At first, she was normal, and then she began to get really tense every time I would ask her to trot. She'd go into this short, choppy trot that was ridiculously uncomfortable and she'd raise her head high. Not flip it, she bring it high and hold it there.
One day, T was in the arena to watch her daughter ride. I was riding Artemis, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong when T called me over. She'd been watching me and she had a theory about why Artemis was so tense in the trot. She told me to try trotting her again, this time with absolutely no contact on the reins. I'm not going to lie, I thought she was insane.
I don't ride with a lot of contact on the bit, or at least, I thought I didn't. However, I know that I do tend to tighten up the reins when my horses go faster. I think it comes from years of Socks taking off on me the second she got her head (although thankfully we're over that issue bow). So I thought I already was riding with little to no contact.
T saw that I was nervous and pointed out to me that as we were inside the indoor arena, if Artemis did take off on me, she had nowhere to go (she also pointed out to me that at no point has Artemis even attempted to take off on me). And thanks to Socks, I know how to stop a runaway horse anyway, so there was no harm in at least trying. I couldn't really argue with that, and I respect T a lot. She's a reiner and her horse is one of the most well trained animals I've ever seen.
I asked Artemis to trot, keeping her in a circle that took up about half of the arena. The only contact I had on the bit was to direct her. The second she'd do what I'd want, all contact would be gone. At first, she was the same, tense with her head held high. She trotted really quickly, you know that fast paced trot before the horse breaks into a lope or canter. After a few laps though, that head began to come down and her strides lengthened. I could feel her relax and her head dropped even lower. Her speed slowed and soon there wasn't any tension and nervousness in her. Just like that.
T asked me to lope Artemis, doing the same thing, no contact at all except to steer. This time I let Artemis go all around the arena. Like with the trotting, for the first lap or so she went really fast, really choppy with her head up. Then, when she realized I wasn't going to be pulling on her face, she relaxed almost instantly.
It was a big Aha! moment for me. It was just one, simple thing and driving home that night, I could see how it explained problems I'd been having with all three horses. I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty stupid that it was such a simple solution. I felt even worse that this whole time I thought I was pretty loose with my reins, when clearly, I wasn't enough.
Since then, neither trotting or loping has been an issue for us. Artemis no longer gets tense and I'm no longer paranoid she's going to take off on me, not that I had a valid reason to be afraid of that in the first place.
To end this, have some pictures of the pasture horses. It was my birthday Sunday and although I'm still not cleared by my doctor to ride, I still managed to get out and spend some time with the ponies.
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| Flip |
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| Artemis in need of a good brushing |
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| You can see that the creek has flooded again |
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| Artemis and Ebony |
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| Jay the farm dog |
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