glenatron | Day four

In which I sat on a horse and looked at some feet.

This morning we were working with some more early-stage horses, on their second saddling/ride and so on. I was on a very flighty little Sorrel mare, pretty but a bit prone to losing her brain out of her ears when anything new happens for the first time it happens and then settle to it after a couple of times. We got her saddled and then the owner of some of the other horses came to call so Martin and a few of the other students went to show off those ones in action while the young horses were loose in the arena.

Martin demonstrating how to swing a saddle- there needs to be no gap between the person and the horse's shoulder and the swing needs to be such that the saddle doesn't touch the horse on the way up and can be slowed as it comes towards the horse's back.

When they were done with that we came back in and Martin moved the horses around to get any bucks out ( my mare had quite a few bucks in her ) and to split up the groups so the horses learned they could find relief by not clinging too closely in the pairs that they had formed in a minute.

The mare I was working with.

Finally we got them sorted and Martin talked me through getting on her and gently lead us around while I got her accustomed to me moving my legs and flapping my coat and so on from the saddle. It was only a couple of minutes but she settled reasonably well, with only a couple of small scuttles when something changed. Rather than going off the lead we decided that was a good time to stop.

In the afternoon Troy, one of the guys responsible for Natural Balance shoes came over to talk us through some footcare and basic trimming methods. It was really interesting and there was a lot of information there, but I'm afraid it's bed time. If I get time I'll go through it in detail later.