I’m in the midst of packing to move apartments, which is just another in a long list of reasons I haven’t been riding at least 5 days a week. I’ve also, for the first time, been kind of bad about bringing my outside-of-the-barn life into the barn. It usually parks itself at the door with no effort on my part, and my hours with His Poeness are this happy, separate little bubble. Lately I’ve let all the little worries and uncertainties buzz at the back of my mind while I’m working with him, and that has to stop. Note to self.

For the second week in a row we also completely failed at doing Wednesday night jumping. I did get on him on Wednesday, but we just puttered around doing a little flatwork. We’re both a bit sick of dressage, I think, so last night I stole a page from Lennie’s book and focused on fitness — mostly my own. When I first started riding, way back in middle school, my instructor was a half-seat tyrant. For years I didn’t even know it was possible to sit the canter. After those early lessons, my sister and I would come home, prop our feet on the coffee table, and watch our legs shake. I’ve never been able to drive myself to those extremes of muscles exhaustion without an instructor’s prodding, but last night I reintroduced the half-seat to my poor unsuspecting legs. I just floated him the reins and let him trot and canter around at more or less his own pace, and focused on my balance.

Turns out Poe’s idea of the right pace is a pretty good clip, and we both enjoyed him cruising along in that mile-long stride. It was exactly what I needed to shake the packing blues, and something we’re going to keep in our regular rotation for the rest of winter. And come spring, I definitely want to get back to working on his brakes in the back field so that I can safely let him out. He’s an absolute blast to gallop, but he also has the tendency to accelerate joyfully off on his own volition, and that is a definite no-no. I want him to know that I’m the number one authority on go and woah before letting him have some freedom with it.

I can’t even remember now when I bought this domain name — sometime last fall? And I’ve been waiting to do any posting because I (obviously) don’t have any grand (or even not-so-grand) design ideas (I spent a while browsing the WordPress Themes directory, and am trying this stylish, simplish one on for size for now), and I just couldn’t summon the effort to do the big First Post, the Introduction, the Here Is My Horse and He Is Wonderful. And I entered serious riding slacker mode in November, so there hasn’t been much to report anyhow.

But now we’re gearing back up. We’ve had a couple fits and starts, but the last two weeks have been pretty solid work-wise. They’ve been pretty frustrating too: we’ve both lost quite a bit of fitness and flexibility. Poe came back from vacation really ready to work and feeling great, but lost a bit of that somewhere. I’ve had a lot of trouble getting his attention the last couple weeks, and just a whole slew of frustrating and mediocre rides. I know we can be better. A LOT better. It’s tough letting go of where we were, what I know is in there somewhere, and just riding the horse I have that day, but that’s what I’ve been striving for. I’ve been digging deep for patience, to keep things simple, and to praise him at every opportunity.

And last night, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I have my horse back. We still have a lot of work to do, but he felt really willing and listening and like he was finally remembering the stuff we’re trying to do together: soft contact, working over the back, supple supple supple, listen to the leg. There are a lot of things I love about owning a horse, but one of my favorites is being able to leap off of them after a particularly good ride, or even just one good moment, and lavish them with praise. I love being able to tell him what a brilliant, good, hard-working boy he is, how clever and spectacular, what an amazing thing he’s just accomplished. I think he loves it too: he gets a sort of glow in his eye, a spring to his step, a brightness. He is such a pleaser, and I think these times when we nail it really buoy both of us up.

Two other things I’m super proud about: Since I got him last year, I’ve been working softly, just a little bit every time, on him standing at the mounting block. He is a really good boy; when I get on him he wants to go straight to work, and staying still right then has always wound him up. I can feel him get more and more tense; it’s like sitting on a powderkeg. He’s never done anything untoward, never bolted or bucked, but I’ve also always taken care not to push these tense moments too far. So, I let it slide a little bit. I’ve always corrected him, made him stand for at least a few breaths (some days are better than others and I’ve always let his mood dictate how far we can take it), but I’ve always had to correct him at least a little — until last week. Last week we had a small Come to Jesus. I was very stern (I hate being too stern; I always feel like a bully). He twitched and sidestepped and pawed and got himself all balled up but finally, finally, he stood and relaxed. He sighed, and I made a huge deal over him. Since then? He no longer takes that single step when I swing my leg over. It’s still early, but he’s been really solid on this the last few rides. It seems to have finally clicked. I know I could’ve enforced it harder earlier, but this timeline worked for us.

Thing two! Related to thing one, really. He can be Mr. Antsy-Pants in the cross-ties. He dances a lot, and paws, and I feel like I’ve been working nonstop for the last year to try to discourage all that annoying nonsense. It’s another one of those choose-your-battles things, and I’m taking a long-term view of it. I have definite small goals (he is not allowed to bulge into my space or he gets to jab himself into the business end of the hoofpick, no pawing, etc), and as he gets more solid on those he can graduate on to more complex goals. He is usually more receptive after we’re done riding, so that’s when I leave him off the cross-ties as long as possible and try to teach him about ground tying. It’s much easier when there aren’t a lot of people around (Poe is under the impression that pretty much anything that moves needs to have his nose stuck all over it), but he’s really starting to get this one too. Last night I stepped away to grab his brushes from the next grooming bay over — I wasn’t more than two horse lengths away, but he kept his feet glued to the spot and when I turned around he had his ears up and he was staring at me with the most earnest look on his face, absolutely bursting with pride that he had stayed right there, and that was what I’d wanted, right? Right? (I’m pretty sure I look like a complete lunatic throwing these seemingly random parties for my pony, all “AAHH Good Boy, What a Smart Dude! Look At You!”, but hey, it seems to be working.)

I didn’t actually intend to go off on this big, specific tangent, particularly not before I actually did the Here Is My Horse and He Is Wonderful thing. So: Here is my horse, and he is wonderful:

His registered name is Reliant, but I call him Poe, and I plan to show him this coming season as Poseidon. I got him at the very end of December 2009, after a long, arduous search, which is probably a tale for another time. (My dear friend Lennie helped me, and sometimes on these cold dark nights sitting in her Durango I have flashbacks to last winter, and feel an immense rush of gratitude that I’m not still looking.) He’ll be five this spring, and we’re eventers. We spent last year doing a lot of flatwork and some baby jumping, lots of larking around in the cross-country field, a handful of shows, and a fall full of trail riding. He is an absolute joy, and I still feel so lucky every day to have him in my life.