Riding on the Road

Well after my hair raising ride on saturday which also resulted in Muppet getting a slight overreach, I thought he might settle down. I rode him out again on Monday and he wasn’t as bad although we didnt go too far and he has been in the field every day. Yesterday I rode him out with Freya who was riding Blue. He started off fine went down the main road over the motorway bridge and down towards the old brewery with no problems in fact he was fine for about the first 20 minutes and then he seemed to start getting a bit more awake and forward by the time we had gone another 10 mins he was tossing his head and getting very agitated and things just got worse from there. By this point he is jogging sideways and tossing his head which caused him to loose his balance and shoot forward which alarmed Blue who flykicked quite big and shot forward which then unbalanced Freya. This had the effect of making Muppet worse as he got extremely stressed when Blue left him behind but because he now had no concept of what to do I couldn’t get him to go forward. Each time he caught up with Blue she got alarmed and was shooting off and bucking. It is somewhat scary being on a horse I have no control on and knowing I have the main road to contend with before I can get home. By the time we got to the road I had no control at all and was extremely worried about Freya as I new the whole situation was worrying her Just before the motorway bridge Muppet lost it completely, spun round several times, reared twice would not stop and headed sideways straight out on the road, I nearly came off him at that point and thats the closest I’ve come to hitting the ground in a long time, at this point Freya tried to stop the traffic and I wish I knew who the lady in a small blue car was so I could thank her for ignoring Freya as I was know leaping and spinning at the start of the motorway bridge in the middle of the road. Fortunately the other cars did stop mainly I think cause they didn’t want their cars damaged and they couldnt get past me anyway, somehow he seemed to calm down just enough to jog him sideways behind Freya and get off the bridge. I have to say Blue put in some big bucks and on a couple of occasions I saw Freya swinging round her neck, I know Freya must have been pretty worried but she made herself stay calm and did the best she could to get us both home and it just goes to show that her riding has improved so much since she first came. As for Muppet I don’t know whats got into him I have ridden him out many times on the road and not had problems and even hunted him I can only assume that he was so poor and weak when we had him he just didn’t have the energy and as he has had some time off whilst I have been away and is obviously feeling stronger and better and spring is in the air, its beginning to show. Needless to say I rode him in the school today. I think we will leave the road until he calms down I don’t mind too much what he does but I do worry about horses causing accidents on the road. A note to car drivers, Horses have brains of their own and unfortunately don’t always make good choices, please pass us wide and slow and when someone on a horse is frantically waving their arms at you please stop.

Posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 1:00 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.