Am I lazy?

There's something that I have been struggling with ever since I switched over to seriously riding "western".  This carries over into my training of Chevy.

There is this nagging thought in the back of my mind that I have become a really lazy rider.

I come from the huntseat world originally, and I remember my legs literally shaking after my lessons as a kid when I would lay in my bed at night, trying to sleep.

My training sessions back then were all about training me.  They were about strengthening my core, my legs, and my balance.  My instructors would have us trot and post around without stirrups for ten minutes straight.  We walked, trotted and cantered without them.  I remember how my legs felt like they were on fire.  Sometimes we trotted for 40 minutes without a break.  And they were incredibly useful lessons.

And I paid dearly for what I learned with the pain in my muscles every time I went home.

I even resorted to rubbing liniment on my legs at one point.

But the rewards were great.

A lot of the horses I rode back then were difficult to ride.  For the most part I liked the challenge after I had been in lessons long enough to feel confident about my abilities in the saddle.  They were school horses, nearly all of them Arabians, since the barn owner had a fondness for them, and they all had their sticky spots and quirks.  I was best with the high strung, flighty, over-sensitive types.  But I learned the most from the slow, lacking-forward-movement types, since they were not so in sync with my personality and my instincts.

I remember back when I was a kid on lesson day, shaking with nervousness on the drive out to the barn.  I chatted nervously at my mom, or stared out the car window trying not to think about what might happen to me today.  I remember the butterflies in my stomach and the sweat on my palms every time I went to saddle my lesson horse.

Back then it seemed like I fell off nearly every ride.

If you've ridden Arabians, you know how quickly they can go from one spot to another.

Many of us call it "the Arabian teleport".

And unless you're really good at reading the signs before they're technically ready to bolt, you're either in for a crazy ride or about the hit the dirt.

I only rode twice a month back then, since riding lessons were expensive.

I expected to fall off every time.

But eventually, all of those exercises started to pay off.  I could sit spooks, stay with a wild canter, calm a touchy horse and motivate a slow one.

At some point I stopped being so afraid.

It was because the lessons gave me the confidence to understand I was in control of the ride.  I wasn't just at the mercy of my horse.  I couldn't anticipate everything that would happen, but I could learn how to react and how to communicate what I wanted clearly.

And I started to think about how amazing it would be if someday I had a horse I wasn't afraid to get on and ride.

So that brings me back to my original point.

Has my training plan for Chev made me an essentially lazy rider?

One of my major goals for her was to stay in whatever gait I asked until I asked her to stop.

This sounds simple, but anyone who has ridden a horse knows it's a lofty goal.  Horses are not like cars.  They do not just naturally stay at 30 if you keep your foot on the gas.

In fact, in most every way they are exactly the opposite of a car.

Most horses require a lot of effort to get up into a canter, and then look for the first opportunity to either speed way up, drop out of it into the dreaded death trot, or shoulder-drop right back into the middle of the arena.

I wanted Chev to take the canter cue and keep chugging along with nothing more than very light contact along my calves.  I wanted the feeling of being there, but only as a passive force.  I wanted the reins to hang loose, and for her to want to stay that speed.  I wanted her to hunt for my cue to stop, because that would be my invitation to her for a break to air up.

Basically, I wanted my horse, who I had the opportunity to train from the ground up, to be a pleasure to ride.

I wanted her to be simple and uncomplicated.  I wanted her to be happy in her work.  I wanted her to be soft, supple, willing, and forward no matter what stage of collection we were in.  Essentially, I wanted my horse to do everything off the slightest cue.

I think since teaching her this, with largely good results, although we still have a lot to learn--I have completely lost the muscles in my legs.

So: am I expecting her to do all the work because I'm a really lazy rider?

I don't know.

I do know that after many years of riding school horses, I loathe the feeling of having to hold a horse up by the reins.  So my horse rides on a loose rein and has nothing to brace against up front.

That doesn't mean she did this from the beginning.  Oh, no.  She is pretty heavy up front due to conformation and personal attitude, so there were a lot of exercises in the beginning about giving in to the pressure of the reins by lifting the base of her neck and relaxing her topline out and down.  There were lots of shoulder-ins, lots of shoulder control exercises to lighten her front end.  She still needs reminders now and then.  But for the most part, she gets it, and I think on an average day I could ride most of the time with the reins between my index finger and my thumb.

I also loathe the feeling of the horse that requires a constant iron leg to keep up a gait.  So my horse gets her cue and light support, and chugs along until I ask her to stop.

And I loathe the feeling of the horse who balks at every cue, or simply ignores the aids.  So I have tried to make my cues to Chev clear, concise and 1-2-3 you're out, with (hopefully) minimal nit-picking.

I know most of the time I'm riding I don't break a sweat.  I do still engage in quite a bit of "long trotting" (regular trotting for you English folks out there) for muscle strengthening (for both of us).  And just to make sure she still remembers how to trot under saddle.  I know I don't push either one of us as hard as a trainer would.

Most of the time Chev would love to just jog along.  She was born to jog.  She could stay at a slow, cadenced jog on a draped rein all day.

I also know I should be working on a lot more lateral exercises.  I hate lateral work.  So I know I'm just being lazy about that.

I wish I could afford lessons and knew of a good trainer around here, because I think lessons are so important to keep people like me on track and not just loping big circles and having a blast.  I always wanted a horse I could just gear into the lope, enjoy the rolling feel of the three-beat gait, relax and smile without worrying about sudden teleportation, stopping, or careening into a white-knuckled gallop.

Is it so wrong to expect your horse to stay in a canter with little work on your part?  I hope not, because I'm really enjoying it.

She has learned to lift at the base of her neck naturally.

A little about me

I, like so many of you, have been in love with horses since I was a little girl.

I could outdraw my mom at age 4.

And just about all those doodles were horses.

My uncle was a showjumper who owned and leased some pretty nice Thoroughbreds.  My first ride was in front of him in the saddle, on his leased mare, dam of his jumper, Top Secret.  I was 3.

I was hooked.

For as long as I could remember, when in the backseat of my parent's car, I used to imagine I was outside, racing a fast horse along the car.  Jumping over any fence that got in our way.

Unfortunately for me, aside from my uncle I was the only one in my family bitten by the horse bug.  I saved all my birthday money and started in English lessons when I was 9.  At 10, I met my dear friend Mo, who was horse nutty like me.  She lived out of town and had several horses.

I remember so clearly packing up sandwiches in her old saddlebags, running down to the barn, and riding the horses all day.  We meandered through the creek, over slippery meadows and up logging roads.  We were gone for hours at a time.  It was heaven.  It was also my introduction to how sweet the quarter horse could be, and how unpredictable the mustang could be.

I took lessons weekly with several instructors and trainers for many years, and I learned the basics of huntseat, dressage, and jumping.  All my lesson horses were Arabians, and when I began riding, most were 6 or 7 years old.  Seems like I fell off weekly.  They would spook so rapidly, it was all I could do to stay in the saddle.  But I learned the art of velcro-butt, and the emergency dismount.  I learned a lot in those years.  Maybe the most valuable lesson I learned was to be light.

Arabians don't trouble with a heavy hand or a heavy leg.  They just dump you.  And I love them for that.

I showed in the IHSA circuit for two years in college, and that was a great experience.  Showing a horse you've never ridden taught me to be a quick study.  You had about 4 seconds to figure them out on the way into the ring.

There I rode warmbloods, quarter horses, paints, polo ponies, green horses, and broncos.  I even showed in a western class when we were short a person.

It was my first introduction to western riding.

When I was in my last year of college, I adopted my first horse, Baskovia.  I called him Ben.  He was 21 at the time, the same age as me.  He was a lost prince.  I had him for five wonderful years.  Part of my heart went with him the day I laid him to rest.

He was an ex-English Pleasure horse, and I doubt he'd ever seen a trail before he was mine.  He was fearless in the woods, and I rode him all over the place.  As long as we had each other, he would go anywhere.

In 2007, I brought home my filly, Chevelle.  Ben loved her and finally had a companion with him in the pasture.  She loved him and was always gentle and kind to him, though she was only 2, she was already nearly twice his size.

I began working with Chev when she turned 3 in 2008.

It was obvious her desire was to be a western pleasure horse.  I was able to get some excellent western instruction from a trainer who worked briefly with Chev in 2010.

I moved her with me halfway across the country in 2011, to Wyoming.  I'm continuing her physical training by myself, but I know enough to know I don't know much at all--and I rely heavily on books, other horsemen, and horsemanship theory that has been passed down through the years.

I look forward to every day of our journey together.  And she is turning in to a handy little horse, in spite of me.