Also email or call the ride manager and ask if
the first loop has hills in the beginning of the ride. Try to find a first ride
that does. Helps a lot to have some hills to get the sillys out of them. Slows
them right down.;-)
Also, find some local trail rides, poker rides,
organized rides and attend them. They usually have a lot of horses and are going
rather slow. Its GREAT training to get their mind on s-l-o-w. But its great
training to get them used to large groups of horses at one place that can
normally flip out a lot of green horses.
Try to find others to ride with--even if its not
other endurance riders. Its very important and many of us endurance riders do
this to help train our horses. They get used to groups trotting and cantering,
having people pass or passing others. The horses may flip out for the first few
times but do get used to the chaos. We call it controlled chaos and its much
better to have it happen at home than at a ride. Its good to get them used to it
cause its not only the start of the ride, its having riders pass you during the
ride. Many go flying past you and some are not as polite as others. Sometimes
the trail is narrow and they trot past you very close. Some rides have common
trail to and from camp so riders will fly past you from the opposite direction
too. Try to find others to ride with and mimic this at home to save yourself and
others from accidents.
--------Karla Watson/Portland,
Oregon
It
just takes practice and time. You don't have to rush out with the pack. You
can hold back and go out on trail after the big bunch of horses have gone
out.
> My
husband and I ride by ourselves a lot and our > horses are kind of
> underexposed to lots of strange horses and > excitement while
on a ride. I would like > to take our horses on a limited
distance ride or > similar but I know they will > both be
going nuts at the start of the ride and am > not willing to get
hurt. > Has anyone had any experience using "calm down > paste"
while riding? Thanks >
===== "A good horse makes
short miles," George Eliot
