I don't get to ride my horses nearly as much as I would like to. Naturally enough with the life I lead! So I try and get creative with spending time with them. I have found all sorts of ways of making sure they get exercise, and attention.
One way I get them to walk each day is by separating their food from their water. I feed them here at the house, but can turn off the water, so they have to walk a couple of kilometres over fairly rugged terrain to get to the dam for a drink. It also optimises the grazing. If they didn't have to go find water, they tend not to go find grass either, and just hang around the house waiting for the bucket lady to turn up!
All of our horses are completely relaxed with being led off the motor bike too. So if I have to go and do a job around the place, I will take a couple of horses with me, so they get to go do something.
Another opportunity to take them for a jog is getting the boys off the school bus in the afternoon. This is usually Ruby's time with me. We trot up to the bus, get there a bit early so she can graze, then trot home again. Because we live at the end of a quiet road, I often take her head collar off, and we mosey home, playing mare and foal game with the bike. When we get through the last gate, we race up the driveway! It is lots of fun. She enjoys it. She usually canters up to the piece of rubber that sits outside our shed that she has claimed as her own, and waits for all the apple cores to arrive out of the kids bags!
Yesterday I tried to video this, but Ruby is very camera shy, she feels pressure from me when I am focusing on her with a camera, and her right brain introvert nature comes out! She is such a hard horse to get a nice photo of because she just can't look at me when I am pointing a camera at her! So she isn't sticking with me as well as she normally does at the walk. But it gives you a bit of an idea of what we get up to!
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