06/04/2026
Yesterday Tina and I had the worst ride weāve ever hadš«£
And I was so excited to ride herš
Being a personal horse means sometimes she gets put on the back burnerā¦.. she had about a week off.
Now prior to the week off she was really starting to make progress.
If you donāt know , Tina was a client horse last year, she was a bit of a basket case, Typical intelligent mare.
Long story short when winter came I was pretty sad to see Tina go, fast forward to spring I now own Tinaš¤©
So our terrible rideā¦.. sheās always been exceptionally forward, with tons of lift. And yesterday she wanted to go back to our first ride ever and give me a run for my money.
Standardbred trot
Head everywhere except where I want it
No breaks ( like none)
No body movement
No walk
Straight lines? Never heard of that
Absolutely no reverse
I swear she came close to breaking my nose
We almost fell over about 3 times
So did I get off? Did I lunge for hours? Did I whisper sweet nothings praying sheād go back to my sweet Tina? Did I rip on her face and demand obedience? Did I put her in a bigger bit?
Nah
Air is a privilege around here, and we worked. I spent 1 hour and 40 minutes on the back of Tina ( well actually I got off and backed her around my ENTIRE arena once) And would you believe it really didnāt get better. We trotted for 1 hour and 30 minutes ( I challenge you to try) about 10 minutes was loping, walking and other basic maneuvers.
After she finally gave me a millimeter of effort, I got off, not a dry inch on her, tied her to a tree for 2 hours and put her away.
Rode 2 more horses, 1 solo lesson, 1 more horse, and a 2 hour lesson of 6. My wonderful husband drug and watered the arena and I had to enjoy the fresh dirt.
Well I love Tina and was a little distraught over our earlier ride, so I figured after getting her butt worked letās give it another try. She walked right up to me in the pasture, I immediately could tell her whole demeanor changed, And well the video shows how our night ride went.
I smiled the entire ride, we had the best ride weāve ever hadš„¹
Sheās not going to win Congressā¦ā¦ this yearā¦. I wonāt say never. ( however I donāt have plans to go to Congressā¦ everš¤£)
Really I just wanted to share this video, but itās not as impressive without the story.
So whatās my reflection? If we wouldnāt have trotted for nearly 2 hours that morning, we wouldnāt have had our best ride ever. Her brain clicked, we might not have done anything I wanted but we still were secretly working on consistency headset, speed, lateral movement, breaks, transitions even if all of it was barely there and butt ugly we did it. She obviously decided it was way easier if we worked together and both tried.
So anyways Iām super proud of Tina. She wonāt be getting a week off again for a bitš¬
But this shows what training actually looks like, put your horse in a program, we work them everyday, you take the horse home and give them a week off, now the trainer is a bad trainer because your horse didnāt ride the same as when they were rode everyday!
I guarantee Tina and I will have another ābadā day, but thatās horses, not every ride will be beautiful. Sometimes itās the opposite of what you wanted to do and sometimes itās butt uglyš
