Fear and riding green horses

[lbhbhnck <lbhbhnck@ftc-i.net>]

This may be of interest to those who have posted recently about
overcoming fear and /or riding green horses.I hope it helps someone.

Riders in the Southeast know that I usually ride mares, and that my
grandchildren sometimes ride with me. I have begun riding the son of my
oldest mare, getting him ready to take to rides this year. He's a
gelding, and due to my busy schedule and the time I have spent with the
mares, has not been ridden as much as a six year old should have been.
He's a green gelding.

When Amanda, a granddaughter, asked if she could start going to rides
with me, I began seriously trying to get this colt in shape. We began
going out on the trails and increasing from mostly walking to mostly
trotting. As horses with little experience do, he noticed everything,
and spooked at least once on every ride away from the house. I fell off
more than once due to his "suddenly sideways, spin at the same time"
moves. He seemed to be getting better, listening to my aids more, and
relaxing better on the trail. I was thinking "Ahh, progress." I was
telling my granddaughter that he just might be getting out of
kindergarten. Then, one day a small herd of deer in the woods to our
left caused another suddenly sideways move. Even with my improved seat,
this time there was no warning and I fell off again. I was unhurt, he
stood right there and watched the deer cross the trail where it had been
behind us. He stood still, watching, and looked at me as if to say "Did
you see those guys!" I re-mounted and we finished our ride. He was a
little tense, but obedient for the rest of the ride that day.
Well, I found that for a couple of weeks I was "too busy" to ride.
Things kept coming up to keep me from riding him. The next time I did
saddle up to take him out, I realized I was afraid. I also realized it
as an unreasonable fear. I had to face it to deal with it. Over the next
few weeks, we played games on the trail. If he shook his head due to a
big horse fly, I would ask him to move left, or right, or do small
circle around a tall weed. He still felt tense, which was probably
partly due to my fear. I had to constantly remind myself to keep my body
relaxed. (I prayed a lot.) Every ride we got better, but there was still
that fear, and he was still tense.I was beginning to really worry about
riding him while sponsoring a junior.

About four weeks ago we were riding behind the house on a trail we have
ridden lots of times. He spooked, and wanted to spin and run, but stood
when I asked. I dismounted to find a slender string around his frond
leg. Timber company surveyors often run a string like this down their
property lines when they survey. It had been across the trail and we had
not seen it. I unwrapped the string from his leg, showed it to him and
got rid of it. We went on. a short distance later there was another
string, which we noticed. I stopped him, dismounted and got that string
off the trail, led him past the spot, and we finished our ride without
further distractions.

Since that day, HIS attitude is different, and as a result, my fear of
riding him has disappeared. It's as if he has gone from a state of
trying to look after himself, and keeping himself safe, to an awareness
that I am in charge, and I will take care of us both. Now, when he
spooks, it's more of a "freeze" with his head coming up. It seems like
he's saying that there's something scary, but he's asking me what he
should do.

The one problem we still need to work on is caused by the fact that I
ride alone, or with one or two other people on horses he knows. I took
him to a saddle club trail ride a couple of weeks ago. There were a lot
of horses he had never seen before, strangers to him. He was frightened
of them. My granddaughter was with us, riding his mother. We stayed in
the middle of the group, strangers in front, his mother behind him or
beside him, and strangers behind him. He was tense and nervous for the
first four miles of the ride. Then he relaxed. We stayed with the group
until they turned around to go back. We continued on a longer loop, for
conditioning, so we could get some faster work and do a couple of hills.
He was happy and relaxed the remainder of the day. That was only one
day, and his first experience in a group of horses he doesn't know.

At Liberty Run, we will start late, and if we encounter horses he
doesn't know it will be small groups at a time out on the trail. His
mother will be there carrying Amanda. He will get used to new horses and
new situations a little at a time that way.

I think the theme most recently on ridecamp was about getting horses
used to being alone on the trail. My situation is just the opposite,
because my horses are used to leaving the others behind and going out
alone. My guy needs to learn that other horses are nothing to worry
about.

Lucie H., Trinity(There are horses out there I don't know yet!),
Bukkura(It's ok, son.), and Amanda(following after cousin Christi)