Wyatt Rides!

Finally, finally, the girth and bit decided to show up and Wyatt was about peeing himself with excitement to ride. He pulled Nashville in while I was finishing up riding and had him brushed and all four hooves picked out by the time I returned to the barn (with a little help from Dusty but honestly not much, he is pretty good at grooming.)

I hate buying a girth. I wrote about it here regarding Gem and it still sucks now. I can’t for the life of me pick the right length it seems and then it still varies between brands as some have more stretch than others. Anyway, I had tried Gem’s 24″ dressage girth and it was too short. Dusty was there and I asked him what size he would get. It looked to be about 6″ off so we agreed a 30″ would work.

Um, nope. It didn’t even come close to fitting.

I should have tried this before, but had figured there was no way Gem’s 48″ jump girth would come close to fitting the 12 hand Nashers.

Um, yup. It does.

It snugged up on the very top hole on each side and had a bit more wiggle than I’d like for hard work, but I’ll be damned if the thing didn’t fit well enough for Wyatt to ride at a walk. His saddle is tiny and has the shortest billets I have ever seen so that played a big part in it but still. No way it should have worked.

Once we figured that out, we tried the new bit and new to us bridle. The bit worked great (4 1/2″ D ring snaffle) but the pony size bridle was way too big. The throat latch strap was on the top most hole and I could fit two fists between it and his head. The nose band was on the last hole and was both low and too loose but again, good enough for Wyatt’s purposes for one night. Sigh. Some day I will learn to measure these things.

Eventually we had it together enough for him to get on. Poor little man was pretty scared. Last time he rode, Dusty had him trot bareback without a ground person to grab him and he hit the dirt hard. He got back on but hasn’t been too thrilled to try again. As soon as he got on he tightened up and started to panic.

I grabbed him though and told him I’d hold on and walk beside him until he was comfortable. He agreed but was still shaking.

As soon as Nash walked on, I asked Wyatt how to stop him and Wyatt pulled back on both reins and said whoa. Nash stopped immediately just as I knew he would.

Wyatt grinned and looked at me.

He then kicked him on and they walked off.

He stopped him again and grinned some more.

Now confident that he was in control, he let me let go and take pictures and video. My ground pole was still down and we used that to teach him steering. He was a bit abrupt and harder than he needed to be, he is 5 after all, but all in all he did a great job steering all on his own without my input to keep Nash lined up and going over the pole.

 

 

At one point he turned to face the pole and overshot to the left. He fixed it by turning back right and I heard him say “there we go Nash”. It made my heart melt.

By the time he was done he was grinning and telling me how he was going to train so he could win another blue ribbon at his next show.

It made my night.

Of course I then went online a ordered a 42″ girth, smaller bridle and new pad. Hubby can’t argue cause it is for the kiddo. It’s a sneaky way to get in some good horse shopping.

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