Pamper Your Horse Day 15 Being A Better Rider Challenge
We have been riding for a few days now in our being a better rider challenge. And even though I would LOVE to ride every day, sometimes I just don’t have the time. But horses still need to be care for on a daily basis regardless of my work schedule. So today I wanted to give you some ideas of how to pamper your horse.
Pamper Your Horse
When I say pamper your horse, I’m not talking about our idea of being pampered. The first thing I think about is giving both horses a bath, and getting them all dolled up for either making a video, or having my husband take photos for me.
But, today I want you to think about how your horse would like to be pampered. There are certain days that my horses will tolerate bathing. But, I don’t think they really enjoy that. So I am going to pamper them by taking them for a walk in hand, and giving them a massage.
First I started by turning them out for the day. We have a small back pasture that I will let them go out and graze occasionally. We only have 2 acres, so I don’t let them out there all the time. If I did, the little pasture would be reduced to dirt in a matter of weeks. So to keep some grass back there, they only get turned out back there about once a week or so.
Barn Cleaning
While my horses are out enjoying the grass, I get to work on their stalls. I will typically strip the stalls once a week and add 2 bags of shavings to each stall. During the winter, I like to bed their stalls with straw to keep them warm. But in the summer, I use shavings which are a lot easier to deal with.
I also will spray down the walls with a cleaner.
And today I washed out their grain buckets too. This was a little bit of a pain. Because Ethan flings his bucket, so I have to secure it to the hook. This is great to keep the bucket on the wall, but it makes it difficult to take it down to clean.
This isn’t something I routinely do, but I need to make it a part of my barn cleaning routine because their buckets were just gross!
Going for a Walk
Later in the afternoon, I took my horses for a walk. I walked them together around our property, yes, just like you would walk a dog. I think they liked it. They both listened well. And since they were together, there was no separation anxiety for Ethan. Frisby could care less about being away from his buddy. I think he was just happy to be going out.
Walking 2 horses at one time isn’t difficult but it does make you think about what you are doing. It’s good to try new things to keep your brain working, especially when it comes to horses, in my opinion.
Grooming and Massage
After our walk, I thought it would be fun to try out giving my horses a massage. I got a book on horse massage a month or so ago in one of the saddle box subscription boxes, and I have wanted to do this. The horses seemed to enjoy it. And they both stood very patently while the each got a massage.
I also spent some quality time grooming each horse.
This was nice because I had no intention of riding today, and I think they appreciated the grooming, especially since they weren’t going to have to work afterward. I think that was their favorite part.
Moving Forward
That is what I did for the day with my horses. No, I didn’t ride. But sometimes working on the ground with your horse is just as important as riding. And sometimes in order to be a better rider, we need to just work with our horses from the ground. We will be doing a lot of that this week. Or I should say I will be doing that a lot this week, especially with Ethan. I would like to say he didn’t shake my confidence after the fall, but he did. So I will be spending time on the ground with him, to get him, and myself, back on track.
After all, I do want to ride him. And in order to do that I need to feel confident in the saddle. So back to square one with Ethan, and we will see where this leads. Hopefully it will be over some jumps because that is my goal with him.
