Tell me your best horse stories!

[Weeg]

Then, last week, I had to canter English stirrupless. Once again, impressed myself with my seat.

Galloping/loping bareback or stirrup-less is so fun! I've been doing that a bunch lately on our trails.
I get the whole tretourous trail rides to! I've had quite a few of those! We ride in Ghost endurance saddles, they're pretty close to English IMO.
Once, a friend of mine couldn't ride her horse and she was worried about her not getting enough exercise in the pasture. I tail tied her to Misty, my mare, and we did a bareback ride down to the river. Hope, the tied horse, did really well! Until she fell and almost took Misty down with her!

 

[Cassandra Lana]

Funny thing that happens at the place I ride = they put out round bales when there is no grass for the horses and mules to eat . Most of them are medium-large animals and they all eat the hay with cranky faces cause they don’t like to share.

now there is a halflinger at our barn named Bentley. (I am training him to be my barrel horse but that’s not relevant) his back is about 6in below the shorter horses and his head barely sticks above the taller ones .

so , there are twenty large animals crammed around the round bale and I let Bentley out after working him . He will trot up to the bale with his head lifted high as it can be and his puffy mane flowing/puffing (he is a sorrel and very pretty/cute ) and squish in and circle the whole bale once (you can only see his head sticking up) and all the big horses just leave. It looks absolutely RIDICULOUS a TINY horse trotting into a herd of big animals and all the big animals just leave like he’s plowing them. I wish I had vedio taped it cause it looks so bizarre

 

[littledog]

Oh wow, I have so many stories about my Appaloosa mare Apache, but they're all from more than 20 years ago. She was the awesomest mare in the world, who taught me a lot!

This is going to be really long, so bear with me...

I'd just bought a well-bred Arab-Trakehner yearling, who I intended to be an Eventing horse, but until he was old enough to start, I needed another horse who wasn't expensive, to mainly be his pasture companion. Ideally, I wanted an older horse who was assertive enough to teach him good manners in the pasture, plus one who was sound and trained enough for me to ride casually, like local trail rides with my neighbor, until my baby gelding was old enough to ride.

I lurked the local auctions, scoured the classifieds, visited and even rode a few that weren't suitable, then after a few months found Apache through the "Pennysaver" which was basically a local print version of Craigslist before the internet existed.

She was a bit older (16 or 17) and smaller than I wanted (14.3 -15h, and I'm 5'10) and had a really bad wire scar on her rear leg, but she was sound at WTC around the owner's arena, had really polite ground manners, and had good movement - really forward and supple (catty movement, which I learned a lot from later, haha)

Apache was also really pretty - a snowflake Appaloosa with similar coloring as a dapple grey, but her beautiful markings wouldn't fade with age. Her owner had bought her from the local auction not long before, and knew nothing about her pedigree or where she came from, but she offered me a huge discount, saying "none of the other people who looked at her rode her like you." I don't know if she was just being complimentary to try to sell her, or maybe she just figured I'd give Apache a good home.

Anyway, Apache passed her vet check with flying colors, I took her home and she was not only the perfect companion for my colt (not aggressive, but just marish enough to not put up with his coltish shenanigans) but was also really fun to ride on the trails with my friend around her land. And, Apache turned out to be so much more than that...more later.

 

[Dawnwolf1234]

I got another story....

So I got a new horse (my current one) and I decided I wanted to try to ride him bareback. I didn’t know how to get on since he is pretty tall to just jump on. So I made him stand next to the fence so I could slide onto him from the fence. Well he was a little too far away so I hop a bit and he did not like that lol. He started bucking and I fell off the back of him. Good thing he did not run away though. I was in a arena and the dirt was super soft so I just laughed because no one even noticed I fell.

 

[littledog]

First Apache story, in which she saves my butt:

Apache (older Appaloosa mare bought to be a companion/tool-around-for-fun horse) was great on the trails, and could pick her way through all kinds of sketchy terrain safely and calmly. This was soon after I bought her, and we hadn't done much besides trails, but it was a nice day and she was so good I decided to ride to a local place that some friends had told me about. The trail was nice - we walked down the road a little bit, then turned to go through a small stream, then uphill through a beautiful woods.

After a while, we got to a large sunny clearing that was flat, the footing looked like small gravel, and it looked like a nice place to gallop. We get up some speed, then suddenly we sink in mud that comes up to the saddle and halfway up my boots! Apache and I are both freaking out, since our momentum is carrying us deeper, and the ground looks the same everywhere, so there's no way to tell where solid ground is!

I just dropped the reins and asked her to get us the *%#! outta there - I figured she could feel with her feet and decide the best way to go, whereas I had no idea. So she made a sharp right turn, and in a series of lurching/swimming motions (all I did was hold on) she got us back to solid ground.

We stood there and caught our breath for a few minutes, then went (slowly and carefully) back home, both of us plastered with mud on our lower halves, but we were OK. Apache had a small cut just above her front hoof, probably from hitting herself while lurching out of the mud - the vet assured me she was up-to-date on her tetanus shot.

As I was hosing the thick muddy gravel off of her, my friend came around and asked what happened. After recounting the whole ordeal, my friend said, "Oh yeah, I should have mentioned, the timber company filled in a big pond up there."

 

[littledog]

Next Apache story, in which she wins me a prize I totally don't deserve:

This happened a year or so later, after we'd been taking lessons with my trainer and Apache had become pretty good at low-level jumping and eventing.

I entered her in a local schooling show just for fun, it was only a mile or so away from my house - if I remember correctly it was a benefit for a local rescue organization. All the English classes that we entered were in the morning, and Western classes were in the afternoon.

A problem cropped up though, my towing truck needed repairs. The garage assured me it would be ready the day before...but of course it wasn't ready until the morning of the show. I rushed down as soon as they opened, paid for and grabbed the truck, rushed home, hooked up the trailer and put Apache in it, but by the time we got to the show venue, parked, and tacked up, all the equitation/jumping/dressage classes we'd entered were over.

The organizers were really sorry that they couldn't give me a refund (which was totally understandable) but they would let me replace the classes I'd missed with other ones. But all that was left was Western, which I had no clue about - but there was one class that didn't have any tack or dress requirements, Western trail. So why not, we'll try that, I guess. Apache is great on the trails, after all.

I had no idea what was involved, until I studied the course - OMG, walk over a tarp? Over a little bridge? Go through a little maze of poles, walk or trot over a log (the only part I was confident about, we could jump after all) but, stop at a mailbox, get the mail out, hold onto it along the trail and deliver it in another mailbox - OK, maybe? But, open a gate, go through it and close it securely again - and all these things were timed!

Oh well, I thought, we'll give it a go. if we look foolish at least it gets Apache used to a show environment, and I don't lose my entry fee. After warming up, we watched a few of the other competitors in hopes of getting a clue. Most looked great, except for a few challenges here and there.

So now it's our turn, the only entries wearing formal English attire. The other competitors were curiously watching us, but everybody was nice - I didn't hear a single snicker. Apache walked out, proudly arching her neck and waving her tail, as if she was expecting stardom. All I had to do was steer her in the direction of each obstacle, and she knew what to do and did it perfectly. Bridge, tarp, no problem. Mailbox? Just hold onto the mail, you fool (she said to me) and I'll stop right where you need to deliver it. Little maze? Bring it. Log jump? Great, she said, I get to show off my new eventing form.

Until we got to the gate - I was overthinking it, trying to plan, "we should stop here, do a turn on the forehand, walk through, do an opposite turn on the forehand, close it." I tried to do it that way, and was struggling...then Apache came to a dead stop, and craned her neck 180 degrees right around to stare me in the eye, as if to say, "just let me do it, I know how and you obviously don't," then she did a perfect turn on the haunches, to put my hand in reach of the gate, we went through and she did another perfect turn for me to close it. She huffed a big sigh, and proceeded to do the rest of the course perfectly.

We ended up taking 4th place! Out of 20 or so competitors - I still think we might have won if I'd just let her do her thing at the gate and not taken so long, trying to make my own clueless ideas work. She obviously knew what to do way better than I did.

We won a nice brush for a prize. Apache is long gone (this happened in the 90's and she was 18 or 19 then). but I still have the brush and remember her awesomeness every time I use it.

 

[Demonwolf37]

Probably my favorite story is when I lost concentration riding.... MID fall!

This was shortly after I brought home my first horse, Silky. I was practicing trotting, and trying to break myself of the habit of holding onto the pommel for balance.

So as I was trotting, I felt myself starting to lose my balance, and instinctively reached for the pommel.

But then I remembered - while starting to actually fall - that I shouldn't be relying on the pommel for balance, and let go.

Silky stopped a pace ahead of me and gave me that look.

 

[addctd2plnts]

I had a horse trip in a small gully that crosses the very back of the pasture. He was older and his vision was getting a little bad, so I'm sure he didn't see it. Why they went there when there's acres of grass elsewhere IDK LOL It was New Year's Eve, OF COURSE, and while thrashing to get up on the frozen ground, he got his back stuck into the gully, which made it impossible for him to get his legs under himself. It was really cold, but he had a blanket on him. We were new farm orners and the vet told us to use tow straps wrapped along the two whole bottom legs, but make sure to quickly take the straps off the tractor bucket once we got him out of the ditch, because he'd be in real trouble if he struggled and was still attached to the tractor. Hubby pulled him out and since I worked for a vet, I made sure the tow straps were released from the bucket. I really thought he was going to die when I saw him on the ground, but by the time the vet got there, he was drinking a warm feed gruel and munching on hay, like nothing had happened LOL Horses do the craziest things!

 

[littledog]

Wow, addctd2pints, that's crazy! Poor horse - the whole situation is like something from some Animal Rescue reality show! So glad he was OK.

 

[Cassandra Lana]

The halflinger I am training to be my barrel horse bucked so hard on Wednesday that it thru me up and over the horn . I was in front of the saddle with my feet still in the stirrups! I couldn’t push myself back onto the saddle cause there was nowhere except his neck to push on so I ended up getting one foot out of a stirrup , getting off ,and then praying he would not move while I untangled and removed my foot from the second stirrup. I have worked sense then and he did better.