Mares have feelings, too. Ya know?!?

I'm beginning to remember why I stopped riding all together. This funny thing called barn politics. It's like the high school cheer leading team on meth. If you can't figure out who likes who or who agrees with how they are doing something then you're odd man out.

I have always been and will most likely always be odd man out. A role that I have not only grown accustom to, but now expect to play. I am grateful the mare I lease is in the small barn with one other horse. It helps me avoid 90% of the bs. However, that remaining 10% can be a pain in the ass.

This comes in the form of my fellow quarter leasee. I have spent some time with her, and she seems confused as to why another boarder at the barn would want her to stop working with their horse. How about trying this on for size: YOU SUCK!!!!

Seriously, socially the woman tries too hard to be nice. Sadly, I'm suckered into this and personally I do like her, but when it comes to her as a horseback rider, well let's just say I don't hold a lot of respect for her.

She's very nice in that she comes out and takes pictures of me riding all the time. Well, I finally asked her if the owner appreciated it. The response was "Yes, but the owner would like to see the horse improving faster."

Can I scream now?!? I am paying not only to ride this horse, but also train this horse. The more I think about it the more I'm so tempted to say fuck you. You want you're horse to improve faster? Pay me to ride 6 days a week, and in a year's time, we can get there. Or you can be an asshole and not care about your horse's health and ship her out to some "trainer" who will claim to have your mare completely broke in 3 months. The only thing that will be broke from this experience is the horse's spirit.

Now, this other rider looks at me as I am teaching her to ride a 20 meter circle. For those non-horse people reading this, let me explain. Within the first few lessons you have this is something you should be taught. It is a basic simple exercise that makes other exercises easier to do. This rider cannot ride a 20 meter circle. She can't even make it look round. Her cirlces are more football shaped. But she did have the balls to ask the rhetorical question" Wouldn't it be nice to get paid to ride?" Fuck! If I'd only been on my toes. I should have said "Why, yes it would be very nice for your cousin/horse owner to pay me to ride Taya."

Now to talk a bit about my darling. I have really come to like this horse in a way I didn't think I would. She is my first mare. But there is something about her fiesty temperment and always being in heat that I can relate to. Seriously, she never stops winking. (Google it, if you don't know what it is. I personally am scared to because I have a funny feeling I might stumble across some porn that no horse lover should ever see. Wait that just reads plain gross. Sorry folks).

She has never been fully trained and at 9 years old remains green broke. I am taking her to two dressage shows and one hunter pace this fall. The dressage shows are basic and easy, and having ridden the test a few times with her, she does well considering how green she is.

She is stiff in through her neck and if she was my horse and I had unlimited money I'd have her seeing a chiropractor and an accupucturist 3 times a week to help fix this. If you know anything about horses, know that the front end pulls the horse's body along and the rear end pushes. With that in mind if I can get Taya to engage her hind end (which she is starting to do) she will soften at the poll and begin to carry herself. For me it's not a race to some finish line. It's about doing the best I possibly can.

Up next is the hunter pace and well, simply put, this is a major case of insanity on my end. Taya has the reputation of throwing riders on trails. The good news is she has yet to figure out how to buck me off so I'm taking her out starting Monday for a trail ride with another horse.

In closing I will leave you with a quote that influences my philosophy in horseback riding.
"If training has not made a horse more beautiful, nobler in carriage, more attentive in his behaviour, revealing pleasure in his own accomplishment, then he has not truly been schooled in dressage" Colonel Handler.