I teach a course locally on how to recognize the very beginnings of a dangerous situation developing with a horse. Part of it is being aware of your own body, it’s relation to the horse’s body, and recognizing how your emotions and the horse’s are interacting. I had to take my own advice the other day when I was getting on an unknown horse for the first time outside of lessons. He had been giving the owner a little difficulty by swinging out away from the mounting block when she was getting on to ride. He also kept trying to graze at the same time, and I was anticipating having a similar battle with him in order to get on.
I admit that at first I dived right in to the same “pull on his face, try to keep the thousand pound animal from moving” routine I had just witnessed. When I stopped for a moment to check in with myself, though, I realized I was almost shaking with adrenaline!
“Holy moly,” I thought to myself, backing away from the horse, “how did I not realize I was this wound up!?”
The answer was that I was busy doing. Pushing, pushing, pushing to the goal of getting on, because that’s what I was there to do, dammit, was try out this horse for riding. When I paused to take stock of how I was feeling it became obvious that it was a VERY GOOD thing that the horse was keeping me off his back!
The solution was to stand and breathe in, then breathe out. Over and over until the real world came back. By real world, of course, I mean the horse that was standing in front of me, not the one where I was already mentally on and riding. The owner, thankfully, stood and waited. I peeked over the top of her horse and stated that we were going to be boring for a few minutes.
When I brought myself back to reality by standing and breathing, it became easier to convey to the horse that I wanted him to stop trying to graze. Small fingertip twitches replaced the frantic face hauling. The horse began to breathe deeply with me. He sighed. He squared up for me. I was astonished, to be honest. I unfortunately got nervous again when on the mounting block, so we went through even more standing and breathing with me there. Finally I got on, and we stood and breathed there. Then we ambled off at a calm walk, which is what I was told to expect anyway from this beginner-safe horse.
Although I did not end up leasing him, I’m so glad I went out to try. If nothing else, I proved to myself that I could work myself back down from an anxious moment, then still have a calm ride on an unknown horse. The horse perhaps learned that sometimes beginner riders are willing and able to wait until they can explain what they want calmly, instead of riding off in a sorry mental state. When in doubt, check in, breathe in, breathe out.
More horsey adventures are in my book, Standing in a Field With Horses, available as an eBook and paperback. If you enjoyed the book, don’t forget to leave a review to help others find it!
Maeve Birch Home 