Problems and Solutions

I've been having some issues lately, both with Cherry and myself. Cherry, of course, is usually a complete saint who hauls my ass around and puts up with my general lack of confidence of late. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've just been downright nervous. I get so worked up about the "what ifs" that I can't enjoy the damn ride. However, she's also been acting like a bird-brained little twit lately, which has really been a blow to my confidence.

I'm afraid something will spook Cherry. I get tense when she gets "looky", which of course pretty much guarantees that she'll spook. Which freaks me out. Rinse, repeat.

Why it freaks me out I have no idea. It's been quite awhile since I fell off due to a spook, and that was an epic spook, let me tell you. She teleported right out from under me and somehow managed to end up halfway across the arena in the span of 2 nanoseconds. Thankfully she's a bit too old to teleport anymore. Even bareback I've managed to cling on and recover my balance fairly quickly when something goes awry. I know, I've seen me do it. So why am I so damn scared? The answer still eludes me.

However, I have found the answer to my fears of riding and the things that can go wrong when riding as well as Cherry's apparent lack of brain cells lately.

Ride more.

That's it. I have to ride more. Even if it terrifies me. Even if I have to force myself to put that saddle on Cherry's back. Even if the last thing I want to do is ride the horse I bought because she was a blast to ride.

The more I ride, the less scared I'll be. That's how it's always worked in the past. Getting back on Cherry after a lay-up was awful, even when I was a teenager. But once we were back to riding 5 days a week, things were fine again. So based on past experience, the more I ride the less it will freak me out.

The more I ride, the less of a twit Cherry will be. She's always gotten nutty when she doesn't get enough exercise. I don't know why I expected this to magically go away as she got older. It hasn't, and I really shouldn't be surprised.

I need to ride and Cherry needs to work.

Now that we have a set of hoof boots, there's no excuse not to ride anywhere I please. The fence of Cherry's paddock is literally 3 feet away from the neighboring farmer's wheat field. She's seen farm equipment up close and hasn't died yet. Cars have passed us at high speeds and she's handled it. No reason we can't ride down the gravel road anymore. And we need to.

I think I'll try a trick mentioned on FiSH to get us through the transition period. Cherry has always loved the sound of humans talking to each other, so I'm going to try talking to her when riding alone. It will help focus me as well as be soothing for her. I'm going to give it a whirl on the next road hack we go on.

So I'm decided. Ride more. At LEAST 3 days a week, though 5 days a week will be much better. Some weeks I leave for the weekend to work, so I can't ride those days. The weeks where I actually have a weekend will be 5 ride day weeks. My horse is sound, I am relatively sane, and we can do this.