This is lovely to read!
Circe is coming six and we did a little bit of few minutes at a time passenger riding last year, and then took a break. (I felt that
i've gotten on her once since we got here.
This wasn't specifically calculated -- it's taken me a while to get over my fear after the big toss by Stardust (still having dizziness from the concussion all this time later), and I was here alone all winter with no arena -- it would literally have been days before someone found me if something had gone wrong.
But this has given me an unanticipated gift -- she's now beginning to understand the world through adult eyes. As I've mentioned in my journal, we've been working on self-discipline in a new way and she's getting it, feeling rewarded by doing it well, and not finding it simply a burden, which she did even last year.
(She still is a force of nature -- don't think we'll ever completely lose that!
)
Because she's been able to start to do this differently, I'm realizing that our process beginning riding again is actually going to be very different -- I'm very excited about it, actually, because I'm beginning to understand how much more ready she is to be okay with and aware of having a person on her back.
I'm sure different horses mature emotionally at different rates, but this has gotten me much more aware of the emotional elements of being ridden than I'd ever been.
I don't think we're going to start to do anything that looks even vaguely seriously like riding until next spring -- Mark is about to leave for another two months and then we're going to be in the thick of winter again, so we will continue to play lightly a little...
Hope this is helpful!
Best,
Leigh
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