Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Horses... Pffpft!


S
ince we lack an indoor, the weather had been either too hot or too wet about a month back and I didn't have much of an opportunity for any real saddle time. So, for the past month, Phantom and I have been working on really basic stuff, neck reining and working off of leg cues at the walk.

Things were going well, so I felt it was time to work some basic trot into the routine. It was going to be a simple thing, or at least that's what I initially thought until my loving mare of 9 years attempted to dump me in the dirt not once but twice! In all the years I've ridden her, she has never attempted to throw or roll me.

The first time, we were going across ground poles. Since this was the first time in about 8 months that we worked with poles, I gave her her head so that she could actually see what she was walking over. Phantom being the "thinker" that she is, used it as an opportunity to break into a trot in the middle of the poles and then drop her head and bank hard right when we got to the last pole in an attempt to roll me into the dirt. Her attempt failed and we continued to work the edge of the ring a few times.

After I felt that she was in hand and we were working on a faster walk, I decided to move Phantom into a trot. Knowing that she has a tendency to attempt to cut into the middle, I kept a little tighter outside rein. What I didn't see or feel coming was her sudden head turn to the left. This caused a snaking action of her body and before I could react, we were loping into the middle of the ring, when I belatedly attempted the correction, she dropped her head and inside shoulder in an attempt to roll me off the side.

Fortunately I maintained my seat through both of these attempts. The only thing she managed to do at that point was raise my ire. My hands were shaking from the adrenaline rush of nearly being pitched twice and all I wanted to do was beat the tar out of her.

However, I love my horse and realized, being a rational creature, that I was partially at fault, and having never struck my horse in anger and never wanting to, I got off and asked my instructor if she might give her a spin to see what kind of bug had crawled up her butt.

Sure enough, my sweet "bay"-bee girl tried the same things with the instructor. After working with her for about 15 minutes, she had determined that the only things that I did wrong were giving her too much head and performing an improper block. She said that since my reining technique was loose, Phantom had gotten used to not carrying herself properly and was protesting to having to collect herself and actually work, so she was having a tantrum.

So, I have one more thing to work on, proper blocking. After my muscles quit hurting, I'll work in the trot without poles and see if she and I can come to some sort of accord that won't result in a donnybrook.


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