I haven’t been riding since my accident last May. I need to start again but serious injuries really shake me up. I’m sure that’s a sign of intelligence but it doesn’t help my confidence. I think I need to start again from the beginning. I want to teach the husband to lunge Prize while I work on my balance. Lunging is when you take a long rope and have the horse circle around you. When you have someone lunge while you ride it takes the steering away from the rider and lets you concentrate on anything else you want to practice. I wanted to do that anyway when I was going to start working on a lot of sidesaddle. Now I just need to get the husband on board. He gets bored easily and standing in the middle of a circle watching a horse move around you isn’t the height of excitement.
I had a dream last night that I was riding Spirit sidesaddle at my parents’ house in their lower field. I was doing warm up drills that I usually do with Prize. We were doing turns on the forehand and haunches and he was doing them wonderfully to the left. (You cue the turns to the left by squeezing your right leg against the horse – pushing him to the left. Sidesaddle you aren’t using your right leg on the horse’s side so turns to the left require the horse to learn more subtle cues.) Then I rode him to the barn and got off. In the dream I was glad I had done this because it was a confidence builder. I woke up and considered if my subconcious was trying to tell me something. Then I decided that my subconcious might be suicidial. Take a horse who has solemnly vowed to throw me every time if I ever dare to get on him again until I learn that he retired hmself and ride him in a style in which I’m barely competent? Well, if I survived it would in fact be a confidence builder. Maybe my subconcious is trying to say that I should just get on the horse who likes to be ridden and ride her in the style that we are accustomed to and get over it. Can’t be nearly as crazy as riding Spirit sidesaddle.
