Keeping it real, Part 2

So, part 1 of this little tale found me all nervous, anxious and uncomfortable all at the same time. I was questioning horse ownership and all of that nonsense. I was angry that I wasn’t a better horseperson; angry that I have confidence issues; and just angry at the whole situation in general, worried that I had bought the wrong horse YET again...etc. etc.

Every night for a couple of weeks, I would come home from work, toss Spencer some hay, give him a pat on the head and go back in the house and worry about these issues. I was driving myself crazy, so I decided to write out a list of some options and hope that a solution would present itself.

My thought process went something like this:

How could I give up on this face?

• Give up horses completely – why did we buy this farm, blah blah blah
• See if Spencer’s old owner would buy him back
• Try and sell Spencer
• Send him to a trainer
•  Move him to a boarding barn
• Become magically more confident
• Ignore things for the winter and deal with it in the spring
•  Get some lessons at home, but who/how with darkness, weather etc.

After lots of pondering, I realized that the majority of the issue was me – a lack of confidence, a lack of leadership and probably some handling issues (where I was trying to get him to go forward, but my body was saying stop etc.) I figured that I had a good chance of working things out if I could get a bit of guidance. I thought through all of the horse trainers/coaches that I knew of and just had a hunch that none of them would really be able to help me. They might be able to work with Spencer without any problems, but would they be able to teach me?

I should note that I’ve been really trying to get to the root of my confidence issues this fall, because I’m tired of saying that “I’m not confident about xyz”, or “xyz makes me nervous”. I have been reading three books that I was hoping would give me some insight:

1. Jane Savoie – It’s Not Just about the Ribbons
2. Mark Rashid – Horses Never Lie
3. Monty Roberts – The Man who talks to Horses (a re-read. I initially read this one a long time ago)

The Mark Rashid book really had me thinking about horse behaviour and leadership, while the Monty Roberts book reminded me about kindness and patience. I thought that some sort of natural horsemanship type person would be the best to help me, but I’m not typically a huge follower of that sort of stuff. I find some of it hokey and only angled to sell you more gear and training videos.

All of this thinking and planning and pondering gets tiring after awhile. I tend to worry about a problem for a few days, then try and forget about it for a few days. On a whim a few days later I decided that I would browse through our local horse classified site - which I hadn’t looked at in weeks - to see if I could find a cute companion for Spencer. (Not sure how adding a second horse would help my issues at this point, but it was a welcome distraction!). The first ad I saw was for a natural horsemanship trainer... The ad was brief and it said the person would travel to your farm to help you. I thought it was kind of strange that is what I thought I needed a few days before, but hadn’t known where to look.

I did a bit of research and this young girl seemed like the real deal. She had a legit web site and had been giving clinics for a couple of years. She had references and the thing that really caught my eye was that she was not a student of any one famous horse trainer. She had worked with several, but was developing her own style.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and set up a lesson with her at my place. I figured one lesson couldn’t hurt.

To be continued...