Baby Seabiscuit (one of my 5yo OTTB projects) has made me think about another youngster I had some trouble with awhile back.
I’m sure NO ONE believes the Super Pony ever acted like that.
While I am Bad at Eventing……….
um….Bad Eventer here
I’ve always been good with the babies.
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This cute little mare
was the first horse I started completely on my own. She was 4……… I was 14.
My problems usually start when I cross over from “starting babies” to trying to event them.
The baby basics…………..I’ve got.
This is my 3 year old Connemara filly, a future star!
A few years back I was trying to move up on one of my home bred ponies.
And it was
not
going
well.
Somewhere between seasons she had started rushing at the fences, and smashing them to the ground.
I tried……… everything.
Circling, stopping before the fence, stopping after the fence, smaller jumps. bigger jumps, different bits, different saddles, different warm ups, different approaches…………
Nothing worked and the more I tried to fix it, the more things started to unravel……
This was filmed during my last jump school before we had planned to move up a level.
That resulted in a panicked call to the show secretary where I begged my way into a lower division.
I decided after that fiasco that
IT WASN’T WORKING!!
Every tactic I’d tried was unsuccessful….. and I began pondering what else I could possibly do??
Maybe………… I needed to just LET her run at the jumps………….
……….until she was bored with it, and figured out there was no reason for that kind of behavior.
WHY NOT? Nothing else had worked.
I put a halter on her so I couldn’t do much about the rushing.
My goal after all was for HER to figure it out.
I went to the arena fully prepared to gallop at fences willy nilly until she decided it just wasn’t worth all that extra effort.
I updated my will…………. and said my good byes……
I pointed her at the first jump and……………
nothing…….
She cantered around like a hunter pony.
There’s nothing quite like the moment when you figure out it was all you…………..
Bad Eventer strikes again.
Photo credits: Terrie Hatcher, Jim Stoner and Sarah Denham.
Hahaha. Brilliant post as usual! Less really is more sometimes…
this is fantastic. Thanks for reminding us all…
often its more us than them, funny how we forget that.