Mirravale Riding School - Day 2
Given Mirravale's "ulu" location, I would not have expected the continuous stream of customers that arrive at the riding school. Perhaps that is only because it is the holidays for the Aussie kids right now. I must say that Mirravale's popularity way surpassed my expectations. This riding school caters to mainly trail rides in the Australian bush, since it is located next to a nature reserve. There are 5 rides available throughout the day, at 9am, 10.30am, 1.30pm, 3pm and 4.30 pm. Each ride is usually an hour long, but the last ride of the day, also known as the twilight ride, is an hour and a half long in duration. On some days, depending on demand, Jane would give lessons to kids at 9am as well.
Here at Mirravale, Lydia and I were expected to help the workers with their daily jobs, which include brushing, hoof-picking, saddling, de-saddling, placing and removing the bridles from the horses. At 7am, we were to feed the horses and ponies in their respective paddocks. It was not just a matter of putting hay in a stack in the middle of the paddock, but rather, it involves walking round the entire paddocks and placing each biscuit of hay in a different pile at distances apart, so that all the horses get their own pile of feed. Even horses have a hierarchy of dominance, and if the hay is laid out in a one stack, the less dominant horses would never get a chance to get to the food, and one cannot afford to have the skinny horses becoming even skinnier. And on top of the different piles of hay, we were to scatter bits of dried bread on top of the hay for extra nutrients.
After the morning feeding was done, Lydia and I were to have breakfast by ourselves, having been provided with the materials to make our own breakfast. At 8am, preparation of the 9am rides begin. According to the list of horses required for the first ride of the day, we went into the paddocks to bring in the respective horses and ponies. The difficult part of this routine wasn't to "catch" the horses, because they have already been used to the same routine every single day, but rather, to remember the different names of the horses! There were altogether 42 horses and ponies together, and there were only so many colours they can come in. Initially we could only depend on the other workers for identification of the right horses to bring in, but it can result in stressful situations, especially during times when everyone is just so busy doing their own tasks and they point off in a vague direction to which you can only hope you are getting the right message!
So, anyway, before the customers arrive, we have to bring in the horses, brush their coat, hoof-pick all that gung out of their feet, find the right saddle and bridle to put on the respective horses... there's a lot going on. When all that is done, Lydia and I would stand to one side and be ready to help whenever we can, while the other workers would go around assisting the customers onto their horses and instructing them on the necessary procedures. After everyone has set off on their trail rides, Lydia and I would pick up the horse shit around the place, get the horses in for the next ride, and begin the entire cycle of brushing, hoof-picking and saddling.
When all that is done, there is bread to be broken. Breaking bread is a skill not to be looked down upon! Jane gets a whole load of bread from the bakery in the nearby town every night, and we break the bread in the morning so that they dry up by evening time, and then we would bag the broken bread up in sacks to be fed to the horses in the morning. This is my favourite activity of the day because it's relaxing compared to the rest of the jobs.
Before long, the 9am trail ride customers would have returned and we have to make sure that each horse that is going out again for the next ride has a bucket of water placed in front of it so that there is no danger of any horse encountering dehydration. We have to take the bridles off every horse so that the kids can feed carrots, apples or bread to the horsies. If the horses are not going out again till much later, we would unsaddle them to give their backs a break, brush and hoof-pick them again, then put them out in the paddocks before washing their bridles and "snoods" (<-- net-like bags placed over their muzzle so that they will not be muching away on vegetation during their trail rides).
And so, this cycle would repeat 5 times throughout the day.
Jane told us that we could join in for a trail ride at 3pm, so we did. I rode a black pony named Sophie, while Lydia rode on a pony named Finbar. Off we went, with Terri in the lead, who is constantly checking back upon our progress. I had taken riding lessons last year, so trotting wasn't a problem for me and I thoroughly enjoyed myself whenever we went into a trot, but as for Lydia who last rode a horse when she was 9, she ended up bouncing up and down when the horses/ponies trotted, and she got a sore bum as a result. Actually, the view on the ride wasn't fantastic or anything, but there were kangaroos to be seen along the way, and I found it easy to go into a relaxed daze while ambling forward on a horse/pony. Almost therapeutic, if you're comfortable with horse-riding.
I must say, that initially, I was very afraid of hoof-picking the ponies and the horses. There was this one pony named Eddie who wouldn't stop kicking with his hind leg whenever I am working on his hind leg. My self-positioning wasn't great as well, and I ended up with sore legs trodden on by Eddie. Nothing serious though. And to make matters worse, I started recalling stories where horses turned around to nip people in the butt, and it didn't help that some of these ponies/horses do that... you'll be hoof-picking and suddenly there is a sensation of a muzzle probing around your rear end, and you start wondering if the animal is merely curious and smell-deprived, or that it is preparing itself to nip you should you not be careful.
Just to end on a funny (or rather, gross) note, horses have this tendency to fart when you have lifted either of its hindlegs. I have no idea why it does that, but it's true. Most of the time there is no accompanying sound, but occasionally there is that familiar farting sound that is both long and varying in pitch, which can crack everybody in the stable up. Lydia claims that their farts stink, but I haven't encountered any that would make me gag, so far.
Here at Mirravale, Lydia and I were expected to help the workers with their daily jobs, which include brushing, hoof-picking, saddling, de-saddling, placing and removing the bridles from the horses. At 7am, we were to feed the horses and ponies in their respective paddocks. It was not just a matter of putting hay in a stack in the middle of the paddock, but rather, it involves walking round the entire paddocks and placing each biscuit of hay in a different pile at distances apart, so that all the horses get their own pile of feed. Even horses have a hierarchy of dominance, and if the hay is laid out in a one stack, the less dominant horses would never get a chance to get to the food, and one cannot afford to have the skinny horses becoming even skinnier. And on top of the different piles of hay, we were to scatter bits of dried bread on top of the hay for extra nutrients.
After the morning feeding was done, Lydia and I were to have breakfast by ourselves, having been provided with the materials to make our own breakfast. At 8am, preparation of the 9am rides begin. According to the list of horses required for the first ride of the day, we went into the paddocks to bring in the respective horses and ponies. The difficult part of this routine wasn't to "catch" the horses, because they have already been used to the same routine every single day, but rather, to remember the different names of the horses! There were altogether 42 horses and ponies together, and there were only so many colours they can come in. Initially we could only depend on the other workers for identification of the right horses to bring in, but it can result in stressful situations, especially during times when everyone is just so busy doing their own tasks and they point off in a vague direction to which you can only hope you are getting the right message!
So, anyway, before the customers arrive, we have to bring in the horses, brush their coat, hoof-pick all that gung out of their feet, find the right saddle and bridle to put on the respective horses... there's a lot going on. When all that is done, Lydia and I would stand to one side and be ready to help whenever we can, while the other workers would go around assisting the customers onto their horses and instructing them on the necessary procedures. After everyone has set off on their trail rides, Lydia and I would pick up the horse shit around the place, get the horses in for the next ride, and begin the entire cycle of brushing, hoof-picking and saddling.
When all that is done, there is bread to be broken. Breaking bread is a skill not to be looked down upon! Jane gets a whole load of bread from the bakery in the nearby town every night, and we break the bread in the morning so that they dry up by evening time, and then we would bag the broken bread up in sacks to be fed to the horses in the morning. This is my favourite activity of the day because it's relaxing compared to the rest of the jobs.
Before long, the 9am trail ride customers would have returned and we have to make sure that each horse that is going out again for the next ride has a bucket of water placed in front of it so that there is no danger of any horse encountering dehydration. We have to take the bridles off every horse so that the kids can feed carrots, apples or bread to the horsies. If the horses are not going out again till much later, we would unsaddle them to give their backs a break, brush and hoof-pick them again, then put them out in the paddocks before washing their bridles and "snoods" (<-- net-like bags placed over their muzzle so that they will not be muching away on vegetation during their trail rides).
And so, this cycle would repeat 5 times throughout the day.
Jane told us that we could join in for a trail ride at 3pm, so we did. I rode a black pony named Sophie, while Lydia rode on a pony named Finbar. Off we went, with Terri in the lead, who is constantly checking back upon our progress. I had taken riding lessons last year, so trotting wasn't a problem for me and I thoroughly enjoyed myself whenever we went into a trot, but as for Lydia who last rode a horse when she was 9, she ended up bouncing up and down when the horses/ponies trotted, and she got a sore bum as a result. Actually, the view on the ride wasn't fantastic or anything, but there were kangaroos to be seen along the way, and I found it easy to go into a relaxed daze while ambling forward on a horse/pony. Almost therapeutic, if you're comfortable with horse-riding.
I must say, that initially, I was very afraid of hoof-picking the ponies and the horses. There was this one pony named Eddie who wouldn't stop kicking with his hind leg whenever I am working on his hind leg. My self-positioning wasn't great as well, and I ended up with sore legs trodden on by Eddie. Nothing serious though. And to make matters worse, I started recalling stories where horses turned around to nip people in the butt, and it didn't help that some of these ponies/horses do that... you'll be hoof-picking and suddenly there is a sensation of a muzzle probing around your rear end, and you start wondering if the animal is merely curious and smell-deprived, or that it is preparing itself to nip you should you not be careful.
Just to end on a funny (or rather, gross) note, horses have this tendency to fart when you have lifted either of its hindlegs. I have no idea why it does that, but it's true. Most of the time there is no accompanying sound, but occasionally there is that familiar farting sound that is both long and varying in pitch, which can crack everybody in the stable up. Lydia claims that their farts stink, but I haven't encountered any that would make me gag, so far.
posted by Min @ 1:58 AM
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