Coming Back from a Scare
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Our ponies can make us complacent around them because they are so friendly and calm which makes coming back from a scare challenging.
They happen to all of us. Accidents are part of life as equestrians. From getting a toe stepped on when picking hooves to coming off when riding or even getting run over when in a herd situation, accidents happen. And they often cause us to start approaching our ponies differently. Sometimes we’re more cautious, sometimes more forceful, sometimes more tentative, sometimes angry. I was talking to a friend, and he said his first thought was to be angry. I on the other hand after a scare feel unconfident around my ponies despite having them in my life for more than two decades. I think that these differences between the genders are common. Though we may differ in how we express ourselves, the underlying truth is we may be afraid. What do we do to get back to enjoying being with our ponies again?
I have certainly had to walk this path back to feeling safe being around my ponies. More than once. I have learned that the first thing on the path back is to honor the fear, not try to muffle it or ignore it. It’s important to be safe and to take appropriate action when we don’t feel safe. Don’t get back in the saddle. Don’t enter the stall. Don’t walk in the pasture. Not until we have a strategy to feel safe again.
Part of that feeling of safety is trust. Trusting ourselves to make better choices. Trusting our pony not to hurt us. Trusting ourselves to know when a pony is safe to be around or when it’s not. There is a great discussion of trust between horse and human in the February 8, 2022 Mastery Horsemanship blog post by Don and Rachel Jessop (click here).
Then I’ve learned that baby steps work best. Thinking of our previous routine and finding one small thing that still feels doable is a great place to start. Haltering a pony is an example, keeping in mind that this in itself is a multi-step process. Or just offering the halter and lead rope to our pony for them to sniff. Even just letting a pony sniff our hand over a fence could be a good way to get started. Fences are our friends when coming back from a scare.
Because our ponies tend toward the quieter side of the temperament spectrum and often like to engage with us, we can forget that they are much larger than we are and have independent minds. Our ponies can therefore move instantaneously if so motivated, whether we are in the way or not. I heard a clinician say once that it’s important to have equal parts draw and drive, meaning that while we want them to come to us, we also want them to go away from us when we ask. With our ponies, it is easy to have more draw than drive. We need to make special effort to sculpt that drive away to keep ourselves safe.
In a herd or pasture setting, I have also learned the importance of ‘getting big.’ If my herd starts approaching me at a run when coming toward me and I get concerned for my safety, especially from playful youngsters, I will flap my arms away from my body to make it clear that I want them to stay away from me. I will use my elbows similarly when distributing hay in a paddock for the herd. With stallions I will sometimes use a plastic bag on the end of a whip or a flag or a stick-and-string to ‘get big,’ creating a larger space that I don’t want the pony to enter unless invited. If I have visitors who are not pony-savvy, I will carry a flag to create space around them since they aren’t aware they need to do it for themselves.
That my ponies are so interested in ‘talking’ to me when they see me makes stewarding them so enjoyable. Yet there are times when I have to approach them in new ways. And I have to ask them to approach me in new ways to keep our relationship healthy. Relationships with ponies, and all things, are a process not a destination. There’s always work to do!
© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022
