The Power of Waiting

I was riding Hugo today and he really needed a lot of time to know that I wasn’t going to pressure him. He got really into stopping at barrels and processing. So much yawning. It was great. And it reminded me of the conversations I have with students about waiting for their horses to make a change.

I spend many a moment in lessons telling people that their horses need a moment to process something, or that the horse needs to stand and wait before they are asked to do something else. We often discuss how hard it is to just sit on your horse or stand there when I’m not there to tell you its okay. This is often at a livery yard, with a school overlooked by other liveries or yard owners. I tell my clients not to worry about what other people think because they are on a whole other journey to those people. There’s no point even trying to compare them.

Every journey will end up where it’s supposed to. It’s just the way you go about it that makes the difference to the horse.