This is it. This is my Omega. Day 30, last of the 'official' blogs (I may continue... just unofficially). And, to be fair, today's is really a part 2 of a two-part activity... "Me and Mira."
Mira is an 11-year old thoroughbread mare. My mother purchased her a few years back to revive her love for horses and the sport/art of horseback riding... specifically, English style.
The first thing I learned yesterday when we began this particular experience, is that probably more so than many other sports, this 'dressage' or whatever the actual term is, is FULL of technical terms. I say this, because honestly, I think I would be corrected if I referred to what I did as dressage. I think dressage is a specific event in the world of English style horseback riding. If you follow the comments below, I'm sure it'll just be a matter of hours before my mom comments on the actual terminology.
So, for the purpose of this blog entry, I will refer the events over these two days as my 'horseriding experience.'
My horseriding experience began with a bit of hesitation... on my mom's part. To be frank, these horses are very expensive... and potentially, very dangerous. Of course, they aren't generally violent or overly-agressive, but they certainly have their moments of 'animal behavior.' My mom was telling me that even her horse, Mira, had a moment not too long ago where she reared up and tore the bridal, and took off out of the stall. There's been other stories of people getting seriously injured, and stories even of death. Mira in particular, was bread to be a race horse, so just her desire to run presents a slew of cautions to embrace before venturing into her saddle. So, needless to say, the outing began with some hesitance.
Yet, we went forward.
We began with the 'lunging.' Lunging is the exercise you see in movies like "Man From Snowy River" where the horse handler stands in the middle with a long rope and urges the horse on in a circular manner. My mom eventually handed me the lead rope and spoke out directions to both me and Mira. "walk, run, trot, halt, Adam, the rope needs to be looser!"
We didn't have a lot of time that day, so we pretty much just lunged Mira and then I took a brief jaunt on her bareback. I felt like I was ten feet off the ground and ready to tumble to my unfortunate death at any given moment. The jaunt was brief. Like two minutes. I was done.
Then today came.
Today, I helped prep Mira by wrapping her ankles, and various other minor tasks. Eventually we made our way to the arena, where Mira's trainer met us to give a lesson to my mom. I have to admit, it was pretty fascinating. Just like the numerous technical terms used in the sport, there are numerous technical commands used to guide the horse. It reminded me a bit of video game controllers. There was the 'move forward' command, the 'move left,' 'move right' and 'reverse' commands. However, also like video game controllers, there was the 'strafe left' and the 'strafe right' commands... and any combination of the above. At one time, my mom had Mira walking forward, but sort of gliding to the left, shooting straight forward in a trot, suddenly switching into a walk for five steps, and then returning to a trot... all without any visible commands. I believe it's due to a combination of subtle reign movements and pressure from the left or right leg.
Eventually, my mom's lesson came to an end, but she and the trainer agreed on letting me give it a go. I've done Western riding many times, but it really didn't seem to compare. Where Western sort of feels like function over form, this felt like the opposite. My mom would say that this is full of function, but the form is such an integral aspect of English riding, it just seems to rise to the top as the primary component.
Because of my inexperience, I opted to be kept on a lead line, and just stick to the circle riding. I began with a walk, but with the trainer's tutalage, I eventually got to a trot. But, that's where it stopped. Sure, I got the rhythm of how to move in the saddle... sort of, but I still felt completely uneasy, unbalanced, and ill-prepared for a fall from this beast. Again, she's a beautiful animal, but even after taking a spill on the ATV a couple of days ago, I had no desire to fall off this thoroughbread and break my neck... call me over cautious.
The trainer asked me if I wanted to try it on my own, and as the final official spoken words of my 30-Day adventure, I calmy said "no thank you. I think I'm done."
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