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Who else rides horses and/or takes lessons here?


Wendi
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My son and I started taking horseback riding lessons in June. Despite the heat, we are having a blast! I was wondering who else rides. I know some of you lucky ducks own your own horses.

 

We are riding Western style, taking lessons from a friend on her farm in rural AZ.

 

Wendi

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My daughters do.

 

My 12yo owns a South African breed of horse called a Boerperd. It is similar to the US Morgan.

 

She does English style riding (the norm here) and was recently picked for the regional team in dressage, showing and showjumping.

 

She is at the stables five days a week and riding is her passion. It has become quite time intensive for us as a family as we go to shows regularly.

 

We live rurually and there are many stables around us which makes it easy to do riding.

 

My 8yo rides in two lessons a week. Three other moms and I started lessons last summer. We did not want to be 'on display' in front of the children, so had a 6 o'clock in the morning mommy class. It was great fun! We'll be starting again mid-October.

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I do! I lease a Belgian/Thoroughbred and event him. Eventing is dressage, cross country, and show jumping. We do it more for fun than competition but during the season, we show about twice a month. DS is not very interested in horses but gets to play outside at the farm while I ride so he loves it too!

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I've always had horses. Right now I have a QH and a welsh pony. By next year, well who knows, I might have two more horses on the place. I grew up around horses. They were my way to escape from the rest of the world. Before I was homeschooling I used to work with problem horses and had entered the world of english riding and was starting into dressage and jumping. That's all been set to the side until the kids are older now, but I still play with my horses at home. I trained my first horse when I was 11. Not having a horse to work with would be heartbreaking for me.

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Dd has a rockin little arab mare that she does everything with...and everything well. We are going to be heartbroken with the horse passes. She has done a lot of western with her, but has recently found the Pony Club enviroment here in Houston to be more her fit. We just got back from a teaching day yesterday and it was honestly the first time in forever I left THANKING the instructor. She was hard on dd, but really corrected some foundational jumping position issues dd would not listen to me on ;)

 

I have a paint that I adore and will be great...someday. Right now her trot has been completely destroyed by a western trainer artificially forcing her into jog (really slow trot). I have nothing against a well trained western horse, but what has been done to the mare makes me furious!!!!!!

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I'm so jealous of you that have your own horses! We are growing so attached to "our" horses that we ride for lessons, as well as the other horses at the farm. Right now we are riding once a week, but when the weather cools off, we hope to go out to the farm once a week just to groom horses and spend some time there.

 

It's amazing how much we've learned in a few months! Our teacher is on an elk-hunting trip right now, so she gave us homework on horse anatomy and conformation. Very interesting!

 

Wendi

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I have 6 right now, although I'm hoping to find a good home for one of them soon (basically dumped on me earlier this year by a boarder-gone-bad).

 

I wish my kids (6yo & 8yo boys) wanted to ride - I got 4 of the horses before they were born, but I always assumed that they'd be out there with me & they are totally apathetic (they'd MUCH rather be playing inline hockey! lol). Horse 5 was a rescue that I tried to adopt out & that went badly (she got injured & they didn't treat it well, then they almost put her down on the farrier's advice without ever having a vet out!) so she's here to stay.

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I have 6 right now, although I'm hoping to find a good home for one of them soon (basically dumped on me earlier this year by a boarder-gone-bad).

 

I wish my kids (6yo & 8yo boys) wanted to ride - I got 4 of the horses before they were born, but I always assumed that they'd be out there with me & they are totally apathetic

 

So typical! My five are apathetic to the horses too. They all grew up riding and couldn't care less. I know some kids that would kill to have a horse in the back paddock.

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We have 13 ponies here on the farm here today, but just sold 2 this past week (different buyers), so will soon be down to 11. We also own one who is out being free leased for training/showing and sale.

 

In two years we'll be selling totally out and changing our life drastically (from living on a farm to traveling in a Class B+ RV). That happens to coordinate when my youngest leaves for college...

 

I got my first two ponies when I was 8 years old, started riding with lessons at 11, was showing by 12, training by 14 (English, Western, games, hunters, and a little cross country), rode inter-collegiate in college, then took a little time off and had kids, etc. We bought our farm 15+ years ago and started breeding English show ponies... at first I broke them when they were ready, but then the years took their toll on my weight and I didn't get up so easily if I fell. So, lately we've just been breeding, raising, and selling. At our peak we owned 29 with 28 here on the farm. Having "just" 11 seems like quite the sell down. We could still end up selling a couple more (or free leasing them for training and sale) before winter - it all depends upon buyers.

 

My boys were never interested in ponies and only saw them as family chores. Had I been in their shoes I'd have been in heaven on earth... but... my life will be changing soon sooner than 2 years IF we sell our farm first. It's not listed since prices are too low for listing it, but things tend to sell locally around here and via word of mouth, some know it could be for sale. It's a nice piece of property (23 acres with pastures, buildings, a pond, woods, non-flooding creek frontage, etc) - though the house and barn do need some upkeep that we can't afford right now. It's been a great place to raise boys - and ponies.

 

But yeah, we have 13 here today. It ought to be 12 as of Friday night and 11 after Oct 5th with possible variances in between. One buckskin stallion, one chestnut roan purebred Welsh broodmare with her 2012 filly, one black breedingstock APHA broodmare (her buckskin filly is one we sold), a chestnut mare here on a layup - should be ready to start back showing soon, but we might give her the whole winter off as she was doing VERY well (but buyers have been eyeing her, so we'll see), a 5 year old black gelding we just got back from training and need to start getting ready for sale, a 4 year old chestnut pinto filly we just got back from training and need to start getting ready for sale, a 4 year old silver w/blanket grade POA (the other who is sold), a 4 year old bay gelding - ready to train, a 4 year old chestnut roan reg Half Welsh gelding ready to train and should do REALLY well (a couple of buyers considering him), a 3 year old buckskin gelding - ready to train, a yearling buckskin colt (will be gelded this fall). Hey, I remembered them all on the first pass through! Whoo Hoo!

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I'm enjoying hearing about everyone's horses, although photos would be even better. :D

 

I'm not positive what kind of horses we are riding, but I think quarter horses. My ds's favorite is a brown and white paint with a handsome black mane. He's very big and tall. My favorite is chestnut brown with a white blaze and one white sock. We love them so much!

 

I am still working on posting the trot; I can't quite get my timing down. But sitting the trot is not bad on "my" horse; she has a pretty smooth trot.

 

Wendi

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