Settling in

For the next two weeks there was a lot of activity for Stat. Getting him bulked up a bit more along the topline, use to me handling him, trying to keep him away from Bree because my independant horse had succumbed to her vixen like ways. He plowed through the hot tape the first time we moved her out of his line of sight.

Typical.

We also began him on an intensive course of ground work. First out of the bag was getting him to respect my space, trying to keep him out of my boots when I lead him anywhere. Next was standing still. There was a bit of a battle of wills over this one which resulted in constant repositioning of him back to his starting point every time he decided to wander. 

I also started to notice changes in his general attitude towards me. As he started to fill out on the food and supplements he started to feel better about himself and so why did he need to be around me. He stopped following me around in the field, didn't like hugs anymore and refused to let me pick up his feet without a long drawn out battle. 

Excellent. This is working out nicely.

Left or right, who knows?!

As for getting ready to ride we decided to bypass the great saddle hunt and go straight for the treeless Barefoot saddle that worked out so go for Bree. In short order Sarah had tracked one down and after a rigorous clean under the watchful gaze of the resident cleaning freak I was deemed ready to have sit number two on my horse.

As with last time, Stat and I did a little dance as I tacked him up. The jiggling got worse once the girth was tightened which lead us to have a little lesson in standing still. Over time we improved more and more until we got to the stage that on the days that he forgets, the most movement he makes is a couple of side steps when the saddle is first presented. The rest of the time he stands perfectly still.

Working on standing still

But today he was impatiently doing the two-step until I got onto him. Then he sort of walked off as I struggled to get feet into stirrups and sort myself out. I was feeling good. I'm actually sitting on my horse, we have things to correct which will help us bond, so a project to work on together. 

We moved around the arena being lead by Sarah. The Barefoot saddle was so comfy to sit on and after the third circuit of the arena Sarah handed me back the lead rope and we were cut adrift. 

Adrift is probably the best description, bobbing away in no particular direction. Stat steered as gracefully as a geriatric cow. It was like my first ride on Bobby all over again. No response to leg pressure, no acknowledgment of shifting weight, no flex in the neck. A lump of concrete would follow direction better. But I was ecstatic. Sure I might not be able to actually go where I wanted too at the moment, but I was actually riding a horse that I owned. My horse! For better or for worse.

I know, we learnt a lot today.....

The next stage was a trip down to the beach. As this is quite a full on place of new activity, noises, smells and things that move, I decided to lead Stat down while Sarah rode Bree. Depending on how Stat reacted, i would mount up down there.

You could almost hear the processing that Stat was doing when we got to the beach. it was an almost audible whirring. So many THINGS! so many potential dangers!

Bree I am sure was not helping things by pointing out all the horse eating things that were present disguised as seaweed, grasses, sand, surf, driftwood etc.

After a bit he started to settle down to the point where I thought I could get on him. After first introducing him to a large tree trunk that had washed up on the beach, I climbed up onto the trunk to mount.

Stat promptly pulled me off as he spun away from the driftwood. I lead him back over and tried again. this time he turn 90 degrees to face me. So I lead him back alongside me again, just to have him walk on past me. And repeat.

Backwards and forwards we moved along the tree trunk, Trying to get him into a position to mount. Bree started getting in on the game and she started pacing backwards and forwards that further unsettled Stat.

Finally I got Stat in close enough to get on. We sort of pranced around for a bit until he got use to me being on his back in a such a new and terrifying place. It probably lasted fifty metres before he really started to react. Not wanting to push my luck I climbed down off of him and lead him for the rest of the journey.

Over the next few weeks we built on these firsts. I was still having trouble on occasions when he suddenly departed from the riding plan and I had to bring him back in line. Our rides varied between beach, road, forest and work in the arena. We had good day and bad days.

One day we would be spot on with standing still, lining up for mounting and standing still once mounted before we moved off. But then on the same session I would would be just a passenger as he moved out of the arena and headed back to his paddock. I happened to be talking to our next door neighbour, who was on her own horse in her paddock when this happened. I called back to her as we suddenly lurched away mid conversation that I seemed to be experiencing a little command and control problem at the moment. She seemed to take my explanation and not think that I had suddenly bored of the conversation and left.

Taking to the forest like a natural

Our first trip to the forest was a special moment for me. The trekking horse that I wanted came out in Stat. It started soon after we began the ride through local forestry. Sarah failed to appreciate the height difference between her on Bree and me on Stat. This differential was quite important when pushing through tree branches. We came across one overhanging branch and to me it looked like i could push through it as limbs looked small and bendy this was true until I got into the centre and came across a thicker less yielding branch. It stopped me cold while Stat kept moving, lifting me up and back out of the saddle, dropping my reins.

Uh oh, this was not going to be pretty. Stat, bless him, before I had time to say anything must have felt me shift upwards and back in my seat, just stopped moving.  He stood perfectly still while I untangled myself from the foliage, got back into the saddle and found the reins again. Once I had collected myself, he sort of looked back at me with his "what a numpty" expression.

The Bulldozer

Later on in the same ride Stat demonstrated his bulldozer mentality. One of the challenges of riding in the forest is the fact that what had been a clear path previously, could now be blocked by fallen trees. This necessitates in some unplanned deviations into the forest when the tree(s) blocking the path are too large to be sawn through with the pruning saw that is carried. The bush bashing that Stat had to contend with for his first time was quite epic involving pushing through small saplings, while I ducked under large branches and we both maneuvered up and down banks. He handled it without faltering or tripping. I was must chuffed at his performance.

Yes, he did do the weird things, like soon after starting out in a ride, he would start spinning around trying to head home and every now and then he would just stop and it would take a lot of encouragement to get him started again. I was unsure as to the reasons for this behaviour. Was it just him showing his independence, or was there some other reason? I was reluctant to push in case he was in pain for some reason. something wasn't right in his world.

Stat recovering form his first forest ride. Brain on overload

Introducing Mr Statistic

We had a bit of a false start in finding a replacement horse for me when we tried to pick up a beautiful black mare with looks and temperament to rival Bree's. We didn't even make it out of the paddock as she threw an epic temper tantrum in the back of the float which sort of turned everyone off of the idea.

Then Sarah heard of a horse up in Cromwell. He was listed as a Southern Man's horse. Race name Mr Statistic (breeders really hate race commentators!) Stat for short. He was a bay coloured Standardbred, 16.3 hands and was born in 2000 making him 14 years old at the time. In short order a date and time was arranged for a trip up to Cromwell to see how he measured up in the flesh.

To be honest, I had mixed emotions on the trip up. I was still quite raw after Red. I wasn't sure if I wanted to invest that much emotion back into a horse again. We met up with Emma, Stats owner, at the Cromwell Racetrack where she leased land for her horses.

How could you not love this face?

Seeing Stat standing there in the paddock made me nervous and excited all over again. His coat was long and he had a shaggy look to him. He had a white star on his forehead which stood out like a light. One of the things that really perked my interest is that when we took him out of the paddock, he did not seem to care that his paddock mate was not coming along too. An independant horse! excellent.

As Emma talked to Sarah about all the important things that people who know what they are talking about talk about, I walked around Stat trying to figure out what I should be looking for. Do people really check the teeth of a horse? or should I be following the whole never look a gift horse in the mouth line of things? So I fell back to what I do when I wander around car sales yards even though I know nothing about cars either.

Body work: Shaggy, but it is winter in Central Otago. No insects making it their home. Dusty from all the fine alluvial dirt that Central Otago is known for. Softly patting his back raised clouds of dust. No evidence of previous collisions or damage (a couple of strange bumps in what I would class the lumbar region of the spine, but no tenderness on palpation. No signs of bog filler or previous panel beating.

Fluid Levels: A bit difficult as there was no dipstick (nothing I wanted to fiddle around with anyway  and in reality we had just met so I shouldn't be being that familiar with Stat). His eyes were damp looking, not dry, not weeping so I took that as a good sign.

Suspension:  Walking Stat around did not give any indication of a limp nor asymmetrical movement of the legs. Running the hands down the legs I couldn't feel any differences in muscle indicating atrophy.

Tyres: Resisting the normal urge to kick tyres, I instead picked up the feet, looking and wittering to myself quietly trying to generate an air of a knowledgeable equine person. I stopped wittering at Stats offside front hoof. There was a long crack in the hoof. Oh, thats not good. My heart dropped. As Sarah always told me, look after the feet. no feet, no horse. Sarah took over the examination of the hoof and started to poke, prod without any reaction from Stat. We took a couple of photos to discuss later with our barefoot trimmer, Wayne. Not a deal breaker but I started to steel my heart that this might be not a happening thing.

The test drive: With Emma's help we saddled up Stat. Emma did warn me that he didn't stand still well for saddling and once the saddle was on, to get on straight away as Stat didn't really display much in the way of patience. In reality, unless he launched forward bucking like Red had done, he was still a winner.

Sure enough, as soon as the saddle was on, he wanted to get moving. I quickly got on and we started to move. I didn't feel good. I didn't feel secure on his back. whereas in the past I would have bailed, I now had a bit of time in the saddle under the belt to stick around and try to find the source of my insecurity. Was it Stat? Was it the way he moved? Was it the saddle? Was it the fact that I was sitting on a strange horse, using different tack and viewing a horse from a viewpoint of suitability?

I decided to put it down to different tack. Stop looking for the reasons why not to buy Stat, but instead look at why I should.

He was a good, solid looking horse. He wasn't herd bound. In doing a bit of lunging I could see that whilst not as light to pressure as Red had been, he did respond.

And the deal clincher? He let me hug him around the neck. I missed doing that with Red.

We made some positive noises to Emma and left to spend the night in Queenstown. If I can, I never make a decision like this on the same day. This method of course was not one to be used when I was a paramedic, but it really made things enjoyable when dealing with door to door salesman (use to really annoy them after they ran through their spiel to tell them that I never made decisions the same day).

That night Sarah and I had a real heart to heart talk about Stat. A phone call to Wayne was made where I described the crack in the hoof to him, which he in turn reassured me that this did not mean Stat was about to lose a hoof.

Emma was contacted and we started to discuss money for Stat. This was the getting close to negotiating the final hurdle. If the price was too high, I would take it as a sign. Nope, the price was reasonable and within the limit I had mentally given myself. Now this was starting to get serious, I was running out of excuses.

I lay in bed that night thinking what I should do. Oh, I knew that I was going to end up with Stat, I just needed to go through the process of moving on from Red. Not just because he had been my first horse that I ever owned, but coming to terms that if I ended up with a horse that I couldn't ride for whatever reason as it had been with Red, how was that going to fit in with future plans?

The next morning Emma was contacted and we decided that on our return journey back through Cromwell that Sarah and I would revisit Stat and see how I was feeling.

Once again, when we turned up to the paddock, Stat came over to the fence. It may have had something more to do with the treat I had brought along for him and his paddock mate than any other sort of psychic connection, but I just ran with it.

Once again there was no separation anxiety when I took him away from his mate to do some basic ground work. He lunged fine and seemed to pick up on some corrections I did with him quite quickly so he was a fast learner. Our little activities concluded by me leading him over a nearby rocky pile of dirt. he was sure footed and didn't shy from where I was leading him. I needed a trekking horse.

As I put him back into the paddock, again I hugged him, he smelt divine. I didn't stand a chance. I confirmed with Sarah that I was having Stat.

Emma was contacted and my people spoke to her people. I don't sully myself with such details. Dates were discussed for pick up, transport was arranged (still didn't trust our Nissan Terrano to pull a float), process for money to change hands etc. I was not involved in any of this planning.

 I was still hugging my horse.

That weekend a person who Sarah knew, Lyn, picked me up with her vehicle and float to go and collect Stat.

As we arrived at Cromwell, I was hit with sudden nervousness, What do we do if he doesn't get on the float? OMG, I hadn't considered this possibility. I could have just wasted a five hour return trip for a horse that I cant take home. OMG!

Lyn assured me that she has some tricks including a treat that no horse can resist. We will get him on.

I think that this optimism of Lyn's may have started to dwindle around the one hour later mark, when we were all standing around the float, trying to get an obstinate Stat up the ramp. He was not having a bar of it. The treats didn't work, the food bucket didn't work, the filled hay net didn't work, applying pressure didn't work.

I was starting to wonder just what exactly the etiquette was in asking Emma for the money back that I had given to her when we first arrived as Stat's payment.

Finally in the float

Stat was giving an impressive example of being a giraffe, with his front feet on the bottom of the ramp and stretching his neck all the way up to nibble at the just out of reach feed bucket.

Just when I was thinking we were all going to have to pack it in and head home, Stat suddenly decided Hell, why not just walk up the ramp into the float. as soon as his bum past the entrance to the float, the bum bar was put up and the ramp closed.

Quickly I thanked Emma and leapt into Lyn's truck. I just wanted us to get moving before Stat changed his mind and started to dismantle Lyn's float. we did have a couple of kicks from Stat and as we were going through the Cromwell Gorge Lyn commented that from the feel of the truck, that Stat was leaning from time to time trying to keep his balance.

Lyn handled the trip back very calmly, unlike me. I hate towing at the best of time (I have attended a couple of float rollovers in the UK, one with dire consequences for the horse in the back) so I was constantly checking the position of the float to see if there was any swaying starting up.

It was with great relief that we arrived in Brighton. I had been in conversation with Sarah by phone the closer we got to Brighton and on her suggestion we decided to pull into a layby that is near the house to unload Stat.

When we put the ramp down we saw the reason why Stat had quietened down on the journey. Lyn had also been transporting a bale of lucerne in the front of the float in a hay bag. Stat had managed to unwrap the lucerne, lift it up over the chest board and spread it around the back of the float. He seemed to enjoy the inflight meal.


Stat was hyper alert as we walked up the road to the house, taking in his surroundings as we walked down the path to the paddocks. As he came through the gate he immediately saw Bree standing there at the fence. He came to a complete halt as Bree started up her welcoming squeals. I explained to Stat that she was crazy as a loon and it would be in his best interests to just ignore her.

Food, food everywhere

I walked him around his separate paddock pointing out the various features like the water trough, hay bin and such like, just to help him get his bearings. He was very interested in the grass. Central Otago is renown for its dry, arid conditions and to suddenly find himself on the damp coast with green grass everywhere was just like hitting the jackpot for Stat.

We spent a bit of time wandering around the field with me being faithfully followed by Stat. I took this as a good sign.

I was happy, relieved and a bit nervous of what the next days, weeks and months would bring as Stat and I started to get to really know each other.

Clouds of Central Otago dust after a good shake

Advising Stat to stay away from the two vixens in the next paddock

Heartbroken

Red

Under the tutelage of Bobby and Yarraman

Now that I have a horse that I couldn't put a saddle on without a rapid and freeform expression of movement, there needed to be a stand-in for me to actually start to get to grips with how one should ride a horse, whilst I continued the groundwork with Red.

This is where Bobby and Yarraman came in.

From a friend of Sarah's, Shanla, I was introduced to Bobby. If you want the definition of an old school master, this was Bobby. He was a 17 year old standardbred and he had seen his fair share of learners come and go.

We turned up to Shanla's place and were lead out to meet Bobby. We had obviously disturbed him from his regular programme of activities, but even so, he was mild mannered and took it all in his stride.

I did feel uncomfortable when Shanla said to get up and have a ride around in the round pen. Bobby and I had not even been formally introduced and it felt strange after spending so much time with Red on the ground and not even having sat on him. Whereas here, within five minutes of turning up, I'm sitting on the back of Bobby.

Ok, new experience. Apart from a couple of times on Bree for a short period, the total sum of my horse riding was once in Rarotonga and prior to that a gap of many years (many, many, many years) in Primary school. I had no idea what I was doing. Thankfully Bobby did. We began slowly lurching around in the pen. I had trouble with my balance, unsure as to how I should be communicating with Bobby, scared to make a mistake and confuse him and last of all, fall off in front of Sarah and Shanla, the person who was entrusting Bobby into my care.

Through Bobby’s patience and good nature, I didn’t fall off. Thinking back to advice from natural horsemanship practitioners of always finishing on a good note, I decided not to push my luck and got off Bobby not long after getting on.

While I am trying to figure out just what the Hell am I thinking with all this horse stuff, Sarah, probably sensing my thoughts quickly arranged delivery dates with Shanla for Bobby’s arrival at our place on loan while I learnt the basics of riding.

oh boy, lumbered with a complete numpty

Once we got Bobby home, the work started. Sarah is a hard task mistress. For the first time I learnt that legs are not just used to rest in the stirrups, they are for direction control. Legs are not used independently for steering, you need to shift your weight. Look where you want to head. Movement of the reins being the last action.

I kept getting confused as to which leg did what when turning a particular direction. Sarah, striding around the “arena” (the paddock set aside for working in), barking out commands to an idiot sitting on a bored horse who could now no longer remember his left from his right or just what direction he should be looking in (that was me, not Bobby), only needed a sharp uniform, leather boots and Wagner-esque music blaring out in the background to complete the picture.  

I think you are wanting to go that direction

As you could well imagine, this lead to a few testy exchanges between teacher and pupil. Bobby, literally took it in his stride. There were the moments where I am leaning almost horizontal off the side of Bobby, leg pressure on one side and other leg back trying to squeeze him around one way, just for Bobby to keep calmly plodding on straight ahead. It would not help when Sarah, who had initiated my actions by telling me to turn start turning a particular direction, would ask a follow-up enquiry as to when I was planning to turn as ordered? My exasperated reply of don’t ask me, ask the horse as he is the one who seems to be in control would leaving her shaking her head. Normally by the time I had struggled back upright onto the saddle Bobby would have stopped walking only because he had reached the fence at the far end of the arena.

Anytime I gave any lip back to Sarah, she moved onto another exercise consisting of taking the stirrups up leaving me with no support and having me concentrate on my balance. This “finding my seat” meant that all my attention was diverted from coming up with zinging one-liner replies to her orders and instead start thinking as to how I would stop falling off the back of Bobby.

Look Ma, no stirrups

With the rudimental ability to start, control direction (most of the time) and stop sorted out, we then ventured out into the big, bad world of the beach. We are lucky that the beach is just across the road from our house so the time that I had to contend with cars when on the main road, was short. Not that this was an issue with Bobby. The term bombproof is tossed around the horsing community, but Bobby was this and more. In fact, he was more bomb defuser than just bombproof.

This was a good thing as, even though having been told this numerous times, I struggled to remain calm when faced with possible challenges on the back of a horse. Yes, I knew horses are very attuned to fear within the rider and so in turn they get nervous, but remaining calm when in the distance you saw the approaching logging truck, was easier to say than do.

Bobby being kind on the beach

The other useful titbit of information that Sarah kept imparting to me, was that if I was starting to lose control of Bobby on the beach, to head to deeper sand to slow him down and get him concentrating on his feet. My reply to that advice was, if I could direct the horse to deeper sand, this implied that I had control over said horse! I wanted to know what to do when I have NO control over direction or speed!

Another thing. When I joined an adult synchronised ice skating team (don’t ask) we spent the first hour being instructed and practicing how one fell over onto the ice without creating greater injury. When I enquired  any similar techniques or practices to be employed in the equine field, Sarah's reply of “just don’t fall of the horse” was not the answer that I was looking for. To be fair, I have since looked up such instruction videos on YouTube and come to the conclusion after seeing the multiple actions that need to take place in an incredibly short space of time, I think that Sarah’s advice of not falling off in the first place is probably the most practical.

As I got more and more rides under the belt, I started to become more comfortable on the back of Bobby. We plodded around the place and we reached a good understanding. I didn’t ask too much from him and he was more than happy in letting me take the reins, so to speak.

Of course this was not going to last. Plodding is fine, but when you have riding companions who want a bit more speed, the age was starting to tell with Bobby and I for one didn’t want to ask more than I should of him. He was retired, he should be able to take it easy. For me he was an excellent start to getting back into riding. He was forgiving while I sat there trying to sort my legs, leaning, pressure and thoughts out, without getting grumpy. He didn’t startle at random blades of grass or bushes as Bree had a want to do.

In the apparent continuing activity to keep me off balanced and petrified, Sarah decided that my time with Bobby was over and I needed to up the ante and progress my learning. Plodding along with my new found partnership with Bobby was just not cricket. I needed to be extended.

So it was with a really sad feeling inside (and, to be honest, a little tear) that Bobby was loaded back up again in the float and returned, with my thanks, to Shanla.

In his place there arrived Yarraman. He looked like Red, a ginger thoroughbred with a middle of the road nature. Meaning he was not going to kill me on the first ride, but sparky enough to take me to the next level. An excellent transition horse described Sarah. I was again grateful to the network of horsey friends who entrusted me with their horses.

Stepping out with Yarraman

Yarraman’s owner, Abby, gave me a few pointers as to how to read the clues that he displayed when was feeling certain things. My knowledge base of horses was increasing exponentially.

It was back to the arena for familiarisation and extension on techniques. Straight away I noticed the difference between Bobby and Yarraman.

Bobby was like my 1990 Mazda Astina, dependable, get in, start it up and away you go. Enough pep to allow you to overtake a slower car on the road, but think twice before you attempt an overtake of a logging truck.

Yarraman was like a Volkswagen Golf. Sure you can fit the family in it with supermarket bags in the boot and it would not raise the eyebrow of a cop as you drove past, unlike the Holden GTS with tinted windows and bass thumping away would have. But put the pressure on, and the Golf could be away down the road in the blink of an eye. That was Yarraman.   

Now when we tried to come up to a trot, we could maintain it. Not that initially I was too happy with maintaining it. Now I had to learn how I was to stay on the horse without being bumped out and off the saddle. In the beginning I sure that I was about to become airborne. But through the instruction of Sarah, I began to learn how to post in time with Yarraman.

Ok, to be honest, I learnt how to post for about three strides and then always got out of time with the movement, resulting in my backside whacking against the saddle, lurching forward, struggle to regain my seat, post for another three strides then repeat.

Yarraman also taught me that I could survive my first horse bolt.

Now, I need to ensure that there are a few things clear here. As with anything, Yarraman bolting was a combination of a number of factors that I, being the inexperienced rider that I was, totally failed to pick up on at the time. If I had the where with all to have been able to correct one of those factors, the chances of bolting would have been reduced to almost naught.

Sarah and I were going out for a ride on the beach. Even as we were tacking up, Yarraman, high on the new grass growth was fizzing. He had ants in is pants even at this stage. Now, when I see my horse acting this way at the beginning, I will take him out to the arena and do some ground work before even thinking about getting onto his back. I have learnt that the horse needs to be listening to you from the get go.

The second factor was that Yarraman had fallen in love with Bree. This is a common occurrence around our place. Every time a horse turns up to our place, the witch that is Bree will weave her spell. Suddenly even the most independent of horses will become herd bound and will resist any attempt to be separated from their new one true love.

This happened after we got to the beach. Lauren, our neighbour was also on the beach exercising her horse.

As I had been experiencing a very reluctant Yarraman on our ride out (crab walking, multiple turning for home), Sarah calls over to me to carry on up the beach alone while she caught up with the latest gossip from Lauren.

We began to head away back up the beach with me struggling with Yarraman every step of the way. He did not want to leave his Juliet!

Then we began to spin. I managed to recover from this whirly gig just to have him start spinning in the opposite direction. After several revolutions we stopped. Paused. Gave a couple of half bucks. Stood still, braced and tense like a statue.

Again, if this happened now I would get off and do a bit of lunging to defuse the situation. Being the inexperienced person that I am, I stayed on and tried to move him forward along the beach.

The next part is a bit of a blur. There may have been a bit of rearing as I found myself clinging onto the monkey strap of the saddle as we suddenly appeared to be facing 180 degrees from our original direction, back towards the empty beach where Bree and Sarah had just been. They were gone out of sight up into the dunes with Lauren.

That was the last straw for Yarraman. Left, deserted on the beach with an idiot on his back as his only protector! Yeah, nah. He had to get back to his Bree!

We lurched forward, my right foot coming out of the stirrup, clinging onto the reins and the monkey strap. Galloping down the beach. In a calm, soothing voice, yeah right, it was delivered through clenched teeth and several octaves higher than normal so more like screeching, I pleaded with Yarraman to stop, slow down, dance, think about the children, anything but what he was currently doing. Nope, no such luck.

I was being thrown around like the proverbial ragdoll. First one way in the saddle, then the other. Trying all this time to try and get some form of control and my foot back into the stirrup (and no, at no stage was there any thoughts of “steering the horse into deeper sand!)

We drew alongside the beach entrance from the road. In a stiff leg, jolting, slowing motion, Yarraman turned on a dime into the entrance way causing me to lurch over his right shoulder like a hiking sailor (when they lean out to counterbalance a heeling boat, don’t trust me? Google it J ).

Then it was back to Warp Factor 9 up the path to the main road. I now moved from worrying about falling off Yarraman onto the beach dying, to falling off Yarraman on the road and dying. As my thought processes struggled to catch up with the physical location of my brain (I think I was about 20 metres behind my actually body due to the speed of Yarraman) this now changed to us running onto the road, hitting a car and then me dying. Dying was the current theme running through all the scenarios.

We then hit the road. Luckily there were no cars coming along at that particular time. Yarraman’s back legs slid out from under him and we skidded across the surface before he righted himself and continued his dash down the road for home.

I was a bit more prepared for the next sharp left hand turn that Yarraman was going to make to get into our driveway. As we thundered down the road I got my right foot back into its stirrup which gave a bit more stability but did nothing to help me deter the course of action that Yarraman had set upon.

With two quick turns we were off the road, up our driveway and heading past the house to the paddock. Small slight problem. The only access we had to our paddocks from the house was through a small gate on a footpath that we lead the horses through. We were heading to a line of bushes that blocked the way. Oh great, now my first jump.

Instead, Yarraman skidded along the grass, stopping with his head buried in the bushes, snorting, chest heaving.

I decided to decamp. Quickly.

Now safely on the ground, I started talking to Yarraman in a calm soothing voice which was actually now calm and soothing. I think he heard me, difficult to tell as I could not see his head with it being buried in the bushes and all.

Sarah turned up onto the driveway at this moment to see me standing there talking to what appeared to be in all intents and purposes was a headless horse. After about a minute, Yarraman took a step back and his head reappeared.

Talking it over with Sarah we decided that the next step would be taking him into the arena and do some lunging work. Which we did. Yarraman seemed to be a bit worried about how I was going to react to his little brain fade, but once he saw that I was trying to reconnect with him, he became clingy and seemed almost apologetic, following me around the arena when we had finished.

As I didn’t die, I look back at the incident as an important lesson. I learnt a lot about listening when a horse is communicating. They express themselves in so many different ways, through their movements, expressions and stance.

Yarraman and I continued riding out together after our little exciting time on the beach and we didn’t have any repeat episodes. Every time, I learnt a bit more of what it meant to be a rider.

Gaining in confidence with Yarraman

I will always be grateful to Shanla and Abby for entrusting Bobby and Yarraman to me, and to Sarah for teaching me as I truly started my journey in horse riding. I had moved from my sitting-on-the-back of a horse days to actually communicating with the horse to start doing what I wanted.

Now I just wanted to be able to do this with my own horse. Renewed efforts were being made to get Red accepting the saddle again.