I consoled myself Saturday night, saying, “I have one more
day to this weekend and I’m gonna use it to have a GOOD ride on Mara.”
I decided to try to use a neighbor’s stone wall to jump up
on her, and I pointed her down the road that goes down to the watershed.
She said, “No, I cannot!” resisting almost convincingly,
right there on pavement where she certainly feels I’m not secure riding on. I
insisted, pointing her face that direction, and she relented.
But then there are two scary houses, and this time they had
torn down their entire fence that we ride along, and their chickens were out
making terrifying chicken clucking sounds, and she couldn’t do it. She veered
into a field and just kept veering. I was disgusted and jumped off and pulled her
back over to that missing fence and we walked together to the edge of the
woods. Once in the trees, I used a hill to jump back on her.
She was quite tense but I pushed her though the scary parts
until I sensed that it was enough, which was only about 5 more minutes since we
entered the woods. I whoa’d her and made her stand on a steep hillside, which
she lost her balance on and had great difficulty pivoting around. Finally she
found her feet again and stood there for me. Then we headed back up the hill
but I decided to go right at the intersection, moving away from home. There
were horses in a field in the woods for the first time, and they saw her and
were moving around, which made her nervous, but she got over it.
I decided to try trotting along that fieldside trail and it
was fun but I thought I felt that she was off. I had that horrible sinking
feeling and steered her toward home, trotting once more, but uncertain.
I took her to Herr S’s arena, took off the easyboots, and
lunged/ran the arena with her. She was perfectly sound, showing off happily
again. I lunged her about 5 minutes just for the joy of watching her and running
with her, until someone else wanted to lunge her horse there. Since I don’t
board my horse there, I always yield to the boarders, and left the arena as
soon as I saw she wanted it.
I was happy – Mara’s fine and healthy and we aren’t
suffering a huge setback as I feared.
4 comments:
I'm so proud of you! If there's one thing I got out of watching Clinton Anderson, it is patience, patience, patience and follow through. He says something to the affect that he who yields first looses. You stuck to your guns, and she is learning. Routine is everything with horses.
Glad you had a better ride! Things will come along!! You sound discouraged. You are doing a great job!
You know, the first time I took my old mare Mickey on a trail ride, it took me 20 min. to get her under a tree, so we could get out of the rain. She had never been under a tree before, much less seen one. She came from a boarding stable, turned into the arena at night or out front on a 30x50 paddock. Mara will come along!! I hope to be encouraging!!
Totally Redeemed The Weekend With Mara! Trifling Chicken Sounds, Haha! She'll Eventually Get Used To All These Wild Animals...Think Of All The Future Tries You'll Have Together.... Love It!
I'm So Happy That You Two Found Each Other!
I Remember Times When I Did Something For The First Few Times..WA Mare Acted As Though She Would Die..Like Being Tied In The Woods, While I Made Trails For Us.She Still Doesn't Like It, But She's Now Used To It And It Took So-Many- Times!
Like That, One Day It's Cake!
Yay!!! What a relief. :D
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