“A horse is the projection of peoples’ dreams about themselves – strong, powerful, beautiful – and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence.”
- Pam Brown
- Pam Brown
Keeping up the theme from last week, it's time for another horse blog.
Almost seven years ago, the love of my life (sorry guys, you don't have a chance to take her spot) gave birth to a palomino tobiano filly. Little did I know at 4am in the morning when she was born that I would be on the adventure of a lifetime.
To say I cleaned up with that foal a year later in in-hand classes would be an understatement. She was extremely professional in the ring for only being a yearling (heading to the ring was another story). But as I grew up and moved to college, she spent more time in the pasture than doing anything productive, so when I got the chance to move her down to Texas this year, I jumped on it.
Even though this horse is seven, with the lack of work I've put into her over the past few years, she's more at the stage of a four or five year old (if that) but can act mature at times.
When I got her to Texas, she was a dream for the first several weeks. She rode like a dream and I thought we were getting somewhere with her training. But slowly, little signs started popping up, which led to a bigger problem.
By late November, I was truly frustrated and hated riding her so I let her sit and relax for the few weeks before I left for winter break, giving her a month and a half break just to relax. But when I got back, I still had the same problems. My horse was stressed out in the arena and all of our rides end in frustration and accomplished nothing.
Finally, I took a step back and evaluated everything from an outsider view. First, with the stress my horse seemed to be displaying basically all the time, I decided it wouldn't hurt to treat for ulcers and grabbed some aloe vera juice to see if that would help (its apparently a good cure for ulcers).
I gave that a few days to start working then moved back to riding. But instead of pushing my horse and getting exercise in, I took it easy in the arena. We worked on walk/trot transitions and did absolutely no cantering. My goal was to keep her relaxed while also getting some work done.
Finally today, she was responding well and seemed relaxed enough that I decided to give it a try. Our first attempt at a lope was a little rusty but there was little fuss in the few times I cued for it and by the end, we were loping pretty much at the cue (something we've always had a bit of a problem with). During one of these intervals, I realized that something that my mare needed was confidence. And really, it makes sense why.
I had shipped this horse 1,700 miles, taken her from a pasture to a stall with a run, and basically isolated her from other horses (after my roommate sold her horse, there was no one next to her), THEN I had pushed her harder than she's been pushed since she was broke as a 2-year-old. If there was a way to do something wrong, I did it.
And like many lessons horses have taught me, Vegas once again taught me that I needed patience (as soon as I backed off and was patient enough to wait for her to show me she was ready, we were successful) and that I need to remember to build the confidence of my mount. On the ground, I can ask this horse for anything and she'll do it, but under saddle, she's not as sure of herself and I need to reassure her that she is doing fine and will be okay.
So I guess like always, it's time to salute my mare and thank her for teaching me a lesson that is also useful with humans. Who says horses aren't good teachers?
Until next time,
Mel
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