Last weekend we took a LOOOONG trip, from here in the southern part of North Carolina to the panhandle of Maryland.  Cary had a show in Frederick, Md., which meant, of course, that I got a lesson at North Fork!  I like doing these once a year lessons at North Fork, after days of having to sit up in the car, sit up at the stamp show, getting up early, going out to eat and then driving around 20-30 minutes to North Fork I am TIRED.  My exhaustion causes my body to not work as well, and all of my position and riding faults get magnified.  Then I get even more tired after the long drive home, and with only a day of rest (not enough) I get my lesson with Debbie, when even more hidden faults become apparent.  It is a good test of my ability to ride correctly, and it gives me goals for improvement for the rest of the year.

The morning of my lesson at North Fork my left leg was really bothering me with sciatica, and when we got to the stable my left calf developed a cramp.  I got my trust homeopathic remedies out and took them hoping that they would work in time for my lesson.  I hobbled up to the ring and got to sit some waiting for Karen Fenwick (the owner/instructor at North Fork) to get my horse ready and bring her to the ring.  This year I got to ride Dusty, a chestnut mare of unknown breeding (maybe a mix of QH & ASB) that Karen bought a few months ago.  This is the third time I’ve ridden a chestnut mare at North Fork, somehow Karen’s chestnut mares have none of the problems I read about other people’s chestnut mares, riding a chestnut mare at North Fork is a non-event as far as excitement goes.  Dusty seemed pretty nice when I met her and I did my usual introduction of letting my mind go blank so that she could pick up what is wrong with me, along with my usual promise that I would not hurt her.

Karen told me that Dusty had been raised and trained by a teenage girl, and for a beginner that girl had done an excellent job, but that Dusty had learned how to take advantage of ANY lack of concentration by her rider.  As long as she is ridden by someone that knows what they are doing and pays attention all the time she is wonderful, but that there had been a few problems with beginners.  It is nice to have prior warning!  As it was, and as tired as I was, I was not able to keep my attention up to Dusty’s standards, so until we got in tune I had a few instances of her trying to dive in, but when I corrected her there were no problems, at least until the next time my attention strayed!  She had a sort of logy walk, the usual riding school horse walk that wastes no energy.  Then we moved into the trot and what a wonderful, springy, and impulsive trot Dusty had!  The first time I was unprepared and got “left behind”, but I rode all the other trots fine.  If I had been looking for a horse to buy Dusty’s trot would have had me bringing out my checkbook immediately it was that good.  With a trot like that everything else is workable, all it takes is good riding, consistency and time.

As the lesson went on Karen pointed out that my hands were still going up and down at the walk as well as forward and back, but that my seat, posture, legs at the walk and trot, and hands at the trot were excellent (I did not canter.)  The contact at a walk is a problem I’ve had for years, somehow my elbows do not react to contact at a walk properly and they over-compensate for the motion of the horse’s head.  Finally, after several minutes of trying to get my elbows to work PROPERLY (poor Dusty) I started combining the back and forth motion of my hands with opening and closing my fingers a little, when I did that both Karen and Dusty were much happier with me, my hands did not move up and down and Dusty’s mouth did not get irritated by my contact.  So far so good.  We trotted some more and my hands seemed to be fine, at least my elbows work properly at the trot!

Then Karen set up some trotting poles and told me to do a posting trot over them.  This is when my exhaustion really affected me, my body immediately went into my old (decades old) habit of getting up into two point when trotting over the poles.  Then there was the problem of getting Dusty turned so she headed into the center of the poles, since I was concentrating on around 4 things at once my attention to Dusty’s path wavered and she bowed out into the turn.  After two attempts Karen told me what to do:  as I turn to glance to where I was going, and then to use my eyes to focus on the quarter points of the turn (glance to the poles, look to the first quarter point, the second quarter point, the quarter points like I was doing a circle instead of half a circle.)  It was miraculous, no more bowing out, no last minute steering, no loss of impulse, Dusty cheerfully obeyed me and Karen praised my last two turns.

By then I was really tired.  Dusty tried more and more to get off track taking advantage of my lack of concentration.  We wove between standing poles, the first time my turns were too shallow for Karen so we did the poles several times until I got it right.  A few times I had to redirect Dusty at the end of the poles, she was turning before I gave her my aids, so I insisted that she turned when I wanted and in the direction I wanted before we turned around and went through to poles again.  I will say this for Dusty, every time she started to go where SHE wanted to she cheerfully obeyed me when I got my act together and we went on as if nothing had happened.  Then I backed Dusty, no problems, the steps were relatively even and she backed relatively straight (I was too tired to keep my aids absolutely even on both sides) and she gave me a mouth flexion every step back, and she was nice and light to my rein aids.  By then I was very, very, very tired so we ended my lesson.  Riding under Karen’s eye once a year is so good, she notices every little fault and makes sure to tell me!  She is much “nicer” to beginners but I did go to North Forks over 30 years ago as a residential student, and I told Karen the first lesson I had with her several years ago that I was trying to ride on as much of an advanced level as my MS allows me.  So Karen uses my lessons to point out how I can become a better rider.  Thank you Karen!

When I got back I rested one whole day, then I had my lesson on Mick.  He was his usual generous and obedient self, and I got some good trots out of him in spite of his stiff back.  I had changed from my usual back and forth massage with my hand-held roller massager to doing it in a circular motion.  This is a result of going to used book stores and getting fourteen horse books, one of them is by a student of Linda Tellington Jones (of the TTouch methods), “Know Your Horse Inside Out” by Sarah Fisher.  I read that the back and forth massage does nothing to rewire the spasming muscle’s nerve connections to the brain, but with the circular motion enough different parts of the muscle/muscles get stimulated so the reconnections can proceed.  I do not know if this is true, but Debbie noticed that he was no longer dragging his hind legs though his shoulders seemed stiffer (I did not massage his shoulders.)  When I noticed him starting to stiffen up during my ride I would reach back, make my hand like the legs of a spider, and do more circles right behind the saddle.  That seemed to help some, I will have to read this book more when I finally recover from my trip.

Anyway, near the end of my lesson with Debbie I was really tired and asked if she minded me doing stretches with Mick standing still.  So I reached back and touched his croup with one hand and then swung it around to reach as far down as I could on the opposite shoulder.  Debbie IMMEDIATELY noticed that my right leg was swinging back and to the outside, and she saw happening when I did the stretches with my other arm, right arm or left arm, my right leg moved back, up, and out to the side.  I had not felt my leg moving, I guess the right nerves are just not working now.  I have been having a little trouble keeping my right foot in the stirrup and I guess this leg movement is the logical conclusion to whatever is wrong with my right leg.  The only way I found that I could keep my right leg still when I was doing the stretches was to turn my right toe inward a little, then my right leg stayed just as stable as my left leg.  Maybe now that I KNOW that my problems with my right leg are not just position errors but also neurological effects of my MS I will be able to figure out a way to fix them when the horse is moving.  I HATE having the stirrup rattle around my foot, the only saving graces are that I have not been losing my right stirrup and the tread seems to be mainly under the ball of my foot so I am secure when I remember to order my leg to lengthen down (it sure doesn’t happen automatically for me.)

But the absolutely wonderful thing is that, in spite of my exhaustion, my compromised central nervous system, and my general life long physical klutziness my seat, legs, most of my aids were praised by Karen and Debbie (though I slouched a little more at Debbie’s).  This is a vast improvement in my riding since my first lesson with Karen in 2007 and I started this experiment in exhaustion in spite of the fact that my MS exhaustion has gotten WORSE, a lot worse.  Even though my MS is mostly controlled (I have not had an exacerbation for 10 years(?)) my symptoms do gradually get worse, this is why Debbie corrects me A LOT!  I owe Debbie for this, she also takes my desire to be a good rider seriously and she never stops correcting me when my body starts collapsing.  Debbie has turned me into a very decent rider within my limitations.  Few riding teachers are as good and even fewer are willing to spend years constantly correcting my position.   

Thank you Maggie, Traveler, Merlin, Buck, Mars, Cider, Bobby, Glow, Mia, and Mick, and all the other horses I rode just once or twice (around 7) since I started riding again.

Thank you Debbie, Shannon, and Karen.

If you want to become a good rider

NEVER GIVE UP

NEVER GIVE UP

NEVER GIVE UP (and ride as many different horses as you can.)

If I can do it, you can probably do it too.

Have a great ride!

Jackie Cochran