Ridecamp: [RC] Greenies

You never know how a horse would act until you actually 
do a ride.  My experienced trail horse turned into a 
monster his second ride and I had to fight him the first 
half of the ride to make him behave.  He still can be a 
handful when he gets his "radar" on, but he's become a 
lot more manageble each ride.  This is the same horse 
that packs my inexperienced neice and babysits my 
greenie on trail rides.

My real greenie started his first LD last weekend very 
sanely.  The controlled start and big hills really 
helped.  BUT: halfway through the ride we got lapped by 
the fast 50's and the lights went off and nobody was 
home.  I had to lead him all the way back to the next 
vet check because he was uncontrollable mounted and he 
was running circles around me all the way back.

This horse has been on a few big group rides and behaved 
himself admirably on each of them.  I honestly thought 
he was ready, but he's not.  And he was a little 
footsore at the first vet check, so I know he's not a 
barefoot horse candidate.  I offered to pull him, but 
the vet actually encouraged me to go on, just get off of 
him on the downhills.  So not all rides and ride vets 
are against barefoot horses, folks.

Disappointed in the results, but I learned a lot from 
the experience.  We came back safely in good physical 
condition and that's the most important thing.

We could all start preaching about "no greenies" but 
I've seen and heard about enough people use incredible 
strategies to get a green horse through rides. All 
horses have to start someplace, just as all riders have 
to start someplace.



K.


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