Horses, I didn't understand them and now I do

kaffo
2024-12-29T16:57:27Z

I didn't "get" the horse thing

Like some (most?) people, I looked at horse people and wondered "why". My Mum is a horse person, she'd rave about how much she loved her horse, but the words never really meant much to me. I always empathised with my Dad who, like me, found things like motorbikes and tractors more interesting and fun.
I thought, why would you want to invest time, energy and money into this 500+ kg animal which, as far as I could tell, didn't do much other than stand completely still all day and eat grass?
And then there's the actual riding, horses are animals, they are famous for getting scared of things such as a puddle, a plastic bag and the wind. Why would I not just use a reliable thing like a bike or car and master that? I honestly couldn't think of anything worse than wanting to go on a trek somewhere and your dumbass horse going "nah I don't like that brush" and you having to take a detour. It sounds frustrating!

So I tried horse riding

I started dating someone who was also a horse person, my Mum is a horse person and I felt like I was both missing something and also maybe it would be good for my relationship. So I thought, fuck it, why not let's give it a go. A new hobby is always a good thing.
My initial thoughts were luke warm. It was difficult as hell, which probably was the main thing that kept my interest. I feel confident getting on any machine and learning the controls in an afternoon, but a horse was like learning to drive again, but worse because each time I went to learn the car had a different opinion that day.
I felt like I struggled. I got laughed at and I laughed with the people at the stables as kids the age of 10 or 12 were running circles around me.
I could go one day and feel like I had it, the horse would listen and I knew what I was doing only to go back the day later and struggle to get the thing to go forward.
It took a year, minimum because it's hard to really put a finger on when it clicked, to actually sit on a horse and consistently get basic forward, stop and turn, never mind everything else. And I swear to god there is a lot of everything else.

Horse riding is really complicated

A horse, as mentioned, is a real living breathing animal. What that guy had for breakfast today is going to effect your ride today. You don't get that on a motorbike.
I'm writing this section before I even get as far as owning a horse too, so bare in mind these are all riding school horses, not my own.
So you sit on a horse and you know the mechanical signals to move the animal the way you want. I won't go into detail. As a rider, you have to both read the animal, as you would a person in a social setting, and also set the tone on the horse too. By sitting on that horse and giving clear, no nonsense instructions, the animal also builds trust with you too. Both on a momentary and a long term basis.
This means that, you could sit on a horse and give it the right mechanical cues, but the horse will go "nah" or it half ass it. As a rider, it take so, so much practice to learn how to pick up on these cues and also correct them and, even better, avoid them in the first place! And it's obviously even harder when you are learning at a stable and you aren't sure you are going to get the same horse every lesson.
OK, still with me? Because so far we've sat on a horse.
The horse can spook, the horse can be lazy, the horse can be really energetic, the horse can be stronger on one "rein" (the direction of travel around a riding school) than the other, the horses tackle may be uncomfortable for the horse, the horse may have sore feet, the horse might have a really boucy trot or a slow canter or goes straight into gallop from walk. The variables are impossible to list. As a software engineer, the thought of trying to ride a horse programaticially sounds nigh on impossible. It's all vibes.
And that's part one of this massive post, it's all vibes.
It's the vibes. You spend years learning how to vibe check a half ton dog so you know ahead of time it's probably not to pleased about the upcoming bush which is a slightly different colour and you can do something about it.

Horses are weird animals

So far in this post, I've been learning to ride and I've started to understand, ok, there's a lot going on there. I can trot, I can move the horse but I can't really do much with that beyond go for a nice walk really. There's a lot more to do.
Around this point, thanks to the aforementioned partner, I was gifted a horse. He's a handsome quarter horse named Brego (yes, named after that Brego).
I was told "Brego is lazy, he'd rather stand there than throw you off, perfect for learning" I was dubious.
I met this horse, he didn't say much, or do much. I can read dogs, but this man was giving me nothing.
Needless to say, I started riding him and it was a rocky start. He lived up to expectations and he refused to go out of sight of the house, and I didn't have the skillset to know what to do with him.
I got a horse trainer over and she gave me the tools, which springboarded Brego and I off into the woods for some adventures together.
It's taken another year, a lot of questions, getting thrown off (not Brego as promised) and many, many neck scratches but I'm getting it now.
They don't really communicate like other animals, a lot of it is silent and very subtle. Posture, ears, eyes, jaws and being tense are all little signs of horse language.
Nowadays Brego will see me across the field and push all the other horses out the way to see me, then just stand there. He just likes to hang out with the boys, you know?
So that's part two, the animal bond and it's a great feeling! It is like a big, weird dog. They all are full of this bizzare personality that horse people keep trying to put into buckets, but it doesn't really seem to always work.

Putting it together

Having an animal you love and trust, who also loves and trusts you, through hard work ontop of the honestly rediculous amount of skill and patience required to vibe check a horse and ride it is a huge payoff.
Riding a bike or car feels to me like refining a process. I can learn it reasonably quickly and then it's years of practice to get various experience and learn various niches.
Horse riding it seems like there is always more to learn, I don't know how to format it in this post without it going on for thousands of lines.
Just consider learning to ride, learning to jump and learning dressage on one horse, then having to apply that to another with a different temperament. There's obviously a lot of crossover, and you can learn how to ride a horse with a similar personality but every horse is unique, so you're learning how to adapt and thrive with each different animal.

Everything else

I didn't know where to put this but I wanted to call out the sheer volume of knowledge in the hobby/sport. I was so unaware of this before I started to learn.
I already mentioned sitting on a horse, going forward and the intricacies there. But there is so. Much. More.
The basics, like walking, trotting, canter, gallop, turning. Multiply that by the horse itself, riding a lazy horse is a different skillset to riding a wild beast with no stop peddle. I've seen people try to bucket horses in around 6 to 10 different types. Like I said above, I'm not sure about the buckets but these are by people who have more experience than me so maybe there's something there.
Then you've got more advanced riding sports, jumping, dressage, cross coutry, racing. Obviously not everyone is going to learn and get into all of these but they are their own sports which I haven't even touched yet.
Then on top of that you have non-riding skills. That is the community is very keen you understand and you are comfortable with horse care.
We're talking stable care with mucking out, water and food, brushing before and after, tacking up and down, taking care of the tack, hoove care. To some extent there's other stuff like teeth, vaccinations, quality of life, etc etc.
I'm listing stuff and these all have depth I don't understand, there's stuff I don't know about because I keep getting told in a matter of a fact way "oh did you not know about blah?"

Horses are cool

They are massive dummies but they are cool. I used to think horse riding was a sport for lazy people.
But lord, I feel like I have to apologise! It's so damn hard and uses so much of my brain that I realize it was me on my motorbike that was the lazy one all along!
I love learning and I feel like I learn all the time riding. The fact the fatty I'm sitting on likes me too is a good feeling too.

Feel free to ask any questions and please share your thoughts and experiences with horses!
Are/were you also like me?
Are you a horse person?
Do you think you'd ever try horse riding?

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