A Training Moment

When your horse is really naughty, there are only still shots

Here's a theme I've been picking up from instructors lately: Don't take it personally. Keep emotion out of it. Don't let him change the conversation. Just keep doing what you want him to do until he gives up and does it.

It seems like really superfluous advice when the little man started out with a solid twenty minutes of brilliance and connection.

Lucky for me, he also had some anxiety to work through. When I picked up the trot the second time, I had a tense, bracing horse who ran through my right leg and threatened to just lose it if I even thought about getting after him. Interesting. This was the horse that Lins had to ride on Sunday. I haven't really met him before, but it looks like we'll be getting acquainted.

Unelated photo of how sexy my horse is right now

I was actually impressed with my ability to just sit there. I kept asking him to bend, kept riding him into the contact as we did twenty meter circles and serpentines. All easy stuff, all things he knows how to do. He wanted to get in a fight. He wanted to freak out. I don't know if he thought we were going to do something really hard or if he just wanted to be done or what his deal was, but we kept trotting forward.

Eventually, he gave it up. There was no big explosion, not even a scoot. He just relaxed his back and let himself bend and took a couple of deep breaths. I patted him and we cooled out walking through his field on the buckle.

This is what I love about being an ammy in a low key environment. There's no pressure or goals or shows or anything. He and I can set the schedule and if we need to slow down and take our time, that's totally ok. Courage needs to figure out that this life is a-ok and if there's anything I'm the best at, it's going slow and making things easy.