It’s been a long time and I missed it. Like an old friend that you keep thinking about but never quite get around to calling, that half pass lurked in the recesses of my memory.

Okay, that’s a little corny, but what do you expect? Dressage is, after all, like dancing. And when it works, it really is akin to floating across the floor with a well-matched partner.

Baleno’s back problems have all but sidelined us over the past year. His soundness issued threatened my equestrian self-confidence, which is fragile to begin with. His back problems caused him to buck my trainer right off into the dirt of my arena (and she’s a German. They NEVER fall off). His back problems made me wonder if I’d ever make the leap from 2nd to 3rd level.

But then Ed came into my life, and he started working wonders on both of us. Yes, Ed the massage therapist. He’s been coming out weekly for about three months, and we’ve just transitioned to bi-weekly. Baleno is substantially better, and I mean that.

So this morning, it was crisp and cool and a perfect fall day. Baleno was floating freely forward, his back swinging, his tail up, his attitude in “let’s do it” mode. So I made the turn down center line. I asked for a little shoulder in left. Then I straightened my body, added a little inside like, and there it was again, my old friend the half-pass.

When Baleno started to hurt, we were just getting really good, strong, sharp trot half-passes, the kind that fly across the arena. But then suddenly he wouldn’t, or physically couldn’t, do them. It’s one of the most fun movements in the dressage-dance repertoire, and so those half passes became a symbol of our physical discontent.

So I gave Baleno a lot of cookies this morning after our ride. I patted him and massaged him and cuddled him, even though he’s not a terribly cuddly horse. I hope he feels as good tomorrow, but with horses, you never really know.

Since Jenny lives in Mexico (not New Mexico), Daisy’s care and training has fallen to Daisy’s caretaker, Kathleen. One of my students, a 14-year-old named Gen, also loves the horse and has started to play ground work games with her. And, add in the fact that my barn helper, Vanessa, has also been tasked with getting Daisy out and working her since Daisy is getting very, ahem, wide, I felt it necessary that she get more than the five minutes of exercise that’s her normal routine.

And therein lies the problem: Three people. Three methods.

And Daisy is confused.

So this got me thinking about this conundrum: I’ve always been taught the horse should move forward from a driving aid. If you are standing behind the line of the horse’s shoulder, the horse should go.

However, if you’re a natural horsemanship devotee (and please, correct me if I’m wrong), the horse should yield his haunches when you apply pressure.

When Nicole (my trainer and a true classicist) came from Germany, it infuriated her (not too strong a word, believe me) that Belle turned and faced her every time Nicole applied what Nicole thought was a driving aid, but what Belle thought was a “yield from pressure” aid.

We (Belle and I) spent the next few months working on that problem. It would be impossible to teach Belle to long-line if she kept turning and facing me, let alone teach her to longe properly. I schooled that “yield from pressure” aid right out of her. Now she longes and drives just perfectly.

Now we’re having the same problem with Daisy. Gen, who is a fan of natural horsemanship methods, has taught Daisy to yield her haunches to pressure. But Kathleen is frustrated that Daisy just won’t go forward to those aids on the longe line. Instead, Daisy turns and faces her.

Poor fillies. How confused they must be.

So what now? Do we go classical or natural? Is there a happy medium or a melding of the methods? Can a dressage horse go forward on the longe when driven from behind but yield to pressure when you’re trying to get her attention?

How do I integrate the two? I’m open to suggestions.

I originally entered the horse show, signing up optimistically for Intro Test A, which requires nothing more than walking into the arena, waving at the judge, trotting a circle, trotting another circle the other way, waving at the judge again, and exiting. A nice easy test.

Optimistic is the key word here, since Belle has only been off the property maybe three times…so she has a lot more seasoning she needs to do before she’s a fully cooked show horse. That was pretty evident when I arrived at the show grounds. So I scratched my class and decided just to play around with her.

Belle was, to say the least, excited. She looked at everything, jumped in my lap four or five times, forced me to yell at some running pony clubbers (oh, no! I have become that grumpy, crazy horse trainer lady! It’s me!) Forced to yell at kids! Forced to grump at a woman who parked her VW Beetle five inches from my horse trailer.

Surprisingly, Belle was really great once we got the tack on. She was quiet, longed in a nice, correct circle, walked and trotted on command. I then mounted her and walked her all around the grounds, with help—I asked various people with their horses to lead me here and lead me there, and for the most part, Belle was pretty quiet. I went into the arena during the break between classes and visited with the judge in her flapping tent, knocked over part of the dressage arena when Belle spooked at the kids running up the stairs to the announcer’s booth, got yelled at by said announcer for actually entering the official arena. Overall, a big adventure for both of us.

The trouble came when it was time to go home. Little Belle did NOT want to get in the trailer. And I, hot, tired and dehydrated, got frustrated. Bad, bad news. Of course, you cannot get frustrated with a red mare. Or any horse for that matter.

Needless to say, it took over an hour to get Belle loaded, and I immediately made a call to the trailer loading expert, who I hope will fix this problem so I won’t worry that every time we go somewhere I will be spending two hours trotting my red mare in circles.
Which brings me to this: Am I cut out to be a young horse owner? I think so, but I’m always wondering about this. Perhaps she’d be better in someone else’s capable hands. We all struggle with self doubt, but for the past few years, my self doubt has grown much larger than in the past. Belle’s not loading, Baleno’s health issues, my ability to move a horse past second level dressage.

Where has my confidence gone?

It’s been a while since I’ve written about Baleno’s progress, and since, ostensibly, this blog is about him, it’s time for an update.

First, I have found great benefits in riding three horses a day. It’s a lot of physical work and I seem to be able to maintain (if not loose) my weight no matter what I eat. I’m still ten pounds heavier than I want to be, but at least I’m at a steady baseline that is no longer increasing.

Second, it reminds me of the article I wrote for Perfect Horse a few months back, about Yvonne Barteau’s book, Ride the Right Horse. Each of my three is incredibly different—and each time I get into the saddle I have to adjust according. Belle, for example, is a pleaser and very sensitive; if I muscle her around like I do with Baleno, she shuts down—quite literally (see last week’s blog). Volare is a combination of the two—at once sensitive and a bit lazy. When you get his attention he ticks along like Belle.

Baleno, he’s a different horse altogether. I can honestly say the massage has made a world of difference. I was skeptical at first, but since I’m not taking lessons on him right now, I figure I’d use the money for massages (forbid that I should try to save it!). And it’s working. Baleno feels free-er in his back, more forward, more interested in working. He’ll never be as light or forward as Belle, or as cooperative as Volare, but he’s definitely better.

So I’m gradually working him up to where he was—hovering in the second-third level zone that separates the women from the girls, the men from the boys. It feels good to be back where we were (or at least heading in that direction).

I plan to continue the program for at least another three weeks—weekly massage, light ride, trail ride, work session, keeping his hard core training to a maximum of three days a week, and making his rides more fun and have more variety. This seems to be the program. It just took me a while to learn to ride the right horse.

We love them for it, to be sure. It’s that wonderful self will that gives horses their senses of humor, their tantrums, their games. My horses all have a sense of humor, all have moments of anger or frustration, and are perfectly capable of letting me know what they want.

Baleno, for example, does not like to leave his herd. As alpha-horse extraordinaire, he makes it a point to argue with me whenever I ask him to head out on a trail ride. There’s often a minor argument before trailer loading as well. Neither of these disagreements last very long and are hardly scary—we both know that my patience will win out, and he’ll eventually enjoy the trail ride or going to the clinic (okay, maybe not so much the clinic, but definitely the trail ride).

So Sunday was a beautiful day—one of the first coolish-days of New Mexico’s long, dry summer. I decided everyone needed to get away from the arena. So I saddled up Baleno and off we went to work in the deep sand in the farm behind mine—it’s 500 acres of alfalfa, but the farmer leaves a large section unplanted and it’s great for exercising horses. After our initial argument leaving the barn, I convinced him to go and we actually had a great time out in the sand, galloping and doing extended trot and generally stretching our legs.

Belle was next on the list. She hasn’t been off the property by herself and I hesitated, without a leader, to head out alone, so I compromised and decided to ride her in the pasture. No boundaries, no arena. My pasture is a great big L shape, and we got as far as the intersection before she decided she wasn’t going any further, no way, no how. And so ensued our first really big argument. I added leg, she kicked at my leg. I tapped with the whip, she turned and bit at my toe. I pushed with my seat, she stamped and stamped, a full on temper tantrum.

I learned that my little mare has a very good “reverse” gear, and can easily rein back the length of a 2 acre rectangular pasture. So now I was faced with a conundrum: Continue arguing, or get a few forward steps and call it a day. So that’s what I did. I kept at it, didn’t get mad, took lots of deep breaths, until she actually responded, walked forward and THEN I directed her back to her buddies at the far end. Hopefully the message was clear: do what I want and then you get to do what you want.

I have no idea how that will work out. I’m out of town again for a few days, and when I get back I’m hoping she’s had a little time to mull over the message. But what is very clear to me is that Belle needs to take lots of solo outings.