You know those deep breathing exercises they teach at ante-natal classes: breath in through you nose and out through your mouth, slowly slowly, to help with labour contractions?
I thought I'd forgotten how to do it until this morning when I went riding on a highly strung Arabian horse.
Arabians are not like other horses, it's like sitting on a hair trigger, one wrong move and the bomb will explode.
The only way to ride them is with a zen-like calm. And how to achieve a zen-like calm? Breath in through your nose, and out through your mouth, slowly slowly...
Then their high head carriage relaxes, the stride gets longer and smoother, and soon it feels like the horse is floating over the top of the ground.
Wow - that is very insightful. BTW I love your profile information. Once I've finished my MA I shall be stacking up on your books. I can't read fiction at the moment as knee deep in academic prose...
ReplyDeleteUntil last summer I had the most beautiful Crabbet Arabian, Fahal. He was my first pure Arab and though very sensible for his breed (amazingly so!) I soon learned that you had to completely chill when you rode him. I never had a fall from him, even when I was lazily riding on top of his rug with just a headcollar, up to our top field, and the postie's van shot round the corner and startled him and we galloped flat out up our hill, with me relying on handfuls - yea, MOUTHFULS, of his glorious mane to stay put! He's the horse in my avatar.
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