A productive walk/bareback ride

I ran into an old acquaintance at Aldi yesterday, a friend of S2 who lives very close to me but keeps a horse with S2, an hour's walk away. Her name does not start with S, can you believe it?! I'm gonna call her Ani.

I was about to just smile and keep shopping, cuz I had only 15 minutes before my husband needed the car to get to work. But she stopped me and said my name and I said hers and she told me she has a new lease horse, the black mare that lives with Chili. I think the mare's name is Mina. I visited Chili's barn with S2 a few weeks ago and met all the horses, noting that Mina had more flies on her than any horse I'd seen in my entire life - her face was completely covered.

I told her we should ride sometime with S2 and Chili, cuz Chili is such a good role model. She said she's unemployed so has lots of time. Me too. She told me Mina is 18 and has arthritis and can't go fast, and I got to thinking.....

We parted ways and I got her number from S2 immediately and texted Ani, "Hey, let's ride, you and me. You go slow, I go slow."

She made a date for 8:30 AM tomorrow morning. Whaaaa!?!??! It takes Mag an hour to eat his bucket, and it will take us a half hour to get to our meet-up place, so tomorrow is gonna be a very early day for me. But I'm not gonna change her preferred time just cuz of laziness. Can you see what a great potential friend I am? : )

Then I got another text from her that Ulrike wants to join us. Um..!??!?! I know Ulrike from the TTEAM clinic that I attended with Mara, at Seli's Haflinger barn very close to my house. Ulrike was also a participant in that clinic with her horse Smoke. I'm typing this for future reference. Ulrike keeps her horses with S1 and S2 and Ani as well. Same, private rotating pastures in that same barn that S1 keeps Bintu.

In the interest of perfect clarity, S1, my actual friend, (who speaks English), keeps her Arabian Bintu in a privately owned shelter/"barn" with a lady who trimmed hooves for me once before I realized she was not someone I wanted to be around. Now my friend has her horse in this person's rented backyard, and they have rented out small pastures all around the neighborhood for the Summertime keeping of their horses. This is a very common scenario in Germany. Even official barn owners will rent fields nearby for their horses in Summer, and the horse owners must walk great distances to find their horses. In this case, the only riding ring available to S1, S2, S3, Ani, and the not-so-nice lady who rents the barn, is a few blocks away, owned by people who are not into horses anymore and getting angry at the dust raised from the hooves in their backyard. So.......where will all these people I know go, if they want to lunge, or do ground work with their horse? Hm.

I have not yet told S1 that I ran into Ani at Aldi. I don't want to hear her opinion of her semi-lease-barn-mate before I can establish it myself.

Whenever people say the world is small, I  answer, "Here, here in Germany, it is."


I wish so much to get to know people near me, who are reasonable. I am out of town this weekend for a very special end-of-career concert, my husband's birthday gift from me, in Frankfurt, so when I return, I will get in touch with Momo's Seli again, ASAP. At least Seli and Momo are close to me!

But the message from Ani troubled me, I don't want to add another complication to our ride tomorrow. (And who knows how many loose dogs will be along? I cannot forbid that, as I'd like to.)

Ulrike wanted to come along tomorrow (not gonna hide her name.....yet). She seems nice (my mare Mara was parked next to hers all weekend at the clinic) but I have no idea how she rides, I know almost nothing about her, and a group outing was not what I had in mind for my first time back on trail. So I very politely responded, "I haven't ridden in 6 weeks and prefer to start out with only ONE strange new horse. And, I've never had the chance of really talking to you, and I look forward to getting to know you." Whew, that worked, she wrote back, "It's fine." (Please recall that I've had some very bad experiences around here, riding with people I don't know.)

Today was our last chance to get out and see how Mag feels because I have not ridden him since the first week of May. I am still loathe to put a saddle on him, if I press on one lump he flinches. So I used the super fantastic bareback pad of the future, oh how I love this thing!

It's ergonomic so it hold the shape of a saddle, and double padded, and has that V-girth system that doesn't put pressure on any one spot on a horse's back. And since I was riding in shorts, I appreciated those little wool girth patches, that I could press my calves into without touching the horse. A more perfect bareback pad cannot exist. (If so, let me know.)

But then again, would I be OK bareback after not riding so long? Have I ever ridden Mag without a saddle? Oh dear.

I'd also never ridden with the new Easyboots and didn't know how he'd feel about that, but the ground is perfectly dry so it was a great time to start.

I practiced mounting in our driveway and he stood there asking for his cookie. I had a whole groin pouch full of cookies.

Mag stood like a statue in the driveway a very long time, despite my abysmal flopping about onto his back. I'm so pleased with his mounting skills. I had the feeling he'd stand there all day.

Then I hopped off and started our walk.

I practiced the energy thing, walking slowly and low energy, and then raising my tension in my body and praising him when he begins to trot with that energy cue alone. It was great, it worked almost every time. The hardest thing is for me to change my leading style.

See, whenever I go for a walk with my horse I have a really fast marching walk. I don't know when I started doing this but no one can keep up with me on foot. It's great if I'm on the ground and someone else is riding, they never have to wait for me. Walking fast is a way to keep Mag's head out of the bushes and grass, well, it helps, so I just do it all the time.

No more. I need to walk like a normal person who is not in a hurry, and trust that he won't eat every single bit of green we pass. Wow, this is hard. Going that slow is something I have to continually remind myself to do, I tend to creep back up to marching speed. And he doesn't see why he can't eat if we're going so slow the food just falls into his mouth as we pass. Really, the hay fields are high enough now that all he has to do is open his mouth to eat the seed heads.

So we had some discussions, and I did as Katja said and praised him for turning his face away from the greenery and either looking away or looking at me. He's starting to get it. We went through "Temptation Lane" as I now call it (I'm watching Castle at the moment) and there were beech bushes pressing in on both sides of us. And he resisted. And I would just creep along slowly, and then stop, and say, "Don't" and he'd think about it. He'd purse his lips in anticipation of a bite, and I'd say "Ach!" and he'd sigh, "Man, what a meanie, my life used to be so good!" Then I'd praise him and walk a few steps and then stop again, beech leaves blowing toward his face, and he'd resist.  I had to use verbal praise only in there because you cannot give a horse a cookie for reaching for grass and then changing their mind! Then you'll just teach them to reach for grass.

But the energy exercise was fun, and the resisting temptation is really getting somewhere. Man it's hard for me to walk slow! "Shoulders down, shoulders DOWN" I kept telling myself.

We went to my favorite trail but had to go a bit further cuz of no mounting block. That is the worst thing about bareback pads, I think. Finally I got on and Mag stood like a statue, not even trying to eat the shrubs all around us. Good boy, have some cookies. (Funnily, I got on so absent of technique,  I almost threw myself off the other side of him. And yes I have done that before in real life, launched myself so heartily that I ended up lying on pavement on the other side of Baasha.)

I tried to organize my sticky reins (I hate pimple grip so much) and my extremely long NH rope, wanting it in my hand in case of an unplanned dismount. I said, "Let's go" and he took a step and slammed to a stop. "You don't mean it."

I said, "Let's go Mag" and again after a couple steps, he stopped and looked at me. I said, "What!?" Then I realized I was so tense, he was saying, "You don't seem to really want to ride, so perhaps you care to get off?"

"No, I'm fine Mag, just go" and I exhaled. He tried to believe me but I was 1. riding bareback and 2. riding down a big long hill that had branches in my face so I had to keep ducking and squirming. I was not in the best place. I finally exhaled big and he slammed to a stop, "Exhale means stop right?"

"Let's go Mag."

This was nothing like the horrible fights I had with Mara. Mara was obstinate and would stand there balking at "nothing" for up to an hour (I timed her), even on this, my favorite trail. I'm not really sure Mara was as terrified of things as she seemed, I'm tempted to think she was just looking for excuses to get her rider to give up. Because I own a donkey, I see this same thing with Bellis and there is no fear there, only the plan to control the human.

In contrast, Mag was perfectly willing to carry me down the trail, if I could just get ahold of myself. And so I did.

I love the feel of riding in a bareback pad so much! However every mini-crisis in my body was magnified because of it, I'm sure. But I was unwilling to grip him with my legs,  that would be rude and confusing to him. So I let my legs swing freely and thought about my past, riding Baasha bareback so often cuz I didn't know how to ride, and it felt safer to just be able to grip to stay on.

Mag wasn't convinced so I started singing my go-to riding song, Enjoy the Silence. Loud enough to be desperate that no one was in the woods with us. To my relief we were alone the entire time (contrast to Wuppertal!).

We flushed a hawk and he did not spook. In fact, the only thing he did was wander back and forth on the trail, probably protecting his bare hind hooves. I realized I had to let him do whatever he wanted, and kept dunking under branches and saying, "Geez Mag!" and "Sorry Mag" each time I clung to his neck and threw him off balance. He is still a foal, balance wise, under saddle. I had my full hands also full of his puny mane, halfway up his neck on the incline, and I said, "Hey, look, we're doing Cougar Rock. Sorry about your mane."

As we trudged up my favorite switchback I was able to enjoy myself a little, because he was not hesitating at anything. He was not looking for things to spook at, he seemed happy to be out exploring. Of course he's been on this trail a number of times by now.

But he was perfect. At the top, as promised, I got off and gave him a handful of cookies.

Then we did our energy game and our not eating game again and almost home, a group of elderly women on the street said hello to us.

But before I could greet them, two school aged boys rode by us all on long, modern skateboards. I was astonished, because they had some sort of player with them, loudly playing modern music. Mag thought, "Hm!" I thought, "Me: Encinitas, California, 1987, with my Hosoi skateboard, Depeche Mode's  'Some Great Reward' playing."

I will never forget Encinitas. And my Hosoi will never change hands.

Back to the present...

 Old Frau Harkemann, sitting on her walker, was talking to two other white haired ladies in their gardens, and she waved and I grinned at her, "HI!" She said, "There's 'lytha' and her white horse!" I said, "I would not call this white!" To my shame, my horse is many colors right now, but white is hard to find. He's green, mud brown, and darker mud brown. He thoroughly enjoys thrashing his body about in the wet, thin grazing strips every day.

Then a mountain biker stopped in front of us and he took off his sunglasses and it was Wolfgang, another old acquaintance from church. I said, "Is that an e-bike?" and he spent the next 15 minutes telling me all about it. Every tiny detail. He's so happy, I was delighted for him. He said, "I rode this to the Rhein and back and only had a little bit of sweat on my back!" Wow. I cannot imagine. I really want an e-bike, cuz it's so bloody hilly here. I couldn't remember if I used the formal or the informal speech with him, so I used the formal and kept checking myself to be sure I did it right.

Mag stood there the entire time, trying to "get to know" the bike. Mag LOVES chewing on things and he would have loved to have tasted every bit of that bike, but I wouldn't let him. I let him touch his nose to it briefly and that was it. Poor Mag chewed his lead rope and kept touching me saying, "Let's go" but had to wait. This is one thing I never really did with Baasha, stop and talk with neighbors virtually every single time we left the barn. Patience, patience! Mag will have it.

Almost home this lady was cleaning her windows (German windows are the cleanest in the world) and asked, "Where was your horse this Winter!?" I said, "How nice of you to notice he was gone!" and explained it to her.

I am totally happy right now because Mag proved again that he exhibits unparalleled steadiness  when his rider is feeling less than confident.

Tomorrow I put the saddle on his back for the first time in 6 weeks.  And I have perfect confidence that he will be amazing in the company of a new female friend, and I'll get to know Ani without concern about what my young horse might do. I have a good feeling about Ani, because she goes to the free church, and I've seen her take a riding lesson and she seems to be a very careful rider. This is gonna be fun tomorrow. Just....early!

I have no photo related to anything here, what a shame.

Later I did find an unrelated one of me and Aarene, Story and Baasha, 19 years ago. Do you see how we and our horses have the same posture and expressions?