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Posted by Marianne Williams, Dec 19 2008, 01:49 PM
Finally, Bella’s Parelli bareback pad arrived. It’s beautifully constructed of black suede and brown leather and has a leather handhold where you normally find a saddle horn. My trainer (Debbie) had me place it on the ground so that Bella could approach and sniff it. Right away it got quite dirty from her pawing and gnawing so I got over that “new saddle smell” right away.
I took my time in introducing it to Bella and was rewarded with a calm, complacent horse. I rubbed it on her face, her withers, her flanks, and up and down her legs. I tossed it over her back and quickly removed it several times. By the time I was ready to lightly cinch it, Bella was completely comfortable with the entire process.
I led her to my mounting block and spent quite a bit of time leaning over her and pulling on the pad from either side. She attempted to walk off and I led her back each time and made her stand. Debbie stayed outside of the pen and watched us work. When we both felt the time was right, I began leaning across Bella’s back, placing a bit more weight on her each time. We took it slowly and I backed off any time I sensed her discomfort.
Debbie kept a close eye on us and encouraged me to breathe as naturally as possible in order to keep Bella calm. I draped myself like a sack of potatoes over the saddle and tried to do as Debbie instructed. As time went on, I slowly brought my body around so that I was in what I like to call a superwoman position on Bella’s back. This seemed to go well and Debbie encouraged me to slowly bring my legs down (without touching Bella’s sides) and slowly ease myself up to a semi-sitting position in the saddle.
Now this is when things got interesting. Unaccustomed to seeing someone over her, Bella began nervously moving across the pen. In my ignorance, however, I took this as a sign of willingness on Bella’s part to ferry me around the round pen at a slow trot. In my excitement, I let out a big “YEE-HAW!” Debbie’s jaw dropped in absolute amazement at my sheer idiocy.
I went flying off of Bella. I mean, really flying -kind of like superwoman without the planned landing. Up until this point, Debbie had been snapping photos of the two us. She had to stop, however, when I went flying through the air because she just couldn’t believe her eyes. Fortunately, I had my helmet on. Though I landed hard, my only injury appeared to be a somewhat compressed spine from landing so forcefully on my feet which was quickly followed by an even harder landing on my butt.
At that point, there was only one logical thing to do: I had to get up and resume our lesson. As one can imagine, I got quite an earful from Debbie about “remaining calm” and “learning to read Bella” and “safety first”, etc. I tried to explain that this was just my natural exuberance coming out, but my explanation just garnered me a steely, red-headed glare from the boss.
To date, this has been my only ride on Bella. Afterwards, we went back to the basics of groundwork and desensitization and I was given a bunch of homework to do. But Debbie comes tomorrow – and she’s bringing her Crate western saddle. It’s a real beauty. I can’t wait to see what it looks like on Bella.
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on Bella – Part Four