I don’t currently ride due to confidence issues so taking the time off to lose some junk in the trunk, this photo is several months old before you give me grief

But is there such thing as too grippy** **when it comes to your saddle? I bought this Royal Heritage All Purpose saddle a couple months back and I’ve ridden in it maybe 3 times? I don’t like it but I also don’t hate it, I’ve been trying to work out it slipping when I put weight in the stirrup(probably wrong plate so changed it out) my stirrup leathers and when I post, well I can’t really move in the saddle because my hind end is STUCK to the saddle due to the material? It’s nothing like my Stubbën, this saddle allows me to wear leggings without sliding around, my Stubbën won’t let me wear anything but breeches or else I’m sliding to the ass end of the horse because it’s so slick. What can I do to make this saddle less sticky for when I do decide to ride again? My Stubbën doesn’t fit my guy as it should so don’t want to continue using it

Update: we just selling it :)

I DONT NEED NEW OR MORE COMMENTS THAT IT DOESNT FIT. It’s being sold.

I'm uncomfortable with the amount of pressure my current trainer often wants me to have on the reins. I had a lesson a few days ago after a few weeks off, and I still cannot get over the amount of pressure she wanted me to have on the reins. We were just working on bending and suppling on the flat (inside/outside bend, etc.) but my hands HURT. Like my fingers were aching from keeping that grip on the reins for as long as I was. Now the horse didn't seem too uncomfortable, but this is a lesson horse who might be pretty dull to this stuff. And it's important to say that I am a competitive sailor for half the year. My entire sport is hauling in and holding lines for hours on end in all wind speeds. This left my hands sore, like I'd just sailed upwind in 20km/hr winds for 15 mins non-stop. The horse is in a hollow-mouth, loose-ring French link bit. Not the harshest but DEFINITELY not the most gentle. With this much pressure, the only bit I can imagine would be semi-comfortable would be a rubber one. She was saying how the steady contact is important for cues and feeling each other but bro. If you cannot do/practice these skills with light contact, you will get nothing done comfortably or effectively with heavier contact, for you or the horse. My general training motto for all sports/animals is to start as light/easy as comfortable, and move into heavier, stricter movements once those basics are set. This is a hunter/jumper and dressage barn. Maybe I'm just being dramatic because I haven't ridden in a while and prefer to be lighter in the mouth, but maybe not. If my hands that are conditioned to hold line like this are hurting, it cannot possibly be comfortable for the horse.

EDIT: To clarify, she made it very clear that this was the amount of pressure she wanted me to have. She had me hold the reins while she pulled on the other ends to show me what I should be feeling.

I have seen so many people go on. And on about how if a horse can't race, or it doesn't want to, it goes to slaughter, and that's the end of its life. And that is genuinely. So far from the truth, it's not even funny. I can't tell you how common it is for people to buy a thoroughbred, and they'll buy it knowing it has a previous race injury. And if it can't stay sound, or they can't rehab it to a point where they consider it useful. That's when it goes to slaughter.

The people that repurchase these thoroughbreds off the track if they can't make money off of them. They send them off. Racing barns get more money reselling the thoroughbreds, as projects than just sending them off to slaughter. I work in a thoroughbred recovery barn, and I can't tell you how many times i've heard trainers say that they're just gonna shoot the horse because it's not gonna be somebody's jumper, but they bought it knowing it had an injury to its leg or something.

Also, they are more likely to just put it down instead of keeping it retired. Most people view a horse that can't be ridden or worked as having no purpose. And unfortunately, if it has no purpose, then nobody sees a point for it living and it's super upsetting.

I'm so tired of people saying it's the racing industry that just ships them right off to slaughter. No, it's not. It's the trainers and the people who buy these thoroughbreds off the racing barns, and then when they realize it's not easy or it's not gonna make the money, they send it off.

​

(Horse pic tax, this little lady is in her 30's!)

So there has been a lot of criticism received about my trainor and myself, some of which has been misconceptions. I want to address the concerns and clear some things up.

This is not to say that there are absolutely 0 issues at my barn. I am not claiming that.

1. My trainor does not sit on her phone (ive never even seen her have it) let any inexperienced riders come in and teach, yell at us, or put us in harms way. Her eyes are absolutely glued to us during lesson, making corrections, giving directions, making sure we're spaced out. There is no dangerous behavior afoot. She does not let us do whatever we please and get away with it. She is actively training. You may not hear a ton of corrections in the short videos I post, but that is only 20 seconds or so of a 40 minute lesson.

2. I do not see horses as objects, accessories, or anything else but living being human beings that deserve respect, kindness, and love. The entire time I am riding I am paying close attention to the horse's body language. I am not clueless around animals.

3. My falls. I fell once while trotting off lunge, when the mare I was on was startled by a large vehicle delivering hay outside and spooked. I was out the womb new at riding and had no chance. You can read the caption of my last post in this sub to hear about my second fall. Thankfully I healed up quickly and am not feeling any lingering pain from the incident :)

I truly do love riding, it is something that has helped my mental and maybe even physical health. Thank you to the people who give me tips and kind words of encouragement on my posts, I appreciate you more than you know!

so I just got my first pair of tall boots - I ordered these online because I went to my local tax shop and tried on 15 pairs not one fit my calf - this pair feels like they fit my calf, but my biggest worry is that they’re way too loose around the ankle and I just wanted some outside perspective on these - Theyre 9 wide’s

Double bridle, with bit converters, with a running martingale…

A thread to discuss the business practices and deception being produced by FSE (Free Spirit Equestrian) on YouTube, has been up and running for a few months now. If you are interested and/or concerned, please post in that thread, since it is specific to FSE.

r/FSESnark

Hello everyone! 🐴
I could really use some advice to help me understand what my trainer is trying to teach me and whether it’s actually the right approach, because it feels wrong to me. I also feel like things work much better when I ride on my own.
My previous trainer always taught me to ride carefully and explained that riding at a slower pace requires more skill than simply riding fast, because anyone can go fast on a fast horse. So I learned to focus on maintaining a controlled, balanced pace rather than just pushing my horse forward.
Now I have a new lease horse and a new trainer, and their approach is quite different. My new trainer wants me to ride faster so that the horse can find contact through the forward movement.
I find this quite confusing because I feel like my horse already has a good working pace. However, my trainer constantly wants me to ride SO much faster that my legs start hurting from all the driving aids, and the whole thing becomes really exhausting.
The confusing part is that I can get my horse into a good contact at the normal pace I use when riding on my own. So I don’t really understand why my trainer wants me to ride faster all the time.

Am I misunderstanding something here? Is there a reason why riding faster might help a horse find better contact, or could my instincts about maintaining a more controlled pace be right?

I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences and opinions! ❤️

I have been learning horse riding for 3 months (3 days a week). I am not able to get the thigh grip and I feel the worst with each passing day. I feel clueless. I don't know what to do. I find it hard to ask my coaches as it's a very strict set up in the riding school and I feel everyone does better than me. I have been a scholar kid so failing at something feels very personal and hard.

Can someone guide me.

Beyond riding I love horses and they (horses) talk to me with kind eyes. It is my first time interacting with horses and I feel blessed. I feel so happy and at ease around horses.

But the moment I climb to ride, I make so many mistakes. My body gets rigid. I feel so pressured to climb so fast and I make mistakes in measuring the perfect stirups. I bounce so much on the horse.

I genuinely want to learn and want to be good at it. I don't know when and how it will happen. Recently I have been told I have not in me what it takes to be a horse rider and I should quit. But I don't want to quit.

Thank you in advance.

For the past year I've returned to riding after taking nearly 7 years off for college, moving across the country, life, etc. and now that I am back as an adult I am looking at my past with some feeling of horror and comedy. Mostly a lot of horror.

I grew up as a feral farm kid in the rural deep south (one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states) where land and horses are "cheap". No one around us took lessons, there were no show barns. Every horse I ever saw stood around in an open pasture day in and day out. Sometimes in a small herd, sometimes alone. Vets were few and far and rarely called on. This established what I thought was surely normal up until I left home and started to see alternatives.

My parents split and somehow my non-horsey, non-farmy, city mom got the small family farm right about the time that I was boiling over with "mom I want a pony" requests. (I was mayyyybbeee 12, maybe a little younger). My much older and moved out sister already had two that she had rescued that she was keeping on our property, I'd been around horses since I was a toddler, and our neighbor leased our pasture for his two horses so this felt like a practical request to child me. So with no lessons, no training, no knowledge other than just a decade of pure feral farm kid exposure my mom bought me a horse for $800, tack and all.

He was a gorgeous shiny black little Morgan just above the pony threshold that I ADORED, but I was a nervous, shy, and again - an entirely untrained child. I would work up the courage to ride him but he was opinionated, forward, and I was totally alone on the property most days so the majority of our time I would take him out of the pasture to graze in the front yard with me while I read my book or we'd go play in the pond or creek. We'd ride around maybe once a month or so tops but mainly he was very fat and never really exercised or mentally stimulated.

I think about how he didn't get regular farrier visits, how he never saw a vet, and it just feels HORRIBLE. Nothing was ever "wrong" with him and in my mothers mind those were things you only did when they needed something, not just as regular maintenance. My mom didn't take great care of me either, as she was both a workaholic and a serious alcoholic mixed with pills. Looking back we were both kind of just two neglected creatures with no idea what we were supposed to be doing and I blamed myself for not riding him enough, not being brave enough, not knowledgeable enough.

The year before I went to college my sister and neighbor both took their horses off of our property to avoid my mother and I knew he couldn't be alone. By this point I was 16 and has realized that his life and care wasn't right and that no living thing could be left with my mom. We found a good reputable buyer through my sisters vet and a few months later I get a call from his new owner while Im on campus "Hey...did you know he was a cryptorchid?" Suddenly I felt a little bit better about having such a hard time building the confidence to ride him regularly all alone with no formal training. He wasn't just hot because I was bad at it or because he hated me!

Ugh, he was such a smart, brilliant, kind, gentle, sassy little bastard. I wish I had been able to do so much better by him, and the more I learn the worse I feel. Truly given the situation he was such a saint, stopping to check on me whenever I fell off or did something dumb and always having perfect ground manners. Yes he liked to rear but given he was still sort of a stallion that now feels like getting off pretty easy! Genuinely such a curious brilliant mind who loved listening to grunge punk 90s music. UGH he deserved the world! Luckily his next home after me was a good one and I did that much right, but he would have been a kick ass first horse had I just had a little guidance.

Anyone else out there struggling with the " well NOW I know better" guilt?

I am kind of lost on what to do neither myself or my barn owner has dealt with this. My horse got turned out with his winter group after spending his summer in individual turnout. The last time he was turned out with others he would bite and kick, when he was left alone in his stall he would become dangerous while attempting to break out to reach the others. He decided to go under the fence of the gelding pasture and into the mare field where we decided to just leave him since he was behaving, but we pulled the horses in tonight and one is bit up from him. We are going to try to rotate him around until we find something that works but if it doesn’t I will have to move barns as he will not settle if he knows his pasture mates are on the property. Has anyone dealt with this? Is this truly a horse that needs to be alone? He is a perfect gentlemen when he is turned out by himself

I’m reading through the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan the way he describes the way well-trained horses are being ridden by characters who are supposed to be good riders makes me cringe! He’s always talking about “good” riders “heeling” or “booting” their horses or steering with their knees (never any other part of the leg). These are the only rider actions, no soft pressure! In this fantasy world we kick our horses into every gait!

It’s clear he’s researched horses but maybe his actual riding knowledge comes from riding slow trail horses on a dude ranch vacation?

Also, I’ve noticed this trend where women in the books tend to ride mares and men tend to ride stallions. I think there was one mention of a gelding? This all seems very impractical, my guy.

I’m hoping some patient equestrian explained things to him before he wrote the later books. Still a good fantasy series and the Rosamund Pike audiobooks are wonderful.

Has anyone else struggled with an otherwise good non-horsey book bungling the horse parts? I think the ones that handle it well don’t get as into the details as Wheel of Time does.

Okay, story time because I'm awestruck by how well today's lesson went (despite almost falling off once).

There's this lesson horse I haven't ridden in about a year, he's the definition of dead to the leg, so unmotivated that he trips over his own feet sometimes, but you can't ride him with a crop because he's scared of crops. So a shitty combo.

So far, whenever I rode him, it was frustrating. He was lazy, I could barely make him trot sometimes, and he would slow down the second I stopped using my legs. Cantering? No chance. Some other students ride him with spurs because he won't move forward (I know, that's not what spurs are for).

So today, there was a bit of a holdup and I had to wait about 15 minutes on top of the 15 minutes of leading before the lesson started. I figured I'd use this time to just play around a bit. I did hindquarter yields, stopping, backing up, doing various patterns around some cones on the ground, and leg yielding.

I used the loop of the reins and wiggled it to create some energy or gave him a little tap whenever he fell behind or wouldn't back up. It caused him to go "oh shit" for a moment, but nothing drastic, so I eventually had a good grasp of how much energy he needed and how much would be too much.

Once I was in the saddle, he marched. The trot was motivated, he blew out quite a few times right off the bat. Once he got a little too slow and wouldn't react to my leg, I took the reins in one hand and tapped his shoulder with the loop again. He went "oh, sorry" and picked up the pace again. We cantered, and he was overall a good boy. I kept him busy with lots of transitions and circles and direction changes so he wouldn't go on autopilot, and he seemed very content.

What's funny is that in the past, I tried that "slap them on the neck with the loop of the reins" trick but it never worked, or maybe it worked for a step or two and then he was lazy again. And I think it was because I was always scared of him exploding or taking off with me (he does that sometimes when he gets startled). But today I had this mentality "we're going forward, and I'm not scared of you getting scared". And it worked??

He did take off one time together with another horse because someone's stirrup bumped against the wall of the arena and it was pretty loud. I almost fell off but managed to stay on after my instructor yelled "SIT BACK, STAY ON" about 10 times in a row, and once I regained my balance I kept on cantering on a circle and just acted like cantering was my idea anyway. He calmed down pretty fast after that.

I think this is what they mean when they say "ride proactively, not reactively". I did not expect those 15 minutes prior to riding to make such a difference, but it seems this is exactly what this horse needed. I've ridden him so many times before, and never did I feel like he was paying ANY attention to me. Today changed everything and it was amazing.

Besides poles! What exercises does everyone use for low impact muscle building?

I've got one young and underweight, the other older and retired but does better when kept in shape. We all get bored of endless poles so looking for some lower impact other things we can do. Unfortunately not a lot of area to go for a walk, so we are limited to the arena.

Been thinking tarp, jump standard with pool noodles to simulate brush, I picked up a squishy mat for a different surface to walk on

I have a million and one pole exercises so that's not what I'm looking for

It was so slippery on the grass, definitely will be putting on some studs next time! Not gonna lie I was a bit scared before we went, but we had a blast - especially my horse!

To the adult amateur starting to ride! I just wanna say I love you guys! Your videos or stories about starting riding in 20’s,30’s,40’s,50’s make me so happy. You guys make the equestrian world such a better place! It’s great to see how much joy horses are bringing to you guys and the excitement! Sometimes I’m little jealous of you getting to experience all this stuff for the first time as an adults! You guys get to remember the first time you sat on a horse or the first time you trotted and that is something so cool!

I don’t want you guys to ever feel discouraged or judged! Thank you for officially becoming an equestrian.

And if your kids ride and you think you’re too old for it, you’re not! Please sign up for riding lessons!

I’m finally getting back into riding after almost a decade off. I trained hunter/jumper for a few years, and trail rode around my house in a western saddle. I’ve never had formal western training. I’m now at a western only barn and taking lessons.

I have an anterior pelvic tilt that makes it hard to keep my seat. I feel confident at a walk and posting trot, but in a sitting trot and lope, I can tell I’m raising my heels and coming out of the saddle a bit to compensate. What are some tricks to help me fix this? I’ve been slowing my horse back down to a walk to fix my seat, then increasing my gait, but after a lap around the arena I’m back to having a poor seat.

Eddy got a well earned PEMF treatment tonight. He LOVESSSS having his face pemfed. And man oh man did his back need it!!! I’ll do his lower legs tomorrow 💕💅🏼

After losing my hearthorse in a terrible accident last July, I welcomed little Merlin in my life about 1.5 weeks ago.
It really heals my broken heart to fall in love again 🥹
He’s a little Noriker colt, 6.5 months old and I rescued him from going to the slaughterhouse.
He hasn’t been handled much before he came, and truly just starts to trust humans. Merlin does extremely well, being already very affectionate and wanting to snuggle and get pets from us.
He’s great at learning to lift his feet, lets me touch him everywhere and is learning to walk on the lead like a little champ.
Seeing him come walking towards me when I arrive at the stable and letting me kiss his forhead to say hello is something that truly puts my heart back together piece by piece.

I miss my hearthorse so, so much. I am completely broken by the loss. And falling in love with my little boy feels like it’s finally catching me from falling after losing Amy.

I was a little afraid of not finding that kind of love for a horse again, and I am deeply grateful that Merlin proved me wrong.
He’s a wonderful little guy, and even though I never find the same love again that I had for Amy, my love for him comes from the same place - just a different shade of love, if one can say so. 🩵

We all deserve to find love after loss. It’s not easy - but it’s worth it. 🩵

Kind of my horse, my grandma owns him but hes bought for me and such. Why are his front hooves so odd? Can this be fixed somehow (since I'm assuming its not good)? All of the photos other than the last two are him being overdue for a trim. We went and got then trimmed maybe 5 days ago and the farrier doesn't seem to ever say anything about them being like that so I can assume its not an issue but they look so much different compared to other hooves I see

I idolize Roy Rogers because he was a saint guys. I'm rewatching "My Pal, Trigger" and I started reading about Roy and Trigger's career and I am so impressed by the amount of charity work Trigger did.

At the peak of his career, Roy Rogers averaged roughly 100 charity appearances every single year, using his star power primarily to benefit vulnerable children.

Roy, Dale Evans, and Trigger made hundreds of unpublicized visits to children's hospitals, orphanages, burn wards, and polio treatment centers across the United States.

During World War II, Roy and Trigger sold millions of dollars worth of War Bonds. Decades later, they continued to use their platform for medical causes, such as a major drive that raised $6 million for a children's hospital pediatric wing in New York.

They founded the Happy Trails Children's Foundation, a non-profit organization that continues to operate and raise public funds to protect and support severely abused and neglected youth.

Operating through the USO-adjacent Hollywood Victory Committee, Roy made hundreds of free appearances at military camps, training bases, and naval yards.

Trigger was not only an Icon of the American West. He was proof that horses heal. He was a type of medicine doctors could not offer and he was the source of what must have been millions of smiles. Trigger was a shining example of the strong bonds and level of understanding that horses and people can have.