alobear | A Learning Experience

This afternoon, I went to Windsor for a gallop hack, and it was very interesting. Since they always ask who I normally ride when I ring up, and I always say "Kiara, but I'm happy to ride anyone", they always give me Kiara, and today was no exception. I was a little apprehensive, as the last time I rode her was the time she ran off with me. Now, as I've said before, I have no objection to this, but it is a little embarrassing if I can't control my horse, and it's also potentially dangerous for the other riders - plus it freaks out the escort and that's never a good idea as they may not be willing to take me out again.

Anyway, there were four of us on the ride. Judy was the escort, and she is my favourite of all the escorts I've had at Wayside Stables - friendly, helpful, and very good at tailoring the ride to the customers' experience. There was also Bilal, who rides there every week (lucky devil!) and also plays polo, so he was a better rider than me. Lastly, there was Emily, a New Zealander who used to own her own horses, but hadn't ridden since moving to the UK over a year ago. Her friends had arranged the hack as a surprise for her birthday (nice friends!) and she was delighted.

So, it turned out that going on a hack with three other riders as good or better than me made a great deal of difference. No offence to all of you I normally ride with, but worrying about causing a hazard when there are less experienced riders who may be adversely affected evidently contributed to my likelihood of causing the hazard on previous rides - I was far more relaxed today, and Kiara went like a dream. There were a couple of other factors that helped, too. On all the canter stretches, I hung back and made sure there was some distance between me and the other horses. This was a bit of an experiment, but it worked wonders - I was a bit worried that it might encourage Kiara to go faster as she might feel she was being left behind, but it actually seemed to make her relax as she didn't feel she was being held back by the other horses, so she didn't have the urge to overtake them. The other factor was that we did go that bit faster on the canter stretches than on previous rides, which also meant Kiara was less likely to catch up. We had a good long gallop on the home stretch and Judy very skilfully used her horse to block Kiara and prevent her from overtaking, but it wasn't really necessary as everyone was going at a good clip, and Kiara was also listening to me a lot more than usual.

So, all in all, it was a great ride - I learned a lot, which I always do with Kiara, and I will definitely be going back. I asked Judy to recommend other horses for me to try, so I'm going to ask for Jumbo or Garfield next time, just for a little variety.