Nuzzling Muzzles asked for some pointers for ponying horses....
And while I have been ponying my multitude of horses, I keep trying to think of helpful pointers for her...
And I got nuthin much.
Basically, if a horse leads well and will pony in an arena...They will pony outside. The lady that told her, 'They tend to stick together' was correct. That doesn't mean that a horse that gets loose that it won't head for the high country....generally towards home or the trailer if they have a good idea where that is.
I guess the best thing to do til you know what they are going to do is just keep their head close to your leg, your leadrope short and make them mind. That means; no chewing or biting on you, your tack or the other horse. Don't let them push the horse you are riding around either. Make them mind just as you would if you were leading them on foot. As they get used to it and you get comfortable with it, you can pay out more lead rope and just let them walk, trot and even lope beside you. :-)
I think my older horses enjoy being ponied because they know it's a 'light' day and the young ones are most definitely enjoying being ponied around the desert. They are pretty quick to figure out that it is way more interesting going along than it is going round and round in a pen. ;-)
If anybody has anything more helpful than that, please leave it in the comments.
6 comments:
Thanks for the information.
When teaching a horse to pony, sometimes they want to set back , especially if the horse you are ponying from is a more dominant horse and the ponied horse is lower in the pecking order and may not want to get too close. That's when you can get in a tangle with the rope under the tail of the horse you are riding- no fun at all! So make sure that the horse you are riding is ok with a lot of pressure on the pony rope, maybe get him or her to drag a tire or a log first so that they aren't taken by surprise when they have a few hundred pounds pulling on that saddle horn- or worse yet, your arm which can really put you out of balance.
I sometimes Pony Sassy off of Killian, but my problem with her is that he is slow and she is all like, "Come on ya old fart, lets go check stuff out!"
Its funny though because then when it is time to head home he is all, "Come on brat, lets get moving!"
And she is more like, "But I don't wanna go home!"
I thought about mentioning being ready to dally Shirley, but I wasn't sure if that would be very safe for Nuz. I'd hate for her to get a finger(s) stuck in the dally and that is a very real possibility for people who don't know how to dally correctly and safely.
I guess I would suggest that if a horse does set back, just to swing the horse you are riding around and try to ride in a circle around the horse being ponied. That usually gets their feet unstuck and they come along again.
Yeah, I tend to imagine all the things that can go wrong. I don't feel comfortable wrapping the rope around the horn, so I was thinking that if I got pulled off balance it would be better to drop the rope, which is where the "they tend to stick together" advice comes in. But I like the circling idea.
All I can say is there's nothing like ponying to find out where the holes are on the horse you're riding.
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