Speed and agility have never been my thing. Some people live for doing things fast, the adrenaline of it. Some folks love to leap out of bed at the absolute last second, throw themselves in the shower, and spill coffee on themselves flinging their still-soaked and recently clad bodies into their vehicles while they go speeding off to work, school, or wherever. I, on the other hand, am the time to wake up ridiculously early, take care of the pets, take time to work out, select clothing, journal, listen to a podcast, contemplate my day, etc. Rushing makes me positively green.

One thing folks can say about me is that I’m patient. I was patient enough for endurance racing once upon a time, patient enough to hike long mountain trails, patient enough to cook and bake things that actually taste okay. I’m patient of all patient for the very trying activity of training animals, especially horses.

But, even I, with all of my patience, feel the outside pressure of “progress.”

“Do you remember Snapdragon?” one of my childhood horsey friends asked me one day on the phone. “His owner went sooooo super slow with his training. Remember, everyone used to talk about her? But then she went to the shows and cleaned up!”

A new horse at a new barn with a re-riding owner who has been off of the horsey path for over eight years, an outdoor arena with a lot of spooky things around it, and a long, unpredictable winter – none of these things made for a rocket ship-like journey. We poked along, got in sessions where we could, avoided drilling, changed up the routine, and worked on getting to know each other. And you know what? I think this has been overall a good strategy.

I tend to look at these supposed masterful trainers on Instagram and how they are able to get seemingly rapid results out of their newbie horses. But, really, time on the internet is an illusion, first of all. Second, maybe training horses is all these people do, all day, every day. Third, nobody really knows what kinds of shortcuts they may be taking that could take a toll later on, impacting the horse. Finally, whose timeline am I on, anyway?

Comparison, for the most part, is not a valuable tool. Journaling and documenting your own progress is, in fact, a valuable tool. And when I look back, I can tell we’ve made progress. Kiss’s body is filling out in certain places and she’s better at certain things. And, regardless of what kind of linear training progress that we’ve made, there’s still the intangible progress of building a relationship. My horse, for the most part, likes being with me. She likes being able to do different things. It’s not the same old, same old, day in and day out. That’s at least interesting, if not even fun sometimes.

My main goals are to have a horse that I enjoy riding and working with and that is happy every day. Everything else is a bonus. So, on the first part of that, we’re getting there and working out the challenges, and I hope beyond hope that the latter is also true. I can’t read a horse’s mind, but I think we’re close.