The little girl fell off...

I don't have a lot of time as usual but I definitely wanted to write a brief report just to have a record of our progress - I'm trying to at least jot down anything even slightly resembling a milestone.  So on Sunday I fell off again which is a milestone in itself, but the important part to me is that Sunday was also the first day I rode Starbuck without longeing or roundpenning her first.  Ok, Ok, so in the morning we played with the ball for about 30 minutes and then I showered her and stuck her in the roundpen to eat lunch in a place where she could roll without getting covered in poo.  I mean, it wasn't like I took her straight from her paddock to tack up or anything.  But she had a good few hours between any exercise she might have had in the morning and when I rode her, so I think it counts.

At any rate I was riding her in the big arena and there was lots of crazy going on - little girls shrieking and shaking the arena fence, the retirees running around outside, the lesson horses whinnying to their buddies in the paddock, the kids in the jump class all amped up since it's show season... you get the idea.  When we were on the scary side I apparently thought it was the perfect moment to ask Marina about something completely unrelated.   And surprise, surprise - the second I was no longer focussing on Starbuck, she stopped focussing on me and started focussing on the big scary monsters lurking below the house.  A good lesson for anyone riding a young horse - tune in and stay that way... if you're bored with the ride they will be too and will look for diversion elsewhere.

When the stable handyman came rushing out of the storage shed beneath the house, she not surprisingly spooked and cantered halfway across the arena.  So far so good, but  something triggered a bucking fit (I'm not sure if it was because of my seat banging her back from not being prepared or if it was my hands pulling back on the reins) and I lost my balance.  Luckily I picked my moment well and fell flat on my butt so I was able to bounce right back up!  To calm both of us down before getting back on I hand walked her all over the arena to slow down my heartrate without giving her a "reward" for bucking me off and yielded her hindquarters a couple of times.  Then I mounted back up and finished my ride (although I have to say I chickened out and stayed on the "safe" side).  Next time I have to remember to grab mane and circle, grab mane and circle, grab mane and circle, without leaning too far forward in suspension.

Anyhow that's the story of my 3rd fall off Starbuck... which means I've got 4 more to go (at the very least)!  Although maybe I could start spreading them out some more... ;)

The title of this post btw is an allusion to a song my little sister made up when she was maybe 4 years old and would get scared every time I went to my horseback riding lessons.  Some day I will share it on interwebz, until then you will just have to live in suspense.

Videos!

I don't have very much time before I head off to the stable on this beautiful, sunny Spring day in Mallorca, but I did finally manage to upload the videos from last weekend so here they are!

Starbuck playing with the new Parelli Big Green Ball:

Me riding Starbuck last Saturday:

Bratty Bratty Brat Brat

Starbuck's been a nasty little brat for the past two days.  Yesterday, she didn't want me to put salve on a little scrape she had on her face and kept running off, and on Tuesday she even kicked out at me in her paddock (luckily her aim was off) when I made her hustle a little.  I know she's in heat, that her best friend has been sick and that the weather's changing, but you'd think she'd give me a little break.  After all, I've had to get up an hour early every day due to daylight savings' time, work three 10 hour days this week where I missed going to see her at lunch and could only go to the stable in the evening, my favorite barn kitty was bitten by a dog and needed some serious wound treatment, I've been superbusy with www.puntoecuestre.com and on top of everything I've got the world's worst and longest case of PMS this month.  So here I was hoping that she would be the bright spot in a murky week, and she let me down.  I've been going over and over this all in my head all week, worrying about her "backsliding" and starting to question her recent progress.

Until today, I thought, "wait a minute"...

There's so much talk in Natural Horsemanship (and other training philosophies for that matter) about "putting the relationship first".  We work so hard on making sure that our horses are happy and trusting little followers and that we confidently fill their every need.  But a relationship is about so much more than being a leader.  According to the almighty Google, a relationship is "The way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected."  That bears repeating.  A relationship is the state of being connected.  If one of us is emotionally distant due to stress, hormones or tiredness, the connection weakens and the relationship suffers.  Especially with an animal as imitative as a horse who we specifically train to take their emotional cues from us (head down, breathe deep, relax girl...) and who is going through her own hormonal changes.

How many times have I snapped at my husband for no good reason and he's graciously let it slide?  But every now and then both of us are in a bad mood at the same time, and this is when we have to be really careful not to get in a stupid argument.  If what I truly want with Starbuck is a friendship, a meaningful relationship where we are both willing partners, then I have to have the same consideration for her.  I can't expect to come stomping into the barn throwing stuff around and rushing to do everything and hope for her to be thrilled to see me.  As Carolyn Resnick so aptly puts it, I need to remember that this is a courtship.  Just as I always manage a pleasant greeting to my husband no matter how stressed out I am, I need to manage a pleasant demeanor which encourages Starbuck want to be around me, or prepare myself to accept whatever she's prepared to give back.

This is by no means an excuse for her kicking out at me which I promptly roundpenned out of her (she had a lot of excess energy she needed to work off anyway and we were able to practice her canter), I still think she was trying to assume the lead and that it's something I need to keep a close eye on.  But I'm 100% sure that if I had been slightly more pleasant and focussed on her instead of complaining about my workweek to my barnmates when trying to put the salve on (or put her halter on first so she couldn't get away in the first place), she wouldn't have run off, I wouldn't have had to hustle her and she wouldn't have gotten defensive.  An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.  And the next time I get "nasty little brat" responses, I need to make sure I'm not making "nasty little brat" requests.