Well, That Lesson Did Not Go The Way I Hoped It Would, Other Horses

Awareness of the outside world. Yesterday was state poets. Today is state horses. Netstate.com: Official State Horses.

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I managed to fail on a horse used for beginner walk lessons. I’m so proud. Not.

Lesson at New Barn. Was too glum afterward to discuss next lesson or blog, so they remain anonymous.

Cute little Quarter Horse-cross mare. Fancy, comfortable saddle. We never trotted a complete circuit of the ring.

She shook her head at the trot. I absolutely could not cope. If she’d shake her head sideways, I’d have flashbacks to Rodney at the clinic, when he slung his head so hard back & forth that I could see his tongue flapping. If she put her head down, it was Milton crow hopping around various locales. I knew she wasn’t going to actually DO any of these things, but my early warning system went haywire anyway.

After a while, mare realized that if she shook her head at me, I’d let her walk. Or I’d grab the reins, which she would interpret as a request to walk.

It was weird. One part of me was glad to be back in a saddle with which I was familiar. I’m good at this. I can do this. Let’s go. Another part was, well, see above.

In my defense, one. Not nerves. I know what nerves feel like. This is an error in response processing. They do x. I react to x-times-1000. I could argue that my overreacting is a reasonable conditioned response given past stimuli. I would prefer if it were otherwise. Brains are weird.

In my defense, two. Assistant trainer got on after. Mare tried the same thing. Assistant trainer does not have my baggage. She was able to ignore.

Where do I go from here? No idea.

Onwards!
Katherine