It's always something.
This is a phrase I resort to a lot in my journey with the sassy black horse. Today, it's the epic Battle of the Left Front Hoof. After a bout with laminitis caused by complications with an anaplasma infection a couple years back, followed by an abscess, and a horrendous case of thrush, Syd's poor left front hoof has just never been quite right. We've tried many hoof supplements and just about every topical hoof hardener on the market. We've tried alternative treatments like Lysol soaks, Tea Tree oil, and packing her feet with Betadine-soaked cotton. We've gone barefoot, booted, regular steel shoes, and shoes with leather pads, but we still haven't quite found the magic combination.
This winter I thought I'd FINALLY figured out how to keep her feet in one piece and keep her sound enough to get some good training in, but alas, it was not meant to be. She went dead lame one week into the expensive training program I sent her to, and still hasn't recovered.
And therein lies the predicament. I really need help with strategies to deal with her colossal temper tantrums, but I can't get help until she's sound, but I can't get her sound until I can work through the colossal temper tantrums.... you get the idea. Catch 22 at it's finest.
We were supposed to go through the full gamut of lameness exams today, but we were rained out, so we will have to wait until Saturday to try again. We've already gone through the nerve blocks and X-rays earlier this year, but it looks like we will have to do them all again to try to find the problem. Argh! Always something!
In the meantime, I've had to get creative in applying some of the lessons we learned in our one whole week of training. I must admit, even though it was short, the biggest takeaway I got was actually very profound and useful in the rest of my life as well.
Just let it go! (I heard you all break into a moment of "Frozen" karaoke just now... cut that shit out! ;) )
Such a short, simple phrase, and yet it's one of the hardest things in the world to do. During our evaluation lesson with the trainer before I sent Syd to pony boarding school, he noticed something about my riding style that I hadn't recognized previously.
"You really need to get out of her face, you are annoying the hell out of this horse," he stated bluntly.
I was a little shocked. I thought I was doing the right thing by getting stronger, and more controlling when she tried to boss me around the ring. I honestly thought I was being helpful by forcing her nose where I wanted it to go and making her pay attention to the bit.
Once again, turns out she is way smarter than I give her credit for, and she was using the fact that I got tense and controlling to get out of doing real work. She would "spook," I would try to force her to pay attention, she would giggle in her head at the dumb human as she got to slow down and give less effort. Doh.
Once I got out of her face, and let her look around as much as she wanted as long as we kept a good forward motion going, she stopped spooking and bracing so much. Hmmm.
This is the lesson I am working on taking to heart. Just keep moving forward. Don't brace and get forceful about the scary things. Even if you get startled and have to take a few steps back (or even if you try to gallop back to the barn!), turn around, relax your grip, take a deep belly breath sending oxygen and peace to every cell in your body, and move forward again. It's a lot easier said than done, but boy is it worth it when it all falls into place!
No comments:
Post a Comment