At the end of October, Cate had to say goodbye to her beloved Boo. Not because he passed but because he was moving on to a new adventure and a new job as a therapy horse. Cate has more stick-to-it-ness and determination than any other little girl of her age that I have seen. She nearly gave up riding altogether a year and a half ago due to a bad trainer. We rectified that situation and since she has moved in the right direction with her riding...advancing by leaps and bounds every time I blink. Boo was a horse that Cate had a very close relationship with. At 27, he gave her challenges and helped rebuild her confidence. Boo always seemed to know if Cate wasn't feeling her best or if she'd had a bad day because when she greeted him he would wrap his whole head and neck around her body while she hugged him. He was therapeutic for her and was able to make her feel better almost instantly. In the time that Cate and Boo rode together, Catie went from a girl who had loved riding once and still had horses in her heart but also had a lot of fear to a girl who stilled loved riding and wasn't afraid to try new things. She had gone from the girl who would barley go at a walk on a horse to cantering and jumping her first set of crossrails in under a year. So at the end of October when it was time to say goodbye to Boo-bear, Cate had a hard time with it. She felt like she was loosing a part of her because she and Boo had become so close and quite a team.
Beginning in November, Catie began riding Blue, a 17 hand grey appendix quarter horse who has A LOT of motor and loves to GO, GO, GO! I know that Catie has felt disappointment in her riding time with Miss Blue. It was like having taken 30 steps forward with Boo and now having to take 20 steps back with Blue. She is a completely different horse to ride. We tease her sometimes and call her muley...because she has a mind of her own and is ALWAYS thinking. We also call her Cate's crazy race horse...because if you let her she will motor and take you to the races. The early lessons with Miss Blue in November and early December found Catie finding out what she was really made of and seeing that all of the good ground work that she had done with her balance had paid off. Cate has learned in her time with Miss Blue that she has to be assertive ALL THE TIME and she has to think ALL THE TIME. Miss Blue is still somewhat green and is not the easiest horse to ride. Her canter is not quite balanced and is not very comfortable to sit to. Her trot however is floaty and easy to post to. Cate has had Miss Blue take her to the races at the canter and nearly scare the poop out of her. I will admit that I myself began to wonder mid-December if the partnership between Cate and Blue was going to work.
In late December, Cate took a couple of lessons where she was primarily working on her hands...more specifically learning how to properly half-halt and how to properly hold her mare so she wouldn't take her to the races. Things went well in the first "hands" lesson and Cate did some cantering with Blue for the first time in weeks but she was still having a fear issue. Cate was afraid that Miss Blue was going to take her to the races again. Cate's instructor and I decided that the next week Cate would ride Eeyore and solely work on her canter while still applying the "hands" work of this week's lesson. This worked. Cate was able to use her new hand knowledge and work on her cantering without worrying that Eeyore was going to take her to the races. Although Cate likes Eeyore and finds him a little easier to ride than Miss Blue, I could see that Cate really liked working with Miss Blue and missed her.
The first week in January, Cate was back to riding Miss Blue and Miss Blue was acting like a different horse. I think some of it was jealousy...Miss Blue also likes working with Cate and was jealous that Cate rode E the week before. I think the other part was that Cate had decided in her own mind that she wasn't ready to give up on Miss Blue and walked with a new confidence that day. Nearly the entire lesson that week was spent on Cate trying to get Miss Blue to canter. Cate stuck to it too. She didn't give up. She did a sit trot and worked her legs and gave her cues over and over and over until after nearly 45 minutes Miss Blue finally understood what Catie was trying to tell her and picked up the canter. They cantered one direction and then the other...all the while it was much more controlled than it ever had been before. When Cate got down that evening, I could see there was a change between the two of them. Neither of them had given up on the other.
Subsequent weeks have seen Catie feeling much more comfortable with Miss Blue's canter with more control of her mare and better upper body and leg position. Cate said to me two weeks ago that she thinks she is finally starting to get Miss Blue's canter and she's even starting to feel like "A professional". Last week she told me that she thinks she even likes Miss Blue's canter. A far cry from their first rides in November together.
Miss Blue loves having a job...which right now is working with Cate (who is primarily the only one who is riding her other than one other girl who jumps her on occasion [not regularly]) and Miss Blue loves to jump. In fact, I would go so far as to say that jumping is Miss Blue's favorite! So much so that two weeks ago Cate and Blue were working ground poles and instead of trotting them Miss Blue would jump them and come off the poles at a canter (like she would a jump) and here is my daughter with her new found confidence riding right through it and regaining control and bringing her back down to the trot unafraid and having fun all the while. :)
My heart swells with pride every time I see Cate stick to it, even when it is hard, and she is rewarded with good feelings because her hard work has paid off. I have also watched a deep relationship build between Miss Blue and Cate and although there will never be a replacement for Boo (because there is only one Boo) Cate has been able to move on and allow another horse into her heart. For Christmas we got Cate a poster that hangs in her room which says, "The color of the ribbon doesn't matter. I know we did our best. All that matters is that we reached our goal of working together." I think she takes this message to heart.
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