Free Horse Crazy by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Page A

your continuing to ride
and continuing to take enough risks to improve your riding, you're
well on your way to becoming a solid equestrian.
    On the other hand.
    Taking risks is scary. If you get hurt, or
almost get hurt, or see somebody else get hurt, you can easily
develop a fear that will put you right out of the game
    In several of the how-to books you'll read on
riding, you'll find that losing your confidence at some point in
your riding career seems to be a thing that's shared even by the
greats.
    Everyone has a reason why they lost heart,,
and in many cases, they also have pat, step-by-step ways that they
regained it.
    My own particular loss of nerve happened as a
result of a not very serious accident on a very expensive
animal.
    In order to supplement my sagging freelance
writing income, I took a job one Christmas season in a tack shop
called, optimistically enough, "The Good Rider".
    I hoped, along with the extra income, for
some riding lessons from the shop's owner, Angel Barnes, who taught
upper level dressage at her barn not far from the store and who
seemed to have some local repute as a former equestrian as
well.
    Angel, although a classic horse person in
many respects, ("Darling, there are some absolute absolutes in good
horsemanship, remember that.") was, nonetheless, a warm and
pleasant person and her interest in me increased proportionately
with my interest in dressage. That interest, as it happened, was to
be brief.
    Her little shop was a natty cottage chocked
full of tack and books and bits. Neat and tidy, with ruffled
curtains in the pretty frame windows and colorful scatter rugs on
the floors, it was a warm and welcoming place where people loved to
come and visit and sometimes buy.
    It was a delightful job. I worked alone most
of the time and Angel encouraged my reading or writing when there
were no customers in the store.
    As a result, I was able to quickly devour all
the reading material the little store contained as well as gain the
benefit of horse-knowing customers who had time to lean on the hunt
accessory case and chat.
    Mornings were cold in the shop before its
heater kicked in, and I'd pull on leather chaps to keep my legs
warm. With no one in the store that early--the first customer
rarely made an appearance before ten--I'd sip tea in mugs that said
things like: "My Other Car Is A Horse" and "I'd Rather Be Riding",
and wander about the store, which was pungent with the smell of
leather and grain.
    The friend whom I had ridden with for the
last six months had moved to New Zealand (as it happened), and had
left me unenthused about going out to the barn and riding
alone.
    Some say there is nothing quite like a
solitary canter through the woods or field, but for a green rider,
the company, comments and critique of other riders is not only
comforting, it's necessary. Riding solo in the dead of winter in
the riding ring did not have my excitement level high.
    The Appaloosa, Lightning, was occasionally
available to me and once in awhile, so was Traveler--the neglected
quarter horse whose young owner was always on probation--although
he'd been lame on and off all fall.
    In my reading at the tack shop, I'd read that
riding bareback can increase your balance and riding acumen at a
rate slightly triple to simply riding with a saddle. (It's doubtful
as to how they came up with this figure, but it sounded good at the
time.) Another book, of course, warned that riding bareback was
inherently dangerous and not, under any circumstances, be
attempted.
    I began to spend my mornings out at the farm
when these horses were available to me and to jog limply around the
ring on Lightning or Traveler without benefit of a saddle.
    Invariably, I did not look forward to these
mornings with any real pleasure. But Lightning had a very smooth
trot that made the sessions less awful, and Traveler was so sweet
and gentle that even his jackhammer jog was at least bearable. I
simply kept my eyes on the prize: by summer I'd be