This week I have not ridden at all. I have not been on a horse in seven days, one of the longest breaks without riding that I have had in years. Last weekend we had temperatures that exceeded 100 degrees and I cancelled riding for the first time that I ever have had to for an entire weekend.
For the past three mornings I have been doing what I love best, training wild horses to gain their confidence for the saddle. Yesterday Emily mounted up on Looking Glass. It was worth being late to work just to see it happen. To my greatest surprise, Valor is becoming a beautiful, powerful horse. Abbie has worked her a few hours while I was in court and proudly explained that she no longer will kick you on her right side. (Perhaps we have different measures of progress than is found in other facilities.)
The shot above is from over the winter when Emily W. was the first person to get on Valor. Since that day she had had no training until Monday. Tomorrow I have a hunch that Valor will be ridden again and that Emily W. will be involved. Like all of my best students she is smart, tough, and mature. She is every bit as afraid as anyone else would be but she simply has learned to control her emotions.
For a variety of reasons modern society does not produce little boys with these attributes. Television, video games, facebook, and a new parenting model that focuses on giving little boys what they want instead of what they need have all served to produce fragile little boys.
Ironic indeed that we have a culture that makes it easier to teach little girls to be a man than it is to teach little boys.
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