Set ‘em Up

For success. Your horse, your kids, your dog, yourself. 

I ran into a phrase a few years ago that I grabbed ahold of and have squeezed out all the mileage the law allows:

Ride the horse that shows up.

What that meant to me was to not allow my fears, my preconceived notions of how good or bad the horse would be to overshadow my ability to ride the horse in the moment we happened to be in.

Three years of riding with Peter Campbell has given me a different idea. Take the horse that shows up and set ‘em up for success.

NOT TOO LATE FOR YOU! PETER WILL BE AT THE LANCASTER EVENT CENTER END OF THIS MONTH!!

If you do one thing for yourself this year, do this.

Sept 25-28
Lincoln, NE
FH, H1

402-427-5244
aw_heck2@abbnebraska.com

One of the best rides me and the Spotted Wonder had this year was at the ranch on a quiet Wednesday evening. It began with him twitchy and restless at the rail, his anxiety growing by the moment. I was puzzled, as I always am when the little things I do here and there to calm a horse have no effect. With him, they often don’t.

I tried moving his feet, loosening the tightness in his body. He was a coiled spring full of sharp angles. 

I tried getting him to soften at the poll. Jerky mechanical movements followed my softest efforts.

The horse that showed up was not going to be much fun to ride.

Stepping back, I went to his left rear, stroking down his hind leg til I reached his ankle. I gently asked for the smallest give there. He pops it sharply in the air for me to clean.

Nope, thanks brother, but that is not it.

I set the foot down and start over. A bit of this process ensues. I feel the energy change in him as I reach down his leg. I am in no hurry. I breathe out a long breath. 

At the ankle, I ask again, just a little? I feel an easing of the steel joint. I increase the pressure of my fingers and the ankle comes with me. It’s not super soft yet and I stay with it til it is.

As the ankle loosens and rocks in my hand, the toe steady on the ground the tension drains out of my sweet pony. He stands like a rock to be saddled, and we have a ride of bliss and partnership.

Since that day, we have not had a bad one. The horse that shows up sometimes looks pretty ready to head out but I don’t take it for granted.

I ask. Loose here? Easy there?

The answer is almost always no, not really, and then we do the things I have learned with Peter and reinforced with Kip and my friend Colleen to bring Royal into the relaxed horse that he really wants to be all along.

This has been a summer of milestones, most of which chronicled in detail right here. Yesterday was another. We hauled over to the Nebraska Horse Trails Council Trail Challenge. Because yeah, we do this now. We go places. He loads smoothly, without fear, rides quietly, unloads with me every step. Not small right there, huh?

This is the only fundraiser the NHTC holds and all funds go directly to supporting the horse trails network here in Nebraska.  A handful of people do an amazing job of setting up a trail ride, obstacle course, FOOD, a bag auction and a real one complete with professional auctioneer. Me telling you it’s a heck of a good time misses the mark. Second weekend of September, mark your calendars now and you don’t have to be from Nebraska to come enjoy the fun!

Here’s Royal and I surveying the scene. All those bags represent a cool item for which you purchase raffle tickets, drop them in the bags of things you wish to own and hope like heck they draw your number!

The prizes are worth showing up for and you don’t have to compete to ride. Here’s my booty from the bag auction! Score!

Here and there, Royal and I have worked on actual obstacles. That really isn’t the point of any of it.

It’s all about controlling the life in the body through the feet and back up into the mind.  My goal for the day was to keep his brain between his ears in a crowd of 67 riders (they let us go in two’s and three’s so not a totally mad bunch to deal with, anywhere). I wanted to push us past our comfort zone (other than just showing up, in the first place) while not overloading his mind with my demands and blowing goal number one.

The biggest box I wanted to check mark was riding with a group. I also wanted Royal to calmly follow a horse he didn’t know and not freak out if it disappeared around a corner in front of him.

We checked boxes one and two with flying colors.

When another rider wishing to move along a little quicker than our moseying bunch trotted by (quite politely, on their part) that caused us our only issue of the day.

Was completely low key on the Royal scale of Rictor, some high headed pranciness and strongly expressed desire to catch up, maybe pass that other guy. No leaping, no whirling, no twisting, no bounding. He stubbornly fought my attempts to bring back the inside ear which should turn back to me at my ask, keeping it cemented in the direction the other horse had disappeared.

Huge lightbulb.  At different times Royal EXPECTED me to spin him about. I would pick up a rein and his body would tighten and set up to whirl around. I have taught him that. Once again, I am minded at how very trainable these animals are and how we have to take responsibility for what we have installed, witting or no.

I set up different things, got stern in my request, this that, until finally I got to a place far enough away from the others I was riding with to disengage the hind, back him a step to softness, release him square, and let him stand and breathe it off. He was still too rattled to do the obstacle that appeared a few more yards down the trail, or maybe I was. We took the pass, picked up his brain where he had left it and continued along on our beautiful ride.

Looking back, I might could have pushed a little harder on a couple of things but I also have to beware my desire to be competitive. It can overcome my good judgment, causing damage, and won’t make us one bit more ready than we were right then.

We were respectable in our showing, landing in the middle of the pack, but again the scores were not why we were there. His willingness to try warmed my heart, how softly he backed the U-turn between the closely set trees, and walking through the scary cavern of death at the end with only a dubious look and an “you sure this is a good idea?”

I will take it. I am glad I don’t have to ride the horse that shows up anymore. It was better than riding the nightmare between my ears or the anger and disappointment when the horse I was riding didn’t perform as my imagination said it would but this is far better yet.

Set ‘em up.

Golden Moment, Golden Life

 

“Save the bright spots. Save them against the dark days” My dad used to say that.

Hello, my name is Terri and I am a recovering anxiety junkie.

If you have followed my blog at all, you know my mind is a worse runaway than any horse I have ridden. Was. My horse is an anxiety junkie too.

Royal looks my way as I approach, eyes large and soft. I reach up, rub his neck in his favorite places, he stretches out in appreciation. I promised him back in May at Peter’s clinic in Archie, MO that I would never again drop him off a cliff. Never again abandon him in his fear, confusion and pain.

I have so far kept that promise.

Here and there, along the way I have seen bits and pieces of the horse I want to be riding.

At the Mother’s Day ride, on the way home when he finally settled and walked even with horses behind and ahead of us, disappearing and reappearing into view. (Blessed be, Concho. See you on the other side, sweet boy)

 

At the CTR, when I presented him to the judge, him working from the ground on a loose line, with me every step. Stopping at the Pulse and Respiration checks and him sanely sinking his head, relaxing, untroubled by the comings and goings of the other horses.

 

 

The horse show I flung us into willy nilly, zero expectations and we had a ball!

That ride a couple of weekends ago with my two great friends.

Golden moments. We have had them from the very start.  From the horse who levitated six feet sideways over a shadow on the ground, there was a horse that stepped out bold and strong when his confidence was right.

My plan was to build on those moments until they became a minute, five, ten, an hour, us.

In that process I have had to release my addiction to fear and anxiety. Have had to develop processes to get my mind as soft, easy and in the moment as I want my horse to be.

Yesterday we played on obstacles at the saddle club arena trail course. As always, the obstacles are just another way to find relaxation, to control the footfall of a single step. It’s never about the obstacle.

I began on the ground, sending him through things, helping him not rush, supporting Royal while he figured things out. When the feet get fast, the confidence is gone and the mind shortly behind that.

When I mounted up, I took care to settle his feet before stepping into the saddle. Got him solidly balanced. Peter would shake his head. Of COURSE you get him settled, you get him READY.

Got dinged for not doing that very thing at the CTR. Let my worry become his and he walked off during my awkward offside mount. Had nothing to do with the difficulty of getting on from the side I avoid and everything in the world with my willingness to rush and disregard what I know I need to do to get where I want to go.

Horse stands like a rock. He is unconcerned because his mind is right and his body is balanced.

We work the course.  When the anxiety grabs him and he rushes, I catch him. If I miss the timing and he blows through a thing, I don’t hammer on him. I don’t try to get through something bad to get to something good. I set us up, start over and we get it.

I discover he doesn’t want to back through the barrels. At all. At the horse show, I was thinking it was all about his buddy Ringo standing over there and him wanting to focus on that. I find out his claustrophobia sets in and he wants to get out from between the barrels fast, doesn’t want to relax and arc his body around them backward or forward.

Awesome! A fine place to work. We did the barrel game, on the ground, I watch his feet and when his butt skitters out, I set his feet and send him through again. I watch that his body is correct, when his nose points out awkwardly none of the rest is likely to work at all.  This part is easier to deal with in the saddle though, keeping a spur handy on that outside.

I play a game, riding his outside front foot. I concentrate on that foot, picking it up and setting it down in such a way that the inside hind comes in and sets down where I want it instead of him shifting his weight to the outside hind and running off with it.

Doesn’t always work, but when it does, he and I both feel it. There is a moment, done with that, we are back to backing and as we come between the barrels to figure eight around the other one, I shift the weight in my hips to set his body up to arc the other way. He instantly shifts with me and is ready. It was sexy. A gorgeous moment. I had to sit there for a moment and absorb the bliss.

Here’s a couple little blips of the stuff we did. Colleen was working the rescue horses in her care as head trainer at the Nebraska Humane society. She put a first ride on a young filly right out there in the obstacle horse. No round pen, no arena and no need for one when you set them up right like she does.

Colleen helped me work on our buddy sour issues, taking her horse away and not bringing her back in til Royal was calm. We still have a very long way to go for that to be completely in place but he stayed manageable and not airborne! Progress!

I look up, and I am a better horseman,  friend, wife, mother . . . maybe than I have been in my entire life. I wish I would have found this spot back when my kids were small and could have better benefitted but I am where I am and nothing to be gained by regret except losing the value of the moment. I will be for them now what I couldn’t, back then.

Journey is far from complete.  That’s okay, we are going to enjoy the ride, one day at a time and when it gets bumpy, we will find our golden moments and build from there.