Red Mare Meltdown

I love my horse, I really do.  But sometimes I just want to strangle her.

Gratuitous photo of her showing off her posing skills

After a winter stuck in the indoor we are both sick of circles and arenas so we have been hacking out down the road for the past few weeks.  Every single time we go out I have been walking her down into the ditch and through the puddles (in our quest to be a fearless event horse).

Our ride started out really well.  We had hit the 2 mile mark and since I was aiming for a short ride we were going to turn and head for home after traipsing through the puddle.  Well we walked through the puddle into the field with minimal fuss.  When I asked her to go back through to the road all I got was a loud, resounding "No".  For the life of me I could not get her to walk into the puddle (which may have been fetlock deep and I could see the bottom).  She tried every evasion in the book.  She reared, she spun away, she kicked out behind when I used my whip, she bolted away, she put her nose on her chest and backed up and finally she just stood and refused to move, despite the pony club kicks.

Since i was obviously not getting anywhere I walked her down to the end of the field to where the puddles aren't as wide and got off.  I led her through the puddles a few times (with minimal theatrics) and then remounted.  After that we were back to walking through water like a champ.

I try really hard not to pick fights that I can't win but in this instance I didn't even realize we were fighting until the battle was raging on.  While I was unable to get her through where I originally asked I am going to count it as a success.  It's not like we had a choice either, the field is completely surrounded by water filled ditches.  To get out we had to cross the water again.

The rest of the ride was uneventful but the mare was dripping sweat from our earlier battle so we took it easy, worked on our bow and then she enjoyed a fabulous roll in the arena.  I even managed to get her mane pulled and under control.

Posing Fail, but isn't her mane purdy?