Sue – How Do You Do!

  The positive wondrous news is that I Sue and I went on a trail ride at the same place where she bolted, spilled her rider and became retraumatized fourteen months ago.  On this month, we had a wonderful ride.  I was with a calm gelding and his calm owner.  My plan was for the gelding to lead and we would follow, thus getting more and more confidence.  My plan was thwarted right at the get go when the gelding refused to lead.  To get the gelding to go, my riding partner would…

Finally the long awaited trail ride clinic was here. It was postponed for bad weather nearly a month ago and the wait was fretting. Is Sue ready to ride with other horses out in the open? We spent the morning engaged in getting horses used to scary things outside. Most horses in the clinic weren't scared of anything. Sue and I got to circle with two and then three other horses. When we circled with the three horses, she became noticiably more relaxed. However, when we were circling with two…

Sue and I attended a Problem Horse clinic. It was a nice day and we were outside. We had about 9 horses in the clinic and while there was enough space...it really wasn't enough space for SUE, until.. Jenny selected three horses that had varying degrees of unconfidence. We were told to have our horses be as close as possible and play the games. We circled the horses with the humans standing back to back. We didn't pass the rope, we just kept our own horse. At first we trotted…