Community News

We get a lot of enquiries about faster paced rides. We do offer 2 hour, half day and full day walk trot canter tours for experienced riders. What do we mean by experienced riders? This does not mean that you have ridden horses a couple of times on past holidays in Mexico. This does not mean that your uncle had a farm umpteen years ago and you got to summer there and ride old Nelly around the field once in a while. It means that you know how to post and or sit to the trot without bouncing. If you don’t know what post to the trot means then you are not an advanced rider. Ask for some lessons first. If you bounce at the sitting trot you are not a qualified rider. Ask for some lessons.

Why do we request these as qualifications? First of all it is for safety. If you are bouncing, you have no balance. When you have no balance, if the horse makes a swift deek to avoid a rock or something, your chances of coming out of the saddle are pretty high.

This brings us to the next item of concern – balance. If you have not got the proper balance at the trot, whether sitting or posting, your saddle is more than likely to start shifting to the heavy side (the side you tend to lean on more). If you don’t have balance at the trot, you won’t have balance at the canter either. At the walk we can easily correct a shfiting saddle back into position (if you are paying attention that is and do it before the saddle rolls under the horse’s belly). However, at the trot people seem to pay less attention to this factor, and at the canter almost none at all, and before you know it, rider hits the ground. This is bad news. These trails are hard ground and rocky. Not a good place for a bouncy landing, or a landing of any kind for that matter.

The second reason, and just as important, is the well being of the horse. If you are bouncing, it is extremely hard on the horse’s back. It’s hard enough walking around with all that extra weight on your back, especially if the weight is not centered and balanced, much less having it bounce around your back. And because the health and well being of our horses is first and foremost, bouncy riders don’t get to trot and canter. We didn’t rescue some of these horses from one sad circumstance so they could be tortured in another.

If you are not totally confident about your qualifcations as an advanced rider as described, sign up for a couple of lessons. You can learn to sit and post to the trot in a safe environment before taking it out on the trail. Safer for you and better for the horses.