My son
wrote this as an essay for English. I would like your impressions. How do you
get back your confidence? Is Blossom likely to change? When? For now he is
riding my horse and doing well, but only doing ground work with his. Cheers,
Steve
Peter Hurd
English 50
10-08-02
Lessons Learned from
a Hard Fall
The entire world jolted up and down, left and right, the beautiful field
melting into a mass of green and blue. Blossom’s attempt to remove me from the
saddle was going well thanks to her amazingly ungraceful and jolting crow-hop
across the field. I was putting up a good fight; this was not the first time we
had argued. I even managed to keep my balance for a handful of strides. Although
I soon found myself tilting to the side and I attempted to compensate. It might
have worked had blossom not picked that precise time to do some changing of her
own. What she did at that moment was usually very commendable, she pulled a
flying change to the correct lead of her canter. Unfortunately, it was
unpracticed and about as smooth as a Mac truck slamming into a concrete barrier.
If my future was uncertain before, that maneuver sealed it. I over-compensated
and ended up tumbling off the other side of the horse and fell onto a very hard
patch of recently mowed field. The world blinked out of existence for a moment
and I had the unpleasant experience of imitating a bouncy ball when I smacked
the ground a second time before finally coming to rest. When my sight came back,
the first thing that I noticed was my beautiful and slightly psychotic horse
cantering away… yes, cantering, not the unbearable crow-hop that had dislodged
me.
My instructor’s voice reached me soon
after, “Are you okay, what hurts?” I stood up with some effort. I was light
headed and my chest felt like it had been twisted. I answered that I was “fine”;
of course we both knew it wasn’t true, but my pride was far more bruised than
any part of my physical anatomy. Looking around I spotted that the four year old
mare called Blossom stood about fifty feet away looking back at me. Though I
would have liked to have ended the ride there, I had to remind blossom that she
did not choose when the ride ended, I did. With sigh of resignation, I dusted
myself off, tried to regain some composure and hopped back on to finish the
lesson. Blossom didn’t attempt to throw me off again, but she knew that I had
lost a good chunk of confidence and tested me. Blossom did what she wanted when
she wanted. She didn’t turn unless I physically pulled her head around. Blossom
also refused to slow from a trot unless I pulled her into a tight circle. So we
fought for another half hour or so until she finally yielded. The victory was
hollow and I felt it was only because she grew tired of me and not out of any
sort of respect. I dismounted with a heavy heart and growing doubts. The fall
that day wasn’t unique, blossom had forcefully removed me from the saddle at
least half dozen times before and one fall had been considerably worse. Always I
got back on and continued with a fairly clear head. This time felt different.
The fall seemed like the culmination of a two week slide in my relationship with
Blossom. I didn’t know what caused it. Was it me, or was it Blossom? I took a
few days off from riding to clear my head.
Trust and respect are simple enough
concepts, and they form the basis of a horse’s training. Every good exercise
should, at least in part, be designed to gain trust and teach respect. How is
this accomplished? A common exercise done with a horse is teaching it to back.
When a horse backs, it feels awkward and insecure; this is because a horse will
rarely back on her own. Therefore when she does this, the horse is demonstrating
respect for your judgment and trust that you will not cause her harm with this
strange maneuver. Indeed the two are interlocked, trust and respect, one is hard
to gain without addressing the other. The basic theory is simple and sound, but
it is in practice that training is actually accomplished. This proves much more
difficult as you must take into account your temperament and, more importantly,
the personality of your horse. Horse personalities are extremely varied, ranging
from the laid-back lesson horse, to high-strung athletes. Blossom leans towards
the latter.
