Fabulous Fit

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!

Aurorapedia aka "Rori"