The Grand Essentials Of Happiness

Horseback Riding For The First Time

I never went for horseback riding before. But whenever I see horse races on TV, I sometimes imagine how it would feel like if I can ride a horse.

One day my friend and I decided to go for a horseback riding. We called Wildwood Manor Ranch, located north of Georgetown on the Fallbrook Trail, Ontario, Canada and book an appointment for a Trail Riding. We were very excited and at the same time scared. What if something goes wrong? We got there an hour earlier than the scheduled time.

Our Trail Riding started at 2pm and there were 30 of us. There were more than hundreds of horses available for us to pick. Unfortunately,  only 4 guides available for 30 people. Few of us are first timers. We are going to ride on it first time without having someone to hold the horse. Hmm… how frightening it is. May be you are an expert on horseback riding, well I’m not.

One of the guides brought a dark black stall for us. It was very tall and I didn’t really want to get on it. So my friend; dare devil decided to take a ride on that horse called lucky. They brought another brown horse; same height as the lucky. But it’s a mare and looked very calm, so I decided to take her. Her name is Star.

Although it was kind of frightening at the beginning, I was very comfortable after a while. They told us to walk for few minutes; then we started to go jogging. It was very fun and I really wanted my Star to go faster.

Trails were filled with maples, oaks, ponds and other tall grown deciduous trees. It was very beautiful landscape. I was really ready for a horse race after jogging on the Star for an hour. I didn’t know that I am capable of riding a horse. Now I’m more confident and I really want to find out other things that I am competent of.

This horseback riding place is not far from our place. It’s only an hour drive by car. But we never thought of going to this place until now. There are many places that we can enjoy, but sometime we don’t think about them.

We decided to come to Wildwood Manor Ranch every summer. I recommended few of my friends to go take trip as well; especially for first-timers.

Here are few horseback riding tips that I found more useful for first-timers:

1. Always wear helmet for protection.
2. Wear comfortable shoes and clothing
3. Always keep your heels down to secure your position.
4. Keep your head and shoulder up and sit straight up and down or lean slightly back. Down hill-lean backwards, up hill- lean forward
5. The left hand cues for a left turn and use right rein on your right hand to cue for right turn.

View Larger Map