Couples Counseling

This coming weekend will be seven years since I bought Goose. SEVEN YEARS. In that time we've had our ups and downs, and the first part of June had a lot of downs.

I have no pictures from any of our lessons but I'll try to rectify that at some point

Goose is a big horse. He moves his shoulder a little and I feel it a lot. He throws a tantrum and everything we were working on goes to hell. He's a safe horse but he's not an easy horse - I have to ride him and work to keep him together every single second that I'm asking him to do something. Those of you who have ridden Goose will know what I mean, those of you who haven't and are like, "You always have to ride every horse every second you're on them," you would be correct, however I invite you to come sit on him to see what I mean. He's not the kind of dude to meet you halfway, he's more the dude that you have to carry through a group project because they don't hold up their end of the assignment.

Because of this, we argue a lot. Our arguments are not one-sided however, and lately I just cannot figure out what the actual heck to do in order to work through our disputes. It's partly him, but it's mostly me and lately we are not partners. Enter Coti, a well-known trainer in the area who trains everyone at the farm. I had a lesson with her in May and it went well, but then I got busy and bought a new saddle and the funding wasn't there to pick up more lessons. After a few particularly horrific rides in which I had neither steering nor straightness, I told myself it was time for professional intervention. 

I signed up for a lesson on a Wednesday evening, and when Coti asked how Goose had been I told her we were in serious need of couples counseling. She's a good sport and did not roll her eyes at my ammy insanity, and we got to work. 

We stayed on a circle to flat and I ended up getting really nice trot work out of him, or at least moments of it. She helped me figure out how to be more effective with my hands by shortening my reins, and it was an overall great refresher to things I know how to do already but haven't had lessons in so long, I needed someone to point them out to me. I also learned a few new tricks, like lifting my inside rein instead of opening it, and slightly opening my outside rein which really helped. Goose wags his head at the trot any time he can, which creates an illusion of me sawing on his face which only happens occasionally in a desperate, and incorrect, attempt on my end to keep him from giraffeing. Kendra was the first trainer to notice his head wag, and Coti picked it up right away too. Shorter reins and steady hands helped this immensely, as did lifting the inside rein and slightly opening the outside. 

We also did some jumping, again working on getting rid of my crotch hands and keeping them out in front of me. His neck is so short I feel like my hands are on his mouth (they're not) and I'm pretty sure I need rainbow reins for adults. It'd be easier if someone just told me to hold the blue part of the reins and I could visually keep my hands there. No shocker here, shortening my reins fixed about 70% of my issues, especially over fences. Finding a forward horse is another big component. 

Having professional eyes on the ground did the trick and my subsequent rides are vastly improved. I stopped taking his nonsense so personally, and therefore we were able to work through a situation instead of fight about it. When Coti texted everyone about lessons this Saturday, I signed up for a bright and early 8am lesson to try to beat the heat. 

This lesson focused less on flat, and our warmup was brief. We started over a few jumps, and talked about the importance of a forward horse. This is my biggest challenge with Goose, and the majority of the issue is my brain. 

Full disclosure, it's been YEARS since I've taken formal jumping lessons, and to be honest I've never taken consistent jumping lessons with Goose. The first summer I bought him I think we maybe did a handful and didn't accomplish much with his  green gooberness, but after that it was dressage lessons with a sprinkling of the occasional over fences lesson or clinics. Overall, I've put the majority of training into this horse myself, with a lot of help on the dressage front but jumping has really been all me. I've never had a trainer jump him before for a schooling ride, with the exception of Meg Kep to get him over the Ditch of Doom. He's such a good egg and honest as the day is long, which is all him, certainly not something I've taught him! He truly loves to jump and when I get out of his way he's great. I've taken him over some big fences in grids but we've mostly stuck to 2'6", 2'9" friendly stuff where my brain is happiest, but I'd love to get him to 3' consistently again. I struggle to find forward with him - I think we're forward, then I ask for him to rate his stride for an add and all of a sudden I have no horse underneath me. He feels forward at the moment, but it's false and our distances and jumps suffer because I just haven't been able to figure it out. 

Back to the lesson. We talked about how he craps out in front of jumps because I don't have enough horse to begin with and his hind end is way out behind him instead of underneath where it can support a tight distance. What I felt was overriding to fences was the pace I really needed - talk about a brain blast! For the first time in seven years I had a consistently forward course of jumps where he jumped great, I wasn't worried about how big they were or about fighting him around a corner (thanks, shorter reins), and we nailed just about every distance without losing steam for a more conservative distance. Coti challenged me to do the four in a line and not add for five - we nailed it every time, and I was so damn pleased with that. 

I think sometimes I still ride Goose like he's green. He's not green, he actually has some nice buttons in there if you know how to find them, and like I said I never have to worry about him stopping at a fence. He's totally an over/under/through kind of dude. My brain gets in my way because somehow I haven't registered that seven years have gone by and in that time we've accomplished a lot. I don't have anything to fear while riding this horse. He's going to take care of me, and if I let him do his job while meeting him halfway we can have some pretty magical results. He didn't bat an eye at the raised cavalletis placed on top of our little log, and because I was having so much fun I forgot to spook at it myself. I just rode forward and the result was a great distance, a nice jump, and a happy Goose. 

Seven years is a long time for any relationship, in my opinion. Goose is not just a horse, he's my goober, my pal, the creature I've poured my heart, soul, and wallet into, and because of that I take his shenanigans way too personally. I forget that when I get on and am rationally thinking about what we've done the last few rides and surely we can manage to go nicely with our head down today, Goose isn't also thinking about those last few rides and how lovely and competent he is and instead is thinking "buzz off lady, you're the one who moved us to this hellish climate and I did NOT sign up for this particular kind of sweatbox torture". 

Instead of being persistent and riding the horse I have underneath me that day, my brain sometimes jumps to "GODDAMNIT GOOSE IT'S BEEN SEVEN YEARS OF THIS SO SHOW UP TO WORK OR I SWEAR IT'S CRAIGSLIST FOR YOU!"

I think we all know by now that the Craigslist threat is entirely empty. 

My last post I made the comparison to a middle-aged, failure-to-launch type of dude with Cheeto-stained whitey tighties still living in his mothers basement. I certainly stand by that, but pulling this into more of a relationship-type of metaphor, this is the point in our marriage where we just need a little counseling to get us back on track. Much like the partner that refuses to put the laundry in the hamper, Goose is refusing to keep his noggin out of intergalactic space territory, and instead of being willing to discuss it with him I've just nagged him to death and have taken it personally and now he's pretending he can't hear me. 

As riders, particularly those with limited budgets, I think we forget to invest in ourselves. It's great to invest in our horses and have trainers ride them or buy them nice tack and chiropractic adjustments, but those things don't necessarily equate to partnership. I've put a lot of time and money into Goose but not a lot in myself and my own riding these past few years, not since I moved out of NJ and lost Kendra as my trainer and unofficial therapist (shoutout to KClarke Equine, she still talks me off the ledge weekly). I think it's time I invested a little in myself to get this partnership back on track, and Goose and I are already moving in the right direction.