No-stirrups riding - thrills and no spills (yet)!

I've had a bit of trouble recently with a patella subluxation (= kneecap partially dislocating). It's pretty sore and makes the leg quite unstable, but I've managed to go riding and wheelchair racing and to do a nice long erg, although perhaps I shouldn't have done the erg!

No stirrups canter!

At riding, it was suggested that I ride without stirrups so that my bad leg could stretch out and not lock into place. This worked pretty nicely - my leg was still quite painful but less so than if it had been held in place by the stirrup. It also meant that I had no option but to sit to the trot instead of rising, which again was more comfortable for the knee. At first I found it harder to stretch down and relax than I had anticipated - I think I was nervous about my knee hurting more and tensing up as a result. After a bit I started to relax more, and even managed a canter by the end! It was quite a brief canter (Rolo noticed a saddle on the ground and, obviously, being a horse, was terrified by it) but it was the first time I'd cantered without stirrups since I was about 13 so I enjoyed it. Cantering is actually a lot easier than trotting when you don't have stirrups but I we'd run out of time so I didn't get to prove this anymore! 

Dan successfully negotiating the scary little colourful blobs.

The next week my knee still wasn't much better (in fact I think it was worse) so I rode without stirrups again. Instead of Rolo I was riding Dan, a new horse who is fun to ride - he's very responsive to some things (especially any command telling him to go or to go faster!) and he bends nicely, so will be good at dressage once he's a bit more used to it. He's still quite young though, and hasn't been used for RDA before, so there are some things that we're teaching him. For example, earlier this week our group was practising an event called the Countryside Challenge. This is basically a kind of obstacle course with various different tasks for the rider to do. There's no time limit - you're just judged on how well you ride (I think. I don't fully know but I am fairly sure we don't get timed!). The various different tasks require the horses to be a bit brave when they see weird equipment set up.

Getting Dan used to shiny poles and colourful balls.

All of the horses apart from Dan had done this before and didn't bat an eyelid. Dan was actually pretty well behaved, but there were some things which clearly bothered him a bit. We spent ages and ages going backwards and forwards through the 'balls gate' (two plastic poles with baskets attached; you have to transfer a ball from one basket to the other while the horse stands quietly in between the poles) because these were bright, at eye level, and contained interesting round shiny things. When I dropped the ball in the bucket the noise was enough to scare him a bit, so we gave him plenty of time just to sniff inside the bucket, establish that there was (sadly) no food, realise that the balls weren't going to spring to life and hurt him, and get him used to the noise so that he didn't look like a big hairy wimp. After quite a bit of intense work on that one thing he became calm enough to stand there while I wobbled around on top, so as a reward we went to go and look at the other obstacles for a bit.

Brave boy!

After the instructor had decided that we'd done enough obstacling for one day, most of the bits were put away and we spent more time doing our normal riding session - trotting individually and as a ride and going over trotting poles. This was where I very nearly came a cropper!

The offending poles!

Trotting poles are just normal jump poles placed on the ground quite close together at regular intervals to encourage the horse to think about where he's placing his feet in trot and to get a nice regular pace from him. Dan was doing reasonably well over the poles (when I wasn't confusing him by steering him badly!) until the penultimate set we did - then he got a little bit excited at the last one, possibly because that time there was no-one in front of him so he thought 'woohoo! Let's go!'. On that occasion he clearly thought twice about it and just trotted neatly to the back of the ride.

This is what control looks like...

The next time round was different...

We trotted up over the poles, which finished quite near the A end of the school. The idea was to trot over them then turn left at the top, trot down the long side, and halt around C before going into trot again to go over the poles again. This had worked beautifully the first time, and the second time, then on the third go round Dan and I messed it up a little - he saw poles and got VERY excited and thought this must SURELY mean jumping and canter! Jumping and canter were not quite what I had in mind, so I was a bit surprised when he suddenly broke into canter on a very sharp turn which nearly had me on the ground. There then ensued a brief period (which felt very long to me!) of Dan careering around the school in a very lurchy, changey-directioney canter, with people trying to catch him, me alternating between trying to stop and merely being content with staying on board, and him charging at various other horses, walls, bits of equipment, etc...

Apparently this is good camel riding technique. It is not so good on a horse. And no I don't have any pictures of me dashing around the school out of control - funnily enough, my boyfriend decided not to photograph that bit!

Eventually one of the helpers managed to catch him, which was just at the point when I was considering bailing out as the easier option. To be completely honest, I was pretty frightened because when you don't have stirrups you don't have that security and stability that they give you, and as I only had one hand on the reins that really left me with only one limb with which to try and calm him down again! I was therefore very relieved when he had safely stopped and I was still on board - shaking, ever so slightly teary, resisting the urge to swear like a sailor and generally thanking God that I wouldn't have to make another trip to A&E... The lovely RDA volunteers looked after me, helped me through those first wobbly moments as I got my breath back, and congratulated me on clinging on!

I wonder if I could persuade people that my moves were deliberate if I aced the landing?

After that I walked him around quite loosely on the leading rein, which was really about all I felt up to at that point. I'm not scared of Dan - he didn't do it maliciously, he just got excited and then I think he scared himself a bit. This is what horses are like and if they were totally predictable all the time the sport would be very boring and not really worth doing. Riding is challenging and I want to be challenged in order to get better. That wasn't quite the challenge I would have chosen but on the other hand I'm ranking it up there with the most difficult things I've ever had to do - not just on a horse, but possibly ever! For anyone reading this that hasn't ridden a horse...the only way to understand is to try it. Anyone that has done some riding will appreciate that riding with one arm and effectively no legs is tough enough anyway, but when you're disabled and on an out-of-control horse that you don't really know it's quite a challenge. Even if I'd fallen off eventually, I think I would have felt good about clinging on for a bit of the time - but I must admit I'm very relieved that by sheer obstinacy I didn't have another big thud!

Control is a wonderful thing.

 The experience has made me feel a little bit nervous, but at the same time I believe that experiences like these make you a better rider, and you can learn from them. I should have realised that Dan would need a bit more of a check on him as we went over the poles, since he'd been a bit too forward the time before. I should have tried to react differently to prevent him getting to that stage at all. Obviously I hope I won't be in that situation again but I can't realistically expect that if I carry on riding I'll never fall off a horse again - that's just not how it works (or at least not if you're pushing yourself properly). These situations are never pleasant but they can teach you a lot about yourself...

'Spirit of adventure' and 'determination' will prevail!

So, my next riding session will be a new experience for me - I'm going on the lunge rein with the university club. This is essentially like being on a giant dog lead and going round in circles. The pressure of steering is taken off you, and instead you work on your body, legs and seat. Since I can't really use my hands normally anyway, I think this will be really beneficial for me, and I'm hoping to learn a lot that I can use to help myself control horses with the RDA. Also, the session will be on my birthday so I will have to have a good time!