Can’t I just order some guts from Country Supply?
Apr 23 2008
Unrelated to the post but pictured today for decoration, several rescued Thoroughbred mares available through Save A Forgotten Equine in Monroe, Washington. They are track broke and both riding quietly.
When I was a cocky teenager who would ride anything, me and my cocky teenager friends would sneer haughtily at this middle-aged lady at our barn as only cocky teenagers can. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her – she was afraid to ride her own horse. Oh, once in a while she’d get on and do a little walk-trot but mostly she paid someone else to ride him. And he wasn’t a tough horse. A little hot, maybe, but in retrospect I don’t think he ever got turned out and given the circumstances, the horse was a saint.
The thing that baffled us is that we all remembered when we were little kids at the barn and we remembered her riding the toughest horses there without a second thought. Did this mean we were going to get old and chicken shit too? Perish the thought. We were sure it wasn’t going to happen to us.
Until I was about 27, I rode six days a week, no fewer than three horses a day, and often as many as ten. Many of them green, many of them horses with “issues.” It took a lot to scare me. I won’t say there aren’t horses I turned down riding back then, but they had real problems – rearing, brain-turned-off-bolting, flipping. (I still (knock on wood) haven’t been flipped with and I really do intend to try to avoid that experience)
Then, life happened. I finished college, I broke up with the horsey guy and married a non-horsey guy, I moved a couple of times. I sold off everything but two horses and I pretty much just stopped riding. Oh, I rode here and there – I put some training rides on a friend’s greenie after she unexpectedly got pregnant, I hopped on my old gray mare and rode her around the field a few times – but for the most part, I quit. I lost my riding muscles, I lost my balance, and I gained thirty pounds.In 2003, I got the urge to start riding again – and was quickly in for a shock. Where was my balance? Where was my flexibility? Where the hell were my guts? I got scared easily. I got off and walked horses back to the barn if they acted barn-sour. I could hardly post halfway around the arena without my stirrups. WTF?
First, I blamed my weight. Surely it was just the thirty extra pounds that had turned me into a bad rider, so I starved it off over the course of a winter and wound up thinner than I had been in my 20s. I ran every morning before work and weight trained, convinced that fitness was the answer. You know, it helped – but it didn’t help enough. I was still gutless. My balance felt off. If a horse did the spook-spin-bolt with me, I got dangerously off balance. It wasn’t that I was coming off but I just didn’t feel tight and secure like I used to. I would get dizzy if they did something too quickly. I remembered making fun of that lady when I was a cocky teenager and realized karma was kicking me in the ass!
I went on a campaign to FIX THIS. I took longe lessons with no reins and no stirrups, doing endless transitions using only my seat and legs. The trainer told me I was perfectly fine, didn’t suck, and it was all in my head. Did I need to quit the trainer and go to a shrink? Take a few shots of vodka before riding? Prozac? Zoloft? Hypnosis? What? I decided to stick an ipod in my ears, crank up the music and try to distract myself from any fears. It kind of worked.
Strangely enough, the thing that helped me was getting back into horse rescue. If you are going to help the horses, you have to get on them and evaluate them. You don’t have history. The horse might be dangerous. You simply do not know until you get on, but someone has to get on and when you look around at your fellow rescuers, you realize that you’re in the minority as someone who has started greenies and ridden a lot of OTTB’s – even if it was many years ago. You find that, like it or not, you’re the most qualified person to hop up there and find out what you’ve got. You’re IT, sunshine. Being chickenshit isn’t going to save a life, so just cut out the mental bullshit and get on the horse already! I started getting on the “unknown history” horses again, and at least so far, it hasn’t bitten me in the ass. In fact, in honor of my 40th birthday last summer, I decided to volunteer to ride an extremely green Arabian mare owned by a rescue in a schooling show. Did I mention I didn’t have any opportunity to ride her beforehand, and that she had been a totally unhandled 10 year old just five months earlier? She was green but nonviolent and while our show performance would have made for one hell of a funny Youtube video (you guys probably would have posted it here and gone “who is this yahoo, maybe she should have gotten the horse trained before the horse show?”), I had a good time and felt like at least I wasn’t a total wimp in my old age. 
So now I am on to the next hurdle: Breaking out my gigantor 16.2 three year old. I love this horse and he has a great mind and is easily the best quality horse I’ve ever owned in my life. I have heard even more training horror stories than usual in the past years and am paranoid and trust no one (well, Mugwump or OFCOL or CutNJump but they are all too far away from me) so I have been doing ground work for weeks and contemplating putting the first ride on the very…very…Very Large Colt. Last night seemed to be a good time – no thunder, no lightning, no jack donkey braying continuously while locked in a trailer in the parking lot (that has happened before, and Very Large Colt doesn’t care for it, to say the least). We tacked, we longed, we hand walked around the arena and practiced our “ho” and he was every bit as semi-catatonic as he usually is.
Then the internal conversation began – which I suspect will sound very familiar to many of my over-35 readers:
Left Brain: Just get on the damn horse. You have been getting on feedlot rescues for the past two years. This is a nice horse from a good home. This is actually easier.
Right Brain: Fuck, that is a long way down. Why did I want a 16.2 hander again?
Left Brain: Because the judges would laugh you out of the ring on your 14.3 hand mare, even if she does want to be a hunt seat horse. Remember?
Right Brain: Oh yeah.
Left Brain: Speaking of said 14.3 hand mare, you got on her not thinking she was broke AND she was violently cold backed AND you did it after only three days of ground work in a crowded arena in December.
Right Brain: Yeah, but I had to do that. Someone told me to just get on her and there were witnesses so I couldn’t wuss out. I’m all alone here, nobody is gonna know if I chicken out but me. Hey, there’s another good reason not to do this! Nobody is here. Guess it’ll have to wait for another night!
headlights roll in
Left Brain: Try another excuse, Wimpy Wanda. Your friends are here and will be happy to call 911 if you eat dirt. After they stop laughing, of course.
Right Brain: Maybe I’m rushing things. He’s kind of girthy and stuff…he probably needs more ground work.
Left Brain: *snort* Oh yeah there ya go. Why don’t you just put the horse away and go in the house and go online and order the Parelli videos now? You too can be one of those middle aged ladies doing perpetual ground work with her horse that walks all over her! Hey, maybe he can wear a tarp on his head. I’m sure they’ve got a class for that at AQHA World!
Right Brain: Shut UP left brain. You know, if I got hurt and couldn’t work, how could I support all of these horses? I would have to put myself on my own blog as one of these losers who can’t afford hay. Check it out everybody, this stupid 40 year old woman with eight horses to support got the genius idea to break out her first greenie from scratch since about 1994. Of course she wound up putting herself in traction and now she’s on the Internet begging for someone to take care of her 30-something mush eating mare for her. Pathetic! Wouldn’t it have made more sense to spend the lousy $500 and have someone else who can actually still ride do it?
Left Brain: OMG I’m ashamed to share a head with you. For fuck’s sake, the horse doesn’t even buck when he’s turned out. His idea of being a bad ass is to put his head down and shake it a few times. Are you gonna fall off if he does that? Go roll yourself in feathers if you’re going to be that chicken. BWAAAAWK BWAAAAWK BWAAAAK! *flaps arms*
Left Brain won. I got on the Very Large Colt (pictured left, several weeks earlier, and yes, there IS a fence in the middle of the indoor that I am kneeling on in this picture…old converted dairy barn). As I predicted, the worst thing he did was back up a little bit in confusion. He quickly figured out forward motion, stopping, turning, etc. The “ho” command worked just as well from the saddle as it did from the ground. He reacted to the sudden appearance of the little gray barn cat by following said barn cat along the fence line and sticking his nose on the barn cat and snarfling all over it. (Now, we all know that the real challenge is ride three or four…but I’m gonna pretend if nothing happened the first time, nothing is going to…)
All right, the rest of you – as COTH calls them “re-riders” – or just admitted middle aged wimps, tell me your stories! I know I am not the only one struggling with this issue. We can all feel stupid together, woo hoo!
5 comments to “Can’t I just order some guts from Country Supply?”
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I went through a similarly frustrating time in college. My school had a equestrian team that I join without a second thought. What didn’t occur to me at the time was the fact that I’d be riding a school horse during my bi-weekly lesson, and a brand new horse at interscholastic shows. I mean, I’m a good rider, but in my fourteen years in the saddle, I’ve basically been on two horses. Doing dressage. Our team’s coach had never even heard of dressage.
This meant that not only would I have to learn to ride all over again, this time with a hunt seat, but I’d also be riding an array of different horses when I was spoiled rotten by having my own. It actually worked out fine, and I went on to become team captain, but the whole thing taught me to never get cocky.
My story is kind of the opposite. Had a year or so of English lessons when I was about 9 or 10. I had to be the most wussified whiney little baby there ever was, I was always scared. Additionally, I was a horrendous rider. In all that time I was never even able to master a canter. I eventually lost interest in horses in favor of boys, but the horsey bug was back in full force by early 20′s. I spent over 10 years dedicated to the goal of having a horse- got a job at a hunter-jumper facility, took as many lessons as I could afford, even put my house on the market with the hopes of buying land.
I decided in May 08 to start looking seriously and June 28 2008 acquired Cody, my first horse. I did exactly what everyone says not to do – bought a 3yr old. I could tell the moment I saw him he had such intelligence, was calmer than I would have ever expected (prob because I was always told they couldn’t even be ridden until they’re 3, not to mention most of my adult experience to that point was with crazy-hot, constantly stabled, 17++ hand nightmares). He rode perfectly in the round pen before the sale, so sensitive & responsive. 3 days later at home, Cody bucked me the first time I got on him. Suddenly, he’s also afraid of the saddle blanket. Luckily I have some old school cowboy riding buddies and they agreed to trailer Cody & I along on the next trail. He was just an absolute bronc to my buddy who rode him first. He settled down after about an hour and we switched back & I rode the rest of the day.
I took him to team penning, & on trails, anywhere our friends would haul us. Sometimes we went with some gal friends because the boys would be busy. Well, they had seen what he was like & they sure as heck weren’t about to get on Cody. So either I had to ride my own horse or sit in the bleachers. He used to buck and bronc from the time the saddle was on then it got to where it was only when loping or if he spooked. Sometimes I stayed on, sometimes not, but every SINGLE time I got right-the-f&ck back on that bugger and kept him going. Cowboy buddies started putting me on their young horses (cause, they might not be broke, but DAMN they’re not as bad as Cody). At least 2 seasoned cowboys have never been on him, one former bullrider rode him once but hasn’t been back on. Now I’ll pretty much ride any crazy horse anyone needs me to. I love it even if I just talk to them, hang out & maybe sit on them for awhile. They all respond differently and have a unique style. It never gets old!
I’m still a crappy rider, but I’m working on balance, position & saving for lessons. Cody’s 4 now and after a year and a half, he’s a completely different horse. I want to become a better rider for him. I am definitely more afraid of sucking forever and looking like a goof than I am of getting hurt.
I used to ride everything with hair and 4 semi-sound hooves under it. Then came husband, 2 babies and the horses sat in the field and got fat and I sat on the couch, fed babies and did the same. One day I decided to go out and hope on trusty old Sable bareback and just take a nice little ride around the pasture. No biggee. At a WALK I slipped and slid around and couldn’t stay in the middle of my horse to save my life. She would look back at me every few steps with a confused expression and tilted ears. It was like she wondered what I was doing back there and would I mind getting on with it. I had to retrain my body and yes, lose those 30 pounds, and I also had no desire anymore to ride the young stupid ones. Now after 3 years with no horses at all. In my infinite wisdom, I purchased an very green 6 year old pasture ornament Halflinger and a matching 6 year old completely untrained Missouri Foxtrotter. We will see if I can force my 40 year old body to survive the experience.
Wish me luck!
Maryinmt
oops! Hop, not hope.
I’m fifteen and have not yet managed to go through a lesson without being afraid of something. I freaking ride a 21-year-old Connemara who’s been giving lessons since he was three! That’s because I’m afraid of the HUGE 14.2 mare who tosses her head before the jump and likes to go fast, and the pony who crow hopped a bit when she was green. I’ve decided I would rather do dressage, because jumps are carnivorous little-girl-eating monsters, but the problem is that I ride with my best friend, who is FEARLESS and loves jumping. She rides the fast mare all over the pasture bareback with a halter, falls off twice and gets back on without a second thought while I steel myself to ask the 21-year-old to trot. I can’t exactly start taking private lessons because, well, she’s my best friend, and if my mom doesn’t drive her each week, her mom won’t let her keep riding. Last summer, when I spent almost every day at the barn, I was afraid of cantering. This year, I’m afraid of trails. And I’ve got this new problem that my favorite horse is 16hh with a trot like a mechanical bull, a canter that feels like we’re on the homestretch of the Kentucky Derby, and who has recently started kicking at every horse that comes within 15 feet of his bum. He’s also tried to buck me off on the trails while I was trying not to faint from dehydration. That was about the best ride of my life.