12/30/2025
Beautiful
Forget the Wind and Ride the Horse
I was tired from my first lesson. I was out of riding shape, having significantly less riding hours than I used to, and my back and core were screaming at me from the intensive focus and work I'd just done. I saddled up my thoroughbred for the second lesson when the wind picked up.
A tarp suddenly blew in from who knows where - causing him to dance sideways. As my most sensitive horse with the most anxiety, this was pretty poor timing for the wind to be howling.
I secured the tarp and mounted, but he shied at the side of the arena the tarp came from with each pass - tightening up, balking, and threatening to blow.
My teacher reminded me steadily with each pass of the circle to keep him aligned and focus on a steady tempo. "A horse in a balance finds calm in his body and worries less about the environment," she said. I know this to be true - I say this to my students all the time - but I could feel a storm around me and under me brewing, and my focus constantly being pulled by flapping blankets on fencelines threatening to jump out at us, dogs moving in and out of the scene, horses running in pastures - the perfect storm for a Thoroughbred to come unglued.
I checked my seat constantly under her direction and reminded myself to stay here with my horse - he needed me here, not thinking anywhere else.
"You know he's going to balk on that side," she said, "Get there ahead of time and be there for him - align and tempo, align and tempo." And then, the dreaded, "Release the reins forward! Don't bottle him up!"
To soften your seat into a chaotic back and give the reins forward to a horse threatening to come unglued takes an act of God. This isn't my first rodeo, figurately and literally speaking, but it is still hard to remember when the stakes are high. I believe in the message - but I know that one little mistake of my attention risks us both.
"Now channel that to a trot," she says. A trot feels insane - but I know deep down that movement is calming, and bottling him up will make him half crazy. I make myself trust it, and we trot.
Surely, piece by piece, he relaxes his neck, begins blowing out, and bends around the circle. I forget about the wind, the dogs, the blankets, the pivo that is spinning in the wind, and ride my horse - and wouldn't you know it, he forgets the environment too. Together inside of a wind storm we find our peace together.
Alignment, rhythm, tempo - The test of any method is how it works in less than ideal situations. And the more I see it work, the more I trust it like my life depends on it - because sometimes it truly does.
