You ever have a great plan in your head of what you’d like to do with your horse and then you hop on and suddenly realize that the horse you wanted to ride, is not the horse you’re sitting on…?

Me too.

Just the other day I had 30 minutes to sneak in a ride, and my plan was to jump in and do a quick walk, trot, and canter both directions before putting my horse away.

So, I hop on and start the “walk both ways” portion of my plan, and my horse would NOT yield to the pressure from my left leg. He’d move into it.

Now, I could have just pushed ahead and done my original plan, but I either address the issue in that moment, or address it for far longer another day.

So, our plan was do a nice w/t/c both ways, and we ended up working on walking bends and leg yields both ways. I dropped my stirrups for a little more workout and connection and to help him get used to having those banging against his sides while I rode. And we walked and bended and yielded and counter bended for our 30 minutes.

This is a very simple example. Some days, we’re ready for a trail ride but our horse wants to impersonate a kite – those may not be the best days to trail ride.

Some days our horse is spooky, and we recognize that we don’t have the mental and/or physical strength to deal with that while riding, so we do groundwork.

Other days we want to work on some harder movements, but our horse is having an off-day or a day where they feel a bit sluggish.

Sometimes, we push through – like the day when my horse didn’t want to move off my left leg, so while I readjusted my day, we did still move forward in his training.

A pause moment to consider our horse’s mindset can make or break our riding session. A pause to check the energy-level of our animal can help us know how to move forward that day in a way that won’t end in frustration for both of us.

I remember watching an FEI Longines pre-qualifier in Europe. One rider came in for his round (a guy who has been riding a while) and his horse was a bit fidgety and knocked down a pole on the first line. The guy slowed down the horse, got a nice even canter as he went wildly off course, tipped his hat, and left the ring. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to walk out at that level, but he knew he wouldn’t in the jump-off, and he knew his horse wasn’t in the proper mindset to finish the course well.

Bravo, sir. I wish I could remember who you are.

So, how do we check in with our horse?

My favorite is with a long walking warm-up. Ask yourself: Is my horse moving off my leg? Do we have more whoa than go, or more go than whoa? And then plan the workout accordingly. I often do a quick lunge, not because I want to “wear them out” before getting on, but I want an idea of how they’re moving and listening to my aids.

No matter how we decide to move forward on any given day, and no matter how much we plan and listen, we will still have frustrating days. That is OKAY.

Know your horse. Know their strengths and weaknesses. Know how to best warm them up with experimentation. And know when your session should be stopped.

A lesson I work on with the students all the time is that our horses aren’t machines and if we ask them to act as such, we’ll likely end up disappointed.

Pause. Listen. And ride the horse you have.

~ Jolene