your breath let your breath sink through your body and down into your horse. This will help keep you both relaxed.
Mel
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