Back on the Back of a Horse

Chapter 6

The arena was large and open, the bumps, lumps, and lines in the ground suggested that Lynn had recently taken a tractor to the dirt. I stopped at the gate before entering and looked either way before entering. Lynn was on one of her horses and was coming from my left.

I heard the unmistakable sound of weight being put on the bleachers set up along the outside of the arena. Glancing over, the sight of Ethan gracefully taking a seat on one of the front-most seats closest to the arena greeted my eyes. I turned my attention back to the mare accompanying me.

I approached her left side and tightened the cinch to an appropriate tension to keep the saddle secure during our ride. After assuring that the cinch was snug and buckled, I placed my left foot in the stirrup and swung myself up into the saddle. I arranged my reins so that they were neat, untwisted, and an appropriate length to start out with. All of these actions came naturally, thoughtlessly, out of a habit that formed after years of repetition.

I signal the mare under to walk forward and we walked a few laps. Lynn trotted up next to me before breaking down to a walk so that we could chat as I warmed up Karma, just like back when we were youth riders on a local show team.

She offered me a smirk. "So, what're your thoughts about that new client of yours?"

I shook my head exasperatedly. "I think that he's an impulsive idiot with too much time and money on his hands." She chuckled at my statement.

"Then I guess that you two will get along pretty well. You tend to be a bit of an impulsive idiot too, you know?"

I sighed. "I guess." With those words, I signaled Karma into a forward-moving trot that I could easily post to. The familiar motions of warming up the athlete carrying me around the arena relaxed me, and I remember a lesson that my childhood coach had drilled into me about the . First and foremost, before any training could successfully be accomplished, you had to establish within the horse's body. It was the foundation that made up the training scale. Navigating around the arena at a posting trot, I used multiple different aids to help Karma establish a rhythm and work towards a relaxed state. While posting, I subconsciously manipulated her striding with my seat, varying the height of my post and amount of time both in and out of the saddle to encourage her to take a longer, more consistent step.  I worked my hands and legs in tandem with my seat actions to pick her up off of her forehand, attempting to get the sorrel to transfer more weight onto her haunches and reach out more with her front legs.  In between each attempt to do such a feat, I gave the mare a long rein on the off chance that she would want to stretch her head and neck down towards the ground to lengthen her back from under the saddle, which she happily did. I wait until she picked her head back up on her own before going back to lengthening her stride.

After about five minutes of intensive trotting and achieving a state where she was willing taking a somewhat even stride naturally with a relaxed neck and headset, I asked her to break down to the walk. As I reached down to pat her neck with a small, proud smile, a motion by the bleachers caught my attention. Ethan had his phone out, and was either taking a picture or a video, I wasn't sure which, but it didn't matter much to me either way. He was a client now, so if he wanted a video or picture to use as notes for a later date, then all the more power to him.

As I walked Karma to give her little break, I started working on the next step of the training scale; suppleness. Considering that any longitudinal work would require a fast gait, I focused on the lateral work that needed to be done. So, while walking around the arena, I made little circles here and there, going either direction in either a bend or a counter-bend. In each circle that I would bend, I shortened my inside rein to prompt her head to tilt slightly to the inside of the little circle at the poll and use my inside leg up by the cinch to help prop up her inside shoulder. My outside rein would tell Karma how big or little to make each circle, as well as encourage her to move her shoulders in the turn. I supplement the rein aids with my legs. My outside leg helps remind Karma that she does actually have to turn, while my inside works at not letting her dive into the circle, as well as keep her walking (as opposed to trying to stop and pivot over the haunches). Counter-bending wasn't much different, just everything reversed. The mare's head bends to the outside of the circle instead of the inside, the rein in the outside of the bend opens up away from the horse's neck to allow her to move into a circle going the opposite way of the bend, and the leg on the outside of the circle adds pressure to encourage her to take that route. But Karma gave me a slight problem in the counter-bending circles. She would try to dive into that shoulder on the outside of the bend, diving into the circle.