New endeavors

A long, long, long time ago I told my therapist about a little shop I’d found on the Upper East Side that had Christmas decorations from Finland and Sweden. In the course of discussing why this was such an exciting discovery, he learned that I’d been a high school exchange student and spent 6 months in Finland. He said “You’ve been coming here for almost a year. From what you’ve been saying, this was an very significant experience for you, and I’ve asked you many times to talk about things that are important to you.  Why have you not mentioned this before?”

I replied “It was over 10 years ago. I was in high school. No one from high school is a part of my life. Why would it be important to anyone but me?”

And he said “Anything that has been important to you should be important to anyone who cares about you.”

So this post is about my horse and me.

I bought Raven last summer (after a disastrous previous new horse), and because she was so lacking in training I asked a very capable VTC student to ride her twice a week, which this young woman did for free, because she liked the horse and disliked the former owner.

This spring my VTC student was nowhere to be found, and it became clear that I would have to do whatever training Raven needed. I am unskilled and Raven was a handful. Wouldn’t go out of the barn unless the other horses were out. Wouldn’t stand still enough for me to get a saddle on her. Things came to a head when I walked her down to the riding ring about 3 weeks ago and she pushed me around, behaved badly and pulled my shoulder hard enough that I went to the doctor!

Thelma couldn’t help, because of her hip surgery, and Thelma doesn't have a lot of confidence in my ability to learn and use the horsemanship skills that are second nature to her. So I asked my next door neighbor (Alberta, Berta for short), who is a good horse trainer, for help. She offered to work with me and Raven once every week or so, show me what to do, and Raven and I would practice the rest of the week. On our first lesson Berta said “She knows what to do. She just won’t volunteer.” After two weeks of practice (4-5 times/week), Raven will walk with me, stop whenever I stop, and back up when I ask her. We’ve walked down the road, and into the Howard’s woods. She’s stopped worrying about where the other horses are.

Today Berta said “I’ll show you how to work her on a lunge line.” This is a very long canvas strap that you use to get your horse to travel around you in circles. You can drive a horse nuts with this, but it’s one of many ways to get a horse to pay attention. It lets the horse burn off excess energy. And it’s part of a set of very basic lessons called “ground work”.

Berta is a good teacher. She demonstrates and explains things in a way that I understand the first time. After 20 minutes of Berta’s teaching, I tried lunging Raven myself and we did well. Raven and I only worked about 10 minutes because it was hot and humid, and the flies were driving us all nuts. Bear in mind that we don't think Raven has ever been on a lunge line.  Then she got cooled down with the hose, which was another New Thing. And she took all these new things pretty calmly.

Raven accomplished a great deal, but I accomplished more. I’m learning how to do this work of starting a horse-rider partnership. I’m feeling the possibility of being a rider who can do more than stay on. I’m beginning to believe that my instincts are right, that I do know something about horses, and about this horse, and that I have a lot more than a lucky buying choice going for me.