Ride 'Em Cowboy!

So for Christmas, the only thing on my wish list was money to contribute to my "Frostbite Horseback Riding" fund. As I've mentioned before, I volunteer at Riverwood Therapeutic Riding Center where students with special needs are involved in horseback riding programs as therapy. During the winter while the classes are not in session, they offer an 8-week adult class called Frostbite. Riverwood has an amazing setup with a brand new barn, an indoor and an outdoor arena, five indoor stalls, and three pastures.

Myself and six other women meet every Tuesday for two hours learning all sorts of things about horsemanship. One woman brings her own horse and is learning how to work with him, while the rest of us are either volunteers or parents of students at Riverwood. The first week we spent a lot of time in the indoor classroom learning the basics, and the second week was all ground work (which actually is pretty cool - Did you know that you can make a horse run circles around you without you touching it or even being on a rope?!). But the anxious, novice rider in me is shouting, "When do we get to get ON the horse!?" It's sort of like those first few days of basketball practice when you didn't even get to touch a ball... just lots of defensive shuffles, wall jumps, and suicides if I remember correctly.

Anyway, we have progressed to the stage of actually riding our horses. I use the pronoun "our" like there is some sort of possession involved, but it's really just the horses we use during classes that the instructors matched us up with for the series. Since this is a therapy riding program, most of the horses are on their last legs. The slower, older and more docile they are, the better for the safety of the kids and volunteers. There's Buddy, who's like 33, Flash, who's 23, and then there's my horse: Pet (I try not to hold it against her that she has the lamest name of the bunch). Her age: 5! Yep - that's not a typo - they gave me the spry, young mare who just arrived to the farm this fall. I'm not sure of the story behind why they ended up getting such a young horse, but they did - AND to top it all off, she's the only mare in the herd as well. Can anyone say Bossy Bessie? (I know, Bessie is usually a cow reference, but it sounds good - and definitely applies! She has made more than her share of enemies in the group trying to show them all who's boss.)

Over the last couple of weeks, we've conquered figure 8's around barrels, and we're close to get the trot perfected. (By "we", I mean she and I. The others have taken this class multiple times over the years and can trot on command pretty easily. Granted, they're not professionals, but they are definitely more experienced than Sharon and I, the two novice riders.) Pet doesn't really think I'm serious when I give her the trot signals, so we usually only go for about five steps and then she's back to a quick walk - but we definitely made progress today in that regard, so we'll see how next week turns out.

Of course, there could be some other issues resurface next week considering how today's class concluded. They decided to take us on our first trail ride. As soon as we started out, I asked about Pet getting too close to the horse in front of us. She said that was something she (Pet) needed to work on... but didn't really give me any specifics other than NOT to pull back on my reins the whole time to try to get her to slow down. So we went on. I tried to stop her occasionally to add some space; I stayed towards the left side of the trail while Ibby, who was in front of us was toward the right; I veered really wide when we went around curves. I really was conscious of getting more space between us because I knew Pet has some issues.

Just before we were approaching the final uphill portion of the trail, the two instructors complimented Pet for not getting upset when Gator, the horse behind us, got too close and apparently tried to bite us in the rear. I obviously didn't see the incident occur - but I was definitely surprised by the lack of response knowing Pet's personality. A few seconds later, she picked up the pace a bit, which considering the long hill we were headed up, I wasn't too concerned about. I tried to slow her down a bit and communicated to the person in front of us that Pet was ready to get going. Their advice was again NOT to pull back on the reins since she needed her head motion to help get us up the hill. Of course...

But then I notice that her head was pulling back to the side as we were going up, not just swinging straight in line with her neck. I realized neither of the instructors were up front near us any more, and then I saw Ibby's ears flatten, which if you want to know anything about horses, that might just be the most important thing. Flat Ears = Angry Horse.

As soon as we got to the top of that hill, it opened out into the yard where the arena is and Pet let out this ear-splitting primal scream and went crazy. If things don't work out for me teaching, they tell me I could probably make it in the rodeo. I know it wasn't 8 seconds or anything, but I most certainly had a furious, bucking creature under me. All I could think was, "Stay calm!" and "Squeeze your abs so you don't fall off this horse!" Oh - and did I mention that this is English horseback riding which means our saddles don't have anything to hang onto in front? I survived the first round, and then she went right back into the fit complete with another scream. I seriously don't really remember what was happening but apparently she was kicking Ibby, as evidenced from the three visible cuts he had on his hindquarters. (All I knew was that I didn't want to fall off and get hurt - I'm almost through the toughest part of a marathon training program. If I'd put in all of this time and effort and then couldn't run the race next month, I would be so disappointed!)

The instructors finally got up close enough to grab the reins from the ground and direct all of the horses in separate directions. They both told me it wasn't my fault - that was just Pet trying to prove she was the princess. And - everyone in the class told me it was absolutely amazing that I didn't come off the horse the way she was kicking.

So, there you have it - my horseback riding class is certainly not dull. I was definitely a little shaken by the experience, but I was proud of myself for riding her back to the arena. I'm pretty sure next Tuesday I'll be able to get myself "back in the saddle again" - but I'll be perfectly happy to work on trotting in the round pen all by myself. Wish me luck!