Dressage is often compared to dancing with your horse. I soon learned that with a young horse, the choreography involves two steps forward, and one step back, if you're very lucky.
My dance with Sammie had us tripping over our feet a bit at first, but we soon established a rhythm. As I mentioned at the end of my last post, once I adopted a more confidant attitude (even if I had to fake it), we started making progress. Lisa was very happy with my improved longeing skills, and continued to help me improve Sammie's ground manners. Together, we started exposing her to more things that were initially scary for Sammie, like spraying, bathing, or odd animals she had never seen before. Like the mini-donkey that moved in next door. While initially quite upsetting to Sammie, she soon learned to take the braying muffin-butt in stride. Which was fortunate, since bedonkey-donk was often within Sammie's view while working in the arena.
It wasn't long before the minor inconveniences at Clancy's became major obstacles for us. The round pen was overgrown with big weeds. Sammie soon started refusing to work, treating the round pen like a salad bar at Sizzler. All you can eat. It would often take 5 or 10 minutes and some really sharp cracks with the whip before I could get her moving. The weeds weren't the worst of it, though. The footing in the round pen was horrible. Huge rocks everywhere, which became evident after I spent about 11 hours pulling weeds. Well, no big deal. I'll just do all my work in the arena, right? Wrong. Clancy soon decided to take on one-too-many boarders, leaving her permanently lame mare without a home. So Clancy moved her into the arena, 24/7. Try working with a crippled mare in the arena. Sammie would have none of it. So every work session started with a horse swap: I'd get the old mare out of the arena, put her in Sammie's paddock, take Sammie out of her stall, groom her, work her, put her back, put the old mare back in the arena. What fun. But it got worse. The neighbor to the east of the property decided we were kicking up too much dust, and threatened to go to the city and complain. Clancy, knowing full well she had too many horses for her acreage (and I suspect, no license to use her property as a commercial boarding facility), decided to placate Grumpy Old Man and told me I had to water the arena before every use. Eventually, Sammie just refused to work. She took balking to a whole new level, and who can blame her? The footing in the arena was horrible. Clancy never dragged it, never added new layers, and with lame-o living in it, it became a mine field of uneven craters, designed to eat horse hooves. I feared Sammie, if pushed, would trip and hurt herself. She had enough problems trying to find her balance, especially when she would go through a growth spurt.
I had one last hope. Work Sammie up at the park. The only drawback: the 1/4 mile walk up the street, crossing a major intersection. It was a short walk, but to a young horse, it was a big deal. Goblins everywhere. Even with a stud chain, the spook-fest was too much for me. We could manage it with Lisa along, but I just never was able to feel safe leading her up there on my own. By now, the
Dressage Two-Step was history. Sammie was regressing, and I was losing confidence daily.
By June, I was at the end of my lead rope. Sammie's resistance was unshakeable. No amount of leg/boot/whip, etc., would convince her to move. Sammie would either stand like a statue, or start backing. I had the vet look at her mouth, and learned her wolf teeth were coming in. Like wisdom teeth in humans, wolf teeth are unnecessary teeth in horses, and are often removed to prevent pain and interference with the bit. At the end of June, I had the vet remove the wolf teeth, which meant 2-3 weeks of working without a bit. That left me with two choices: longe Sammie on the bad footing, and risk lameness, or try to get Sammie up to the park. I chose the latter.
After the first few tries, it became clear I was not going to reach a comfort level any time soon. My husband finally convinced me to move Sammie out of Clancy's.
"If you aren't enjoying your horse, what's the point?"
Indeed. Smart husband.
Next post: barn shopping. Less fun than horse shopping.
From my blog:
Green on Green
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