The next day I went to see my new horse, tacked up, and added the stretcher. ( I don’t remember all the things that happened that day, as it was years ago.) Her head was down, rounded, and I was ready to get on. I didn’t know how she would react to suddenly being “forced” to hold her head down. She went fine, or felt fine. I felt more in control and relaxed more in my seat. I think that’s really the only thing this device helped me achieve. Was to relax my hand and seat, and sit deeper. – Which helped develop my core. But my new horse, I know, didn’t enjoy it.
I know now that she reacted with a resistance to it, because she would try to pull the reins out of my hands and push on the bit. But I didn’t know that then, and when she would speed, I would stop and turn her in a tight circle. That’s when someone else came into play. The owner of the barn, who isn’t a trainer or instructor but a horse owner and rider, told me to stop her and turn her when she wouldn’t “listen.” I look back at it now and I feel tears well in the back of my eyes…
Now she rides in a halter, and goes so well. But that took time and finding my own route to take when working with her. And knowing good advice, from relatively bad. Something that is pretty hard to grasp when your just in the learning stage. I believe that’s really when my new horse and I bonded. Was when I broke it down and started to listen to the horse and not others who went against what I knew about my horse.
