Last month marked sixteen years of working with my horse. He was 7, I was 11. I was lucky enough to ride him all winter in an indoor ring before he was purchased for me in February. This was my first season of really riding a horse. He had been pulled from a field, clipped naked and sold to my barn as a promising kid’s horse, with a name as big as his barrel; Tank. Somewhere in the last sixteen years we grew out of the bugle call for the ring classes and found ourselves saluting a judge in the dressage ring. This is where I struggled with rhythm, bending, leg crossing and gait changing. The elements that create all good riding horses.
I am now an equine professional and am learning the hows and whys of horses. This winter, I am lucky enough to have an indoor ring with a nice horse to ride and practice the basics of all good riders. A horse pulled from a field of lush summer living and given a working horse’s clip with legs left like furry fenceposts. This horse will teach me to ride. To really ride. To influence gaits, to go sideways with perfect equitation and invisible cues. With impulsion from the haunch and honesty through the bridle, so that I may show a young horse how to be a good riding horse. A promising horse. A horse that is twenty three years old and has been waiting for me all this time to figure it out.
