The Journey begins!

I decided to make this blog for two reasons. Firstly to document my journey as a horsewoman, as a person and the adventures I have along the way for my own reflection. Secondly, to keep my loved ones up to date whilst I am gone.

Technically my journey has already started! A quick review is that all my life I have been horse mad! I was one of those little girls that would plant their face on the car window to watch horses in feilds or run to the window at the sound of hooves going down the road. I would play with my friends at taking turns to pretend to be horses and I even walked to school with an imaginary horse, stopping at bushes to let my "horse" have a nibble. Unfortunately I grew up in an environment where contact with horses was very limited to say the least. When I was in sixth form I was given the oppertunity to pursue "physical eduction" activites off of school premesis. My Mum had started riding again after an almost 20 year break from horses and asked if I too wanted to have weekly riding lessons. I think her arm is just about growing back after I snapped it off!

I began the usual type of riding lessons, working on getting in balance at rising trot and canter, that kind of thing. My instructor asked me if I wanted to join the pony club so i could do weekly rallies... her arm has now recovered too!

I finished my A-levels and started studying law at university. At first it was very interesting but soon my mind kept wandering to the stables. During the summer break after my first year at university my mum and I fell in love with a horse we were riding at the riding school. Her name was Havewe.

One day I heard a girl talking about buying Havewe. I was so horrified I ran to my Mum and told her - that night we put on a presentation to my step-dad, Dave, explaining why we needed to buy this horse. On the 12th August 2005 we became a horse owning family! I would go up the stable everyday and worshipped the ground that horse walked on. The problem was that Havewe knew it and she would stand on my feet, refuse to let me pick her hooves out, fidget at the mounting block, bolt home at a trot... I realised very quickly that I knew no where near as much as I'd thought and started to feel lik my dream was turning into a nightmare. I started having regular lessons and we used different bits and gadgets. Eventually me and Havewe formed an understanding. She was lovely to ride, if occasionally a little "mareish", and we sometimes rode out for hours. One day I even rode her 5 miles on busy roads to put her in my garden, my Mum nearly had a heart attack when she got home and drove her car ahead of me at 2 miles per hour all the way back to the stables to give me her version of a police escort!

As you can imagine when I returned to uni I was even less enthusiastic about my studies.

In 2007 both me and Mum were wanting to do a lot of riding, we were starting to do local dressage and jumping competitions and soon realised that we needed a horse each. I suggested the idea thinking my Mum would say "no way, wait until you finish Uni" but apparantly she had been thinking the exact same thing, "Great idea, you can use your student loan!"

A woman at the stables had kept her bay gelding in the stable next to Havewe and said she wanted to sell him because they had never bonded. He had had a series of injuries and she had spent more time riding her instructors mare than her own horse so had decided to buy the mare from her instructor and sell the gelding. I told her I was interested in buying him. His name was Paris.

When I tried Paris out we went for a walk and trot aroung the 20x40 arena. I asked for canter and got the fastest gallop I had ever done, and in that tiny aren it felt like doing the "Wall of Death". I then (as you do) trotted Paris over a cross pole... and got headbutted for it! He threw his front end up so dramatically that I face planted straight on his neck. I then took Paris for a walk dow the road to where I would keep him if I bought him. The yard owner, who had given me riding lessons on Havewe, came to look at Paris. he told me to canter Paris until he wanted to stop. After 15 laps and no sign of tiring he said to me "he has a good wind, you can stop now". I was shaking with fear but so excited, I really wanted this horse! There was no question really.

For two years I had riding lessons on Paris and rode him most days. I was very traditional, mostly schooling with perhaps 2-3 hacks a week and lounging if I could not ride. Paris got very fit very quickly. he calmed down a lot and, although he regularly threw a 10-ft-leap-to-the-side spook he stopped running backwards everytime he got scared. Paris would weave when stressed - and this was most of the time. when I bought him he would not eat if you went in his stable and I had to feed him by hand for a couple of days before he trusted me enough to eat his hay in front of me. After two years I had made good progress with Paris but we had reached a point where he would start getting playful and would do something naughty, like bite me, and i ould tell him off and he would lose trust in me again. i felt like we had hit a plateau and I had no idea how to move forward. Some days Paris would look right at me and I felt like he was trying to tell me something. I felt so stupid when I would ask him in my foolish human speak "what is it Paris? What are you trying to tell me?" and he would look away and even sigh and I felt like I had let him down.

One day I was talking to my Mum. We had read an article in a horse magazine about Parelli Natural Horsemanship and that there was a 2 day show on in Birmingham. I wanted to go but my Mum surprised me by saying she wanted to go too and was prepared to pay for the tickets and accomodation!

As we stood in the queue for the 2008 Parelli Celebration we said to each other "We will see what this Parelli has to say. We will not get duped into anything, will not buy into anything"... after two days of the most amazing horsemanship I had ever seen we walked away as Savvy Club Members with the complete kit of DVDs, ropes, sticks, halters and strings. What amazed me was the number of Parelli students that had the relationship with their horses that I had scarcley imagined possible. Here was a program where anyone could learn to have that relationship with their horse!

Unfortunately when I got back home I was suddenly alone. I was surrounded by "serious riders" who thought Parelli was a con, a waste of time, dangerous or just plain stupid. I tried to play the Seven games with my horse but i couldn't even go near him with the Parelli Carrot stick. I would try little bits on and off but didn't really follow the program. I continued to havemy dressage and juming lessons and did the odd bit of Parelli when no one was around.

One day in March 2009 I decided to ride Paris bareback in a natural hackamore (string halter with rope reins). I climbed on and he stood still. After a couple of minutes he suddenly went to step forward and I tensed up and he flew off into a bronk and I went flying. luckily I was not seriously injured but I was sore for at least a week. I realised my ego was getting in my way and I either needed to follow the program properly or not at all. I moved Paris to a different, more supportive, yard. I didn't ban riding but I tried to incorporate Parelli with my riding as much as possible and I ended up having so much fun playing online that I hardly ever rode. I attended a demo and began studyig the DVDs again. In May I attended a level 2 clinic. I wasn't sure I would be at a high enough level to do the clinic but the instructor was brilliant and gave me the confidence to really move forward and have more fun with Paris. She introduced me to riding in a halter with one rein. I banned myself from riding with two reins for some time and even began hacking out in the halter and one rein.

Fast forward to the present day and I am a level 2 student working on my level 3. I have discovered that Paris' primary horsenality is RBE but he is very complicated, he regularly switched between RBI ad LBE with occasional RBE and very rarely LBI.

In November 2010 I decided that my 9-5 law job (which I  was often working 9-9) was nither earning me enough money, nor allowing me enough time to pursue my dream of attaining excellence in natural horsemanship. I quit my job and began doing any odd job I could find. I moved Paris to a DIY yard and began playing with him mostly everyday. we had a lot of snow so I started playing at liberty too.

One evening just before Christmas I was on the Parelli Savvy Club forum when I found exactly what I had been looking for - an advert for working student placements! The advertwas for a 6 month working student placement in France. I emailed them and soon got a reply asking if I could do a 10 day trial in January!

On the 8th January I drove my little Suzuki Alto 14 hours from London to central France. I had the most amazing ten days of my life at the end of which I was asked if I would like to do the 6 month placement. I accepted without hesitation! I was already booked on the Fast Track, a one month intense course at one of the Parelli centres, to take place in June, so I arranged to begin my 6 month placement in July.

We are now four weeks away from the start of the Fast Track. Preparations for travel are underway and emotions are getting high... more about that next time!