It starts with a brush. That’s how I went about it at least. Walking out into the horse pasture with a curry comb and meeting my mare on the hill.
She saw me coming. Watched with mild suspicion as I trudged uphill to meet her. I could see the last bits of winter coat on her spine and under her short mane. I knew it was itchy. When I started to remove it, she closed her eyes and stood still as a statue. A good curry comb session is like a massage.
This is how it begins again.
The spring has been so cool, so wet. All the leaves stayed buds for longer than usual, thanks to late snowfalls and heavy rains, but now the first maple leaves are folding open, almost glowing in their neon splendor. It felt like the right time to start retraining a bossy draft horse.
Mabel is half Belgian, a heavy and large breed of draft horse commonly used by farmers still working with horsepower. She’s not a full blood, she’s half paint. Paints are stock horses crossed with some sort of pinto, but for this essay think of a brown and white splotched horse you’ve probably seen in old westerns.
Mabel is basically a regular ranch horse with a lift kit, extra tall and thick, with muscles for days and a neck like a t-rex. She’s 16.2 hands, which means her shoulder is 4 inches taller than me.
It’s been over two years since I have rode her regularly. An ankle injury made riding correctly, near impossible. I couldn’t hold my body weight in my ankles, heavy and low like I was taught. I could sit on the back of a horse like a sack of potatoes, sure. But that’s not riding. Riding has nothing to do with being a witless passenger hoping the horse under you does what you ask. It’s a team sport, with constant communication through hip and thigh, heel and weight, hands and body. How you lean, how you hover above the saddle, post, all of it takes the whole body.
This video is me riding someone else’s horse, but you can see what I mean as far as changing your body and moving with the animal instead of acting like a couch has legs. I sat while shooting, but once I was back to riding I grabbed the reins and started posting with the gelding. Sorry for the bad quality I don’t have any other videos of me riding!
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