A thread for talking about horses, because I was that weird horse girl and sometimes I just want to talk about horses ok. Quick summary of my horse experience since I'm on mobile and hate writing long posts on mobile: from age 9 to 18 I leased horses, riding about 1-2 times a week except for one winter of break time when things went Badly. I leased 4 different horses over those years, all riding Western Gaming style, I'd usually go to 1-2 competitions in a summer but mostly just rode for the fun of it. In sophomore through senior year of college I volunteered at a horse farm not far from campus with a friend and rode their horses. Now I live in a city and don't have a car and I'm very sad about my lack of horse :c Tell me about your horses! Ask me for horse stories! I have lots of them!
okay SO i used to go to horse summer camp pretty much until high school, when i started volunteering at a barn instead, and then i WORKED at a horse summer camp for a while. i took lessons from someone who lived nearby me, too. and it was great. my fav horse to ride was this super fat one named crackerjack. he tried to get treats from anyone near him.
I initially assumed you meant bojack horseman. Horses are awesome. I was once at a summer camp where there were horses, and I liked them but once one of the dudes was sort of an asshole to a horse and I disliked that. But horses are just... I dunno. I like them. Not really a horse story, but hilarious to me. A friend of mine and I got laid off around the same time. We had been there forever and had severance pay. His wife suggested they could go to Europe for a few months so she could shop for horses while he job-searched. I... what.
my mom runs our local pony club (and is looking for a replacement) and i've had to take care of horses for basically my entire life. for years we had to go out into the fields to pick up acorns that fell from the many trees around, because a horse for some reason decided they were the tastiest things ever and would eat any that he found. acorns are poisonous for horses and taste terrible to them too.
Oh man, lifelong weird horse girl incoming. I took riding lessons from about the youngest age they'd legally insure me from, did that all the way through 'til I was about 13 and my sister, my mum and I took my mum's friend's pony on loan because she had a young thorougbred she was training up and didn't have time to ride him. Had him for about 5-6 years, during which time we bought a 2 year old draught horse who we still have to this day- his name is Kai and he is the most beautiful idiot I have ever dealt with. He lived with my mum's cousin's horse for most of the time we had him, however that wonderful beast passed away earlier this year and my sister and I clubbed together with the cousin to buy a second one, Jack. Spoiler: Pics! Kai Jack, who is hard to photograph because he pretty much never stops eating
-camps on this thread- I... have a complicated relationship with horses. When I was about 15, I vaguely assumed that herbivore = not dangerous (I was born in australia and doubly assumed that everything in the UK was extremely harmless and boring compared to what I was used to dealing with) and would often go and feed apples or bits of carrot to these horses in a field above my grandma's house, because when I was young and stupid I didn't know jack about specialised diets and how fragile horse digestion is and I was generally an idiot. Anyway, one day I was sitting on the wall handing out apples, and managed to run out just as - in hindsight, must have been - the lead mare came up. She... did not take well to this. She grabbed me by the front of my shirt - if I had been AMAB I would have been fine, but I had a scar on my right breast for years after - and pulled me off the wall, dislocating both my terrible hypermobile knees on impact with the ground. I was probably lucky that she only wanted to double-check that my bag was indeed empty of treats, and didn't decide to step on or kick me for being a bad human. Much pain, much trauma - not least because I had the sudden crippling realisation that she had yanked me off a fence with no more effort than me picking up my fated bag, horses are so fucking huge and strong - and for at least a decade since, horses were the one animal that I refused to go within more than ten feet of. About three years ago, I finally managed to get back in the saddle. I had an absolutely magical hack through the mountains of Cyprus on holiday, on a former racing thoroughbred who was so chestnut his hairs glimmered crimson in the sunlight, and so patient and gentle with my inexperienced ass I immediately wanted to go back to riding lessons. I occasionally go to a riding stable up the road from me, but money is tight and at £30 per week, it's not something I often can afford. But I love horses as I love all animals, and I would really love to hear some stories :D
Maybe it's just adjusting to it but I love horse smell??? It's so warm and comforting. Like there's something so satisfying about finishing a good groom and ride and being absolutely covered in dirt and dust and stuff. A+ experience
I've never ridden one still nor have I ever spent much time around them. I just love their weird horse stank naturally. I like a lot of weird animal smell really.
Yes. It is a fierce stink that a lot of people who don't live with them constantly hate in my experience.
It is the curse of being a horrible cityslicker like me. Unless you are like me and love farm smell. Then you're just a weirdo.
Complicated relationship w domesticated ungulates represent! ... I’d like to share stories, but I think I don’t have the spoons for complicated right now. Damn and blast.
I love horses. I took lessons for about 12 years at the most laid back stables ever. I'm not the best rider, but I am passable. I have only ever ridden English style dressage and done a tiny amount of jumping. My favourite horses to ride at the stables were the frisians because they were pretty much rock solid. I don't ride any more which i sort of regret, but I also don't really have the time anymore and my old stables no longer exists.
Spoiler: A Realization (Warning, buzzkill downer to follow) Holy shit. I am super triggered right now. Holy shit holy shit. I didn’t know. My brain isn’t even letting me remember any stories without screeching feedback at me. ... yeaaah I am thinking I should maybe confine my horse stories to the Is This Abuse forum. ... that was gonna be a joke but I’m seriously thinking about it now. ... Uh-yup I’m gonna go head and unfollow this thread till I get my head on straight.
weird horse man here! when kid me found out i couldn't keep an elephant as a pet i probably just jumped over to the next best mount mount and then fixated on those. i've ridden some weird horsemanship related subform of westenr riding from ages 12-18, and before that some irresponsible kid's pony riding that was "get him on the horse and let the beast run along the beach until it gets tired" which i still feel guilty about. horses are so neat man. i don't know a lot about breeding and stuff but the stable where i used to ride, and where I wanna start again this year, has a school horse that's a mix of arab and...percheron i think? his name is goldie and his head to big for he goddamn everything, well, not exactly too big it's just super boxy and chunky compared to the rest of this horse. also fjord horses. awesome perfect best size to round ratio I've ever seen in a hoers, just had to say that right here, smaller thicker ones in general are just so good and often have good ears also.
good evening everybody, here is a horse related mildly amusing thing not from me, but from friend: she's currently doing a year where she helps out at a small garden/eco-education project thing, and sometimes she helps with animals. and this week, she was tasked to walk two exmoor ponies from their meadow to the stable, but one always wanted to go fast, the other one was trundling behind, and whenever she urged the slow pony to walk faster, it did listen for about ten minutes, but the other one turned around and walked back, just as fast as it walked forward. she spent the way to the stable being circled by ponies, and it resulted in an epic rope salad like no one's ever seen. friend has experience with stubborn ponies, tho, when we were small she and her sister often visited an array of rickety shacks and trailers that kind of resembled a stable, if mad max had horse stables. (no wood shavings or sand in the arena here, mud reigns supreme! and it was full of mud. everything was mud, especially in fall. the saddles might've been mud too.) she took care of a very rotund miniature shetland which i think was named little john, and the few times i came along to the place, she tried to get little john to jump over stuff or just walk behind her, and we always, without fail, were either run over by him, or he knocked down the obstacles and then some other things, or he just stood there, farting triumphantly. little john also got quarantined after a while for getting in fights with the resident Large Warmblood. he was generally a Very Fighty round mini horse. very noisy, ramming people, Not To Be Trusted...now that i think of it why would someone even entrust a ten year old with the care of a horse that's better suited for a fight club then a pony club? Why was the donkey camping out in the hay shed? The horses kept piling up somehow, and the whole thing was on a rented piece of meadow on the ground of a large old castle-like estate. Rickety Stable was super weird. and probably not entirely of this dimension.
