One thing I feel knowledgeable about is how to treat a horse after riding it. Well, I have been horseback riding for about three years now, and I go horseback riding almost once a week. So, whenever I go to the club, N. Riding Club, I always ride the same horse, Sol. He is a very good horse for my riding level, because I don’t need to jump high bars. Compared to other horses at the riding club, he is small. So he fits my height perfectly. But I always ride and clean him afterwards.
First, you take the saddle off the horse, which i hate to do because I have to reach up to take it off, and give the horse some water to calm it down after cantering for about 20 minutes. Then if it is winter time or if it is cold, you take some hot/warm water and start wiping the horse with a wet towel. If I don't get hot water, my hands will freeze, and it hurts so much. However, if it is in summer, or if it is a hot day, you can just splash water on the horse directly. If you splash water on the horse, you have to wipe the horse with a dry cloth or towel, and dry it. (In winter, the horse becomes dry easily after you wipe it.) Splashing water on the horse is one of the main things that i enjoy during the summer, because it's like playing with water with the horse. After you've done that, you have to wash the hooves. Take a brush made out of plastic (because it is hard to get the mud off with a normal brush for horse hair), and rub the hooves while you put water on them to get the mud off easier. You have to do this for all the legs: the inner part and the outer part. Then wipe the legs, not the hooves (because the dry naturally), and if the horse is completely dry, you brush with the horse long brush (this is what it’s called, because the brush itself is long). There are three special types of brushes for horses. One is mainly for massaging the horse, and the other two, including the long brush, are used to brush the hair off the horse. When you are done brushing the while body, you take the horse back to its stable. This is quite tiring but fun. It is similar to like playing with a horse, not actually riding or anything. It is just spending some time with a horse.
This is pretty much what you do to treat a horse after riding one. This is very important to do at the end of the day to every horse that you ride. This is one way to show love to the horse. from this experience, you can learn a lot about that horse, and you can become friends with that horse like normal human beings can. At my horse back riding club, there aren’t many people, but they all can do these steps faster than I can. I think that before I started going to that club, they learned a lot of things like I am learning right now. Of course, horses are like humans, and they all have different characteristics. So, you have to treat them all differently. For example, you have to be careful that one horse doesn't like to have water on its face, or another horse doesn't drink much water, and so on. However, as I face difficulty, I think that I can learn a lot from those challenges. I wish I could be like those experienced people at the club.
*I ride few different horses for my lessons now, but they are all still smaller than average.
*The horseback riding club is in the country side, which near part of a mountain cut open, so there aren’t much horses and staff at that club. So we all are like friends there.