submitted by Vivien Dostine  (Auckland, New Zealand) November 2003

Adult Beginner and First Time Horse Owner

I only began riding when I was in my mid thirties, an impulsive decision that my younger sister and I made and we both fell in love with it.  We would have our hour riding lesson once a week on a Friday night and absolutely pee ourselves laughing on the way there and back at our hopeless exploits.  It wasn't that we didn't take it seriously, we certainly did, but having someone else to share the fear, humour and excitement with was wonderful.

I kept at the riding lessons before the riding school suddenly closed down and I was left horseless for the first time in a couple of years.  After a couple of weeks I couldn't stand it any longer and decided to look for my own, I had no idea what I was doing but managed to find a wonderful horse amongst the ones that I tried, a 16.1hh 13yr old thoroughbred called Impulsive. The owner was a wonderful lady who allowed me to trial him on her property for a month before I bought.  When I first bought him he was rather fat, his coat was rather dull and had a scraggly mane and tail but he still impressed me with his charm and spirit. Within a couple of minutes of first getting on board I knew he was 'the one' and I haven't regretted my choice for a single day since.

I'm really lucky in that the place where I graze him, also serves as a riding school and events location (for horsemanship clinics and the like).  There is a giant barn, several arenas and stalls and small yards for sick or lame horses.  Although, each person looks after their own horse, there is a nice community feel at our barn and we discuss what rug to put on that day\night for the expected weather, the various bumps and bruises or illnesses of our charges and chat about our riding, problems and achievements. 

I sometimes feel like I've only started to learn to ride since owning Imp, making your own decisions and riding on your own are so different from having lessons. I've continued lessons, on and off, since owning him.  When I first got him I could barely ride a straight line, not that my riding was that bad, just that he was so much more sensitive than the school horses, we tended to wiggle, leg yield, half pass, canter or travers based on my weight or leg aids.  It must've looked hilarious and certainly had both of us thinking hard in the beginning - but I think Imp endeared himself to me even more with his willingness to try to find out what I wanted. 

We've had other communication problems too - I didn't hack out for quite a long time, simply because I was nervous and he was so sensitive that my nerves translated into spookiness from him (reinforcing my nervousness).  With some careful work we've gotten through that and I now hack out on my own pretty happily with him. 

His second problem came to the fore when I tried my very first dressage series - he's very frightened of horses approaching him head on when ridden.  This makes the warmup areas terrible for both of us, him through fear and me anxious on his behalf (and of course worried about being thrown off!) But we got through it with some reasonable scores. I don't know whether this is fear due to an accident earlier in his life but its something that we are working through slowly, with the help of other people and horses and a training programme specifically to address this issue. 

As well as ridden work I love to play with him on the ground.  We originally started with basic leading in order to make sure that any spookiness happenned well away from me! But like most things it grew into more and more exercises and its something that is constructive and fun to do when we both need a break from arena work or need to work on trust or obedience issues.  I have seen and read Natural Horsemen's ideas and techniques and follow the general principles without adhering to any plan or methodology in particular.  My favourite NH proponents are Mark Rashid and Gawani Pony Boy but I keep my mind open to ideas from all.

I also look after Imps feet, as he is barefoot.  I took his shoes off during the first winter simply to allow me to tackle some spots of recurring white line disease and thrush that were lurking under the shoe rim.  I then began doing his trims and learned by reading farriery books, talking to farriers and spying on a couple of barefoot trim clinics that were held on the property.  Although I was always prepared to put shoes back on, I purchased him some Old Mac's boots and he's never really required shoeing since he copes well with what work on rough, hard or stony ground that we do.