All Quiet on the Western Horse

An uneventful ride. The best kind.

A small group today -- Judy in front on Shas, Brenda on Tiger, Mary N. on Daisy, and me bringing up the rear on Casino. We just did one tiny canter. I was tempted for a moment to rise out of the saddle and two-point, because that still feels more stable, but decided I'd better keep sitting down so I had more control. That turned out to be good thing because Daisy, who is a young horse, got excited and passed Tiger, so we had to stop before we got into an impromptu horse race.

Daisy is a young horse so she's still learning her manners. She's also a Premarin foal, which means she is half-draft horse. At least half. She's ginormous and she has hips just like her namesake, Daisy Mae in Lil' Abner. Normally, she doesn't canter much on the trail -- it's hard for her to keep going up those hills, there's a lot of her to carry. Mary N. said later, "She saw it was short and figured she could do it."

One thing that is mysterious is what people are and are not afraid of. I'm actually much more confident on the ground grooming and saddling the horses than I am in the saddle. Brenda, on the other hand, who loves riding Tiger, was standing around scared of him after he'd been saddled up. So I walked up to him and rubbed him on the shoulders, where horses love to be touched. I tried a quick stroke on the inside of the thighs, but that got ears back and a mean face, so I went back to the shoulder.

But Brenda will ride horses I would never get on. It sometimes feels these days like I'm more afraid of loss of face than of getting hurt. Not living up to expectations. Not to mention the humiliation of being afraid itself, which makes me more awkward and afraid. I read somewhere that there are only four core emotions -- Fear, Anger, Grief, and Joy -- and I keep thinking how that means, if we cut one of them off, we lose one-quarter of our emotional lives.

Anger is my most difficult emotion -- I often don't recognize what it feels like in my body. It's gotten to the point where if I have a high level of tension that feels like fear but I can't place it, I say, "oh, anger," and then that makes it easier to deal with. At least then I know the name of the fire that is burning through me.

Horses have it far easier. They have their emotions, respond, and then they forget. When you slap a horse on the shoulder to keep it from squishing you, everything's clear, you're the boss, and they don't hold a grudge. Fear they do remember, and they will spook at a spot they spooked at last week. On the other hand, so will a rider. So I guess they remember, but they don't seethe. They don't try to hide their fear, or pretend they are too tough to call out when they are alone and they see the other horses leaving.

That's the human's job. To make sure they do what they have to do without being abusive. Which may mean dismounting off a panicking horse, because actually they are much safer to control from the ground. Unfortunately, you can't dismount from yourself.

Riding on the way back I looked down at my reins and thought of another term for my list "give him some slack." I was.