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I don't agree with a lot of this. I also don't agree with all the different names they gave to respective parts of the saddle. Maybe my part of the world was ignorant and didn't know what all it took to toss a saddle and bridle on a horse? Maybe our horses were too tame and didn't need the tactical learning skills necessary to toss a leg over a horse? We always mounted a strange horse from the left side except our own horses. Ours we climbed on which ever side we were on. The horses and me were just too dumb to realize we needed a college course in how to saddle and ride horses.
Saddle Up! How to Bridle and Saddle a Horse
http://snip.ly/gbnjn
Have fun with life, it's too short to take it seriously
always,
Barb
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Surviving the use of horses ...
I was always very nervous having my children around them and was very careful. Years later I found out that they snuck off with the horses before we got home from work and were just fine. Ours were full sized horses, not ponies, because I felt like ponies were cranky. Our horsing around was purely recreational, but I was mostly working too hard on fences and hay to recreate much with the family. Now I can look back and see that I should have.
I think our horses might have been smarter than me, though I dumped our appy/quarter in the middle of a gravel road once when he suddenly bolted for the barn nearly throwing me. Another time he got his foot tangled in barbed wire and after I got him out and healed up we were best buddies. I think a dog might be smarter though.
Horse smarts
Horses are not nearly as clever as dogs or cats (or squirrels!) at problem solving but of all animals, probably only dogs can read human emotions as well as horses can. They can discern your intent, too, sometimes before you realize it yourself, as in traveling across open landscape. The horse cannot really see you on his back but a good horse knows where you want to go before you consciously signal to him. It's uncanny at times.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Why don't you agree with the
Why don't you agree with the names of the different parts of a western type saddle? The parts need names. If I were to show you how to secure the saddle on the horse's back, how else would I say to put the stirrup over the horn?
The story is funny when the halter is called the 'harness'
Karen
I guess because I only rode
Maybe it was because I'm not a saddle maker and only put my you know what where. Yes there was a saddle horn although I never put the stirrup on it. I tossed the stirrup over the saddle which he called a seat before pushing the saddle up on the horse. I didn't toss it on, I wasn't big enough nor strong enough. Never heard of a Jockey, rear Jockey, skirt, strings, fender, latigo keeper, It was a saddle and yes our horses swelled up when I tried to cinch it. But I could out wait them. I noticed he didn't mention a girth strap. It is a second strap like a cinch but toward the rear of the saddle. Didn't see it in the picture. Maybe not all saddles have them? It was left really lose and fastened with a roller buckle. The lariat was tossed over the saddle horn if we planned on roping. I don't claim to be a real cowgirl nor a saddle or bridle expert. I think I know enough to figure out whether a particular saddle with fit the intended horse. Saddles are like shoes, there isn't a one make fits all horses. If it isn't comfortable to the horse, rider and horse both pay a price.
Think I need to be put out to pasture like a lot of them horses.
always,
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Gassy Jacks
The blog left out how to knee the horse in the chest to stop him from holding his breath and making the saddle cinch loose.
*grin* horses have tricks too.
Dayna.
Logging horses as plow horses
I was little, around 5 when the men brought a logging horse home from the auction to plow the fields, our garden being about 15 acres. Much of Willamette Valley soil is soft loam with a touch of volcanic ash in it. The huge horse they brought home was soon hitched to a plow, the only fallacy to that idea was that when they hit a root or rock, rather than stop, the horse would lean into it and grunt and promptly pull the plow in two. Often, if he did not break the plow or the single tree, he'd part the harness at a weak point. Eventually they gave up on the horse.
My Amish stepfather had a hemorrhage when my oldest brother drove onto the farm with a tractor, he'd bought at the auction, a three wheel Minneapolis Moline. My stepfather, being the sadistic, religious nutter that he was, rather than allowing my brother to put antifreeze in the radiator, forced him to drain it at night and eventually the block broke from not being entirely drained.
Eventually, he sort of adapted to the presence of the devils tool and they used a very frightening "buzz saw" to cut fire wood, plow and yard logs out of the woods. It was good having my older brothers home and later I realized that they distracted him from concentrating on making a man out of me. It drove him mad that I was in the lower 5th percentile for boys as to height and weight and eventually I think I was given testosterone to jump start my growth but that only got me up to 5'7" and 135lbs
Those farm days are oddly some of my best and worst memories.
Survivng work on the farm. How-to's.
1 Cleaning the yards. Lots of shovelling, brushing and washing down.
2 Cleaning cow sheds and milking parlours. Lots of shovelling, brushing and hosing down.
3 Cleaning pig styes Lots of shovelling, brushing and hosing down.
4 Preparing the vegetable plots. Lots of back-breaking spadework and no planting for me.
5 Cleaning chicken pens. Lots of shovelling, brushing and wash-scrubbing down.
6 Sorting beautiful little day old chicks. Lots of killing hundreds of male chicks by crushing their tiny
necks on the sharp edge of the 'sexing-table' and tossing
the writhing little corpses into the large bin. The male
chicks were just collateral damage cos' they didn't lay eggs.
As I remember, working on the farm attached to the borstal boy's prison was never 'fun' or 'pleasurable'.
I suppose they gave me all the shitty jobs (literally) to 'man-me-up'.
One thing though, I got to work alone a lot and was left in relative peace. (Because I stunk a lot I suppose.)