I bought my gelding after
only four months of group lessons begun at age 46. [Not a smart thing to
do, but I'd just been told that I would be legally blind in 2-5 years, so I was
in a hurry.] He was very well trained (dressage), which also meant he was
too sensitive for a novice rider. And he was an arena horse, when I
really wanted to ride trails. But I wanted him. I had no
understanding of herd interactions or really anything about how horses think or
behave -- only realized later that he is not a
naturally confident horse.
Over the years I took private lessons
with several different instructors, but my riding never really seemed to
get a whole lot better. When Jack spooked, he would splay his front
legs, dropping his front end and throwing me forward (especially so since I
was always leaning way too far forward anyway), spin to the
right 180 degrees, and run for a few yards. Then he'd stop,
realizing that nothing was trying to kill him, and start grazing. But, of
course, I was already on the ground. This happened soooo many times,
and since I always landed on my left shoulder I ended up with a partial
tear to the rotator cuff. And it was always so fast that I only
realized what was happening when I was already on my way to the dirt.
Worst of all, I was so tense that any sudden movement on his part would start me
curling toward a fetal position.
But I was determined. Finally, in the spring
of last year, I found an instructor who must have been heaven sent. The
last time Jack did his spook-and-spin was in June of that year (I was in
the lead, trotting on some single track, and a deer jumped out of some
trees ahead of us). After I hit the dirt, my riding buddies thought I'd
lost my mind. I came up laughing and whooping -- because I'd landed
on my butt!! The first obvious sign that my riding position had improved
significantly. Since then, Jack has been spooking in place, and it keeps
getting better -- mostly now he just tenses but keeps
going. Why? The only thing
that's changed is that I'm a much better rider, and I'm sure he is more
trusting of my leadership.
I've found that what works best for me is to just
push the envelope a little bit each ride while I'm out alone. Speed
terrified me, but I've learned that my gelding will listen to me if I ask him to
slow down rather than panicking and grabbing the reins. After a
while practicing new things alone, I've worked on them while
riding with friends who understand that I'm working through
"issues". Now I'm okay with being out on the trail with strangers, most of
whom are still going faster than me. Most important, though, is that
I've learned to trust my horse just as he's learned to trust me. The
spiral can be upward when it comes to surmounting fear, just as much as it
can be downward when the fear seems to be in charge. Keep looking until
you find the right instructor for you.
Cindy
(who's 7 years from the diagnosis, and who's vision
is still holding fairly well -- good thing, 'cause Jack would make a rotten
seeing-eye horse)
