Ep. 25 - The pitfalls of buying a new horse

Send us your feedback!So much of riding is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You get run away with from the moment you decide you’re being run away with… so we review how rider ‘lose it’ through the model of polyvagal theory. All of your insecurities are likely to be triggered when you buy a new horse, who may offer challenges that are on the limit of your skills (do you remember the flow channel, where these stay in balance over time?). The pitfalls are many, and when you buy a schoolmaster, a lot depends on how well he was ‘danced’ previously. If you start pushing and he starts pulling, it will feel to him as if he doesn’t know the steps. Remember what it’s like in a couple’s dance form, when you (the woman) go from the ease and delight of dancing with a good partner (where you don’t have to know the steps) to dancing with a partner who hasn’t ‘got it’. The dissonance can feel horrible! Also, when riders buy a young horse, they often have the equivalent of ‘eyes bigger than their stomach’, and when they cannot match the forces of his movement, things again go wrong. It’s humbling to realise that very horse can only go as well as he is danced….