Sue – How Do You Spell Crowded!
We had a What Do You Want to Do clinic yesterday. A bunch of horses and riders showed up. We had 10 horses in the arena. It’s a smaller arena than Pine Dell and 10 horses was just about the amount that the arena could comfortably hold.
Of course it was a little too cramped for Sue, the horse that is scared of many other horses.
A couple of times, we started to bolt forward when Sue got scared. Several times I caught her instantly relaxing and then going back into right brain when I startled and my body starting going into the clamping fetal position. But I was almost instantly able to get myself under control.From a distance, one wouldn’t have noticed the mini bolt.
Our job for most of the clinic was to ride around the barrel…about 10-12 feet away from the barrel. Our task was to go at a walk and then later at a trot. My desire for Sue was for her to pay attention to where my body was telling her to go. First I told her to follow the direction of my belly button. If she missed that signal, then my outside heel directed her where to go and the very last signal was the rein which was attached to her inside foot. If she didn’t make the circle, I picked up the rein in time to guide her inside front foot through the circle.
This would have been fine except for all the other horses. At the barrel next to our barrel was a horse that was being guided with a carrot stick. Thank goodness most of the time the horse listened to his rider’s body and she didn’t raise up the carrot stick to the side of the horse’s head. Plus he kept gettin very near our own circle.
Our barrel was right next to the wall where another horse and rider were practicing trotting from one end to the other and staying on the rail. Wouldn’t you know it that this horse had a problem with impulsion causing her rider to swing her arm every now and then to spank her horse forward.
You know it’s the picking up the arm, especially with a stick in it that causes us some trouble.
We weren’t too scared by the rider who flopped. That was a noisy rider, but the horse is nice and Sue isn’t scared of that horse.
We were standing quiet one time trying to be out of every one’s way and the sorrel horse came at us. Sue was scared of the sorrel horse and I don’t know why. Anyway, the sorrel horse came directly at us from the front. Sue scittered away. She was prevented from turning around and running, so she made sweeping sideways avoidance to get away.
I didn’t make a sound. In the past, I have been so scared that I would have yelled at the rider. Later I got so that I just screamed in a nice quiet voice. Today, I kept calm and stayed with Sue.
Whew. Both of us are making vast improvements!
Hello Emotional Fitness!