A friend once told me this.
..
"You treat your horse like you are eating at a restaurant for breakfast. You ask the waiter [your equine] for the coffee. He doesn't come right away with the coffee, so you wait patiently until it arrives. As soon as he brings the coffee to you, you say thank you and continue going on as you were before. Some days the waiter takes a little longer bringing you your coffee. You don't pester him though every two seconds "WHERE'S MY COFFEE!?" Instead you just wait and be patient."
Okay, so I hope I explained that as well as she explained it to me! Today while riding I asked for my coffee, but received ice tea instead. When that happens, you have to very kindly explain how you wanted coffee, not ice tea. However, after multiple tries you keep on receiving ice tea and the waiter is refusing to listen to you.. You do get a little frustrated.
Ah, so yes. Today I asked at least fifteen times for coffee from my horse, but he kept bringing on the ice tea. I was getting so annoyed. Some days it just gets to me. I think of only the problems my horse has and just start to focus on the negative. With every time he comes back with the ice tea, I just think more and more about what he isn't doing right, instead of what he is doing right. The head throwing, the stubbornness, the hot hotheadedness; the damage. It all just got me today. I couldn't help but feel so angry and humiliated as I was riding, and my trainer was shouting.
I repeatedly was asking for a simple leg yield, and every time he refused and would do total opposite of what I wanted. My trainer stood their, hands through her hair, on wits end yelling at me the simpleness of a leg yield. I can leg yield!!!! Today it just wasn't working. Ah! I felt so, so, so frustrated with both my horse and myself. No one likes to be yelled at by their dressage trainer... It just isn't fun!
So today my lesson was a majority of one stubborn horse, angry trainer, and frustrated rider.!
Towards the end of our unsuccessful lesson, I felt really terrible for being angry with my horse. It wasn't his fault at all. It finally hit me that maybe I was asking for coffee wrong, and speaking an entire different language. Perhaps my horse was just doing what he thought I was saying. After all, what if he had a really bad day, and I was expecting too much out of him. Not every ride can he be the exact horse I want him to be. So towards the end that's when I started to think how unfair I had been towards my poor Udex.
I. Felt. Terrible.
I gave the poor horse a very well deserved pat and decided to give his poor back a break and cool him down bareback. Those silent minutes walking around bareback really got me thinking. I felt so terrible for overlooking the fact poor Udex had been through so much. I can't understand why it was so hard for me to accept that today wasn't his (or my) day. I think that lately I had been taking too much good things for granted. Udex is recovering. I bought him knowing that it would be a long journey that is anything but easy. Thankfully during our bare back cool down I remembered that. I cuddled him for a bit and just thought about how it would feel to walk in his shoes.
So I honestly think we had a day like this to humble me. It's something I really need to work at. From now on, I'm going to make sure I ask for coffee in the most polite, least confusing way. If I get ice tea, I'm going to think about what I originally ask for and see if there is another way to say I want coffee. If all else fails, then it's safe to say it's just a bad day, and I;m going to have to just make due with ice tea. Some days are just better then others. Today definitely wasn't one of them. But I'm okay with that. Actually, I'm thankful for it. Like I said, I'm just going to try to be more humble and straight forward.
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Putting the bridle on a horse isn't usually hard... Key word: Usually. As always, the term usually doesn't ever apply to my crazy horse. It took about an hour just to bridle him. An entire hour. Oh man. Some days my horse drives me bonkers!! I had him in his stall so he couldn't run away and he was just too mentally excited. Kicking, running around in circles in his stall, nipping. You name it. Since we have changed barns he hasn't been nervous alone at all, so I know that wasn't the case. Anyway Udex was crazy. Every time I would get the bit in his mouth, he would raise his head up as high as it could go, (easily over six something feet.) Considering the fact I am only 5'1... Yeah, didn't really work too well. During our little "discussion" about bridling, Udex gave me over ten huge bruises, a bloody lip, and stepped on my feet over four times. Not too surprising considering the mood he was in. Obviously after about fourty five minutes of struggling I realized no good was going to come from fighting in his stall. I let him run in the arena a few minutes before I tried again. He was still extremely difficult to bridle but I managed to do it. 
.JPG)
