Inside the boundaries of a 6ft tall priefert round pen, Tiva rolls her hindquarters to the left. It’s the 5,000th time she’s done so (not today, but in general) but it passes without fanfare or recognition. She will roll them another 5000 times before the year is out.
This time last year, she was nervously evading capture in her paddock, snake-necked and snorting at those who approached. Now, she squares up and drops her head in a bid for a pet on the face, a common request these days.
If she could understand English, she would probably be overtired of hearing me express my awe of her. “But,” I would argue, “there’s so much to be in awe of.”
She, a creature of the present, exists in the here and now. “You,” she might say, “dwell too much in the past, focusing on where I have been.”
“But only to compare it to where you are now, and where you are going! And as far as dwelling in the past goes, I can also look to the future, and this is what I see:”
Joel sliding the toe of his boot into the stirrup of a saddle that sits snugly cinched on Tiva’s back. It is a Wednesday in March, 754 days after she first arrived at SAFE. Leaning against the round pen, recording this moment, a montage plays in my head: Tiva stepping off the trailer at SAFE after spending a year in a stall, head on a swivel, snorting something fierce. Chuteing her into the round pen for those early days of work. Her fear of humans. Miming petting from a distance because she darn sure wasn’t about to let you touch her. Even with a rope around her neck, how it took hours to work up to those first pets. How smart she was, how fast she learned. Watching Terry put a halter on her and work the tangles from her mane. Watching Terry work her in the round pen, and being there to witness the first time she walked her into the barn. The first time I caught her in her paddock to bring her in to be worked, the uncertainty and grace we had for one another. The first time I worked her. Our first clinic together, touching her with the flag for one of the first times. Feeling in over both our heads. Working working working. More flagging, more roping. Changing eyes, again and again and again. The frustration and gratitude and adoration that comes from educating and being educated. Set backs and steps forward. Milestones reached. So many granules of sand materializing into a sandcastle. The first time I threw a saddle on her back. The first time we cinched it up. Thinking in that moment how far we’d come, how this was a probability-defying moment in and of itself. All the same groundwork, now with a saddle. Hindquarters-front quarters hindquarters-front quarters. Did I mention changing eyes? The journey of 10,000 miles starts with a single reach of the hind. Bumping her up to the panels and sitting on her for the first time – even though I was still committed to the panel, she’s under me breathing and solid and comfortable enough letting me dangle my leg over her and put some weight on her back, and it is really starting to feel real at this point, that we could ride her, that it’s not as much a pipe dream as we’d originally thought. Spots in there still that make us nervous. But things that reassure us. Hindquarters hindquarters hindquarters.
Joel swings his leg over, feet in both stirrups now. Riding Tiva. Tiva not fleeing the scene, all four feet on the ground. My heart in my throat, believing in her but not without a modicum of associated anxiety. Two years of work to reach this moment, a fear it could go south. But as the seconds tick on, that fear fades. She doesn’t seem tight. She bends both directions. She drifts her hind right, then left when asked.
She doesn’t want to go forward, that first ride. When the metronomic flop of Joel’s legs is applied, she does not yet associate it with moving off. Instead, she takes a tentative step back. That’s why we have someone with a flag in there, to provide support and help to make the rider be ‘the good guy.’ On the outside of the arena, the manure truck rattles by. Tiva hardly blinks. For a horse who once startled at leaves blowing across her path, this change is monumental, especially considering she has a rider on her back for the first time. Legs flop, flagger flags, and she goes, walk, trot, lope, though not without her patented Tiva ‘tude. This is a recurring theme, tied to a lack of freedom in her feet. If she feels stuck, she gets mad. You can’t blame a girl for this. She doesn’t understand quite yet how to feel free while carrying someone, and is just learning how to feel of a rider. On the ground, we have both made strides in freeing her feet, and as a result changing the orientation of her ears. I have been learning to get out sooner, not to nag her when she is trying.
I digress. She goes both directions, up through the lope, and Joel dismounts. I won’t lie and say that my eyes don’t leak a little when I go to unsaddle her, so much pride it’s flowing out of me. She gives me the same look she always does after we work: that was fine, but do you have a little snack for me?
Since those first rides — each one building on the foundation Joel laid — Tiva has continued to do well. So well, that on just her second ride, Kaya sat on her as a passenger. Terry has since taken the proverbial reins (we are still riding in a halter for now), and I help on the ground with the flag. She still has a reluctance to go forward based solely on leg, but I have been slowly walking back how much I am helping, and she is making forward progress, pun intended. She is soft to bend, and has yet to show any real signs of being bothered by environmental factors at play, though she did leap across the slash of a sunbeam once, perhaps setting her sights for the hunter/jumpers. Terry will continue to work on moving her out without my help from the saddle, while I still get the pleasure of working with her on the ground. Oh Tiva my Tiva, just how far you have come!
Below is a clip of one of her more recent rides:
