Hate After First Ride!

"Sit it cowgirl!"

That (compliments of my trainer at the time) pretty much sums up the first ride I had with Ruby.

First, I'd like to say this: Ruby was the pony from hell. Even tacking her up was a struggle- I was sweating before I even made it to the mounting block. She wouldn't stand still, she broke the cross-ties, reared when I tried to put her halter on (more on this later), and pretty much made me wonder why she wasn't glue. After much yelling, struggling, and incredible amounts of willpower, I managed to get her ready...and that was, unbeknownst to me, the easy part.

I mounted up, walked around the ring to let her look around, and did the basic warm-up routine that was the standard in my lessons. So far so good: she listened to my aids, she steered a little stiff but otherwise well, and she, for the most part, kept her head down. I asked for a trot.

No one really filled me in on Ruby's training history, but apparently they forgot to teach her trot. Or canter. Or stop. There was walk, there was "run at breakneck speed," and there was "finally slow down after getting bored with playing tug-of-war." That was the good news! So the bad? Well, there was also "spin to the left as fast as possible," "buck when squeezed," "make the alligator face and avoid the bit," and my personal favorite, "scrape the rider off using the arena support beams." Needless to say, I managed to come up with more than a few creative strings of curses in that hour of riding. Fortunately, I had my own overdose of stubbornness. I managed to stay on, although I did acquire a lovely knee scrape from her last little trick (the scar from which can still be seen to this day).

My words after the lesson: "never again."