Portable Education

Saxony and I left the training barn on October 15th. That was a Monday. I gave her six days to settle back in at the old barn, which was easy to do because I'm readying to leave the festival site and return to the city. I was busy and dragging my feet at the same time. So much of the festival season for me was about my mare being just across the state line and both of us being in school. I wondered in the back of my mind did some of it, any of it, really take? I was hesitant to test us, because all of it seemed more real with our trainer right there, as though it were flowing from her, encircling us in just an illusion of skill.

I had it wrong. What we learned during our six weeks there, the progress we made, cured and set, hardening into actual knowledge on Sunday morning at the barn when I went through a schooling session with Saxony. Just her and me. In-hand work. Warm-up walk/trot. Shoulder in, haunches in, half pass. Oh, she knows it, and I kind of do too. The education we received proved to be completely portable. Maybe there can be no better endorsement of a trainer than that. I'm sure we lacked finesse, but we didn't lack focus, direction, or recollection. Understanding that is just one of what I'm sure will be many dividends to come out of our costly six weeks. It was a sound investment.

We have a basic curriculum to work on until we go back, me to lighten and quiet all my aids, her to grow stronger, rounder, rhythmic, better balanced. Trot, trot, trot, forward walk, trot, trot. B said to me, "I'll be able to tell if you've been working on your sitting trot."

But I have to back up. The week before we left, I stacked up lessons on Saxony, trying to cram it in with our departure  imminent. I had a lesson on Monday, another on Thursday, and then another on Friday. Between the Thursday and Friday lessons, I rode a different horse. This one.

He's a Lusitano stallion, "finished," so to speak. I'd never ridden a horse of his caliber, but the offer was made to enable me to feel the difference between my evolving mare and a horse who is all the way there. I'll write about him next. 

Necking With My Mare

We had a session yesterday, so I went looking for Saxony, camera in hand, as her round pen had been moved to fresh grass. There she was, beside one wing of the barn, watching me approach.

She dispatched the clublike carrot I offered. I love the crazy mess there at the end of her blaze, like white paint that ran thin through the canyon of her nostril and then pooled along her upper lip.

We had such a good lesson. My trainer sat in the bleachers of the indoor arena and gave instructions. We're leaving on October 15th, so she's setting us up with a sort of working curriculum until next July, when I hope to bring Saxony back to her for the festival summer.

Does it make any sense to say I rode my horse? That's how it felt. Forward walk, really big forward walk, then in to shoulders in, both directions. Don't drive her with my leg or seat. An extended segment of sitting trot. Sit, sit, sit. Trotting on a big circle, working on contact, keeping the bend. Our circles are drunken, but we were working. One, two, one, two. I can count the beats of the trot out loud if I need to. Then haunches in, which we'd never done. B just called it out, with plain directions. We did it; there wasn't time not to because we were just moving, flowing. Ending the hour with a forward walk on the buckle. I'm becoming able to think Saxony into changing directions during our stretching walks on the buckle. Her walk is different now, wavelike to ride, soothing and carrying. I didn't want to get off.

Back at the round pen, I saw that my mare has discovered her neck, now grown strong and shapely through her five-times-a-week training regimen (not including my own rides on her.) 

She likes to lift her head high over the round pen panels and sometimes rest her jaw up high as if to stretch. And maybe she is stretching. It's another thing she's learned to do, stretch down and sigh out during work. Just as she's learned to present her face for the bridle and stay quiet at the mounting block. She seems to like having a job, seems to like school. I've loved my mare all along, but I've discovered more in her than I ever knew was there. 

Leaving, I turned back, certain she'd be watching me. She likes people; she's a people horse. But I've finally realized that she's bonded most to me, which is the one thing I never expected to come of this time.

I'm Learning

I don't give my instructor enough credit. I know she's an excellent teacher: methodical, patient, encouraging, quiet. I see how Saxony is responding and I thought I saw how I was responding, too. But not quite. Some of my problems are bigger than I think they are. Because I'm used to festering about them, I think I know them and how they manifest, but I learned today that I can't really see that. Hard to admit.

I'm struggling with the in-hand work of late. It's strange, because I had it there for a while, or at least I was finding a flow with it. Today it feels like I'm starting all over again. Part of it is that Saxony is ahead of me now. She trains five days a week, but I have lessons with her only twice a week. Stepping into the in-hand work, she knows what's supposed to happen and she's used to working with someone who quietly and efficiently moves her along. I fumbled with the reins and the whip like my motor control skills were impaired. Once I'm fumbling, I do stupid things like push into her neck with my whip hand, push her to get her moving, not even aware that I'm doing it. I ended up standing there stalled this afternoon, snared by my own frustration.

In short, the fact that I go up into my head so quickly when challenged isn't invisible. That's what I learned today. I realized it when I saw B adjusting the course of our lesson to factor in my being tense and upset, and it's difficult to confess that. She kept me on the longe line for most of the lesson today until releasing me to ride shoulders in. 

But it wasn't all doom and gloom. Yesterday I rode a sustained and comfortable sitting trot on Saxony in both directions, all the while working on keeping her on the bit, light and round. B told me we have to experiment every step of the way to discover what aids make sense to Saxony when we want her to round and bend. One thing I learned just today is that she looks for help from the outside rein to keep from over bending her neck. Hands low at the saddle and fingers opening and closing from time to time bring her quickly to the bit. Especially when I remember to breathe.

After the lesson ended, I stayed up on Saxony to continue riding in the outdoor dressage arena. We'll be leaving this barn, with its lovely indoor arena, on October 15th, so I need to remind myself what it's like to ride outdoors. But really, I stayed on Saxony because I wanted to see if I could ride her myself, just the two of us alone, the way I ride her during our lessons. And we did okay. We circled, with changes of direction, and I worked to maintain her impulsion and roundness at the walk. The roundness was easier than the impulsion. As B walked to her car, she called back, "I can see you driving her with your legs." I'm glad she caught it, but I'd been trying so hard not to use my legs, just keep them quietly draped against Saxony's sides, that I couldn't help but feel disappointed in myself. It's been really eye opening to discover just how heavy I can be, have been, with the aids. Yikes.

I'm learning. Days like this are the hard work of it, lessons like these good for me as a rider, better for me as a person.

Myself In The Way

It was a hard lesson today. I had to work against myself to be able to work with Saxony. I'd like to know what had me uptight, but all that really matters is that I didn't let myself off the hook. Nothing bad happened. Saxony is learning, and I am learning. It just didn't flow, and I didn't kid myself about it. It felt like a roll-up-your-sleeves, suck-it-up-and-get-to-work moment. After a bit of consternation and embarrassment, that's what I did.

One thing that's new for me is Saxony setting off into a canter as soon as I unfurl the longe line. She does it without any prompting from me, which leaves me feeling not in control, or at least disconnected from her. I asked B and she explained that we're working to help Saxony find her natural comfort zone cantering on the correct lead in both directions and that once Saxony gets there, then we can work to shape and guide her. She reminded me to send Saxony cantering forward with real energy until she self-corrects to the proper lead, or start her again from the trot. I'm glad of the repetition from this instructor.

So I had this black dervish of a mare cantering to the left with gusto, but often on the wrong lead or cross cantering. Both of those are hard things for me to see because I've never had that eye for the movements of a horse that so many people seem to have been born with. Even so, I have gotten to the point where I can now recognize Saxony going on the wrong lead with her front legs. Cross cantering, though, is a challenge for me to detect. I went up into my head to chew myself out for not being able to see it instantly and there I got a sudden glimpse of me being a jerk to myself for no practical gain at all.

Saxony was uppity for the in-hand work, then, and I quickly became tangled in the dressage whip, inside rein and outside rein. It was that kind of thing. She wouldn't halt cleanly when I wanted to gather myself up and start again. When I did persuade her to halt, she swung around to face me. Awkward. It all felt awkward.

We rode the whole lesson off the longe line, beginning with a forward walk on a large circle, encouraging Saxony to carry herself with bend, roundness and impulsion. I felt like I was sawing on her mouth trying to bring her onto the bit. There'd she'd come and the next instant her jaw would turn to wood and go heavy against the reins. Yikes. It was hard work, seeming to require more from my hands than I've ever used as a rider. Maybe right now I have to do more in order to end up doing less. The contrast between her being on the bit, softly chewing into my hands, and off it, gone away into a leaning daydream, is big. It ends up being the difference between balance and imbalance, something I can really feel.

"No courtesy circles," B said as I struggled with our right shoulder-in. Saxony had stopped and I didn't know how to send her forward. That's right, no courtesy circles. Crap. I can't just turn her around and ride right back into shoulders in. I'm sure it wasn't pretty, but eventually I got her under way from that standstill.

Trotting, trotting, working on the same roundness and contact, I wondered whether I'd wanted it to be easy all along. No. No is the authentic answer. There is an old quitter in me, left over from my adolescence, who had no voice today. She could only wave self-pityingly from some dim, long ago high-school bleachers. I saw her, but I did not hear her. It was a hard lesson, hard work, in front of spectators, even, and I did all of it. Saxony's worth it. My love of having a horse is worth it. I've grown up that much, at least.

Riding Her

The wind is shredding acorns from the old oaks as I write, flinging them down like bullets to the metal shed roofs backstage at the festival grounds. They've been falling for days, broken loose by squirrels and birds, but this wind will finish it and all will be quiet tomorrow.

I had my fourth ride on Saxony today, the first where we were off the longe line for most of the lesson. I wanted to keep a meticulous log of our progress as it unfolded, or at least hers, but it's been hard because leaps and bounds have left me scrambling to absorb it all into my body, make it a knowing in my (aching) muscles not easily forgotten.
The details are important to me because they so often get left behind along the way. I tell myself now that if my body will remember everything, I can describe it later.

This was Saxony on Sunday. I had to sneak the shot from behind a tree because she always turns to look at me when I'm near. The owner of the farm turns her out in a round pen since we're only staying for a short time. The barn hands move the pen from spot to spot so Saxony has fresh lawn grass to munch along with her hay. Down at the right, sleeping on the job, are her three irksome footmen, some kind of geese or swans acquired as kids by the farm owner, who has a thing for birds in general.

I was there on Sunday with a friend to watch a clinic at an ungodly hour of the morning. It was a clinic for advanced riders and horses, but in it I saw all that we are learning, just done with a mastery that Saxony and I both lack, but which is not unattainable for either of us with work. I know this because on Thursday, after I'd done Saxony's ground work and in-hand work, my trainer decided to ride her before I did to show me what they'd been working on. I cried. It's not that shoulders-in or half pass are so elegant, or that a horse looks so different when balanced. It's not how willing and ably Saxony worked. I cried because I finally have a horse I am doing something with and I am understanding what we are doing. That has seemed such an elusive thing to me through the past few years; it was just something I imagined. I cried with relief and some pride, too.

Over our first three joint lessons, Saxony and I spent most of the lesson attached to B via the longe line. I understood why from the first ride. Saxony is forward, much more forward than I've experienced her to be. She's also unbalanced, and I am being taught how to help her move into balance with my seat, leg and rein aids. I'm also being taught how to dial all those aids way down. It's hard work. I always considered myself to be a quiet rider, but as my mare finds her way, her sensitivity is emerging. I'm not so quiet anymore, at least not relative to her. This is a wonderful thing to realize, that I am being tasked with finding subtlety along with everything else.

Today we were off the longe line and trotting on a big circle, working to stay round and rhythmic. When I keep my eyes up, I can feel Saxony go on the bit. If I try to sneak a glance down, she comes off it, responding to my distraction and change in position. Meanwhile, I circle at the rising trot not even thinking about how odd it feels to have my legs that straight, that long, that far under me. That's one thing my body is recognizing as the new norm, at least.

Self-consciousness is the enemy of accomplishment, someone once said. Boy, they were right. Ever so slightly, mine is starting fade, at least in this realm, with this horse.

Joint Lesson No. 2

I skipped writing about joint lesson No. 1 because I thought chances were pretty good that I made the whole thing up. I had that lesson last Thursday. My mare had been at the barn eight days, and the growth in her could not possibly have been real. That's what I thought as I drove away. I thought I needed so badly for it to go swimmingly that I had succumbed to magical thinking.

But it did go swimmingly. It had gone swimmingly then, and it did today. My horse, Saxony. She's a blackish, 15.3, kindhearted Appendix mare. Since I bought her, I guess I've been riding the Quarter Horse in her. That would be the strength and calm, long and low. Now I've met the Thoroughbred in her. That's the lift and forward, contact and collection. It feels amazing to ride the horse that is rising up in her.

When I went to that Thursday lesson, I wasn't expecting to ride Saxony, so I was surprised when B told me I'd be having all my lessons on her as long as I had her at the barn. I understand why, now. If I'd stayed on a school horse, I wouldn't know how to ride Saxony in keeping with her training. She felt so different under me in that lesson that I quickly realized I'd have to work hard to stay with her.

Today we had joint lesson No. 2. Here's our drill. I groom and tack her in her stall, attach side reins and longe line, and come to the arena ready for groundwork. We step right into the longe line work, just a few laps in either direction of trot and canter. Saxony has difficulty finding the left lead, so my options are to keep her cantering (big canter) until she self-corrects or bring her back to trot and start again. It doesn't matter which option I choose, the important thing is for Saxony to become comfortable cantering on the correct lead in both directions.

Adding the inside side rein comes next. The intent is to encourage Saxony to lower her head and seek contact with the bit. (Sidebar: she's going well in the Baucher, fussing all but vanished.) From time to time today I became distracted, almost mesmerized, by watching Saxony bend, round and stretch into her big working trot, but I'll get better at keeping my focus.

We end the groundwork with a short session of in-hand work, shoulders-in for now, encouraging Saxony to cross her legs under. That work is hard for me because it feels unnatural to use a whip. I have to struggle through self-consciousness and remind myself that the dressage whip is a training aid, nothing more. I hold the inside rein just at the bit ring to bend Saxony toward me while moving her in a straight line along the rail, keeping her working in the space defined by the one hand at the bit and the other pointing the whip. She's a quick, quick study, and I can see that the stretching inherent in shoulders-in is something that already feels good to her.

All of this was amazing to participate in today, and I haven't even come to our work under saddle.

Right to School

While the festival was winding down and I was wrangling my way through thousands of sunwashed, sometimes quite drunken revelers, my trainer continued to work with Saxony. She'd made one adjustment the same day I brought Saxony to the barn, sending me to buy a Baucher (bow-SHAY, at least that's my version) bit to replace the simple snaffle I'd been riding her in. I'm very curious to see how Saxony will go in the Baucher.

I'd told B pretty much everything I could think of about Saxony in the weeks prior to the move. It was an interesting recitation of facts and gaps. One of the things I told her about is how fussy Saxony is with her mouth during the bridling process. She offers much tonguing, yawning and rubbing as she settles the bit where she wants it, coupled then with producing sometimes copious amounts of drool during our rides. And I mean drool. It's not champagne, the fine white froth that sometimes results from the conversation between the hands of the rider and the mouth of the horse; it's just plain, clear drool. After having her examined by an equine dental specialist to rule out physical causes for her drooly fretfulness, I elected to wait until we were in training to make any changes to her tack. I don't know enough about bits and bitting to feel comfortable experimenting on my horse.

Because I trust my trainer, I went and bought the AlBaCon 5-1/4-inch Baucher she'd prescribed. This bit is made of German silver, with some copper added. B likes the Baucher for its steadiness in the horse's mouth. I'll see her ride Saxony in it on Thursday.

Meanwhile, B sent me a brief update during the weekend about what she was doing with Saxony, and it gave me a simple confidence boost in echoing some of what I already knew about her: "I rode her on Friday. She did very well. I can tell she's had some previous training. She was able to do both a shoulder in and haunches in at the walk. Her balance in the trot needs improvement, but I expect that to come quickly. She is weak in the canter, and needs to build her strength in the groundwork before we try cantering under saddle."

Naturally, I can't wait to get to the barn. Yes, I believe we'll come together, Saxony and I, and riding her will be wonderful, but right now nothing pleases me more to be learning about her. It's thrilling, completely thrilling.

Just Add Water

That's really how it felt yesterday, taking Saxony to our trainer's barn. I've never had her trailered anywhere. Would she load? Yes, she would, and she did. During the hour-long drive, she plucked at her hay net and stayed balanced and steady. She backed out of the trailer calmly.

Somehow, I swelled with pride walking her into the big, double-sided barn, even as she was offering all sorts of vocal stylings. For a grown mare, she has a baby-girlish voice full of squeals, squees and trills.

The barn is intimidating to me because it is so moneyed. Still, I've quashed that anxiety in myself for what my lessons give me. Last week I was invited to do a little trunk show of things from my Etsy shop, and the money was out in dining, deco and bling. Unless I was talking with someone about some fascinating old photograph or bit of equine ephemera, I blanched and hung back with the friends who'd come along to help. But having Saxony there at the barn changed that shyness for me. She's my peeps, I guess; I breathed easier. 

After we settled her in a stall, I sat down to watch B ride her own horse, listening down the aisle all the while for sounds from Saxony. She'd paw the floor from time to time, but was mostly silent, sampling the new hay. At some point, though, my instructor calmly remarked that Saxony had gotten out of her stall. She calmly remarked that. And yes, Saxony, unused to stall guards, had simply pushed through hers and wandered in search of my voice. I started to my feet and there she was, looking at me almost longingly. I took her back to her stall and closed the door behind us to linger with her for a while. She snuffled her hay and I just stood there stroking her shoulders and back.

After my friend S had her lesson and I'd finished mine, B surprised me by suggesting we start Saxony right then. Saxony was quite startled, herself. It's not a very good picture - I was too engaged and excited to pay attention to my camera.

It's not a day spa? Really?

And I felt, driving away from the barn at the end of a long day, many things. One, that it was the first all-horse day I've had in a such a long time. How wonderful they are, those days. Two, one chapter has ended completely and another has begun, a new chapter, fresh and only just hinting at what it contains. Three, the third, that I never rushed, never hurried, never commented in my own head about every step along the way. I took my horse where we will be for a while and all of it was good.

(I'm going to write my way through this big, new experience of taking a horse for training, but I can't begin in earnest until the festival where I work wraps up its season. I won't see Saxony for six days now, which means I'll miss five of her training sessions, but I'll be writing about all of it after that.)

Mining the Dormant Seam

After too long an absence, I returned to my riding instructor several weeks ago, the one I found late last summer. Today I had my third lesson. I take these lessons at mid-morning, after I've awakened, but before I can begin to quicken with the day.

I am so willing to work and learn; I mean, I surrender nearly all self-consciousness in front of this very skilled rider/instructor. The only time I flush is during the in-hand work that begins each lesson. Time slows, seemingly hobbled by my fumbling with the longe line, side reins and whip. We start with a minute or two on the circle, the line threaded through the snaffle bit of the double bridle, then add a side rein, switching it all when we reverse direction. After the old schoolmaster is stretched out, I do close in-hand work, moving him around my outstretched arm, keeping him bent and crossing under. It feels awkward simply because it lacks the fluidity of routine, is all. I'll get better at it.

I wondered if we would have to go back to the beginning when I first returned. I wondered if I would realize that I had only imagined the seemingly instant connection between my instructor's ability to teach and my ability to learn. I hadn't imagined it, and we didn't have to go back to the beginning. Some rust cracked off, spiraling gently to the ground, when she moved my leg back three inches. That took two minutes. Since then, we picked up from where we left off.

Today she began to mine a dormant seam, activating muscles in me that I think I never used when riding, didn't know to use. They are muscles one needs to rely on for a deep and centered seat. I am thankful they were still there in me, forgotten but not gone. It made me realize that, for me, what this instructor will teach me is how to ride my mare with my body, not just my mind. There are some tools which only the body can provide. The mind, for all its self-importance, has little provenance when those tools are required. All my thoughts designed to reduce anxiety come to nothing without my body knowing itself in the saddle. I am excited to see it so plainly.

My mare is shining with good health and ready strength. I am going to take her to my instructor's barn for the month of August, and September too if I can manage it. There I sense we will emerge toward one another together, I feel it. Already, I'm counting the days.

Bumping Up Against Her

Sometimes I think when I talk about Saxony or write about her, I make it sound like I think she is dumb. She isn't dumb. She taught me something big the other week, something I was way overdue on learning. It's simple what she taught me: that she is fully present when I am fully present. What's dumb is how hard it was for me to see that.

The Friday before last, I felt an urge to go out to the barn and see her. I drove there with no plan in mind, just gave myself the freedom to go. She came right to the fence line, as usual, when I pulled up. We did our looking at each other thing. In the barn, I groomed her, and I really sank into it. I felt I had that time, a perspective which has been rare for me during the last few months. And grooming her opened something in me, enough that I let things fall away from the foremost agitation in my mind. She sighed at some point, deeply, and sort of wrung her body out, like a clenching and releasing of all her muscles. After that, it felt right to tack her up, and that's what I did.

I've ridden her here and there through the past couple of months, mostly bareback, mostly contained wanders and idles in the ring. I haven't wanted us to go in full tack. It's me. I haven't wanted to go in full tack.

We did a ride of purpose and intention. I wasn't thinking about anything else. I finished transitions, up and down, rode her up into the walk from the trot and reverse, corrected myself when I began to drift away from my seat. I stay tuned to her, feeling how she was going. Whenever I felt I might float up into my hamster-wheel head, I picked one of the letters mounted on the top fence rail and rode to it. Then another, and another.

She's an inquisitive mare, likes to look, and wants to move to see better whatever has drawn her attention. I don't want that. She can look, but she doesn't need to head toward the thing. We worked on that. I rode her to a square halt in the center of the ring. We stood there and practiced just looking, together. I told her, "There are the horses across the street. That's that guy on his tractor. There's Gracie on the porch. Over there, they are trying to load Gambler into the trailer." We looked at all of it. After a few moments, she turned her head to touch my booted toe with her nose. That's when I understood that she was fully present, she was connected to me. She'd just been looking around, but not away.

Closing The Weave

I really did step back from my mare, and it's been a strange kind of hard work to do it. I wrote about needing time to let a bad horse year go and begin another one fresh. Then I imagined an encircling winter, the kind that brings to mind weathering it out on an 1800s prairie, living the punishing days by rote until the thaw. For me, there's renewal in that kind of waiting. What I imagined isn't quite how it went, though. There have been too many days of mildness and the weather has disoriented me in my own thinking. It's like it's summer and I've already lost the spring, squandered the spring. At least, I have those shimmers of guilt.

Then I found this amazing picture. It's not possible to say all that I see in it, all that I think about it. I can say it really stirred me up. How she clutches that horse to her, how she hunches protectively, the tension plain to see. I felt like that a couple of times last year. Her fierceness - I felt that. The sweet compliance of her mare even reminds me of my own.

Once I had a horse, Scout, who was attuned to every tension in my body. It wasn't a good thing for us as a team under saddle, but it was oddly validating, a kind of direct proof that things were going on in me, in my life. She could remind me of how bad I felt, how wound up I was with the churning of things. She reflected it and that brought us close together. I don't have that with Saxony; she's not that kind of horse. I have to bring myself down to be with her, drop out of my head, come closer to simplicity. It's really hard. She wants her rubs, her dawdles, her German muffins, our gazing eye to eye. She doesn't know that I'm a mind-rooted existentialist and she doesn't feed off my auto-cues of anxiety and doubt, either unwitting or overt. It means she can never become part of my drama unless I drag her there. I know that is a good thing, but I also know that's why it's taking me so long to come back to her. I am trying to discard things in my life I don't need or want anymore, trying to discard those things from myself.

My mare may be unbalanced, but she travels easier in herself right now than I, who can walk a straight line effortlessly but still struggle to get out of my own way.

If I Didn't Have Her...

Then I would not have felt the ocean-like rhythm of her rocking into me, who was leaning there against her while she grazed.

I would not have felt her choosing where to reach next as I accompanied her, lead line just loose in my hand. 

And I would not have felt the simple, deep lift and pull of her spine and shoulders when she leaned long and forward, too lazy to lift a hoof toward that tuft of grass.

If I didn't have her, I would not have been able to return her gaze when she turned to look back for me. 

I would not have been able to feel the delicious shiver that ran the length of her when she snorted in pleasure, nose deep in the last-gasp grass.

And I would not have been able to feel her lift herself back up to look at her world, nose skimming the breeze.

If I didn't have her, I would not have been able find my own silence, which I have been awaiting for some long months, or notice the lulling call of the winter train, whistling out our journeys to come.

Liner Notes Inside (Me)

I have been away from lessons for two weeks for moving back to the city and it will be a few more weeks before I resume them, but they have left an expected echo that could sustain me until I can get back.

Lesson Notes

After my sixth lesson, I realized I hadn't ridden Saxony since beginning the lessons. To be fair, she'd been recovering from an ulcer in her left eye, but that had healed by mid-October. It occurred to me that I was putting off taking her out because I felt so changed as a rider. What an odd thought, coming unbidden into my mind just when I felt exhilarated to be standing at a new verge as a rider.

Typical disarmament, I thought to myself. The old check-rein of nerves insinuating its way into a galvanized me. I thought, You can't ride her like you ride that schoolmaster. There, the conditions are artificial and rigged for success, aren't they? Don't test it by riding in the real world.

But the Saturday after Lesson 6 was beautiful and I just had to know, so I went to the barn. The first thing I did when I tacked Saxony was remove the knee blocks from my dressage saddle. The saddle I've been using during the lessons rides like a close-contact saddle and I love how my leg and seat respond to it. Liner note: Where practical, minimize the middleman between horse and rider as much as possible.

At the mounting block, she stood motionless. I've worked on training her not to walk off, but it hasn't quite reached Golden Rule status in her mind. But she stood like a statue there because that's what the schoolmaster does, so I wasn't expecting anything else. Liner note: Where possible, believe in and expect the desired outcome.

After walking a few strides, I dismounted and lowered my stirrups two holes. Oh, they'd felt awkwardly short to my newly-lengthened leg. Statue-like again, Saxony waited for me to remount. We walked the fence line of the ring. The stirrups were still too short. I had to question whether it mattered that much, but I dismounted and lowered them another hole. That's when I knew my laziness wouldn't trump my desire to learn, to better myself in my relationship with my mare. Liner note: Best to go to school when you're ready and willing to let yourself learn.

Riding her offered a kind of multi-tiered revelation. My long leg let me feel her in ways I hadn't so far - hadn't felt her or any other horse, for that matter. I felt how unbalanced she is, how right-handed she goes, her bracing when moving to the left. I put her on a straight line right through the middle of the ring and she rippled her way across, warping each stride just a hair under me. I was aware of that happening. I felt my mare and she felt me. This is what my lessons have given me.  Liner note: Lots of good forward walking will do wonders for both of us.

Those Beautiful Peepers

It seemed that Saxony's tear ducts were becoming blocked again over the last week or 10 days, so I kept her in a fly mask and called the clinic when it became obvious that swelling was happening around her left eye. The eye-care specialist who came to examine Saxony today found altogether something else. Horses, just like people, have so many problems along the way; they just can't say much about them or whine about it. It would be easier if they could.

Diagnosis.

There, low in her left eye, lurked an indolent ulcer, a white, smokey cloud at the edge of her cornea. It might have been caused by her rubbing her face, but maybe not. There were no foreign bodies to be found, no bit of a burr, speck of dust or twisted eyelash, just the ugly ulcer itself. It hurt to look at it. I suddenly saw the pain she'd been in.

"Her eyes," I sometimes say to myself. "More human than human." Just like the eyes of the replicants in Bladerunner. In that brilliant film, the rogue artificial intelligence behind the robots' eyes always mirrors back a human gaze so perfect and deep, only a machine can detect it's false.

I don't mean to compare her to a robot - it's just that Saxony has such emotive eyes and she's a creature wholly different from me. I'm always arrested by her gaze, look twice and then look again. It's that very expressiveness in her gaze that has made me worry her eyes are vulnerable from the day I met her.

I want to learn as much as possible about anything involving the health of my animals, so I ask a lot of questions and take pictures, if possible, to study later. I didn't do much of either today, I just watched the vet attend to Saxony's eye. All I cared about was that the pain be eliminated. She administered a local anesthetic to immobilize the eyelids and then stained the cornea with the same fluorescein green dye that was used to diagnose Saxony's blocked tear ducts last winter. The dye adhered to the ulcer and revealed ragged edges at its rim.

Debridement.

I learned that protocol for an indolent ulcer is to remove the ragged matter around the rim of the ulcer. That actually increases the size of the ulcer, but it aids the healing process by eliminating the tiny tissue walls blocking the rim. My camera lens is not strong enough to have captured the blood vessels that had grown toward the ulcer in an effort to heal it, but our vet pointed them out to me.

It was a hard day for my girl. She'll receive Atropine once a day to keep her pupil dilated and free of spasm and triple antibiotic ointment three times a day to prevent infection.

I could feel her beautiful peepers fixed on me, even from behind the fly mask, when, after the sedation had worn off, I walked her slowly back to the pasture. I was hoping she knew we had helped her. German muffins? I gave her five.

That Girl

Astride her today, sitting bareback and still, it seemed I could see 360 degrees around us, and if the 365-day year since I got her were also a circle, I felt I could see almost all of it too, with imperfect but practical vision. It was that kind of day, that kind of hour being back on my mare.

I could detail how it looked, my panoramic view of the year, but I don't think it matters. You live things, they upset you, and then you move on. In the end, you do. I've been through two crazy barns, some ripping heartache and some rage. Big deal. "Through" is the operative word. I can't mine much more from it than that. Only that it would help to know while you're in it that you'll always get through it, but that kind of wisdom proves elusive in times of crisis.

I know I lost moments, though. I could sense the empty spaces of them black and hollow at the periphery of the view from her back. My mare is a year older. I'm a year slower. Someone else had to protect her because I couldn't break free of work. The whole summer I worried, all the while freighting ever more gratitude upon the shoulders of my watchful friend. That was so hard. I can't say in words the toll of it, worrying about an animal you love, one you own. I felt I let her down. I have to say that.

The Best Breath of All

Lift-off is imminent. I've been prepping on the launch pad for two weeks. Tomorrow my life will be commanded entirely by the 10-day run-up to opening day of the event I work for. It's a ceaseless hurtling toward that moment, the home stretch still demanding and startling despite this being my 11th year doing it. I will work for 150 hours or more, frantically hacking off a bit of time here to spend another bit of time somewhere else. This is Hell week. Everything else becomes subordinate to it.

I went to the barn to see Saxony and Scout tonight knowing it would be my last chance. I had to hunt out the time, stalk it, isolate it, and then take it. I took S with me and we met K there. After picking our paddock, we each took a horse, speed-groomed, bridled, put on our helmets and then clambered on bareback.

Oh, that feeling of settling on your horse's back after days away, settling there along that impossibly strong, tensile spine. I can't believe the crap that melts away in me. Forty-five minutes idled past as we drifted up and down, around and through the long outdoor riding arena. We walked, letting gravity seduce our legs long, draping them against the horses' sides. Gambler, Saxony and Scout met each of us halfway; welcoming the easiness of it, they settled into well-strided, forward walks. They sighed and snorted contentedly. Together, we all walked and it was wonderful.

It was like I was buying time, in the best way, buying breath, energy and resolve. We were there for just two and a half hours, but I banked enough time for the next 150, all I need to carry me to opening day.

Tim's Second Ride - Reins For Conversation

Yesterday I opted to put Tim on Saxony, who's a better size for him and doesn't need the urging to move that Gambler sometimes requires, especially when a beginner is riding him. I didn't want my thespian student distracted by constantly having to push Gambler forward, and I was also curious to see how Saxony would do as a "school" horse.

One of the (embarrassing to confess) things I knew nothing about when I returned to riding was the indirect, or outside, rein. When taking English riding lessons in my late teens and early 20s, my instructors taught me plain steering by direct rein, simply bending the horse's head in the direction you wanted to go. It's a wonder my hands remained light.

Inside leg to outside rein to help contain, shape and direct the energy of the horse while moving forward, on a circle or not.  That's what I was thinking about while I warmed Saxony up, bending her through figure eights, turning her on the haunches, turning her on the forehand. I wanted Tim to learn about it if only because I hadn't.

I'd already explained to Tim that horses are ridden from the seat and the legs to the reins, not the other way around. The concept of "seat" is daunting for a newcomer, I think, and leg aids can be as well, but almost everybody has seen reins in use with a horse and it's natural to think their function is obvious. It's not, and that's why I elected to begin with the rein aids. "There are two reins and both are used to converse with the horse," I told Tim. It makes sense to say it in so few words, but teaching it in a way that enables a beginner to feel the actual mechanics of it takes some thought.

I won't, but I could stop walking, couldn't I?

This picture is not illustrative of what I'm talking about, I just love the sly look in Saxony's eye. She proved herself to be a perfectly adequate school horse for a beginner, with all that that entails, including making fun of her rider by feigning ignorance from time to time.

I know I'm lucky to be helping someone who is so willing and excited to learn about horses and riding. Because I'm not an advanced rider (I'm really thin on canter work), I can only give Tim what comes from my experience, and from the holes in it as well. My struggles with confidence keep me wanting him to always feel safe and open. That's why I put Tim in shorter stirrups, to give him a sense of security in our early going.

After Tim was aboard Saxony, we walked a couple laps of the round pen. As we walked, I asked him to tell me how he felt Saxony differed from Gambler. We talked about her height, her stride, her swinging back and long, low headset, all very different from what he'd experienced aboard Gambler, a shortbacked, upright little Arab, dawdler or not.

Then we spent a half hour working on the rein aids. We began with contact and how to find and maintain it softly, so softly, and consistently. To get there meant Tim learning to take up the reins and learning to release them, sometimes just in the fingertips, sometimes through the wrists and up fluid arms. Saxony likes to look at her environment, and the movement of her head and neck created a natural opportunity for Tim to learn about following hands. He did really well, and I enjoyed seeing him comprehend how little pressure is required to stay connected to the horse. 

Once I felt Tim had begun to find a sense of the reins, I asked him to bring Saxony in off the fence and cross to the other side of the round pen. I pointed out a specific route. Focused on following my instructions, he spoke to Saxony through the reins, and even with his body, but he didn't notice because he was concentrating so intently on the route. It's wonderful what can be taught when the student isn't looking.

We worked on simple changes of direction in wide, gentle turns. We worked on halting and walking, walking and halting, worked on opening the inside rein, worked on maintaining the outside rein. There's a light that comes into a person's eyes when suddenly they understand something in their own way, after just a little guidance and practice. That's what I saw happen for Tim when Saxony began gently chewing in the bridle. Their conversation had begun.

In Pairs

I just love how they bend in unison toward the sun. Whatever spring has been this year, it has not offered much more than wind, cold and rain. Leaving for work yesterday morning, I walked to the garage, past our chaotic raspberry thickets, and saw this pair of interlopers. Who knows where they came from? Hackneyed metaphor or not, they seemed to me to symbolize where I am with the horses: in pairs.

This pair offers the premise and the promise. Scout and I will come back together through Special K, who brings out the best in her. It will be fun to ride her because I don't ever have to ride her. There's release in that freedom. Saxony and I will ride and ride and ride. Perhaps best of all, Special K and I will support each others' growth and adventure forward together. Nature's springtime may continue to elude us, but I think we are in an equine spring, paired in horses, friendship and opportunity.

Hands on Horse Bodies

Figuring that, since the end times were to occur today, or some such hoohah, there was no place I'd rather be than with the horses and the person of my life, H.G. and I drove through the rain to the barn.

Among things I'll have to adjust to there, protocol at the new barn keeps horses indoors during heavy rain. I'm not yet comfortable with that, but nevertheless, it meant Saxony and Scout were loitering in their stalls, dry and ready for a diversion. It's been a long time since I gave Scout an epic grooming, and I've really missed it. So has H.G., or perhaps I should say that Scout has really missed him. He's very tall and early on formed the habit of placing one hand on her back, withers, neck, wherever, while brushing her with the other. Scout loves this; she relaxes completely into her inner horse. I have the notion that H.G.'s resting hand, coupled with his height, takes her back to a body memory of being a foal kept close by her mother, bumping along her side, ducking under her neck. I never see Scout so peaceful as when H.G. and I groom her together. We polished her dusty red up to a fiery auburn.

H.G. does not know Saxony well yet. I told him how she loves to have her face groomed. He spent a lot of time shedding her whole head with a soft rubber curry, whisking the loosened hairs away with a soft body brush, and this was magical to her. She stretched her neck long and low, extending her face flat beneath his long hands. I heard him talking to her softly, murmuring praise. Saxony shifts in cross ties, always wanting to be in direct visual contact with her person, but eventually she surrendered completely to the face massage and forgot about me. In time, we had her burnished to a dark liquid chocolate.

I wonder if they know how good it feels to me to groom them. I wonder if it matters to them to be put away clean and cared for, contented; I wonder if such concepts can exist somewhere in their awareness. Maybe it's just the time and attention that matters, for all of us. I owe them.

Moving Day Two - Saxony Joins Scout

There was a moment when I laughed out loud, giddy with happiness and relief, my heart lifting at seeing them together. Scout asserted her supremacy through a quick show of squealing and striking. Saxony consented and that was the end of it. I stayed for hours, watching them and reflecting on the presence of horses in my life. I feel fortunate and rich for having my mares, each so different, each so strong, each connected to such different parts of me. The future has finally begun.