Having made the acquaintance of some re-riders,* I hypothesize that all of us are scared shitless.
I took 35 years off after the usual fearless horsey childhood. Big mistake! If you don’t use it, you lose it. I can’t pinpoint with any accuracy the precise moment at which I devolved into a spineless greenhorn tenderfoot, because it happened without my noticing it. In fact, I didn’t realize such a thing was even possible until I’d already bought my first re-rider horse.
And so it came to pass that they delivered my fancy new gelding to my fancy new barn, handed me the lead rope and drove off into the horizon. I looked up at him, expecting to meet a kindly, limpid eye. Instead the expression was a very unsettling combination of sullen, judgmental peevishness. Furthermore, the horse appeared to have grown several feet taller since I’d ridden him at the seller’s barn.
I realized with a nasty shock that I was terrified of him. I could barely lead him to the paddock. I couldn’t even figure out how to maneuver him through the gate. I’d forgotten literally everything I ever knew about horsemanship. Needless to say that horse got my number right off the bat. His pet project for the next three years was to bully me relentlessly. During this period I taught him to, very reliably, buck me off, spook at everything, kick at my head on the lunge line, cow-kick me in the cross-ties, and flame me on Facebook. Misery ensued.
Eventually I threw in the towel and sold him to a much more capable 11-year-old girl against whom his resistance was futile. I found a decent hunter/jumper trainer and bought Ginger Rogers, the docile children’s packer I should have had from the git-go. After many months of fear and loathing, I progressed to hopping over cross-rails on this excellent mare. My troubles were over! I bought show clothes.
But uh-oh, I got too cocky. One fine spring day I wasn’t paying attention. I bungled my approach, and the mare tripped over the fence. She went down on both knees, caught a foot in the reins and reared because she thought her head was stuck. If I had stayed with it another couple of seconds everything would have been fine, but unfortunately I decided to totally freak the fuck out instead.
Later, everyone would agree that my emergency dismount was flawless while I was in the air, but alas, points were deducted when I didn’t stick the landing. I blew out my ACL and my confidence.
Back to square one. I didn’t mount up again for months. Couldn’t get past that pit of trepidation in the old breadbox. Then one day I was leading Ginger Rogers from here to there, and it suddenly seemed like a great idea to just hop up on her bareback. To my surprise, nobody died screaming. After that I began re-re-riding in earnest. By “in earnest” I mean “very slowly, a couple times a week.” The very thought of jumping still flips my entire wig. So the sturdy, sensible Ginger Rogers and I amble around in the woods, stop and smell the roses, watch the furry woodland animals frolic, etc. If there’s a log we go around it, not over it. Once in a while we bust out into a trot.
Until the other day, out of the blue, a strange thing happened. We were strolling in the big pasture, whereupon I suddenly felt that a little gallop wouldn’t go amiss. Without even thinking much about it, I gave her a bit of leg and off we went. It probably lasted all of 15 seconds, but it was awesome.
It turns out that with enough time and the right horse, a comeback is possible. Even if the “comeback” is just a 15-second gallop in a hay field. Tomorrow, if it isn’t, you know, windy or cloudy or humid or anything, and if the temperature is between 68 and 75, I might even do it again. In my show clothes, dammit.
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* A re-rider is a middle aged woman who, having ridden fearlessly and fecklessly as a kid, gave up riding for one reason or another, then had the bright idea of buying a horse and getting back into it again, never suspecting that she will have completely lost her nerve in the intervening years.