Going through some stuff in the garage I found an old “training journal” of mine as a teen/young adult. I have to say, I thought it was going to be embarrassing but I found myself being impressed with my young self!
I had lost my heart horse suddenly and tragically (his shattered his coffin bone in the pasture.) The barn I had boarded at kept calling me a few months after to help out with some horses (I’m sure they mostly just wanted to keep me involved after such a tragedy.)
One of the horses that they had me working with was a a rescue of some sort, I want to say maybe she started as a polo pony or something but had fallen through the cracks and her mind was fried. If I remember correctly the training journal started because they were having multiple people work with this horse and we were all supposed to record what we did.
It’s pretty sweet that I talk about patiently working with her week to week on standing at the mounting block, standing in the wash rack quietly, lunging more politely (where my focus was getting her ear on me more than anything.) And it progresses in time riding her until she found a home.
And who knows maybe it was all the other people working with her that were making the real progress but either way I was pretty impressed with my patient manner with the mare even though I was so young and learning.
If anything looking back I can see I’ve lost a bit of confidence since my youth and I would love to get back to that!
