#neri eq

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Mare™️

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I love her so much

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Willow being ✨Perfection✨

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I have come to discover that, yes, riding difficult horses makes us better riders.

But only when we are at a level we can honestly say we are learning not how to sit on a horse, but how to ride a horse.

For example: from my eighth lesson to around my 80th, I rode Scout almost all the time. In theory, I could ride. In practice, I was just trying to stay on.

I love Scout. He’s cute and goofy and fun.

But he’s not an easy ride. He is lazy, drags his feet, and if he’s not in consistent work with a skilled rider, he becomes a Typical Balky Lesson Horse™️. That isn’t even mentioning that he has zero impulsion, but the moment he does, he is so incredibly bouncy that a beginner is more focused with keeping the horse between their ass and the ground that they can’t learn. Case in point, myself.

So, for some two years and almost a hundred lessons, I rode Scout. Every once in a while I would ride Joe or Cinnamon or even Catfish. But not often enough to solidify the skills I would need for Scout.

And then I had my fall, a break, and returned, this time riding western.

I rode Sedona for the entirety of 2021.

Suddenly, you could tell I had been riding for three years and not three weeks. She was easy, to be honest. Yes, more forward, and yes, you would know she is a mare. But she moved out easily, stopped easily, turned and flexed easily.

So, last week I decided I would ride Scout for the first time in a year.

He got a new saddle, this one with a much wider twist and flatter seat and on an A-fork rather than swells. I sat in it and I was Not Confident. It reminded me of riding English, but less comfortable. But I rode him in it. And by the end of the ride, I’d had him trot a good little bit, and he wasn’t being so resistant. Now then, I didn’t do much learning for that lesson; I mostly just rode a few patterns, and worked on my position and balance.

But yesterday’s lesson, I rode Scout again. Already there was a notable improvement. He was more focused, less resistant, and generally more understanding of what I was asking.

But he is Scout, and so he still alternated between snail pace and a bouncy castle with a saddle. But I could ride him halfway around the arena at a trot before he either lost impulsion or I fell out of balance. Which was a far cry from the two or three strides of the week before.

Yesterday I realized that the only reason I could ride Scout that easily, is because now I had a foundation for good riding thanks to my lessons on Sedona.

In a lot of ways, riding Scout for my lessons held me back a lot. I couldn’t find my balance, hold a position, and keep him moving forward at the same time.

Riding a difficult-to-ride horse teaches us a lot about horsemanship. But they don’t teach beginners what they need to know; only once a rider is balanced, confident, and relaxed in the saddle can they truly begin to focus on their practice of good horsemanship. That’s not to say that they shouldn’t be thinking about being a good horseman, it’s just to say that it isn’t the central focus of their ride yet.

On the ground, the beginner must learn how to be a fair handler to the horse. Under saddle, they must learn how to be a gentle rider. And it is only upon this solidification of gentle riding that they can transfer their horsemanship to the saddle.

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Throwback to when I fell off at the mounting block on like three separate occasions

First was Scout, he walked off with one foot in the stirrup and I bailed

Second was also Scout, I had one foot in the stirrup and the block literally fell over from under me

Last was Willow when I decided I would try to ride her bareback and she (understandably) bolted and disappeared from under me

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Some pics of the pasture

This is just the first little area beyond the paddock.

It stretches out for over 16 acres.

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My very very good girl being extraordinarily adorable

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Words cannot describe how much I absolutely love and adore my horse