Once again, much of “horse training” is subtle, “you had to be there” stuff, so it’s really almost impossible to armchair qtrbk on these things.
Did the OP’s horse (and BOD, I think we are just having a lively discussion on horse training here…speaking for myself I don’t feel like I’m in a trainwreck), bolt & spook o/o true fear and panic or was it one of those “I’m just too frisky for my saddle” moments that somehow escalated?
It’s impossible to tell without being there, and even then we might disagree.
But I’ve known horses that bolted and ran off through sheer orneriness.
In fact, MY first horse was one. Her name was Princess and she was some sort of grade beast my grandfather picked out for me when I was 12 yrs. old because I’d FINALLY nagged my dad into allowing it! Dad didn’t want to spend any money on this endevour, so the plan was this mare lived 9 months o/o the year on my grandpa’s farm in east TN, hanging out with the retired plowmules and eating (I kid you not) STRAIGHT CORN + pasture. That’s what they fed stock animals back then.
Then I could show up three months o/o the year (summer vacation) and try to ride her nasty ass. To make it more interesting, Dad was too cheap to buy me a saddle – I got a bareback pad though <g>!
No instruction, no guidence. Just horse vs 12 yr. old. I don’t have to tell you who won most of the time.
I would ride that evil creature out on the 400 acres and 80% of the time she would bolt back home----she’d wait for that nanosecond when I dropped my attention and bolt. I don’t know if she actually took the bit in her teeth (I’ve always heard that expression, but I don’t know if horses can really do that…) and run like Secretariat on meth all the way back to the paddock where the mules lived. We’d come to a screeching, sliding stop at the gate and the mules + my sweet little Princess would greet each other affectionately. I would slide off, calling Princess every rotten name in my limited 12 yr. old vocabulary. I knew once we were back, there was no way I could get her out again.
And old Princess didn’t just amble back – she ran full bore through these narrow, winding little “tractor” roads that ran through the farm. We covered the miles at warp speed!! No way I was going to bail (I was 12!!), but I could never stop her the dirty B**CH!!
I found her bridle years later, and it was this GIANT thing with 9" shanks and a port bigger than me…but I don’t think they used any kind of curb chain.
Anyway, this went on for three years.
No helmet (this was the '60’s), no adult supervision…just the school of The Horse. Jeez I hated that mare!! I speaks of my deep-seated love of horses that I didn’t want the whole species wiped off the face of the Earth after Princess was finished with me. I have a photo of me holding her, and there is none of this big, “look at my first horse,I love her so!” expression on my face. I am totally scowling into the camera…but I think Princess might be grinning.
I never did stop her ('cause if I’d turned her into one of the corn or cotton fields THEN I would have known what real hurt was all about), and I never did come off. I learned one important lesson: “you can ride as fast as they can run.” It would hold me in good stead in later years when I attempted to become an exercise rider on the race track.
And I developed a pretty good independant seat <g>.
Princess has long since gone to that big pasture in the sky, but if by some chance she was still alive today, I would let Shadows14 have at her and never feel a moment’s remorse.
