You live and learn and then get . . . lessons!

Surfing the internet one day, I came across an ad for someone offering lessons. I was especially intrigued because she offered saddleseat lessons. Since I took my very first lessons as a 7 year old on 16 hand Saddlebreds, I was feeling the itch to pick up where I had left off.

It was clear when I started that it had been a long while since my organized riding days. I had basically spent the last 10 years dinking around in my backyard or riding complete greenies. I had only taken about one year of real lessons, and it was about 16 years previous. Everything else I knew, I had "perfected" on my own. I felt very out of control and all over the place on that flat saddle.

Cute Lesson Teacher didn't have a "real" saddleseat horse, but she did have a very high energy little Arab mare named Tina that she used. Tina had to be ridden in a martingale due to the fact that she zoomed around at Mach 10 with her nose in the air. She was very speedy and very fussy. At my first lesson, CLT asked me to canter Tina. I was like, "Ummm . . . I have serious canter fear issues, like that's the whole reason I'm here."

She gave me a look that said, "clearly you are hedging, canter now please."

I nudged Ever-Ready Tina into a canter, and we went flying down the long side. I instantly tensed up freaked out and all but dropped the reins. My butt was flying waaaay out of the saddle, and I was terrified. CLT was yelling, "Sit back!! Relax!!" as Tina zoomed down to the corner, almost smashed into the wall, veered around the corner, and came to a shaky halt. The halt wasn't the only shaky thing.

I was whimpering and feeling generally defeated. CLT just had me go back to trot work. Then she expained we would work on centered riding, and really developing a nice secure seat.

As my lessons prgressed, CLT transitioned me more into dressage as that was where her focus was at the time. As my confidence grew, she had me riding the new horses she got in on consignment to sell. She would tell me, "You'll really like this one, he's got a nice trot and a great canter." I stopped asking her if every horse had a tendency to buck. I started to relax more. I felt very proud when she told me I have great hands.

I had just gotten Tina to bring her nose down and in and travel in a reasonably nice frame. CLT gave me the greatest compliment when she told me Tina went better, prettier, and slower for me than anyone. She asked me to ride Coach, her old fart lesson horse and try to slow down his canter. She used him for the little kid lessons, and he liked to lean into your hands and really bull along at a high speed canter.

I followed her to three different barns, and when she told me she was moving out of state, I was devastated. I had learned so much about balance and to be more confident and more solid in my seat. Her dressage technique was definitely more German-style push/pull, lots of left-right and worrying about headset. I definitely learned bad habits. But I needed the confidence-building and the good solid horsey friendship she provided. I needed to ride horses other than Sammy, horses I could trust. Horses I didn't have a history with. I needed someone to confide in, someone who didn't criticize me for my fear or make me feel incompetent. Our lessons were laidback. A lot of times, she would just saddle up and ride alongside me. Once or twice, she came out and met my Sammy and gave me a lesson on him and rode him a bit herself. She was what I needed at the time and I learned a ton.

I took all of that back to my Sammy. One day, I put my western saddle on him, with a halter on under his bridle. I looped a leadrope around the saddle horn so he couldn't drop his head as easily, and I asked him to canter. I didn't attempt to steer him or push at all. I just sat and let him canter as he pleased. We went down the middle of the arena and stopped. And I threw my arms around his neck and cried a little bit. Cried with a big, idiot grin on my face. It had been 3 long years, but we had made it. I was riding my horse W/T/C again. Things were looking up!

Not that everything was instantly better from that day. I got bucked off another time or two, but things were definitely improving. I was riding in a bitless bridle now and back in a better fitting English saddle, first a saddleseat saddle and then a Wintec dressage saddle (at $500, the most expensive saddle I had ever owned). I had lost my trainer, but I was light years ahead of where I had been. So we just putzed along, doing the things I had been taught by the CLT. We never really progressed that far, but we were doing much better than we had been, less eruptions, less battles of will.

We are now up to about 2006 and the first lameness. Oh boy, the lameness chronicles!

Bucking Bronco!

Well, you might have guessed from the end of my last post that things wouldn't necessarily continue on so smoothly. Sammy stressed out a lot from the move and dropped a lot of weight that winter.

I rode him many times in the new indoor, trudging from the barn across the frozen parking area and through the deep drifts to get to it. He was very well behaved at first, and things were going swimmingly.

Then, one day, the sun came out and things began to warm up. You other horsepeople out there will know what I'm talking about. Yes, the ever-so-frightening snow sliding off the indoor arena roof. It comes out of nowhere and has the power to unhinge even the most bombproof horse. Well, a 6 year old greenbroke Saddlebred is hardly what you would consider bombproof.

Part of the issue was that I was doing what you're never supposed to do when riding. I wasn't paying attention. I was riding along, chit-chatting with one of the other boarders, totally draped reins, loose legs, just hanging out in the saddle as we walked around the arena. Out of nowhere, WHOOSH!!

Both horses spooked, and I totally fell backwards across Sammy's butt. And then the unthinkable happened, my foot got stuck in the stirrup. Sammy completely lost it and bolted. I was dangling off his side, suspended by one hand on the reins and one leg in the stirrup. The stirrup leather came away from the saddle (thank heavens I didn't have locking stirrup bars) and then I was being dragged by one arm. Somehow, I couldn't figure out how to tell my hand to let go of the rein. When I finally let go and lay in the sand, the other boarder rushed over to see if I was ok. Sammy stood, trembling, at the far end of the arena, tail over his back and at full attention.

I stood up and brushed off. Nothing was broken. I had sand in my hair, ears, and even the pockets of my jeans! I walked slowly up to Sammy, tried to calm him down, and then did what you're supposed to do when you come off the horse. . . I got back on. We walked one or two laps of the arena and called it quits.

I went home and woke up the next morning unable to lift my head off the pillow. The roommate drove me to urgent care, after I literally rolled myself out of bed. After some X-rays, it was determined that I had sustained whiplash, but nothing was permanently damaged. Thank goodness for that. I took time off of riding and healed up, figuring that that would be the last time I would come off. Next time, I would pay better attention. As it turned out, Sammy had other ideas.

Apparently, it had never occurred to him that the rider could be dislodged. Once he learned this little tidbit, he began to put it to use. At the time, I chalked it up to him being naughty or just being green, but I know now, that it was likely his way of objecting to a poor fitting saddle and a very unbalanced rider. I grew to have such a fear of riding that summer, that I imagined Sammy sitting in that beautiful grass pasture all day long just thinking up evil things to do to me.



One day, I was riding around the outdoor arena, and asked Sammy to canter. He hopped into his nice, rocking chair canter for all of about 2 strides. Then he slammed on the brakes, dropped his head to his knees and turned into a bucking bronco. I didn't have a chance. I slammed into the ground while Sammy continued bucking over the top of me. His hoof connected with my back and then he ran to the gate. I stood up, but my left leg was numb. That totally freaked me out, but I dutifully went and got the horse, mounted up and rode one small lap at a walk. My leg began tingling and I was relieved to know the numbness wasn't permanent, but it still scared me.

After that day, he bucked me off two more times. I became so frightened of cantering him that I stopped cantering at all. In fact, I was even afraid to canter other people's horses. I would always ask before I rode if the horse bucked at all, and I was petrified of riding any low headed horses, since they already seemed like they were ready to assume the bucking position.




I started doing groundwork more, riding less. Lots of lunging. But Sammy had clearly lost respect for me. He would buck and pull on the lunge line, trying to rip it out of my hands. I couldn't get a bit in his mouth anymore, at least not without a two hour long battle. So I gave up and rode in a rope halter. He would just quit on the lunge, and then, when I would flick the whip or "sting" him with the end, he would turn in to the middle and charge at me. We would have these battles of the will that would end with both of us drenched in sweat and neither one clear as to who had won. I was so intimidated that I didn't know what to do.



Loud Mouth Barn Lady watched me working him one day and offered to "help". She said I was too soft on him and that I was letting him get away with stuff. She asked if she could lunge him for me, but she told me "I might have to hit your horse". I was fine with that. As far as I was concerned, she could do whatever she liked with the awful beast. She proceeded to really "get after him", using her loud voice and her very aggressive body language to push Sammy. And when he responded with aggressiveness of his own, she cracked him a few good ones with the lunge whip.

She had brought a little yippy dog with her, and the little dog ran barking at Sammy's heels as he trotted anxiously around the circle. Sammy kicked out at the little dog and missed, so the little dog continued to yip and chase. Then Sammy lashed out again, and this time, he connected with the dog's head. The little dog yelped and flew out to the middle of the arena, where he lay in convulsions and making awful snorting sounds. Sammy became even more anxious and sped around the circle. I started crying, watching that poor little dog.

Loud Mouth Barn Lady looked at me crying and said, "Don't worry about the dog. It's not Sammy's fault. I can't stand a dog that chases horses, and if he can't learn, then it's better if he doesn't make it."

New Barn Owner was watching the whole thing, as she'd been helping me try to lunge Sammy earlier, so she went out to the little dog and picked him up. She carried him out of the arena and took him up to the house. After a few minutes, she came back down with the dog and told us he was ok. He had bitten his tongue, but otherwise he seemed totally fine. Sammy, on the other hand, was a complete wreck. And the only lesson he had learned was to be petrified of little dogs. To this day, he is very uneasy around little dogs, and I can never trust him with them either. I always worry he will kick again and this time, the dog won't be so lucky.

After that day, Sammy and I continued on, but I tried to be more understanding of him. I still would only walk/trot, but I tried reading and studying different methods. I tried some Parelli with him, which he hated. I tried just being more consistent. Nothing was really working, and I had lost a lot of confidence for riding, so I decided it was time to take some lessons.