Tuesday, August 12, 2014

26. Biggest riding pet peeve

Well that's a bit of a generic prompt...?

My biggest pet peeve with myself is that I flatten and "puppy paw" my hands. It's something I have been working super hard to fix, but that doesn't mean it's fixed. I tend to fall back into bad habits the minute the shit hits the fan in the saddle and despite the picture being very pretty when I'm correct... I still feel more effective in my old, nasty handed ways. Unlike with a sliding leg, or other things, fixing your hands isn't something you can really easily train for muscle memory. When my leg slid, my trainer tied my stirrups to my girth with twine. Boom. Take the twine off a few weeks later and my leg is trained and stronger from having to keep me in the tack with the tied stirrup. With my hands, I have been driven to try (especially because my trainer is really sick of hollering "HANDS" every two seconds) and have seen some improvement, however it's a constant battle. I have this shining goal of one day being worthy of white gloves... but its a goal.

I have 10,000 Riding Pet Peeves, too:


  1. Sitting on one's horse and chatting while in the arena
  2. Riding side by side in the arena
  3. Acting like your meandering trail horse who is CLEARLY not doing any "work" should get the rail while my horse that is half way through a line of shoulder in needs to move
  4. Bragging about not needing lessons
  5. Not taking lessons
  6. Unsafe riders basically abusing their horses because they don't know any better
  7. Riders who are too scared of their horses to be effective (WHY ARE YOU HERE BUY A CAT ALREADY)
  8. Riders who are too "cowboy" tended and are not kind to their horses
  9. Riders who ride with a temper
  10. People who jump in western saddles
  11. People who jump without any proper instruction
  12. People who feel the need to gallop... everywhere all day every day
  13. People who don't groom their horses before and after their ride (leaving saddle marks is a sin)
  14. People who don't take care of their horses, treat that nasty case of scratches, etc.
  15. People who don't take care of their horses... period. AKA no dewormer, farrier work, vet care... attention... acknowledgement...
  16. People who disrespect other people for what they do with their horse (I'm not against a discipline, I'm against stupid behavior in general)
  17. People who don't know and don't care to know or follow the rules at a barn
  18. Rude, catty riders. 
  19. etc.

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