I recently took Galahad for a spin in my neighbour’s fields and for the first time I tried riding him there in a kimblewick.   He can be inclined to take off a bit in the field  – he certainly enjoys going fast – and I wanted to try the kimblewick to see if it would help me maintain a little bit more control.

It definitely seemed to work.  I kept to a walk far longer than I normally would and although he was obviously keen to go found it very easy to keep him walking.  We then trotted for a bit before breaking into a canter.

Again,  it was much easier than usual to keep to a steady canter.  When I finally let Galahad gallop he was more than ready to go and we sped across the field.  Crucially though, he was no trouble at all to pull up again.

The main thing was that at no point did I feel he was going to take off and I would be unable to stop.  I felt perfectly safe and it was definitely a successful experiment.