Life Updates!

So, I am now updating this since I haven't done so in oh... forever!

First off let's discuss my riding lessons. I think I have the shit down. Now lets not get ahead of myself or anything, but thanks to a 17 year old school horse, I have conquered my fear of the canter. She is quite possibly one of the sweetest horses ever. My trainer commented to me after a month of riding her "I think you have finally learned how to take control of the horse and not just sit up there" Coming from Frances, that is a HUGE compliment!

It started with me letting the horse take advantage of me. Something I had a problem with because A) I am afraid of hurting the horse and B) I don't have the guts to tell an animal to do something. So when doing a pattern, asking for gaits, or hell even putting on a bridle, usually ended up in a fight with me and horse. The horse 99% of the time won. Ginger, the mare in question, has for some reason shown me confidence in myself.

Instead of sitting on a horse, I now know that when she misses a crate (we use milk crates for patterns) because she is being bitchy I turn her ass around and we do it again. Used to be I would just go on with the pattern, which only reinforced with the horse who was boss. Circles? Oh I'm a master of circles. Say a horse now doesn't want to stop, well we do circles. Used to be I would sit up there helpless. My trainer has taught me that make something unpleasant for the horse with the reward being what I want. This is not a physical damage thing at all. I have never used a whip on a horse, its more of a I am in control.

The greatest achievement was when I was asked to go get Velvet and ride her. She is a crotchety 19 year old ex-show mare. She HATES people in her mouth. HATES HATES HATES. She needs a rider that can use the reins but isn't "using" the reins. I was slightly apprehensive, but did as I was told. She let me halter her and walked respectfully with me to the wall where I tied her and checked the grooming before saddling.

She watched as I brushed the shavings off of her and when I got the bridle out. I put the saddle pad on her then swung the saddle over. I hooked the bridle onto the saddle horn and walked to the other side to check the cinch. After verifying that it was at the right place for her size, I walked back to her left side to begin the rest of the saddling procedure.

Now every horse I have messed with hates being cinched up. Once I started tightening she started head throwing and turned around to look at me. All it took was a small smack on the neck and gruff "Velvet" and she stopped. From this point on she was mine for the taking. She took the bit without me having to do the old finger in the mouth trick and waiting patiently while I mounted.

She had a very hard trot to sit so I felt better keeping her steady and slight posting when needed. We had a few blips in the radar but they were quickly and quietly corrected so that there was no real fight between the two of us. Once I had finished my lesson and hopped off, the next set of students were coming in for their lessons. Usually Ginger is left behind for the next lesson of the day because the kids don't really use any sort of force or even sweat the horses.

I asked if I should leave Velvet for them, to which I was answered with "Velvet is way beyond their level of horse". That felt strangely gratifying. I was put on a horse that I knew was not a beginners but did not know was not a all purpose lesson horse. Thank you Velvet for letting me know that I am getting better. Thank you Ginger for securing my seat in the saddle. I am forever in both your debts.