My Horse Is A Sissy.

My riding skills are being sorely tested.

My yellow mare has been earning her nickname. A name that my sometimes rotten, always loved daughter gave her.
She calls her Pretty Polly Pocket Princess (4P).
If you knew my family you would understand the many levels of insult buried in this nickname.

Unfortunately my little mare goes to great lengths to prove that not only should she be called 4P, it should probably be her registered name.

Don’t get me wrong; when Madonna’s in the arena she’s all business. Well, most of the time anyway.

Of course the kidlette will tell you it feeds into the reason behind the name. The horse wants to be in the show ring. She becomes animated, almost taller. She just loves to have people look at her. I wish I could say she does all of this stuff because she wants to work a cow, but she just “getserdun” when we’re not in front of an audience.

She also spends a lot of time flipping her forelock, stomping her feet, chewing her bit, whatever it takes to get some attention.

This is hard on me. I’m the kind of person who wears black and brown show clothes. Maybe I’ll go crazy and add a touch of ecru once in a while. Only if I’m feeling particularly wacky.

I prefer to blend into the crowd.

These days it’s not a concern. I’m not showing. I work in the arena only 1 out of every 4 rides. Madonna is barefoot, so there’s no slide stops at the moment.

In the arena I stick to some pretty boring schoolwork.

We are working on a clean, solid lope depart, with plenty of drive and level carriage. We are cleaning up some messy balance issues that have led to tail snapping lead changes.

None of these are being worked on by changing leads or lope departs BTW. If you want I’ll actually explain what I’m doing and the thoughts behind it, but that’s for another day. Today you get to listen to me whine….

4P has never liked getting her feet dirty. It’s one of the fusses that can become downright pathological in a horse kept in a box stall.

The hardest emotional challenge for 4P as she switched from stall horse under blankets and lights to mustang in a field was having dirty feet.

I wish you could have seen her picking her way across a field after it rained. Her pasture mates would be already at the hayrack and she would be a quarter mile out tiptoeing around the icky parts, hollering her batty little head off the whole way.

She seemed to get over it. I mean she was out on pasture for a year and a half. So she learned to slog through the snow and mud of the changing seasons.

4P has been brought into town though. Her new stable has a shed, company and a large pen. I think she’s the happiest she’s ever been. She has people around all of the time to tell her she’s pretty, is back under saddle and she can stay out of the mud.

Yes, she’s back to dodging mud.

Which means we argue constantly as we head out on the trail.

She’s OK with crossing water as long as there’s no mud.

There is always mud.

Can you hear me sigh?

Which brings me back to my original point.

Ben Cartwright’s horse never fussed at mud.

So mine’s not going to either.

Trail riding is proving really, really good for all of us. As in me, my friend and riding buddy Kathy, and our horses.

Kathy’s Rosie will go through anything. She loves water and mud, so Kathy gets to make fun of 4P and me all day long.

Because good old OCD me has been finding as many water crossings as possible on our rides.

It goes like this.

“Do you want me to cross first?” Kathy asks, barely hiding her smirky little tone.

“No, she needs to cross,” I growl.

4P lowers her head, sniffs the mud, wrinkles her dainty little nose and rollbacks away like I wish she would in the showpen.

“Oof!” I say as a whack my gut on my cutting saddle's extremely high, skinny saddle horn.

Kathy sits comfortably on Miss Perfect Rosie Pants and waits.

Here’s where my method of keeping my reins loose and guiding with my legs frustrates me. Just a tad.

So I line her up again, give her plenty of rein and shove her forward with my calves.

4P tiptoes up to the water, sniffs the edge and gathers herself to jump.

“Oh no you don’t!” I say.

I gather her up and angle her a little to get rid of the urge to jump.

I release and she spins.

“Oof!”

Kathy and Perfect Pants begin to laugh.

Finally I say, “Go ahead and go first.”

The Perfect Pair cross without issue.

4P stares at them, stares at the water, stares at them, stares at the mud…..and crosses.

So we continue on until the next crossing. Sigh.

I know we’ll get it. I’ve done it with many, many horses. But both 4P and I are such arena babies.

I have created a monster and I no longer seem to have my trail riding chops.

Loping across a field is totally different than the control and ground that comes with an arena.

Keeping my horse’s mind while allowing her to think through problems is an entirely different challenge now that we’re out.

The balance issues we are working on in the arena? I found them on the trail. They are mine and I’ve given the problem to my horse.

I have lost the natural glue that kept me in the saddle as a kid. I don’t think it’s gone forever.

Kathy and I are already braver and rowdier on the trail than we were even a few months ago.

We go for a comfortable canter when we see a good spot.

We’re working on going on uncomfortable canters in tough spots.

This makes me see why I have had problems with confidence in the show pen.

I don’t trust my seat.

The only way I know how to fix it is to ride. Like Ben Cartwright. Even if I’m on Pretty Polly Pocket Princess.