The Learning Process Continues

Heads up. There’s a lot to be said this post, and while I plan to do my best to condense, it may end up taking a lot of space to get what I want to say out. There’s been lots of exciting things happening with the horses though, and I’m realizing more and more how frustrating, yet how rewarding, horse training can be!

Let’s begin with the weekend. Things went pretty horrendously the first show, because unfortunately Maggie has become an anxiously wound spring during shows and become belligerent and extremely tense. She took off on me a few times and was flat out ignoring and sassing me, which is not ok. We completely went to war over a few things and I walked away from the first show the most frustrated I’ve been while working with her. After a talk, Kelly and I decided we just needed to drop the choreography of the show and focus only on making Maggie relax and realize there is nothing to be worried about.

Needless to say, the next 3 shows over the weekend went much better. She did quite well at the quintian and our dry passes in the lyst, and I simply spent the remainder of the show getting her to relax and settle down. We practiced lots of backing up, rollbacks, flexing her neck, circles; anything to keep her feet moving and her mind distracted. By the final show on Sunday, I was able to calmly trot her back and forth while the men made their lance passes, and she didn’t panic so badly when they started the ground fight.

During the weekend, I had a few people come up to me after the show and comment on what a good job I was doing with her. They realized the struggles I was having with her, but one man came up and said, “You’re a really good rider and work well with that horse. I can tell you’re having problems, but you’re handling them extremely well”. It really makes my day when I’m able to have people come up and recognize that I have a new horse and appreciate the work I’m doing to get her settled in.

I know we still have quite a ways to go, now that we’ve had to step back to square one and go back to making shows less scary, but that’s the process of training a new horse. I feel like there’s so much fine tuning with Maggie, she’s going to keep me busy for a while! However, I can see our progress, and while I am completely infuriated with her at times, I still love her and appreciate all she’s doing. I know that she isn’t doing anything to purposely make me upset, so I have to step back and reanalyze the situation some times.

Speaking of reanalyzing things… Kelly’s trainer, Art, arrived from California. Art is a wonderful trainer who works reining and cutting horses in California, and has know Barb and Kelly for years. He’s a fantastic teacher, and really does a good job at helping things make sense. I worked with him today, and he really helped me and Maggie find more collection and balance today. One of the terms he used which really stuck was, “You want to fluff her up”, in the sense that I wanted her to lift herself up and ride more framed and more collected. I worked on teaching Maggie not to hang on me for support, but to pick herself up and carry herself. We had a very productive first day, and since Art is here till Friday, I still have lots of time to have him refine Miss Maggie and I.

Despite it being over 80 and humid today, after riding Maggie, Dave pushed me to pull out a second horse and ride with my armor on. I knew that I had to do it, and really do need to be wearing it every day, but it really takes a lot of motivation to get on another horse while wearing over 100lbs of steel and ride around some more… But I did it. I rode Christine, who is an amazing Clydesdale. She’s Dave’s go-to powerhouse and is really quite a beast in the lyst. However, she is also sassy as hell and pushy beyond belief. I’ll be honest here, I saw other people struggle with her and I thought I would be able to handle her. I was wrong.

Christine has figured out how to set people up to get her way, and will push and pull you around to get it. She can be extremely belligerent and bossy, and it can be very hard to get her to cooperate. She practically dragged me around the field while Kelly shouted instruction to us until we started figuring each other out. I almost lost my composure and had to work very hard to leave my emotions behind and continue moving on. It was hot, I was sweating, my horse wouldn’t listen, my knee hurt; it was quite the lot to deal with. However, Kelly patiently worked with us, and by the end of my time with Christine, I was able to ride her together, have her stop, back, pivot, and continue forward while collected.

I know it doesn’t seem like a lot, but you would not believe the work it took me to get to that point. I really had to focus on what all parts of my body were telling her, and I also had to throw away the old habits I’m still hanging onto. A lot of the things Christine does are things that Maggie does, but Maggie does them on a much smaller scale. So now I really know that I have to fix those before they get as bad as Christine’s problems. But let me tell you, getting her to finally listen to me and relax was pure joy, and it was the most satisfied I’ve been after a ride in a while.

What topped off the day was the overwhelming amount of support I got from my team. They helped me untack and put up Christine, and showed support of me getting up in armor after I’d already ridden Maggie. It really meant a lot, and I’m so thankful I have such a wonderful crew that wants to see me grow and succeed. Dave especially has been a huge support, and without him, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today. I know I can get tired of his constant coaching and advice, and him always pushing me to put my armor on and go ride another horse, but I am very grateful for it. I’m just excited for what the future holds!

And at that I sign off for the night, tomorrow is another busy day with horses to ride and armor to wear, so I bid you adieu and good night. Much love to you all!

P.S. I am so sorry for the lack of pictures, I promise tomorrow I will  bribe someone to takes pictures of us riding, but it’s been near impossible to find pictures from the weekend! I’m still trying though!