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.