Horseback Riding
On December 28, 2018 by brian.haferkampThis is a guest post from Bella, who got a morning of riding horses with her sister as a Christmas gift.
Today we went to a riding school and learned how to care for, and ride, horses!
Mommy said she didn’t want to go on a horse, and daddy couldn’t because the people there could only get three horses ready at once. The people we were working with were very nice. Their names were Ana, Rebeca, and Sara.
First, we took the horses out and got them ready for riding. We took out an old horse named Lacre, and a younger one named Adom, who looked more like a pony than a horse.
Ana and Rebeca helped us, while Sara helped some other kids brush Adom. We brushed and combed Lacre. It was fun! We took out a special kind of brush, which was hard and scratchy, and we brushed him with that, and with a softer brush we smoothed out his coat.
Then we put on the saddle blankets. There were 3! There was a gel pad that we put on him before the saddle, and we put a blanket on him, then on top of that we put a cushy pad, and then we put on the saddle!
Baek chose Lacre after we were done, so I rode Adom. We started by going into an inside arena, and I saw Sara helping Baek onto Lacre. I used a mounting block to get on Adom. Rebeca led him while Sara led Lacre in front of us.
I learned the correct posture for riding, too. I learned how to keep my back straight, my heels down, and my shoulders a little bit back, but all of me relaxed.
We went back out of the arena and went outside. We were led around the building where we got the horses ready, around a sort of loop, down a path, turned around, went back down the path, went around a small outside arena, and around a bigger arena with jumps. Rebeca said the owner’s sons practice jumping on their horses there. Then we walked up a little hill and back into the stables.
We dismounted and switched horses. This time I had Lacre and Baek had Adom. Then we went around again! After we were done going again, I enjoyed watching other kids do their riding lessons.
I enjoyed the whole day. It was really fun!