The rain was coming down in a steady shower like someone left the faucet in Heaven on. The horses were all playful in the pasture, working overtime to distract my 5 year old bay mare. She hadn’t had regular work in longer than I would care to admit, so it wasn’t too difficult to lose her attention. One wall of the arena shared a fence with the pastured horses and another wall could hardly contain the shrubs on the other side. It was – as I say in baby babble to my mare – “vewwy scawwy.” On the other side of the shrubs, outside of our view, there was cow pasture with cattle mooing at one another in the storm. It was, in short, a recipe for one extremely distracted and nervous mare. Once we had relaxed enough at the walk, the instructor asked me to think of a trot. We waited for the right moment and slowly I closed my legs on Rosie. She excitedly trotted off and once I relaxed my leg, settled into the two beat gait. We worked on these transitions for a while and walked again until something rustled in the shrubs – GASP! – she tightened her body and scooted off a few strides. Devereaux, the instructor then said, “You handled that well, now let it go.” “Let it go?” I thought to myself. He continued, “Horses can spike their adrenaline then let it go completely in an instant, unlike humans, who spike their adrenaline and then their adrenal systems take time to recover. What Dev was trying to tell me was that if I hold onto the adrenaline, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I will anticipate Rosie spooking again, and inadvertently cause it to happen again. Learning to train myself to let it go in an instant is the kindest thing I can do for both my horse and myself. Holding onto it will only harm us – individually and collectively. Let. It. Go. Trust. Him.
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