I'm not a competitive person when it comes to dressage or show jumping. Even thinking of them gives me stress. I don't want to win, but I don't want to be the last one either. I also stress too much how my mount behaves before, during and after our turn. I think it is even worse if Muuli would rear and bolt before and after the course than during it.
But endurance riding is something different. I don't think the same about it. Endurance riding (at least in Finland) feels to be open for everyone and the feeling at the competition is nice. Everyone is welcome because Finnish endurance races has had to be cancelled because lack of participants.
I haven't compete in endurance ever, but I hope we could start one day with Muuli.
We have already started practising, a lots of trail riding with different friends and different routes. Sometimes I ride first and sometimes my friend. Off course Muulis main job for me is to work on trail riding, but beside it I can practise towards endurance riding.
Last weekend my friend excited me to ride with her on the great and big sandpit near us. I don't mean children's playsquare but really big area of sand.
The place is only 10 kilometers from us, but with this experience it would be not possible to ride there with Muuli, then lope around the pit and walk back home. So we borrowed the trailer, loaded my friend's horse Väiski, then drove to our barn, loaded Muuli and haul them both near the sandpit.
I equipped Muuli with bridle already at home and left rope halter under the bridle. I have always loaded her with the rope halter but I have changed the nylon for her for the drive. This time I left the rope halter on her all the way and even tied her with it in the trailer. If you are from US, you might think, why in the hell am I telling this.. I tell this because rope halters are not common in here and so many people won't never tie a horse with the rope halter to anywhere because the horse might panic, bolt and break his neck. Maybe people should tie their horses more when they are foals? I don't know, but I will be using rope halter in the future too.
I have had problems with loading Muuli. I can load her by myself, but I have to tie her to the front in the trailer and then wait until she walks inside. When she comes forward, I tighten the rope and then wait when she takes another step. When she has her head completely inside the trailer she walks straight in.
I don't like this way of loading, it is not safe and it takes time. Not much, I have loaded her maximum 10 minutes, but she is worried and is stressed.
I always give her treats when she comes forward but she won't eat them near the trailer. That means A LOT of stress alltought she looks fine. She is not panicing or rearing or anything, she just stands her mouth shut. I would like to be able to send her inside the trailer, but that doesn't work with me. When I keep her busy when she is not looking at the trailer and let her stand when she is near it, she starts to bolt and really escapes from me.
My friend thought that maybe travelling with a friend and to nice places like trail riding would help this problem. And hauling also for very short trips would help. Usually when we go, it is at least 1 hour drive, this was only 15 minutes.
So when this trip was great change to train for endurance riding, it was also great place to train loading too!
We unloaded at the yard of an empty barn and rode 1,5 kilometers to the sandpit. It was huge!! I had never been in there before but my friend had rode there many times. We trotted, climbed to a small hill and then loped, a lot! Longest stride of lope was 2 minutes! It was recorded with GoPro on Tiina's helmet.
Total length of our trip was 10 kilometers and it took 1,5 hours. That included walking from and to the trailer, all together 3 kilometers.
Muuli behaved so well! I mounted quite easily and she didn't bolt. She was so brave and loped at the front allmost all the time. My friend had hard time trying to keep her horse from not galloping. Muuli was loping/cantering so nicely!
When Muuli gets tired, she starts to jump a bit and pulls her head down when I give her leg. At that point, we walked and trotted a bit to let her "load". When she felt okay again, we could lope a little more.
She was very swetty! But not under the saddle. I was hoping I could get great informative pictures under the saddle to check how it fits her. Depending on these pics saddle seems to fit fine.
We didn't take any pictures from the sandpit but I edited nice video from there!
Muuli was easy to load when we headed back home and she was more relaxed inside the trailer too. She ate treats (oats) from my hand and also hay that was in the net inside the trailer.
Back at home I blanketed her, let her dry a bit and brushed her. I left the blanket on for the rest of the day to prevent stiffness in her muscles.
The next say I lunged her and she seemed to be fine.
Ps. Read also my last post when I tried Boa horse boots on Muuli!
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But endurance riding is something different. I don't think the same about it. Endurance riding (at least in Finland) feels to be open for everyone and the feeling at the competition is nice. Everyone is welcome because Finnish endurance races has had to be cancelled because lack of participants.
I haven't compete in endurance ever, but I hope we could start one day with Muuli.
We have already started practising, a lots of trail riding with different friends and different routes. Sometimes I ride first and sometimes my friend. Off course Muulis main job for me is to work on trail riding, but beside it I can practise towards endurance riding.
Last weekend my friend excited me to ride with her on the great and big sandpit near us. I don't mean children's playsquare but really big area of sand.
The place is only 10 kilometers from us, but with this experience it would be not possible to ride there with Muuli, then lope around the pit and walk back home. So we borrowed the trailer, loaded my friend's horse Väiski, then drove to our barn, loaded Muuli and haul them both near the sandpit.
I equipped Muuli with bridle already at home and left rope halter under the bridle. I have always loaded her with the rope halter but I have changed the nylon for her for the drive. This time I left the rope halter on her all the way and even tied her with it in the trailer. If you are from US, you might think, why in the hell am I telling this.. I tell this because rope halters are not common in here and so many people won't never tie a horse with the rope halter to anywhere because the horse might panic, bolt and break his neck. Maybe people should tie their horses more when they are foals? I don't know, but I will be using rope halter in the future too.
I have had problems with loading Muuli. I can load her by myself, but I have to tie her to the front in the trailer and then wait until she walks inside. When she comes forward, I tighten the rope and then wait when she takes another step. When she has her head completely inside the trailer she walks straight in.
I don't like this way of loading, it is not safe and it takes time. Not much, I have loaded her maximum 10 minutes, but she is worried and is stressed.
I always give her treats when she comes forward but she won't eat them near the trailer. That means A LOT of stress alltought she looks fine. She is not panicing or rearing or anything, she just stands her mouth shut. I would like to be able to send her inside the trailer, but that doesn't work with me. When I keep her busy when she is not looking at the trailer and let her stand when she is near it, she starts to bolt and really escapes from me.
My friend thought that maybe travelling with a friend and to nice places like trail riding would help this problem. And hauling also for very short trips would help. Usually when we go, it is at least 1 hour drive, this was only 15 minutes.
So when this trip was great change to train for endurance riding, it was also great place to train loading too!
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| Pic: Tiina Lepojärvi |
We unloaded at the yard of an empty barn and rode 1,5 kilometers to the sandpit. It was huge!! I had never been in there before but my friend had rode there many times. We trotted, climbed to a small hill and then loped, a lot! Longest stride of lope was 2 minutes! It was recorded with GoPro on Tiina's helmet.
Total length of our trip was 10 kilometers and it took 1,5 hours. That included walking from and to the trailer, all together 3 kilometers.
Muuli behaved so well! I mounted quite easily and she didn't bolt. She was so brave and loped at the front allmost all the time. My friend had hard time trying to keep her horse from not galloping. Muuli was loping/cantering so nicely!
When Muuli gets tired, she starts to jump a bit and pulls her head down when I give her leg. At that point, we walked and trotted a bit to let her "load". When she felt okay again, we could lope a little more.
She was very swetty! But not under the saddle. I was hoping I could get great informative pictures under the saddle to check how it fits her. Depending on these pics saddle seems to fit fine.
We didn't take any pictures from the sandpit but I edited nice video from there!
Muuli was easy to load when we headed back home and she was more relaxed inside the trailer too. She ate treats (oats) from my hand and also hay that was in the net inside the trailer.
Back at home I blanketed her, let her dry a bit and brushed her. I left the blanket on for the rest of the day to prevent stiffness in her muscles.
The next say I lunged her and she seemed to be fine.
Ps. Read also my last post when I tried Boa horse boots on Muuli!
