Thursday, September 07, 2006

Back in the Saddle



On Saturday 2nd September, I decided the time was right to try and re-back Lutine.
Lutine was originally started as a 3yo and did a summer of hacking and showing but it's been 4 years since she was ridden and I didn't want to make any assumptions about how she would react.

First of all, I introduced her to the saddle and she was mildly curious, not at all freaked by the tack. So then I saddled her up and took it off again, once from each side. No problems. Totally relaxed. Then I asked her to come and stand by me at the mounting block and I leant over her, patting the other side, from each side. Still no problems. Put my foot in the stirrup from each side, no bad reactions, not 'in denial'. So then with the help of hubby, got a leg up and lay over her while hubby led us in a biggish circle in each direction. No problems...

Then, the big step. Up, tummy over, foot in stirrup, other foot over and in stirrup, say hi to Lutine in each eye, be led round whilst crouching, slowly sit up, be led around then with hubby still holding on to the rope, take over the steering...

A couple of circles in walk and whoooaaaaa, come to a stop. Totally unfazed by it all.

She whickered to me as I dismounted and boy! did she get lots of cuddles and praise!

However, she seemed to be happy to be ridden, very gently and my husband said she'd whickered 2 or 3 times, when I'd got off. Hope it wasn't that she was saying 'thank gawd that lump's got off me!'


The only problem was that, as I sat in the saddle, my husband went to take a photo with our digital camera and said 'camera's not working!' - I'd forgotten to put the memory card back in! Agh!

So, on Tuesday, a friend came over to ride with me and we had a go at putting her on board Lutine for a 5 minute wander around the round pen again. Once more, Lutine seemed totally happy about this and this time, I'd remembered the SD card!

The plan from now is to start taking her out on the lead rein with my other horses so that she becomes fitter and then to teach her to long rein and get her exercising gently over poles. She needs to develop her hindquarters and also her second thigh, especially on her nearside hind as that seems to be the weaker leg.


2 Comments:

Blogger Jane said...

Wow!! Thats some transformation... not only the riding but goodness how well she looks!!!

She's a real credit to you :-)

Good luck with the riding/leading progress!

8:16 PM  
Blogger Lulu's friend said...

Hi Jane,

I think I'm going to have to teach her to long rein to get her fit in the field first. I took her out on the lead rein with Crystal the other day and Lutine caused a problem with spooking at the cows again. She swapped sides really quickly, the rope went under Crystal's tail, which caused her to have a rodeo fit and I got dragged off by the rope eventually. No bad injuries to anyone but don't really want to repeat such an episode!

I'm still scratching my head about what to do about this cow phobia thing.. I think that if I put her in a field next to cows, she's liable to try and jump out and the local fences just aren't up to keeping a scared horse safe. I do wonder just how much hacking out she actually did with her previous owners...

But as for her condition, I officially LOVE Top Spec feeds! LOL

10:56 AM  

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