Arena Ride Day 2

Arena Ride Day 2

Two days later, I am ready to tackle the arena, again. When I arrived at the barn, it was empty—so I hurried up and saddled Cole. When I got out there, a trainer was in the middle of the arena trying to put a bridle on a horse. The horse was fighting him. Cole came prancing in—a big version of his silly walk. I don’t know if that caused the horse to break away, or if the horse just didn’t want to be bridled, but the next thing we knew, the big horse was running all around the arena. I told Cole to stand still, and he did his best, but this was just too much for him. He danced about (really, he wasn’t bad—not as bad as Cruiser would have been) as I tried to calm him down. Keep in mind, other horses scare Cole—and a loose horse running around terrified him.

Thirty seconds later, the horse was caught, and I was heading out of the arena. Cole was too wound up for this, and I didn’t know what they were going to do with the horse. I was just going to ride around the property. I mounted up, and I could feel the energy coursing through Cole’s body. We headed to the back of the property, but didn’t get too far and turned back. I saw a couple ladies coming back from a trail ride, and they were heading for the back of the property, too. I asked if I could follow them. Cole did pretty well, but once we turned to go back to the barn, he started to prance and get excited. I dismounted and tried to lead him. He was just awful—prancing, dancing, spinning, trotting—it was a difficult walk back.

We went back into the arena. As we stepped through the gate, Cole bucked and kicked out. He likes to make an entrance. The horse that terrified him was being ridden all around in a lesson—and he made Cole nervous. I led him around, and he continued to misbehave. I put him into the silly walk, and we practiced parking out and bowing just so I could get him focused on me. It helped. By now, there was an audience. I got to hear about how cute he was, and that he would be perfect as the next Breyer model. I didn’t feel like that at the time.

After about 15 minutes, the lesson slowed down to a walk, so I mounted and walked around, too. Cole was much better. Once again, to focus him on me, we worked on our tricks—spinning and sidepassing. The other horse left, and we were alone. By now, our session was nearly over. I still had to walk Cruiser and do all my chores. I rode full laps at a walk a number of times in both directions, threw in some trotting and called it a day.

The good news—I was no longer nervous about riding on the far end of the arena like I was on Day One. I guess, once I had real problems, the imaginary ones just disappeared.

I’m not really looking forward to Day 3.