9/19

Today's Plan: ride
What a beautiful day for a ride. A bit chilly since we topped out at 50 some degrees today, but the sun more than made up for it. I did decide to ride bareback. This works for me for two reasons. One, it makes me a better rider. Staying on top makes all the muscles work much harder without a saddle. My mare is usually quite level-headed, generally if she spooks it's because she was feeling frisky. And normally it would be a "freeze and drop": it feels like the horse dropped 2" under you. This year she has added to her bag of tricks.
One lovely summer morning we went out bareback and she saw something that unsettled her. We started spinning and dancing.  My first thought was "crap, the one time I don't tell someone I'm going out...." My next one (as I started sliding) was "how am I going to keep hold of the reins and avoid her feet?" I decided at that point that I wasn't going off.  My mother taught me that you never go off anyway, so I wasn't really considering it. I am pretty sure that it was my running thighs that kept me on.
Another trick is the refusal to go further forward.Sometimes she decides it is time to go home and she's done. The answer to that one is that she doesn't seem to notice if you circle her and make her back up past the point she refused to go. As long as she isn't going forward, in her mind she is winning.
Back to today's ride, the second reason bareback is good is because on a chilly day, she is much warmer than a saddle! I had a great ride planned, we were just going to wander the back field, trotting around the ring a bit, but mainly through all the paths in among the trees.  Just a relaxing time.
It didn't go so well. Apparently, Charby has new neighbors along the path out to the field and she did not want to go out that way. After circling, backing up, circling some more, I took her out the other way. Whenever I pointed her in the direction of the first path, refusal and circling followed. We did get a good ride in using the rest of the field nonetheless.
When we went back in, I had to make her walk the lane she refused. Not a good idea for her to think she can refuse anything, even for good reason. Even with me on foot, she didn't want to go. Pulling wasn't going to work, so I just talked to her and finally she decided I would protect her. Makes me feel wonderful that she has that level of trust in me.