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First, I want to thank everyone who has applied both on and off list. I've 
been thinking long and hard about this lately, and I have a couple of ideas 
about what is going on.

The most obvious is that Mazzie always does best when she is in a very 
consistent program. I think I avoided a lot of trouble this summer because I 
was conditioning her for endurance - 10-15 hours a week of wet blankets 
cures a lot of ills. With winter, no indoor, and a second horse to ride, I 
have limited time with her.

I do think part of this is a respect/herd dynamics kind of thing. She is a 
very alpha mare. I do try and be consistent, but it was easier to be 
consistent when I boarded her out - when I have so much regular contact with 
her, it's hard not get lax about the little things. The problem is that 
those little things quickly become big things.

The other problem, one that I had thought about before and has been brought 
to my attention by some responses to my message, is that I may be "doing to 
much" when I ride her. When I'm on the trail, I'm very light in the saddle. 
I am not a "casual" trail rider - I like to GO, and I need to keep a 
consistent pace to condition her and prepare for endurance rides. The main 
trails I ride on are very tight, twisty trails, and in order to maintain a 
consistent tempo, I spend a lot of time in two point and just use slight 
shifts of my weight to direct her. In fact, I rarely have to use seat or leg 
cues on the trail - after a walk break, I usually just say "OK, let's go" 
and she picks up the trot on her own. Considering the different riding style 
for the dressage work I am ATTEMPTING to do, as well as position problems 
compounded by a saddle that doesn't work well for me, I think I'm just 
giving her either mixed signals or simply too strong of a forward aid. I 
actually noticed this when working with my gelding - since he isn't as 
mentally "quick" as what I'm used to, I've found that I give an aid, and 
then when I don't get the response, I give another aid -- but because it 
takes a bit of time for the message to get to his brain, I really haven't 
given him a chance to respond, and now I'm nagging him already! Because I 
really want to start this horse out well, I've been working with my 
instructor to become softer and a little more patient until his brain and 
his motor get more connected.

I'm going to attempt to do some groundwork stuff with her that I can do in 
the barn at night - some TTOUCH stuff which I had started with her long ago, 
some clicker training stuff (she does like to learn tricks), etc. I think 
even though I can't spend as much tiime riding her this time of year, I can 
still keep give her mental work to do. I would really like to teach her to 
ground drive - my instructor has experience with this and is going to help 
me with it, and I think it will be great tool to reinforce the forward aids 
from the safety of the ground.

Since my gelding is so much more forgiving of my own riding issues, I'm 
really going to focus on addressing my position problems and, just as 
important, learning to recognize a correct response much sooner and avoid 
overaiding or nagging (as Mark Rashid says, "finding the try"). I've also 
recently puchased Daniel Stewart's book "Riding Right" which has an entire 
series of unmounted exercises to develop proper balance and alignment.

If she was my only horse, I don't know if I could fix my own problems and 
address her issues at the same time - but with the help of my gelding (well, 
my husband's gelding), I think I can take same time and fix my issues 
separate from Mazzie, and hopefully become a better rider for her.

I am just not ready to give up on her. In october of 2002, I had a very 
serious and quite frankly terrifying accident on another horse. I broke my 
neck, was in a halo for three months, and went through 10 months of physical 
therapy. While still in my halo, I would hobble out to the barn and Mazzie 
would stick her nose through the bars of my halo and give me a kiss (a trick 
I had taught her when I first got her). When it was time for me to get back 
into the saddle, many friends who knew Mazzie's reputation suggested I start 
off on a different horse. However, my trust had been completely shattered, 
and I couldn't think of climbing aboard any horse other than Mazzie. My 
first ride, my husband insisted that he lead Mazzie around while I just sat 
in the saddle. She promptly turned around and bit him, as if to say "hey, I 
can take care of her just fine, thank you." For my first three months back 
in the saddle, she did not take so much as one wrong step with me. Keep in 
mind that she had not been ridden the entire time I was out of commission - 
that first ride I just climbed on with not so much as a few minutes of 
longeing. As I got stronger and more confident, she gave me the few 
occasional spooks and bucks to let me know she was on to me.

Were it not for Mazzie, I don't think I would have ever gotten back in the 
saddle again.

I know there is something special there. That is why it is very important 
for me to figure out how to make her happy. And I think because of this, 
perhaps I have done something many of us do - instead of being fair and firm 
and consistent the way the lead mare would be, I try to treat her too much 
like a pet and not enough like a partner.

Please, any other suggestions (especially ideas for ground work I can do 
that does not require a lot of space that I can do from the light of the 
barn) are still greatly appreciated!

sorry for all the rambling. I just was at the point of giving up, and I 
needed some words of encouragement.



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