Jewel's Second Ride-

In The Saddle

The second day with an unbroke horse is a repeat of the first day except it goes much faster because the horse already knows most or all of the lessons. What took a couple of hours the first day to teach may take only 15 minutes to review on the second day and then you are ready to mount up!

On a side note, I teach all my horses to handle being mounted from a mounting block. You never know when that may come in handy. The horse learns to stand still next to the block. She also learns that if her foot bumps the block as we ride off, it's not scary. That last one is important because some horses will be startled if their foot hits the block and may react in a big way. So they learn on the ground not to be afraid if their foot bumps the block.

The dreaded mounting from the right. At first it seems odd but if you do it a lot, pretty soon it's just as easy as mounting on the left!

This is the first ride of the second day. Jewel looks pretty calm, doesn't she?

Notice my left foot is not in the stirrup. This is because I mounted from the right so that foot was already in the stirrup but sometimes a very green horse will be surprised if you bump them with your other foot to pick up the other stirrup. Often I just let that foot hang until I feel the horse will be calm with my foot wriggling around to get into the stirrup.

Here I've asked Jewel to drop her head from the saddle. She learned it on the ground earlier and now she can do it riding. We are practicing the calm down cue.

A successful second day!

If you would like to learn these methods, click here to find a class.

Return from Jewel's Second Ride - In The Saddle to Home