First Time Horse Riding!

Over summer, I learned how to ride a horse. We went to Garrod Farms, and did the trail ride. It was a trained horse, so I just had to learn the commands (squeeze the sides of the horse to start walking, lightly kick the horse’s side if it’s not responding, and click your tongue to start trotting). We also trotted which was super fun but kind of scary since it was my first experience and my horse kept on tripping (though it didn’t fall). Also, we learned that if you’re riding uphill, to lean forward to take the center of mass forward so it’s easier for the horse to run, and vice versa for traveling downhill.

My horse’s name was Deuce, and his definitely lived up to his name. While he didn’t “deuce”, he definitely ate a lot of shrubs and side bushes. At one point, Deuce ate and actually turned around opposite of the direction we were going in, at which point the instructor had to hop off his horse and make Deuce face the right way. This made it especially challenging for me because Deuce kept bending down to eat, and in the beginning, I kept feeling like I was going to fall forward. Eventually, I learned how to pull on the reigns and also give it a squeeze to move forward. This was especially scary when we were on the higher parts of the trail and he bent to the side of the hill to eat, and I was scared I was going to fall down the hill. And since it was my first time actually horseback riding along with only an instructor on another horse, there was no one who could just stop him from eating quickly, so I had to be flexible and learn quickly.

The trail was really fun too because we could see a lot of places.