How I screwed up, trusting that friends would accomodate

I am ashamed and I'm angry and I've been praying for forgiveness. I really liked these people and had hoped to be friends.



These people were always so accomodating, they let me ride Coin, the 17.2HH Standardbred and we always rode slowly because I'm new to the area and that horse.

Saturday I called to say I can finally ride with them again on my new horse.

My acquaintance Kat would be riding Coin the Standie, and her teenaged friend ? would be riding Dakota the warmblood.

It took me 45 minutes to walk to their place. On the way I had my cell phone, and I thought I should text them, something in my head said, "text them" to tell them that I'm on a green, young horse who needs some help learning about our hills and valleys in this state, and that we'd only been out one time with another horse.

But I regret I did not, and when I arrived, I just let them know I need to go slow.

They accomodated to a point, but as we went, the teenager kept holding her horse back and trotting to catch up. That's something we all did as teenagers I think when given a chance to ride.

This upset Mara a lot, and she started jigging and head tossing in frustration. I asked the girl to stop trotting off suddenly and she looked at me, and did it again. I was able to somewhat deter Mara from jigging by using one rein at a time.

The teenager said, "Your horse just wants to run. Just let her and she'll settle down." Ah yes, Mugwump's first endurance ride story comes to mind, where she cured the jigging by letting Mort gallop to his heart's content. But I doubt it was his first time in a group of more than one, and he probably wasn't in pasture potato condition like Mara is.

We rode into an area I don't know, and kept going. I asked if we could just go slow, and Kat said, "Let's just trade horses. You ride Coin and I'll ride Mara."

I thought, interesting, I wonder what will happen. I took her up on it. Coin is steady so I was good on him, Kat took Mara to the front and let her trot. The teenager was delighted to be trotting. I trotted slower, in the rear, feeling the horrible strain of riding on a Western saddle in my knees.

When they finally slowed down, Mara was "up" and not about to just walk after that excitement, and she started jigging. Kat was having a great time, letting her jig *in the lead position* and pulling back steadily on the reins (what encourages jigging). That my horse was not content to walk in front, but jigged out there, was disappointing to say the least. Finally I said, "Can you see if you can get Mara to just walk normally?  Jigging is a habit and that she is doing it out front is worrisome." Even Baasha didn't have to jig if he was in the lead, where he wanted to be. We'd pushed Mara over the edge.

She was actually able to get Mara to walk normally.

Then about 10 minutes later I said, "Do you think you can see if Mara can follow and not always lead?" Kat said, "You'll have to lead then, because Dakota cannot, he's too scared to be in front." I said, "So you can NEVER ride him in the lead, ever?" No. I made a connection with this to the fact that each time a horse needed to poop, they let the horse stop. When I asked about it, they said, "People stop to poop, so the horses can too."

I knew they saw me as a real drag to their fun ride, telling them what to do twice, and asking them repeatedly can we please just walk.

These girls had to pee 4 times and climbing back on huge horses was always an event requiring both of them. At one point I was on Mara while we were waiting for Kat to pee, and Mara just lost it, she couldn't stand still another second and started jumping around and even half reared. (!!) I was actually glad for all the pee breaks because Mara obviously needs to work on this. But obviously not in such a stressful situation, at this point. On the 4th pee break I said, "So how many beers did you drink before this?" and they said, "Two!" I have nothing against drinking and riding but this probably kept them from empathizing with my situation.

Kat kept saying how great Mara is, how much fun she's having. Mara did look happy, and even more confident than ever, but it was too far, too long, and too fast.

Finally I got back on her for one last hill toward home and without warning, Kat and the teenager took off at a gallop up that last hill. I had no choice but to gallop behind them, and Mara has never carried a rider at speed up a hill before. I could tell she was unsure how exactly to do that.

When we got to the top I was furious. I said, "Actually I wanted to try trotting."

They were laughing and ignored me, but I saw them exchange more glances like, "The control freak tries to control us again!"

Then they went through their gate, and I just stood there on Mara wanting her to practice standing still again. They said, "Until next time" and I said, "Bye" and rode her down the street alone until she spooked and a car was coming so I jumped off and led her home.

It started raining and it was really windy and it felt so good when the wind blew the rain on my face. Mara followed me politely and grabbed some long grass on either side of the sidewalk as cars whizzed by. She really has no problem with traffic, that's good.

But I cried a few tears in frustration, because I realize that I have so few resources here in Germany, yet again, and I truly need people to accomodate me and go slowly with my green horse. I'm not sure I have people who can help me - C's appy mare is a wild whirling thing, and N's paintabian is getting ready for her first LD next week. (An LD of 12 miles so in my mind that's not even an LD, but as I've mentioned, Germany has FOUR levels of LD before 50 miles.)

I can't ever let myself get into that situation again, and I won't. I thank God nothing bad actually happened, I realize it could have gone very badly.

In the past I regretted not riding Baasha in groups often enough. He was a real pain in a group. I don't want to repeat this mistake, but will anyone want to help me?

Below are some photos I took. Please know that I am walking Coin, and Kat is letting Mara jig along, reins tight, not a care in the world.