As some of you may know I’ve been looking into leasing a
horse to get more saddle time and keep learning about practical horsemanship/care. Well thanks to the help of another endurance rider in NJ, I was put in contact with someone about 20 minutes away from me who was interested in
half-leasing her Standie mare. We got a chance to chat briefly and set up a time to meet.
After my riding lesson in the morning, I drove out to meet Rori and her owner
C. Aurorapedia or “Rori” was
the quintessential Standardbred. We got her groomed, tacked up,
and headed to the indoor for a test ride. C hopped on her first so I got
to see her move under saddle from the ground- lovely movement and forward,
nicely put together, smooth walk/trot with no serious issues. It was raining
pretty heavily outside and it was loud against the aluminum roof in the arena-
she flicked her ears once or twice but trotted on. She spooked a little at the
water rivulet coming down and pooling by one of the doors but quietly faced it
when C showed her it was nothing dangerous. The next time they circled
past the “scary area”, Rori acted like nothing was there. While C was
riding, there was a group lesson going on with 5 other horses and Rori was fine
around them. This mare was winning me over.
Then I got to give her a go. From the start, I was in love- I’ve ridden a
number of horses enough to know what I liked and she blew all competition out
of the water her energy and responsiveness. We spent the first couple of
minutes figuring each other out and learning how to talk at the walk and then
at the trot (I got complimented on my riding position which was nice). The rain
finally started to lessen to a fine mist so C suggested we head out and
try some trails. This is when Rori’s true colors came through. Inside the
arena, she was fine but once she got pointed towards the trail head she
immediately perked up and I felt her energy change. With C’s
encouragement, we trotted up a few small hills and she flew- her legs just
stretched out and I could tell she could have gone on forever if we had time
and the weather cooperated a little more.
At the end of the afternoon, I think both me and C were well convinced
that Rori and I would work great together as a team. She's the right size for
me at 15.1hh and turning 7 in
March with lots of go and plenty of potential. I'm excited to see how things go!
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| Aurorapedia aka "Rori" |
