[RC] RC] Deb Bennett's Article in Jan EN - Karen - Sherman
The horse was at the trainers for about 6
weeks of riding, assume daily an hour?, and then about once a week for a 2-3
hour ride, until the rains started. Now she's picking up again. The rider does
get off for steep hills (up & down), and sometimes is off anywhere she can
jog as quickly as the horse can pick through the trail (we have lots of rocky
trails). I often tell her "hurry up" so we can at least get a 5MPH ride in,
otherwise our overall speed goes down to about 4.5 MPH....my horse walks that
fast.
Curious, how
old is your mustang now, and did she hold up well? I started one as an 8 yr old,
within a year we were doing 3 hour rides. Never went much beyond that as she got
very bored with our little 15 miles of trails, so I leased her out when my
daughter wanted to do endurance. The
mustang was 13.3H, chunky, black, and with
her bored attitude around here I assumed she wouldn't do well in
endurance. She is happy with her new caretakers, especially 'cause she
has a pond to play in and 2 younger horses to boss around, both Arabs.
(:>)
Kathy
**Ponying is just wonderful and a great way
to leg them up, get them used to the outside world, etc, etc. But
how much time under saddle does this mare have? A slow 25 could
mean 5 hours on the horse;s back.....maybe too long for a young horse
that needs to strengthen back muscles, etc...unless rider plans on
walking and jogging a lot...
Then again, it may depend on the
horse. Our first year with our 4 year old mustang we did quite a
bit of riding on her (but maybe not really long periods on her
back)....but she was so big and strong she "looked" like you could put
several riders on her and do Tevis!!!!
