I was talking to my mother tonight about how frustrated I was with how Walker wouldn't turn and how simple of a task this seems. She calmly (as mothers tend to do) reminded me that I have come very far since having him. And I had to stop and think. You know what, I have.
When I first starting riding again, I was a pretty nervous wreck after all my "incidents" over the years. The horse I used to ride at the barn I'm at now also had an attitude problem - the kind of attitude that comes with old age. Everyone at the barn used to say that he had the attitude of a cranky old man, and that is exactly the way to describe him. That horse used to pin his ears back and do things to unnerve me, and I was terrified that he would buck me off (like he once bucked off my trainer).
Fast forward to Walker. Walker bucks all the time. It does not bother me in the least. As far as I'm concerned, he can buck his little heart out so long as I can manage to stay in the saddle. But let's be clear. When Walker bucks, it is nothing like this:
Although I will admit that when I fell off that one time, it felt a lot like this:
But I'm probably over-dramatic.
Anyway, the point of the story is that a year ago, if a horse so much as picked those back feet up, I shut down.
When I got Walker, I was a little nervous around him. He was younger, faster, and obviously had attitude. I was thinking at the time that although he was a beauty, I just couldn't catch a break. For the longest time, I only walked and jogged that horse. When we moved from the indoor arena to the outdoor arena and he picked up the pace to what I deemed at the time "an uncontrollable trot" (i.e. a regular trot that scared my Western jogging ways), I pretty much walked 90% of the time. I literally had to force myself to trot for intervals of time, holding my breath because I assumed that Walker was going to run away on me.
Then when I got over our trot issues (and we definitely had other issues at the trot that I overcame), I went a long time before I loped him. Other than this weird interval of time where I was actually successfully loping Walker in both directions (and then never again), we spent 90% of our time jogging. I NEVER loped in an arena with other horses, and the only time I worked on our loping was in the safety of the indoor arena.
Then came July/August. And one day I just decided we were going to get over loping the way we got over trotting. The first few times I loped him off and then immediately pulled him back, nervous of his speed the way I was with the trot. Then I just taught myself to hold my breath and let him run. I didn't work on anything during those times, just learned to trust my horse and appreciate his speed. Because that's part of the problem - thinking that your horse is misbehaving when he's actually not. You really need to be able to pick out the difference.
Now we lope every day. Every day for maybe 15 - 20 minutes out of our 30 minute rides. Frankly, I probably lope him more than he should be loped, but as my barn owner said, he's young and he's in the best shape of his life. And although he gets annoyed with me, he's a pretty willing partner.
About a month ago, my instructor had us execute this complicated clover leaf pattern. I forced Walker to lope it on his good side and we did it and I was pretty proud. And I have never been able to replicate it. But here's the thing, we did it - but Walker bucked through the whole experience. It was about a couple weeks later that I stopped loping in lessons and I'm glad I did. You see, I figured something out. I realized that I could take this horse and do all the complicated patterns that our instructor wanted us to do. They wouldn't be pretty but we could do them. Both Walker and I were more than capable. But in truth, we needed to work on foundations. Because it wasn't about either one of our capabilities but both of us working as a team to get things done.
So I went back to basics. In August, I spent most of my time just asking him to lope, getting him to a point where he didn't get all annoyed when I asked him. Sometimes he still does, but generally he's more willing than he once was. I find now that he mostly gets annoyed when he's been loping and stopping and loping and stopping for 15 minutes, and then I ask him to do it after a break. He's annoyed because he's tired, not because he's trying to get out of work. And that's a big difference. After the discovery of the rollback (my dream loping tool), we started working on listening and just loping large (which is still what we're working on with his bad side).
I'm pretty proud of my accomplishments with Walker. I went from being nervous to trot my horse to being able to lope him large, sometimes in smaller circles, sometimes over poles, etc. Sure, we have issues on his bad side and we still have a long way to go on his good side, but today I noticed another thing. Walker hasn't bucked in a week. As of last week, Walker had bucked every single day at least once a ride during our loping, and starting this past weekend, he hasn't thrown one buck. Now, I'm currently knocking on wood and don't truly believe that the problem is solved that effortlessly, but it is a testament to how much we've worked together that he no longer feels like he needs to buck because obviously I've started doing something (or more likely stopped doing something) that made him uncomfortable. That's a lot of progress, as far as I'm concerned.
The "Buck" documentary was a good thing to watch tonight. I was utterly inspired by some of the things that man could do with his horse. I mean at one point he took his roping horse and was practicing almost dressage maneuvers in an open field. As you can see in the trailer I posted, he even gets down on his knees in front of the horse on the ground and directs him where to go. I mean that is talent. And that is also hard work. I was so flabbergasted that I just bought the DVD on Amazon (despite my dire financial straits), and I even checked his 2012 schedule to see if he was coming anywhere near me. He's supposedly in Maine next weekend, and I was pretty much ready to drive all the way there but his spectator quota was full (and of course, I'm going home for my mother's birthday!).
In the meantime, I will continue what I'm doing: foundations. Forget patterns. Forget crazy turning. You need to be able to lope an entire arena before you can turn on a dime the way I seem to expect Walker to do. That's something we can work on with his good side, but for now, I need to take a step back, give my head a shake, and work WITH my horse, not try and force him like a tyrant.
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