Not so fun ride

I know it's hard to read constant negativity but this is a training log as well as my journal so I have to be honest about what's up with Mara.

Yesterday I was invited again to Hawaiian Silver and Mara was so utterly calm on the way there I got up on her. However despite this being one of the closest trails to home, where we spend so much of our time, it was awful.

I conscientiously asked her to just stand and bend for a few minutes before letting her walk forward, but she went into high alert and was gawking at everything. I kept her bending or serpentining down the trail, and she became very stiff, she was freezing up.

There was a man in a safety-orange suit doing some weeding along the trail in a wooded area and Mara could not handle that at all. Although he wasn't acting suspicious, just moving along weeding, Mara's heart started racing and it was thumping through my entire body. She wasn't trembling per se, but her heart was shaking us both up. I thought, "How ridiculous" and focused on unlocking her. But her neck had become rock hard.

Finally she took a step and did a drunken little walk by the man who was ignoring us. It took what seemed like forever to get past him. But by this point she was certain she was in danger and could not come down from that place.

Some pigeons flew up where they always fly up and it disturbed her for the first time. The bench that is always there was scary. A sparrow flew from one tree branch to another and Mara's entire body jolted in surprise.

I decided to stop and just flex her and disengage her hindend repeatedly, both sides over and over, flex, stepleft, flex, stepright. To no avail. Her neck was barely moveable but she was holding her breath and unable to relax. I did some 2 steps forward, 2 steps back, and she complied but was starting to do a frustrated backing evasion that's new for her. Nothing worked, I had an obedient but overwrought horse. I jumped off and led her the rest of the way to the arena.

After some ground work, with her mental state slightly better than last Tuesday, I put her on the lungeline and did transitions and some cantering. I had a very forward horse, but under control so I let her fly. She wasn't spooking, she was simply looking around, and there was no crow hopping nor head tossing.

The owner came over and asked if she could lunge her. Why not. I insisted she wear gloves and she got Mara moving in a nice jog. Her body language was different than mine when she asked for a reverse, but Mara eventually figured it out.

Then she said, "Look how calm she is - get on and ride her!" I thought, "Oh man, I just did and it was no fun at all." But I complied. T really wanted to help. So I asked her to hold my other stirrup and jumped on. Strangely, T kept Mara on the lungeline and said she'd lunge her while I rode.

I said "I've never really done this before" and T was shocked. "What? This is how every German learns to ride! How did you learn?"

"Horse camp (Stanwood, WA) on Appaloosas."

It was an odd sensation of being on the lunge on my horse. I kept thinking surely my horse will step on the line, but that never happened. It was also odd because it gave a somewhat false sense of security. I know Mara can drop me whether or not she has a 2nd person directing her. But I let myself be fooled into a semblance of safety. T told me to let my reins completely out but the wind kept making the tarps on the silage bales flip up so I compromised and let my reins out almost to the buckle so she could touch the ground with my hands more forward as a precaution.

We trotted lots of circles and she'd really speed up on the scary side, but I just sat the trot deeply and told myself she's not going to bolt. Even though she repeatedly stretched down to the ground, she was doing her nervous head slinging behavior non-stop. That she was head slinging on a loose rein was Mara telling me, "This is all too much - I can't handle it." I explained to T this is her default behavior for situations she feels she cannot handle. Also the bit chomping.

Then T started just walking Mara around the arena giving me a pony ride. She would jog and I'd ask Mara to jog beside her. Then she'd stop and we'd stop. Then we'd back together, all 3 of us. It was neat to see how nicely Mara backed with 2 people asking her simultaneously. Still with the head slinging though.

T said she'd like to try riding Mara but not on such a windy day. I explained to her that we'd had a lot of success doing dressage across the street, honestly 99% of my rides were positive experiences in that arena. Hard to believe given her behavior up on the hill. I have to read my blog from last year to remember those relatively good times.

I led Mara home very slowly and realized when I heard a sound that it was the man in orange, and that Mara had seen him, but didn't care this time. Hrm.

Saturday Mell comes to trailride Mara again, we'll see how that goes.

Just now I went out to clean poop and suddenly my rake hit something solid behind me. The horse ha crept up behind me and was just standing there. I turned slightly and she reached her head over my shoulder and put her nose on my chin, blowing on me. That was the sweetest greeting she's ever given me, a little gift.