Return of the Rogue Left Hand

Every year my horse tries to turn into an appaloosa.

My little appaloosa

Ignore the ill-fitting halter...

Fixed the halter... 

He's always been pretty dapple-y but this year is craziness! He has them everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if he started to shit dapple-y manure.

This week is spring break! And I started off the week by visiting my brother, his girlfriend, and my best friend in southern California before coming back to a big dose of ego deflation at my lesson with Tracey this Tuesday night.

Ego deflation made better by pretty pictures

I've spoken before about my issues with my own perception under saddle. I sit what I assume is perfectly straight in the tack at each lesson while my trainer violently cringes at my crookedness. The stupidest part of all is that despite having access to mirrors, I cannot see my crookedness.

That's what you want in a trainer, eh?

But I have no problem seeing crookedness in my students. I can see someone sitting crooked from a mile away, but myself? Nothing.

Good thing I have my own trainer!

The lesson wasn't great. I mean it was great because Tracey knows all but it wasn't great because I almost cried like six times. Part of that is left over from midterms, part of it is the stress from last weekend, part of it is because of a few other minor personal issues that arose earlier in the day. But most of it is because I was having a minor tantrum.

Lucky horse 

Remember my issue with pulling on the left rein? If you don't, let me brief you: I pull on the left rein like it's the rope tied around my family keeping them from plunging to their deaths. I pull on the left rein like I'm trying to start a chainsaw. I pull on the left rein like I'm drawing my hand back to punch someone in the face.

I have myself completely deluded into thinking that Rico is heavy on the left rein and that pulling is the answer. Lately he's been heavier. Interesting that he's heavier the more I stress. And the more I stress the more I pull... Totally unrelated. Not.

Tracey scolded me for hanging on the curb rein at the beginning of the lesson. I dropped it a bit and felt the heaviness on the snaffle. Ugh. I complained. Tracey gave me a list of reasons why he's feeling heavy and we began plugging away. First, I ride him too much behind the vertical. Second, his neck gets short. Third, I PULL ON THE FUCKING REINS ALL THE TIME LIKE MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.

At least the barn I board at is beautiful?

After fixing the first two, we began on the third. Don't pull on the left rein, Megan, don't do it.

I struggled a LOT and we stopped. We evaluated why I pull on the rein. I pull because I feel like I need to. I pull because he's heavy on that rein and I need to *soften* him. I pull because he isn't bending.

News flash: none of those reasons are real but Tracey was more delicate than I would have been.

Tracey asked me to uberstreichen. Basically let go of the left rein. Pfft, I thought, he's going to fall on his face if I do that, he's going to counter bend, he's going to come off the bit.

He stayed in balance. He stayed uphill. He lightened. He stayed bending. All that happened was that I felt his little brain sigh in relief as his stupid rider finally got her head out of her ass and rode properly for once.

DAMNIT! Like I said, my ego is pretty badly bruised.

He isn't totally perfect... I mean he does paw occasionally

"Why do you pull on the left rein?" and I had no answers. I don't know why I pull on that rein.

I'm not going to pull on it anymore. Rico approves.

Rico also approves of fresh shavings

And naps!

Today I have an ENTIRE day off for the first time in a long long time. I plan on reading, running if it stops raining, cleaning all my tack, and riding my awesome horse.