What we did last night....

[robintutt]

Intrepid readers may remember that Katherine received horsebackriding lessons from my parents this past Christmas.  Now that the snow has finally melted, we were able to start....

First you clean the horse...

Comments

[gloriap]

Awww. Was she more thrilled or scared?

[robintutt]

Oh, thrilled. Definitely thrilled. Not an inch of scared. :)

[tdcsnowwhite]

It looks like fun. Is K really that tall, or was it a small horse? These AN cousins just grow up way too fast! :)

[robintutt]

Looking at the pictures, she does look really tall, doesn't she? It didn't feel that tall yesterday...

[brodyjen]

I am So Jealous.

I hope she has a wonderful time riding!

[robintutt]

I'm a little jealous, too. :) All of the teenagers thought it was the Best. Present. Ever. for a little girl.

[juptonrd]

Seeing as how we now live in the Horse Capital of the World, I'd like for the boys to have riding lessons. I'd like for them to actually learn to care for the horse in addition to riding it. Word on the street is, that makes me the odd parent out and few schools include animal care. Seems most parents don't want to give up those valuable minutes of riding time for something as insignificant as taking care of the animal.

[brodyjen]

You should be able to work something out with the stables. When my mom sent me for riding lessons, she was a newly single mom and it was a **huge** financial sacrafice to allow me to go as it was - if she'd had to pay for me to do things like cleaning tack and such, she wouldn't have done it at all. In my paid lessons, there was enough time built in for us to get the horse from the corral, halter them, walk down to the ring, brush, clean hooves, saddle up and be ready to ride. If for some reason class was cancelled (we didn't ride in the rain, for example), then that same class time would be used for cleaning tack, or laying in a fresh stall or whatever but we weren't charged for the lesson. Because my mom worked on my class days (Saturdays), she usually dropped me off then came back for me on her lunch break, so after my lesson, I did a lot of work around the stables, and it was definitely not a problem. Obviously your boys would be a lot younger, and you'd need to stay and supervise them but I can't imagine any stable that

[robintutt]

Yeah, I did a little will-work-for-riding-lessons when I was in grade school, too.

[robintutt]

I'm thrilled about it--sign of a good teacher/stable, in my opinion. I asked if it would be considered part of the lesson, or if we'd need to come early to do it, and was told that it is definitely part of the lesson until she gets more advanced.

Really, it wasn't much (combing the horse for a few minutes, learning the different pieces of tack and how to put it on). They also required that she have a helmet and gloves (part of the 10-lesson package, actually).

Sarah loved it all, too. While Katherine was getting her lesson, we walked her around the farm to look at the different horses/ponies/goats. When Katherine was done, Sarah pronounced "Ok, my turn horsie!"

[mijven]

What a great present! Wow!