Jackie: Have a nice ride!
Thank you!
Bye Teddy! - Bye Ted, wake up Ted!
wake up
so this gate is really really not horse friendly you basically have to lift the
latch and pull the gate at the same time and because you're pulling it towards
your horse it's very very difficult to coordinate everything at the same time
i could just get off and do this gate it would make my life a lot easier
but i always think to myself well what happens if one day i meet a gate
somewhere where i'm not able to get back on and ted is quite big and
quite tall and what do i do then i've never learned to open gates with him
he's never learned to stand for me what am i supposed to do in that
situation so i always do spend the time to undo the gate on ted it usually takes
a couple of attempts but he's getting better and better and this one is
particularly challenging but once we've got it
he starts to listen and of course we get through and then close it on the other
side so just a little insight into one of the
things i teach Ted to do amongst other things but i always like my horses to be
able to open and shut gates from wherever we are and whatever the gate is
wherever it is safe to do so
good boy
crossing roads with ted used to be such a nightmare he used to never want to
stand he would rear up in front of the cars but now
we've spent a long time working on it and he is a pleasure to ride now
especially when he's by himself
this is actually one of my favorite woods to ride in the opposite direction
once you get deeper into the wood there's actually a sort of uphill slope
you can canter up it's always a clear path it's always really soft underfoot
for the horse's feet so it's a really nice
way to canter ted especially because he is currently barefoot so it's a really
nice safe place there's no traffic and if you come early enough
there's often not even any walkers or runners either so it's just a really
pleasant place to canter if you can duck under all of
the branches that inevitably get in your way when you are
riding a 16.1hh horse i'm sure i'm not the only one who's had to deal with that
so as we started to ride through here ted just started shaking his head
quite a bit and i know it's not the ears that bother him because he wears them
quite a lot so i just checked over his face made sure
there weren't any flies hanging on the flies were
particularly bad today even though it was overcast and there wasn't a lot of
sun out the temperature's still quite high and
i think it has just been a particularly bad summer for flies to be honest
so we maneuvered our way onto the little track and then it's time for our first
canter of the ride again it's a little woodland track great underfoot and
lovely place to have a canter on a barefoot horse
woah
tell you what cantering in a woodland will certainly make you sit up and
listen it almost reminds me of my pony club gymkhana games you're constantly
looking out for roots for trees planted in odd places weaving
in and out quite fun though now you might remember from last time
that ted is not a massive fan of this gateway but today he walks through it
like it's nothing at all we are getting better
and better quick check to make sure that our path is clear and then it's into a
trot i didn't want to go straight into canter just for manners in an open space
we want to teach the horses that it's not always about canter
so we start out with a little trot keep an eye on things make sure there's no
walkers runners dogs anything else that we
should be aware of whilst we're moving along here once i'm
sure the coast is clear and we are past that little spooky tarpaulin we go
into a little canter and again this isn't a bombing off canter it's a really
easy steady pace that i can bring him back
quickly if i need to we just want to keep an eye on everything you just never
know in places like this dogs jump out from anywhere
people jump out from anywhere and we don't want to end up in an accident or
anything that will spook ted so i actually noticed some dogs up ahead
in the entrance way so i brought him straight back to walk to give them time
to put their dogs on a lead and see me as well
so this spot here is actually one of my favorite places to canter there's a
lovely sort of wide path i can see really well if
there's anyone around and it's just a really easy straight
road so i do have a quick look a quick scan of everywhere
can't see anything so push him into a trot
and then into a little canter not too fast of course the rules are in
these kind of places that you're not allowed to gallop at least where i am
you are allowed to canter but you're not allowed to gallop so we keep that pace
under control again just in case we see a dog or anything a
little bit rogue that we can pull them back and actually
i do see a walker up ahead so i pull him back again we
want to be respectful not everyone likes horses and some people are afraid
of horses and you have to be respectful of that when you're riding even if you
are under control so we get past that man and we go back
into a little canter again really easy and gentle but yeah as i was
saying you want to give people time to put their dogs on leads to see you
and also to get out of the way like i said just because you ride and you love
your horse and you know that your horse is really well behaved it can be quite
intimidating to have a big animal like that come charging at you especially at
a high speed so it's something that i try and be really
aware of i've met quite a few rude people
when i'm riding and i always try and be really conscientious
really polite and kind and put myself in the in the shoes of a walker so that at
least i know i'm doing everything that i can to be
as respectful of their space as possible even if you don't always have that
reciprocated back which of course is just the nature of riding unfortunately
good boy so i had been planning to go straight on here but there's quite a few
people playing frisbee and i didn't want to get in their way so i've taken a
left-hand path instead and we'll go back down where we
were so once i'm confident that everyone is sort
of clear of the path we go into a little trot
and then once we're on the main path in a moment
we will pop into a little canter and you will see that ted gets
quite excited about being homeward bound and i have to do work quite hard to
actually get him to stay at a reasonable speed
so i'll let you watch that now
wait
wait!
Ted [growl]
woah [laughs]
good boy so there we have it the piglet in all his glory and
after that little moment of mischief i decided it was time to remind ted
that grass does not always mean canter and certainly not always gallop so
what we do is just trot this last field nice gentle trot i don't really mind
what kind of a trot we have i don't really mind if he's on the bit i don't
really mind if he's in an outline but i do want a trot and not a
canter it's really important that you vary the speed at which you ride your
horses in these open spaces and on these big
grass patches you've seen me talk about this about the
straw field all the time just going a different speed in different areas of
the straw field all the time so that they don't get used to just
hitting grass and cantering off because that's going to create problems for you
when you go to shows when you go to cross country trials
when you're hacking out in general it just creates issues
of repetition the horse doesn't know they're doing anything wrong they're
just excited to be out so it's really important that you re-establish that
grass does not always mean fast speeds which is exactly what we are doing here
walk
steady
good boy
ooh
do you want a blackberry i'm actually getting out my phone here to google
whether it's safe to give horses blackberries because i'm pretty sure it
is but i couldn't be a hundred percent
certain so i do do a little google check and i find that of course it is safe for
horses to eat blackberries and sometimes they'll
actually eat blackberries by themselves if it's in their fields so there you go
do you want a blackberry would you like one
good boy
see if we can get one off the bush
for you ted
[laughs] doesn't like it wait no thank you no walk on and stand there
this is such a good exercise and standing still
isn't it ted good boy okay good to go
of course that's all messing around and fun and games but it really is a good
exercise for standing still ted is incredibly impatient at times he hates
standing still and doing stuff like that just catching him off guard doing
something brand new making him stand for the extra minute and a half or whatever
it was is really really good for him and i
should note as well that no cars go down that road it is pedestrian traffic and
horses and whatever only so there's no dust or anything on those
blackberries but you should always be mindful of that if you are picking
blackberries to make sure that you're not getting them from a roadside where a
lot of heavy traffic goes by because they'll end up being really dusty and
not tasting great not being great for you just something to be aware of
good boy
walk on
good boy so one last little canter as we head
towards home and i would say that is a pretty successful hack
i'm always blown away by how well-behaved ted is on his own because
in company he really seems to wind himself up but you know what he is
getting better and better and what a pleasure he is to ride from
you know a few months ago when we were having a lot of rearing issues and what
have you he's just completely different now
woah
good boy
Thanks for watching! See you next time. Rhi x