Tuesday, March 1, 2011

My First Horse Ride !!!

Somewhere deep down my heart which always looks out for coming out with the best of reasons to free itself from the shackles of boredom and monotonous life and most importantly from its regular dosage of frustrations came out a voice which said "I need to do something different " . And as if God heard that voice of mine I got an email from hydsports meet up folks who posted a regular meet up where horse riding was being taught for beginners  . Horse riding ..... the first thought or rather a scene which flashed my mind was a  beautiful girl with a nice cow boy attire i.e white shirt ,brown hat, long boots etc etc  with a gun in the holster riding on a white colored stallion !!! I know it sounds straight out of a Hollywood movie :) but yeah that's how WILD my imagination can get .

Well I made up my mind and decided to give it a try despite of the disclaimer coming with the horse riding that only "physically fit " people are allowed and fact being I had never worked out in a gym nor did any thing to  keep myself fit and flexible for such sports events . Now having RSVPed for the event I got my best friend to come along with me for the horse riding and she gladly agreed .Event was scheduled for 26th of Jan republic day for INDIA a national holiday .

The very thought of doing something new something different at least for once gave me a feel good feeling . It must be that excitement of doing something new and different for the first time after many years which dint let me sleep the whole night of 25th ( I was glancing the clock almost every hour as I dint want to be late for the meet up ) . Now one bad thing I did was I dint tell my mom that I was going for horse riding cause I knew she might not be comfortable with the idea of me riding a horse and eventually would keep thinking of the same till i returned safe and sound . So to avoid her from taking any kind of tensions I told her I was going out some where and would tell her once I come back .She sent me with the confidence that I was going to do something adventurous or was out for a small trip (of course I told her my friend was coming along only after which she heaved a sigh of relief ) 

So in the biting cold weather at around 6 40 am our short bike ride started as we headed towards Toli chowki where the horse riding club was holding the training session . We reached in 20 mins and the mere sight of so many horses in the stable  made me excited to the fact that I shall be riding one of them soon . Soon the trainer arrived and asked those interested to try out in the first round to que up and I immediately qued up and in fact went and chose the horse I wanted to ride even before the trainer assigned me one ( I dint want to waste any more time sitting and staring at the horses ) .We were first taught on how to get on to the horse with less effort and since every horse had a trainer along with it to guide the rider each one of us got our own trainer to attend to . My trainer taught me how to hold the reins how to sit on the saddle and how to position my feet and all this happened in 10 mins after I got on to the white and brown beauty named Rani . And there I was sitting straight and stiff with a polo hat and the reins in the hand ....the feeling of holding the reins and sitting on the horse and all set to ride the horse and gallop along with it made me so excited that you can only understand when you ride one :) 




The first part of training was to make the horse go around in a circular fashion along with the rest of the horses and that was when we were taught how to hold the reins and how to make it move towards left and right  . The head trainer was constantly supervising all the riders and was instructing how and what needs to be done till we were all comfortable sitting on the horses and using the reins . The second part of the training was kind of an exercise which was needed while riding on a horse and for this the trainer took each one of the rider to spend some time to learn under his sole supervision . I some how felt I took the longest amount of trainers time though he claimed that I was learning pretty good and pretty quick ..and my training was done for the day and I was asked to join the circle of riders again .After some time I decided to learn something more apart from riding the horses i.e to lunge the rope tied to the horses and make them walk in a circular fashion ,removing the saddles ,feeding them ,brushing them etc . Well that was the first session and after the session was done every body were given time to interact with the rest of the horses to know their names and yeah of course get a photo shoot done with all the horses . 

For those who might be interested in horse riding tips you can visit http://www.wikihow.com/Canter-With-Your-Horse .


And for those who might be interested for future events and to check the photos of the event you can visit http://www.meetup.com/hydsportsclub/photos/1237829/21072692/#21072882 .


Honestly the sense of satisfaction of riding a horse feeding it, brushing it, pampering it  ,was so good that I wanted to go for the next session . Its always been with me that I start some thing new and due to some unforseen reasons I fail to continue learning it . Hope it does not happen the same way . My friend who is my inspiration to not to give up on learning new things ..hope helps me learn this new found love of mine :) 





1 comment:

shailaja said...

waww mam...
tats a wonderful writeup..
u have taken me thru one round of horse riding..once in a while dng such adventures wld revive life and keep it excited :)