September 24, 2006: You Didn't RIde Her

“You didn’t ride her...”

The words stung me to the core, and made it difficult to listen to anything that followed. I DID ride her. I DID. I put everything I had into that test--everything, heart and sou; the outcome may not have been what I’d hoped, what we were capable of, but it was not for lack of trying on my part. I hadn’t “checked out” or “let her take over.” Tequila’s “coup,” as I saw it, was the result of 1200 pounds of stubborn mare that had decided no amount of half halting was going to work... and at 140 pounds, riding with a snaffle, there was a limit to what I could do about it with my usual tools removed (like halts, voltés and the like)...

To our credit, we did get through our test, and we DID keep our score in the 60’s (and there were no 4’s). And the transitions were correctly placed. But my aids were large and obvious (was that a YANK for that downward transition?), and it was not what you would call a pretty test. The judge commented mostly on Tequila’s lack of swing through the back and the loss of effectiveness of my aids... both symptoms of the same thing: a mare that was angry that she’d been asked to work at dinnertime.

I knew from the warm-up that we were in trouble... she was angry and stiff, and the half-halts were begrudging, but she gave them to me. In the ring, however, she changed. She’s smart... she knows there’s a prescribed amount of work to be done between halts (which we got our usual 8’s for), and she wanted to get that done as quickly as possible so that she could get back to her dinner. She’s felt this way on several occasions before--the others being when we’ve competed in 100 degree plus heat, and she was similarly eager to return to her stall.

I’ll admit that I’m feeling somewhat discouraged. I can ride her, and ride her well, at home. Showing is quite another thing entirely, and I don’t know that we will ever do consistently well at it as a team. She does not have great gaits anymore, so we are already handicapped there, and depending on the judge, sometimes severely so. She is also unpredictable and temperamental, and can be very difficult to ride--presenting me with scenarios that I never face at home, and making me feel the fool. Not spooks (that would be easy), or a bolt here or there (I could handle that), but blowing through half halts, running through the bridle, weighing a ton in the hand, and taking over because she thinks “she’s smarter than I am.” At 17, I don’t think I will change the horse... and I think we’ve also reached our performance ceiling for the show ring. More than 50% of the time, showing is not fun... for either of us. The main reason to do it, in fact, is so that I don’t have to leave her home when I follow Susan. I have to rethink: is that really a valid reason to put us both through the torture? Hers perhaps physical, mine emotional.

The alternative would be to stay home and focus on progressing in my riding. If I weren’t trying to improve for the ring, I could be learning more with her... a little shoulder-in and travers, perhaps half-pass, and some tempi’s. (She knows her changes). She can’t move up the levels because there are holes in what she can do physically, and she doesn’t have the ability to collect fully for what is expected in the show ring, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t learn the aids, and that I can’t ride the movements at home with her... and the we wouldn’t both have fun doing it. (I can just imagine our scores going up the levels with inadequate collection, no lengthenings, etc, etc... and THEN have her pull a stunt like yesterday--don’t think I could face that!)

After all, my real goal with her all along has been to learn all I can in preparation for my next horse... and that doesn’t have to be in the show ring.

(As it turns out, what I learned much later--after some yelling with Susan--teenagers don’t “talk” much--is that it meant that I didn’t ride “effectively.” That I’ll buy--but I do wish they’d just say THAT, and then tell me how to do it differently. It’s not helpful to know what you’re doing wrong if you don’t know what you need to do in order to fix it... and honestly, I’d already TRIED many of the suggestions, and Tequila had completely ignored them. She’s the only horse in our barn that hasn’t been shown by one of the Bereiters... it might be an eye-opener if she was, but I don’t think I’d do that to her. She doesn’t deserve it... not at her age. I just wish they knew what it felt like from where I was sitting.)