Bob R, re your horse purchase

[oTTer]

I didn't want to hijack the other post... I am sure you will post more pictures, my parents raise horses, I have a gelding, and the majority of my summer shots are of the babies that year. I wanted to make sure you would continue to post about the horse, at least I am interested!

my horse Otto




You have a very lucky granddaughter.

[bob_r]

Beautiful portraits, Pamela. What type of riding do you do? My granddaughter started on Western, switched to English because she loves to jump, but is riding Western again. Moose was shown in a lot of Western Pleasure events and won a lot of prizes. My granddaughter's going to ride Moose Western Pleasure while they are getting used to each other since he's more familiar with it. My granddaughter hasn't competed in any Western shows (except Novice events), but competed in a lot of English ones. She has a room full of ribbons. Now if she had been competing in Western shows, she might have had a room full of prize money - that would have been a lot more impressive.

I don't have any new pics because I haven't been able to shoot anything lately. I kept getting Canon's "Err99" so finally sent my camera in for repair. I hope I get it back before Spring is over. All our daffodils are in bloom now, but I won't get any pics this year.

Here's a pic of my granddaughter discussing when dinner will be served with Moose. He was ready to go eat, but she wanted him to work a while longer. You would think that a 1200 pound horse would win this battle with a 90 pound girl, but she had a lot more determination than he did so they worked a while longer.

BTW, Edd is a horse owner too. Ed, you need to contribute to this thread.

[oTTer]

Invest in a rope halter. You can get them for ten bucks, and the pressure of that rope behind the poll keeps them from hanging back. Or feed your granddaughter more Otto likes to sit back when he's tied up, he'd broken a few lead snaps but after the rope halter he stopped doing it. He didn't do it because he wanted loose, I think he did it just to see if he could. If I looped the rope instead of tied it fast, it would snake out, and there was nothing for him to sit back on. I ended up teaching him to ground tie, so I wasn't buying new lead ropes every week.
I own a western saddle, and Otto neck reins but he is mainly a leg horse, which is an English thing. I rode bareback for years (he's 14 now) and the 4-H kids ride him in the arena with nothing on, and guide him with their legs. He knows they have no control, so after a couple of minutes, he slaps down a foot and it's time to stop or he will let you know that he knows you have no control. Mom uses him for lessons, and I end up having to school him a bit on being lazy but it doesn't take much to remind him that I am not a ninety pound eight year old (you would think he'd pick up on that when I sat on him, and he goes "Ooof") but he doesn't buck, run off, etc. I showed 4-H back in the day, now I just try to get off work during the county fair show and take pictures.
Last year it started to rain during the English classes, so all the western riding classes were held indoors, and with the bad lighting, most of the pictures didn't turn out so well. I was not happy. What happened to a little cooperation??
Will Canon give you a 'loaner' when yours is being fixed? I think Nikon does or maybe that is only as long as it's under warranty.

[bob_r]

Canon doesn't supply loaners, so I'll probably be without a camera for 3 weeks to a month. I thought about buying a new one, but just haven't been impressed enough with the new models to upgrade. I like a lot of the features in the new cameras, but after reading some of the reviews, I don't feel they're worth upgrading. I'll wait for the next models to see if I'm more impressed.

Shooting in indoor arenas is always a challenge. I wish they'd put more skylights in them. I used to try shooting with a zoom lens, but found that f/2.8 just wasn't fast enough. I normally stick with the primes now. They're not quite as convenient, but I get more keepers. I normally shoot indoors with an 85mm f/1.8 lens although I'll shoot with the 135m f/2 if I need the extra range. If I get real close to the action, I'll even break out the 50mm f/1.4, but that one is normally a little too short. Of course, if I upgraded to a new camera, I could probably bump up the ISO settings enough to use a zoom. I get a lot of noise with my camera when I set the ISO too high.

[Edd]

Sorry to hear about your camera Bob, hope you get it back real soon.

I'll have a dig around on my wifes computer and find some shots to post of our three horses.

I'll try to get that done tonight, now I'm off to the field for mucking out duty then to work.

Thanks

Ed

[Edd]

Sorry guys for the delay in posting some images, but finally here they are, no master pieces either I may add.

This is me riding Tim, having a lesson on jumping.



And this is Tim yesterday trying to streal my drink.



The ones below are of Bob (our Horse (not Bob R ) ).



And finally this is Bob and myself off on a charity fun ride last October.



Hope you like them.

Ed

[oTTer]

Very gutsy, jumping!! I try not to do such things. I have enough trouble staying on when all four feet are on the ground, I don't do anything to jeapordize that. It's hard to get pictures of me and my horse since I'm always the one holding the camera. I wondered where all in these threads we could post 'pet' pictures - or livestock, for that matter.
Here's mom's paint stallion





I can't wait for spring, new babies, and the stallions get brushed for new pictures, and the kids are out riding.

[Edd]

Otter, its not really jumping look at the height of the cross poles they're only about a foot off the ground

Mind you I have jumped Tim up to 3 foot 3 inches which again isn't that high for a horse of his size but its enough for my inexperience. I've not been riding that long about 2 years now. The horses are my wifes passion not mine.

Tim is the calmer of the two when the jumps are wheeled out, Bob has a tends to get way tooooo excited about going over a jump and it becomes a little difficult for me to control him due to my lack of experience.

Both are Irish Sports Horses, Bob is about 16.2HH and Tim is a little taller at 16.3HH and still seems to be growing.

We do have another horse, Clover, she's an ex-polo horse and just like Otto she will neck reign, she prefers to canter rather than trot so riding her in my earlier days was a little fun you could say.

You have some nice horses, I need to get some better shots of ours really.

Ed

[bob_r]

Rather than starting a new horse thread, I thought I'd just add to this one. My granddaughter was kicked in the stomach and hip area by her friend's horse on Wednesday. She had just ridden her horse and was walking it to the barn to give it a bath when her friend's young horse ran up and tried to kick my granddaughter's horse. Unfortunately, she was standing in the way. I was walking near her and picked her up and carried her to my vehicle. We called for an ambulance and they took her to a children's hospital in town.

They ran a CAT scan and Xrays and nothing was broken so they released her Thursday morning. She spend the rest of the day Thursday in bed and Friday she had to go back to the doctor for a checkup. He told her she needed to walk even though it was very painful for her, but not to ride her horse. Friday she went to the barn and fed Moose, but didn't ride him. Today, she said that she had to ride. We just bought her this saddle since her other English saddle was too small for Moose and Wednesday was the first day she had used it. She and Moose had a very light workout (no jumping or cantering) and Moose was very happy to see her. Here's a shot of them that I took today.

[Bonish Photo]

Great shots of your horses everyone!

Bob, sorry to hear about your grand daughter. Hope she recovers well and sounds like she's a tough little one there getting back on the horse so soon.

When we were just in Okeechobee and staying with the cowboys, Cindy asked the ferrier if he was worried about standing behind the horse. Wasnt he worried about getting kicked.

He responce was one that surprised me but made total sense.

He said "I always try to stand as close to the back side of the horse as possible. This was if it decides it wants to kick me, the closer I am, the less forse it has to hit me." He went on to say "It's still going to hurt like hell, it's just not going to have the whallop it will have if I'm at the end of his kick."

Think of a whip. If you're at the end of it where it cracks like a lightening bolt, it'll cut you open, but if you were to step into it the whip wont even hurt.

Might want to pass that info on to all you horse lovers. Keep posting more shots, I love looking at them

[bob_r]

Thanks, Pat. Most broke horses don't kick when people are around, but this was a young horse and there was a mare nearby. Even though he's young (3), he's not little. He's an Appendix (Thoroughbred-Quarter Horse cross) and stands almost as tall as Moose, but not nearly as muscular as Moose. Luckily, he doesn't wear shoes on his rear feet or she could have been hurt a lot worse. She was riding again today, but still keeping it at a slow pace. She has a lesson scheduled for next weekend and I imagine she'll be back to normal by then (or at least she'll make me think she is).

[oTTer]

Good for her, what a gutsy kid. A couple of months ago some people bought a new horse, and took it to mom and dad's indoor arena to 'try her out'... she kicked their little boy, broke his thigh bone and ruptured his spleen. His leg is bowed, I hope they don't have to break it to reset it - yuck. I was kicked in the right hand once, my gelding was 2, the guy had a 3 yr old filly out with the 2 yr olds and she was such a sow at feeding time they'd catch her and put her in, so the boys could eat in peace. When I went to catch my horse she must have thought "Oh goody feed time" and when I didn't catch her, she got mad thinking she'd miss breakfast... and kicked at my horse's head. I was putting his halter on - he dodged, and her foot hit my hand, I ended up with a stress fracture of the wrist. Oh, well.
A good rule of thumb when working around horses, and for girls, it works for groping boys at dances If you keep your forearm on the horse, and lock your elbow at a 90 degree angle, if the horse moves toward you he just pushes you out of the way since you can't break the contact between elbow and shoulder. If you put your hand on them, your elbow can still bend, but keep the elbow on the horse and they push you out of the way. So while dancing with some guy trying to hump your leg, just keep your elbow braced against his shoulder. He won't get any closer than the length of your upper arm. Guess how I know that??
I love the shots of riders' faces. You can tell the joy they get out of their horses... or their frustration. I have a few of Hillary and her gelding, she has some serious scowls going on when he is being a turd.
Here's a happy girl:


Hillary didn't want me showing this to my sister (her 4-H leader) because she's watching to see when she should post:


Here's the boy (at last year's 4-H show) who was kicked... I hope he doesn't get sour on horses after this.


I get a kick out of this one. This is a Very Old pony, and this little girl just lost it when he took off at a lope. During the hat race, retrieve your hat from a pole and wear it past the finish line... her mother was yelling "Put your HAT ON" and the girl was Uhhhhh UUHHHHing - she did put the hat on before the finish line. What a kill.