I made it through an entire year of Polly’s rehab before I fell off. (of her, anyway – broke my nose on a riding tour in Iceland when my horse tripped and went to his knees and I couldn’t salvage it to stay upright, but I guess that’s maybe a whole other post..)

And then we had a pretty major winter for the first few months of 2023. Our arena closes when it rains. The barn has one round pen, which kind of turns to mush, but also is in high demand. The turnout is usually a bit muddy, but this spring was really awful knee-deep sinking mud. It was rough. This is not the sort of winter we usually get, and not one we’re prepared for. We also got a non-zero amount of snow. Anyone who gets regular snow will laugh hysterically at us. This tiny amount of snow is more than I’ve seen in 15 years in the mountains. The highway closed for snowplows. I don’t know where those snowplows came from, they sure don’t live here normally.

Polly tried really hard to be good. Some days we hand-walked. Some days we lunged in a field on the trail midway through our handwalks. Actually that was a lot of the winter, it was the only space we had to let them move. I am intensely grateful for a pony who canters on a line without bolting off or leaving! But I still came off twice in the spring, pretty hard falls where she spun and left, and I just couldn’t stick it. The first one I felt maybe I hadn’t given her enough space to get her energy out pre-ride. The second one came rather out of nowhere and I wasn’t really sure what to make of it.

I promptly called in several bodyworkers, my saddle fitter, and an animal communicator. We went back to a bit (we’d been bitless for almost all of rehab, she seemed to prefer it, and it was fine, but.. I like not falling off and it was worth making some changes). I added a breastplate so the saddle wouldn’t roll. We also avoided turkeys on the trail for a while. She was pretty firmly terrified of them.

Saddle fitter got my dressage saddle all sorted and adjusted, and suddenly I could actually sit up straight on the horse! What a concept. It didn’t make sense to do a fitting last year in the middle of rehab, but it was definitely time in the spring.

We had some good months, and then on a solo trail ride on our regular trails, I nudged her forward into a trot when she was sucking back, and she came to an abrupt halt. I did not stick it. I was not delighted. On the bright side, she didn’t go anywhere, and it didn’t destroy my Camelbak, which I was the most grumbly about afterwards when I thought it was all beat up. A couple weeks later we had a nice relaxed walk on the trail with friends, super chill, and suddenly spun sideways. A deer had appeared up ahead off in the distance. It was an excessive response and went entirely 0-60 with no warning. Not ideal. Also not ideal: I reached down to try to hold on, but dressage saddles just don’t have very much in front for that.

It’s hard when we have really three miles of trail that we ride day in and day out. I need to be hauling her places for more exposure, and I need to be trotting her more on trail. For both of those I also need the confidence that I can stick some spooks. We’ve made progress this year and I’ve stuck a few more spooks, which makes me feel better! Think good thoughts for our winter though. We really don’t need a repeat of this last one.