Recently, I've been trying to get over my fear of riding Moose one step at a time, and yesterday I felt like doing a pushing passenger lesson at the walk inside our round pen. So, I squeezed . . . then all the way down to my legs, then clucked and that caused him to start walking. He walked right up to our gate, which is 2 elastic ties hooked together. (To see a picture of my round pen, click here). I thought about turning him away from the gate, and then starting again, but decided he'd turn by himself. So, I asked him to move off. He walked forward into the ties, and didn't know what to do about them being there. I felt his back tighten up, and he got really worried and flew sideways (alls I know is that he was in front of the gate, and then the next moment we were facing the fence). I immediately remembered the emergency stop, and did lateral flexion. The moment his head came around I jumped off him. It shook my confidence a little, but I'm very proud that I got off him right away. And I feel lucky that he didn't try to run through the pressure (that would've been ugly), and that I was doing a pushing passenger, so I still had my seat.
And because of this, we're going to do something about those ties. I don't know if they're in a bad position, or if the horses don't respect them or can't see them or something, but we're going to change our gate to something else. Bella walked into them before, too, but she responded by walking under them (think about it, those ties are at around 3', and Bella's 16hh - those things are stretchy!) and so now wants to get out of the round pen every time I try to play in there. (I realize that says something about our relationship, and don't worry, I'm trying to fix it, but that's not my point). I still want them to have the option of going out if I am putting too much pressure on, but they need to know that there is a gate there.
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