So if you've been following along, you know that I brought Samba home to her stall in Clancy's 2 acre backyard on February 12, 2009. Based on her stellar behavior during our introduction, the vet check, and the transport home, I had boundless optimism. Sammie was, I was certain, not just a great horse, but the perfect horse for me. Visions of flawless musical freestyles danced in my head. (OK, I know the expression is "visions of sugarplums" but I have no idea what a sugarplum looks like.)

It took less than a month for the second thoughts to dominate my conscious mind.

It started with our first grooming session. Knowing Sammie had never been exposed to cross-ties, I opted to use the rail outside her stall. Though I had seen her standing prim and proper at the hitching post when I first met her, she soon made it clear she had no intention of standing still for whatever nonsense I had in store. Anything within reach went into her mouth for an exploratory nibble. The sweat scraper appeared to be her favorite. I felt so incompetent. My first horse was a well mannered gentleman who needed no reminding when it came to ground behavior. I literally had no clue how to "fix" this behavior.

Then came longeing. Again, you would think someone who had previously owned a horse would have at least some longeing skills. Nope. Cuatro was one of those "jump on and ride" horses who never needed to be longed. So Lisa and I spent our first few lessons teaching me to longe, so that I could at least pretend I knew what I was doing. The first time Lisa handed the longe line over to me, I realized the true meaning of "uncoordinated." Amazingly, Sammie took it in stride. As I look back, I think maybe she was just waiting for the best opportunity to inflict pure humiliation. She didn't need to wait long.

At 3:45 on a sunny afternoon two and a half weeks after she came home with me, I arrived at Clancy's for a workout. Sammie was easy to halter and lead out of her stall, but was her usual fidgety self at the rail, mouthing the lead rope and moving side to side. Picking her feet became a battle I lost badly. I was finally able to finish tacking her up, including saddle and bridle. I fully intended to ride her after a short longe session, but after a few minutes of uneventful longeing, Clancy wheeled fresh hay past the corner of the arena where we were working. Let me explain: adjacent to one of the short sides of the arena was a large paddock. Within that paddock is a largely unusable round pen. (I'll leave the kvetching about the round pen's shortcomings for another post!) Also in the large paddock lived one of Clancy's horses, an adorable palomino draft cross mare called Butter. Butter never got ridden or worked, so perhaps a more apt name would have been Butterball. But I digress... To get to Butter's paddock, you have to walk on a narrow path that runs along the long side of the arena. The only corner of the arena suitable to longe in was -- you guessed it -- next to the entry gate to Butter's paddock, where, of course, Clancy dropped the hay. God forbid she wheel the hay to a part of the paddock away from the arena. Nope...she fed right at the edge, where Butter would munch happily, spreading hay into the edge of the arena. Are you picturing this yet? Sammie sees another horse being fed, while she's being asked to trot in boring circles around me. Offended at this turn of events, Samba began acting out, rearing, striking out, pawing, bucking, spinning. It all happened so fast, and I was caught so off guard, that Samba wrapped herself up in the longe line like a Christmas package. My heart stopped. Fortunately, Sammie stopped the nonsense long enough for me to approach and untangle her, but the (unsolicited) advice that followed from Clancy nearly made my head explode:

You need to roundpen her and run her off her feet so she doesn't think she can get away with that.

Yeah, let me get right on that. After her display of food aggression, I should just stroll on past Butter's buffet and try to longe Sammie into exhaustion, without her killing me first. Great idea, Clancy. I opted to untack her, turn her out in the arena, and attempt to regain some measure of my dignity. Ironically, after her tantrum just moments before, Sammie didn't run around the arena until I tried to catch her. Go figure.

Near tears, I put Samba away and sought consolation from Lisa, who was giving lessons up at the local park. When I gathered the courage to verbalize my second thoughts, and wondered aloud if I would ever bond with this mare, Lisa advised me that it can take a year to bond with a new horse, especially a young one. Lisa convinced me to give Samba a second chance at proving herself to be the right horse for me.

Lisa also reminded me that she didn't expect me to be perfect at bringing a young horse along, and I was expecting far too much of both myself and Samba, and I needed to be more realistic about the learning curve we both would experience in this journey. As always, I left Lisa feeling better about myself, and confident that I really could make this work.

Armed with this new and more confident attitude, Sammmie and I celebrated our "one month anniversary" a few days later, and began making some real progress.

From my blog: Green on Green