The great thing about it being the end of the season AND having taken all the pressure off Archie is when I went out of town for four days, I went “meh, he gets turnout, he’ll be fine” and just… left. I know my trainer would tell me if anything seemed off, but I didn’t think Archie would really care about having a mini fall break of his own.

To give some background, Archie isn’t hot. Or truly ‘spooky’. He’s actually super brave (almost… too brave, ahem, when he thinks he’s going to FIGHT xc jumps). What he is though, is a little ADHD. His brain goes Mach 1 at all times and he notices everything. A stream of consciousness from him would go something like, “What that? Why that person there? Who reset that jump? Why is that jump blue? What are the velocity forces of jumping an oxer? Do you like jumping oxers? That change in arena footing looks weird. Oh, a truck driving by. It’s black. Do you have a black truck? I think you need a black truck. White trucks are concerning. LOOK AT THAT ROLLTOP HOW DARE IT BE THERE I WANT TO BITE IT. I can’t bite it? Well, FINE THEN I AM LEAVING YOU ARE THE WORST MOM EVER I HATE YOU”

It’s exhausting. You have to maintain total neutrality amidst the drama. Once you’re jumping, his brain quiets down.. some. But flatwork? ADHD 1st grader at Disney World

When I got to the barn last night, I had a moment of “uhoh” when I realized it was 50 degrees, raining and my horse hadn’t been ridden in almost a week. So, I tacked up, threw him on the lunge line and figured I’d see what I had.

Well, what I had was a horse who was content to trot around like a show hunter, but had absolutely zero interest whatsoever in going any faster. It took everything in me to get him to go canter a circle and even that was a pathetic little canter. He kept looking at me like, “MOM Y THO?” so I shrugged, grabbed the mounting block and hopped on.

For as alert as this horse is about everything (seriously, his mind goes 150 mph at ALL TIMES), he was downright lazy. Tried to western pleasure jog around. Only wanted to walk. Cantering is like, OMG SO HARD OK.

I ended up with a quick 30 minute ride where I reinstalled the go button and called it a day, but I’m so happy that even after his fall break, a decent drop in temperatures and being solo in the dark (we were inside, but it was dark out) Archie is apparently mostly confused about why vacation is over.

I’ve gone radio silent as Archie and I learned each other. Sometimes, you just don’t have anything to say to the whole wide world as you go through the emotions of a new horse. And emotions there have been – like… all of them. I’ve been happy and proud, I’ve been mad, I’ve gone, “WTF DID I DO” and everything in between.

Things came to a bit of a boiling point a few weeks ago and I realized I was putting some artificial pressure on the both of us for absolutely no reason and it was… not good. For either of our mental states. Where did this pressure come from? My own head? Social media? Who knows. What I know is that I was pushing both of us too fast and it was not conducive to success. As it rarely is with horses. You know, still learning these lessons 20 years later.

We did a mini-derby at home at starter – and it was too much. Dressage was fine, the stadium jumps were fine, but the XC was just too much and too new. We LEAPT over things, we stopped, we spooked, I fell off, it was… a day. We ended on a good note and I went home feeling defeated.

So I made a very intentional decision to take all the pressure off Archie. All of it. If I got on that day and all we did was walk until he relaxed, so be it. Wouldn’t you know, within ~ a week it was like I had a new horse under me. It’s not saying he’s never going to be that horse, or go show or whatever – he totally will. He just was telling me over and over, “MOM I AM OVERWHELMED” and I didn’t hear him until he yelled at me.

Our big focus right now is just… relaxing. Every ride should feel like a happy nice hack. He’s naturally a horse whose brain goes 100mph (and like.. same) and when I was adding pressure to do this brand new thing in a brand new place in a brand new way he tried, but just said, “OMG I LITERALLY CANNOT EVEN” and his brain sent out smoke from his ears. So, we do everything at 0.8 speed – intentionally slow, working on happy, relaxed ways of going. Some rides we only walk and trot. Sometimes we add jumps. Sometimes we just hack around the fields. Whatever his brain tells me it needs that day.

That brain is going to be a positive eventually – he’s sensitive and smart and I have no doubt he’s going to be fancy and love the challenge of a full XC course eventually. Can just see him being one who is going to absolutely hunt down flags. But right now, our xc lessons are a nice Sunday hack – with some speed bumps thrown in.

And it feels amazing. For the first time, I have this happy, totally game horse underneath me and cantering around the field Sunday, I felt like I could have popped over anything out there. Those starter jumps he felt the need to jump at N/T height a few weeks ago? Loped over like they were boring AF.

It feels so good to have this happy pony under me and in a lot of ways, while the wake up call sucked, it was what I needed. Archie is going to make me a better rider in the end, for sure, but he’s also reminding me it’s okay to slow down in all aspects of my life. There’s. No. Rush.

(And don’t worry, he’s not particularly inclined to rush.. anywhere. Our XC videos he literally LOPES. Like a western horse. We’re gonna be the only people with time faults at like, Starter)