Nobody Puts Baby In a Corner

In Monica's latest post, and in a lot of other places in my life, I've come to realize that I'm being held back in my riding by one really simple concept. It's stupid, honestly.

In my mind, Bailey is still the "baby". She's a baby horse with a baby brain that can't handle big challenges and because of her baby-ness, one needs to expect less of her.

But the thing is, Bailey is 6. Bailey is technically turning 7 sometime in the relatively near future (since we don't know her birthday, I've decided its July 16th). She's physically mature, and I need to stop acting like it's okay for her not to be mentally mature. I let her be dramatic and a doofus, and let her get away with horsey murder because "she's a baby".

Baby horse at 4, a day after she came home

Spooking in dressage

But honestly, it's time to grow up, B. In a lot of ways over the past few months, she's started to show me that she's ready to be treated like a grown up. She's so darn capable physically, and lately she's seemed pretty darn capable, mentally. Yes, she's still a hot and spicy red mare, but we can keep a lid on it. She can conquer her fears instead of running from them. I don't think she will ever stop being spicy, and throwing stupid things like a stop at a "scary" 8" high log because she was too busy being ditzy to notice it. But the important thing is her ability to keep going. She can spook at the hose as long as she eventually steps over it and we continue about our ride. She can be looky and silly and overjump things, but she needs to reach a new level of maturity and trust - and I need to be able to trust her to be solid and react to things like a (relative) Grown Up.

Spooking at something she's gone past...

At least a half dozen times already

This winter I realized I was riding her too sympathetically - she was taking advantage of the fact that I was trained to have her spook, and then have to spend the next 10 minutes picking up the mental pieces. Once I started riding her with the expectation that we continue going forward, and we go back to work after the spook, she started to step up the plate. She hasn't stopped being annoyingly distractable, and she hasn't stopped being looky or spooky or her usual mildly crazy self. But she has learned to go back to work, finally. She has been working with me when I say, "hey, stop locking your jaw and soften, and stay soft past the scary thing the next time".

I feel like the progress is slow, and I'm not sure what, when I go back out to the XC course next time, kind of horse I'll have. I'm hoping, though, that she remembers things just a little better every time, so we can get back to having goals and, hopefully, achieving that T3D dream.