The yips

I've had a few rides since the last post, though my August has been light on them as work has been crazy, and my usual horse is being leased elsewhere for the month.

This week and last week, I rode my coach's new horse. And for some reason, I was a big ball of nerves and practically forgot how to ride. I have no idea what happened there.

It had been two weeks since I'd ridden, and my last ride had been on the out-of-shape western horse, on whom I just did a bit of walk and a bunch of slow jog. So not particularly challenging or engaging.

Cut to me trying this other horse, who is taller than I'm used to at 16.2 (although my usual lesson horse is 16, so...) and sort of lanky and Muppet-y, and for whatever reason...

Everything felt off. True, I did start with my stirrups too long by two holes at least, but even that doesn't usually make me nervous and ineffective. I was convinced that the saddle didn't fit me and was rolling me forward onto my pubic bone and keeping me from tucking my seat under me... but based on this week's ride, the problem was likely lower back tension. I also felt like I couldn't position my legs correctly, and my stirrups were bouncing around on my feet (probably mainly because they were too long) and I was certainly tensed and waiting for the horse to do something reactive, even though he gave NO signs of it other than being a bit looky at the start of the ride (which was understandable as it was his first ride in that ring!).

Where things especially fell apart was at the canter. I think a big problem with it was that I'm used to my usual lesson horse's canter, and she actually goes BETTER if you take up shorter reins and firmer contact. That's... not how most horses work, unfortunately, and especially not this one. Even though his canter is lovely and floaty and smooth, I was confusing him by taking up firmer contact which... told him to stop cantering. And he'd drop out of it into the sproingy-est trot which nearly unseated me, and in my scramble to right myself he kept popping into and out of canter in confusion. Which just unseated me more. Closest I've come to falling off in one of my lessons!! Ha! It was a bit ridiculous.

After that, I tried more canter on a loose rein and grabbed mane with one hand and gave up on steering, just focusing on "forward" instead. This went a lot better, although my anxiety at going "fast" while not really holding the reins in a useful way was certainly a factor. He does have a SMOOTH canter though. Like glass! Really really lovely, but because he's big and has a long stride and this very fluid movement, he felt like he was going too fast for me, even though he definitely wasn't. PTSD left over from my bolting-related falls? Likely. Guhhh.

This week, we did some trot pole work (over which he was kind of lazy and trippy, oops) we took another stab at canter. And even though everything felt MUCH better and back to normal for all my walk and trot work, I actually managed to canter him even LESS. My first attempt at a canter transition was actually pretty calm and went all right... buuuut I took up more contact and raised my hands out of habit, and he fell out of it, which jarred me, and after that I was a mess again. I actually gave up on it pretty quickly compared to last week. At one point I tried just anchoring the inside rein with one hand and also holding the front of the saddle, while using the outside rein to potentially control speed, but grabbing like that just makes me more tense and unstable, soooo... nahhhh.

So, this week: better ride over all, but still had myself psyched out about the canter. My coach told me I'll probably be fine by ride 3 on him, and I suspect she's right. I'm also having a lesson up in North Bay in about a week and a half, so it'll be interesting to see how I do on a different horse at that time. I don't normally have THIS much trouble adjusting to a new horse. I have no idea why I'm finding it SO oddly difficult this time, but there it is. It'll be fascinating to see if I have a problem in that other lesson. I sincerely hope that having ride-ruining nerves on a new horse isn't going to become a "thing" when it never has been before. I'll try not to overthink it (something I'm an expert at) or else it actually WILL become a thing!