Reba the Bully
So, no more excuses. My mare is a bully. She may be sweet and innocently submissive to the rest of her herd out in the fields, but she is a big fat bully to me!
Every little opening, every little release that I give her and she's see it as an opportunity to reassert herself as lead mare in our duo. I am working hard to step up and pre-empt her pushy behaviour and assert myself as the boss mare. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I mis-time my corrections and it makes things worse.
Today, I got it right.
When Reba is feeling frisky, she has a tendency to intimidate me by running to the gate when we're trotting around the arena. This completely unsettles me both physically and emotionally because she comes to sliding stop at the gate and I think I'm going to be thrown over the top of her. So today, I anticipated this as we turned towards the gate as we were trotting. She sped up and tried to make a bee line for the gate. I reached down and perfected my one rein stop that I've been practicing in lessons. She came to a halt and looked at me as if in shock. I asked her to trot a circle. She did. I asked her to trot another circle. She did. I changed reins and trotted two more circles, and she didn't try anything on. Result! So I stopped, praised her and got off :-)
Woohoo!!!!!
Every little opening, every little release that I give her and she's see it as an opportunity to reassert herself as lead mare in our duo. I am working hard to step up and pre-empt her pushy behaviour and assert myself as the boss mare. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I mis-time my corrections and it makes things worse.
Today, I got it right.
When Reba is feeling frisky, she has a tendency to intimidate me by running to the gate when we're trotting around the arena. This completely unsettles me both physically and emotionally because she comes to sliding stop at the gate and I think I'm going to be thrown over the top of her. So today, I anticipated this as we turned towards the gate as we were trotting. She sped up and tried to make a bee line for the gate. I reached down and perfected my one rein stop that I've been practicing in lessons. She came to a halt and looked at me as if in shock. I asked her to trot a circle. She did. I asked her to trot another circle. She did. I changed reins and trotted two more circles, and she didn't try anything on. Result! So I stopped, praised her and got off :-)
Woohoo!!!!!