Remembering to ask...

After my mistake the other day, where I didn’t remember to ask Bronson to move across behind me when leading him past a car and then nearly knocking it’s wing mirror, I was delighted to find myself in exactly the same situation with a car today. I moved over to the side of the lane and remembered to ask Bronson to follow me, which of course he did. Marvellous!

Even with a horse as well trained as Bronson now is, all thanks to Pip, I have to remember to ask! If I’m not giving him the correct instructions, how is he supposed to know what he is meant to do? In the menage today, Pip had asked me to hop off so she could adjust Bronson’s saddle. The menage gate was open and when I walked around Bronson to fix my seat cover Bronson went to wander out the gate. “You didn’t give him the instruction, did you?” Pip said. Of course she was right, so I asked him to go back to where he was supposed to be, asked him to stand and he stood like a statue whilst I sorted my seat cover.

It’s such a privilege to get to work with a horse like Bronson. Pip has trained him so beautifully. We are the only two people that ride him and each time Pip rides him she is both correcting the mistakes I’ve made with my riding and is bringing him on in his training. I know how truly lucky I am to be riding such a horse. It doesn’t hurt that I loved him to bits even before he was the king of calm that he now is. Even back to when he first came to the yard, I loved being around him, so to be with him as he is now is sublime. He knows how to do it all, I’m just playing catch up with knowing how to ask correctly. Even having got as far as knowing how to ask, I have to remember to do it!