My trainer almost never rides my horse.
This isn’t because I don’t trust her (she’s arguably one of the only people in the world that I genuinely do trust with him). This isn’t because she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s literally the most qualified person in our area to help me achieve my goals (it’s kind of difficult to top running around the entirety of the Kentucky 5*). She knows Thoroughbreds and understands their quirks and how wonderful they are (she’s taking Cooper’s BFF to the Makeover this fall, so that should be fun). She knows potential when she sees it and she has the skills required to truly bring it out.
Despite all of that, despite her myriad of accomplishments and the fact that I know what she can do, the reason why she almost never rides my horse is, quite simply, me.
A major component of that has to do with my mental health. On the one hand, my barn time is one of my biggest motivators to get through the work day, and it’s the place where I can shut my brain off most nights and stop worrying about real life for a few hours. On the other hand, I know myself and I know that when I am experiencing a prolonged depressive episode, I may not be able to pry myself out of bed to go Do Things, but I usually can pry myself out of bed to go the barn and hang out with my horse.
Another component is physical health, because I don’t hate running anymore but it’s not my preferred activity either. We also have the saddle time component—I have a lot of years of only being able to ride once a week to make up for, and there’s still plenty of ground to cover. There’s also the financial component—given the choice between training rides for Cooper and lessons for both of us, I’ll take the lessons—and the fact that up until six months ago, he wasn’t really in the appropriate physical condition to be able to get meaningful things out of one-on-one trainer time.
Perhaps the biggest thing, though, is that Cooper has had very, very few riders on him since coming to me just under five years ago. Specifically, he’s had four riders: my trainer, my best friend (once when my knee was bothering me), one of the lesson students at my old barn (she got on him and walked him around for ten minutes while I had a word with the horse she was riding), and me. This isn’t because I wouldn’t trust him with other people—he’s perfectly quiet walk/trot unless it’s that 2% of the year when invisible demons are coming to eat him—but instead because, even though it’s very slow going, I want to be the one to make him.
I’m the one who found his listing almost five years ago, who had the gut feeling, who kept going back to the ad because there was some little voice telling me that I would regret it if I didn’t try everything I could to make it happen. I’m the one who did the ground work with him that first month, and got in the saddle for the first time since his track days, and started teaching him about bend and contact and what it means to be a respectable baby sporthorse. I’m the one who’s done his conditioning rides, and who took him on his first trail ride and over his first jump and out to his first show. It certainly wasn’t perfect, and there was (and is) plenty that I didn’t know, but I’m the one who made the horse I had when we moved into my trainer’s barn a little over a year ago, and I want to be the one who makes the horse that I have when we run Beginner Novice, Novice, Training, maybe even Modified or Prelim, for the first time.
Consequently, Cooper hasn’t had my trainer on him very many times. She had gotten on him twice for ten minutes or so during a couple of my lessons over the last few years (once after he dumped me, once to make sure that what he was doing was what she thought she was seeing), and I have her ride him when I’m out of town for more than a day or two (as he cannot be left to his own devices for longer than forty-eight hours unless I want him getting into trouble), but he’s by no means in training with her outside of our lessons. I’m not a spectacular rider by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m also not as incompetent as I may sometimes appear (especially if my trainer is yelling* at me) and there’s enough of a foundation there that I’m not breaking anything during the days when we’re on our own.
(*when she yells at me it is in the most literal sense of the word as it relates to volume. I don’t think she’s ever yelled at me in the negative sense in the entire seventeen years that I’ve known her.)
With all of that being said, though, she got on him today.
It was a beautiful day here and the outdoor was dry enough to ride in, so I skipped out of work early enough to be ready by 5:15 (enough time to get an hour or so in before we lost too much light to be going over fences). She had suggested to me a couple of weeks ago that we split a jumping ride at some point, so she already knew that I was on board with the idea, but I had absolutely no idea that that was what she was planning for today until I walked in the barn.
Consequently, I tacked Cooper up and got myself ready, and on my trainer went (after we shortened my stirrups by four holes, lol).
She obviously sees us for a lesson at least once a week, and usually sees me ride more often than that, so she knows the sorts of things that he likes to do, but it’s obviously a bit different when you’re actually in the saddle. Today we also had the vestiges of the 2% invisible demons that were out in full force on our (supposed to be quiet) walk yesterday, so he was acting up more than usual (which isn’t hard, since he’s usually pretty darn quiet). He really wanted to lean on the left rein in particular and was being quite fussy* about getting off the leg in terms of lateral work when she first started warming him up, but once he figured out that we were serious about work today, he put his little horsey thinking cap on and started to behave himself a bit more.
(He is fine, he is sound, our vet had hands on him a week ago for his every-six-weeks checkup and chiro, and the saddle fitter was out two weeks ago, it’s just that time of year with the weather changing a lot (and the aforementioned invisible horse-eating demons) and he has enough brain power that when he flakes off, he really flakes off.)
It’s definitely not a secret that we’ve struggled with his left lead for the better part of the last five years, and while it’s certainly a hundred thousand times better than it was since we figured out the whole NPA situation and did our suspensory rehab, he still has times (especially when his brain, and consequently his body, is Not Braining) where he falls back into the old muscle memory and swaps leads in the back. I’ve already mentioned the leaning on the left rein thing, which is still a work in progress, and how well we hold the lead is also directly correlated with how much he’s hanging on any given day (the more he hangs, the easier it is for him to throw his hind end to the outside and swap). As such, you can imagine my pleasant surprise when my trainer really got him off the left rein and put him together enough that he was going around with what I can only describe as a quiet hunter canter.
(Once again: can Thoroughbreds “not do the hunters,” or do you (general) just suck at training them correctly?)
(This horse will never be a hunter because I am not about that life, but good lord are people constantly telling on themselves.)
She spent a bit of time working on a circle over a small vertical to establish with him that he’s not allowed to hang, pull me to the fence, or take off when he lands. If he needs to move up to get a distance, that’s okay as long as it’s done quietly and he’s respectful of the half-halt, and he has to come back to that nice, adjustable canter on landing.
Once she was satisfied with how he was going (it really only took about half an hour, which is incredible in and of itself), she had me get on and work on doing the same thing. He was so much more through and light in the bridle from the moment I got on, and a thousand times more polite when it came to paying attention to half-halts (especially at the canter). We were actually able to come in quietly to the fence at the canter and settle back properly afterward without taking ten or twelve (or more) strides to do it, and that goes for both the right and the left lead. It became more difficult as he got tired (unsurprising), but we ended on a good note and he got a handful of normal cookies and two (2) of the peppermint German horse muffins that I reserve for very good rides (and he typically only gets one when he does get them since the six-pound bag costs nearly $50).
(He gets to have tomorrow off because best friend and I are going to see Book of Mormon.)
I’m sure you’re probably sitting there wondering why I had a whole soliloquy at the beginning of this about making my own horse, and then proceeded to talk about my trainer training my horse, and the reason for that is something that she said to me at the end of the lesson today: yes, she got on him and did all of that, but I’m the one who put the foundation on him. I’m the one who did the work over these months and years. She’s able to get on and ask him for the things that she did because she’s ridden a ton of horses and knows what right feels like, and I’ve never really had that experience to be able to judge against (ah, the life of being a child and teenager riding literally whatever I could get my hands on regardless of how green or quite frankly dangerous it was), but the reason why she can ask him to do those things is because I prepared him properly to meet the demands that she makes.
He learns something every time she gets on him. I learn something every time she gets on him. She isn’t making him, though, at least in the way that she and I think of it. She’s just able to cut through the bullshit and the baggage that makes everything take a thousand times longer when I’m the one doing it. Could I have done everything that she did with him today to get us to where we ended? Sure (again, not as incompetent as I may sometimes appear), but it would’ve taken weeks or months, not half an hour, because I have a lot of things that I need to work on myself (especially where jumping is concerned). It’s less about his physical capability, because he really is in a good place right now as far as that’s concerned, and more about my ability to get out of my own brain enough to get out of my own way. Having her get on him every few months for a ride or two is a good check on where we’re at, and a good way to refine the things that I’ve already taught him, but it isn’t her making him (except through what she teaches me when I’m in the saddle). I’ll be the one taking him up the levels until I chicken out, and then maybe I’ll let her take the ride over like she wants to 😉
(At the end of our lesson she was talking to him about how they’re going to run around Fair Hill together one day and how I’ll have to buy everyone a very expensive celebratory dinner afterward, lol. As I responded, Cooper better hurry up and win some prize money so I can afford it.)
(I very much do enjoy overhearing the things that she says to him, although I suppose it’s not really overhearing since she knows I’m listening. Theirs are some very sweet mostly one-sided conversations.)
There’s a small part of me that wonders what would happen if I just turned him over to her so that he can live out his full potential, but that’s not why I bought him. I bought him to be my Training level packer some day, and to be my partner, and to be the pony that I go play with after long days of work rather than asking him to be on all the time. He was already priceless to me before I found out that he has the potential to run around the upper levels one day (he nearly jumped the top of a set of 5′ standards last week Because Reasons I guess -_-), and my trainer already loved him before that became clear, and that’s what really matters.
(Honestly, though, until today I hadn’t properly seen another person on him literally ever (best friend did well with him but he was A Baby when she got on him), let alone since we fixed his feet and legs and got him going again, and all I have to say is: god damn is my horse fancy when he’s not insisting on doing his best llama impersonation and how the hell did I find this creature for only $1500? I am obsessed with him. Shoutout to the people who enabled me into that purchase. Yinz are the real MVPs.)
Spymaster Equestrian 