When You Fall Off the Horse

On New Year's, I made way too many resolutions, as usual - habit of mine.  Some involved working out, eating more fruit, spending more time with my little bros...typical.  But then I was thinking about my confidence on horseback.

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Confession: I've never galloped before.  Well, not on purpose.  (So the name of my blog may be misleading, but that's talking about life, not...real galloping.)

Confession: Loping Indy in new places makes me super scared.

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I'm too soft with my horse, and when he acts up it makes me nervous.  I've gotten a lot better already this year, thanks to God, who gave me strength to push myself.

But on January 1, I made a resolution that I would fall off of Indy at least once this year.

The point of this resolution was not so that I would hit the dust - the point is that I would push myself hard enough that I would have the opportunity to fall off of my horse.  Last time I fell off was when I fractured my wrist two autumns ago, and that was when I had to start building my confidence again.

So, today it happened.  Indy has been super feisty lately, and I've had to lunge him every time before I ride.   Today, I only had a little time and so I hopped on with just a halter, nose chain, and lead rope.  It was the hopping on that was the hard part.  I was on a barrel, and Indy kept moving.  One of my rules is that I never get onto a moving horse.  (That is, unless I were to do trick riding or something, which I'm not.)

I finally got on, and fell on his neck while he trotted up toward his pals in the corner of the pasture.  I didn't want to be aboard when Indy got kicked by his certain palomino girlfriend, so I let myself slide off and landed on my feet.

The next time, the same thing happened, except I got on too far back, grabbed Indy's mane, he speeded up, and I got plunked right down next to several pairs of hooves.  Luckily, I was not kicked and didn't land in any of the wrong places.  And I got back on and used the nose chain (that's what it's therefore, after all) to make Indy stand still when I got on.

I felt a great sense of accomplishment for completing this mental resolution.  This is going to be a good year.  

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P.S.  Check these out - I made them for Indy on his birthday - carrots in molasses rolled in oats.  Mmm!