Spontaneous ponying, yesterday. I rode Fi in the outdoor for the first time. It's right up against the highway, and she previously hadn't handled traffic well enough for me to add the pressure of a rider, so I let both horses explore the space loose a few times before trying anything new. There are lots of obstacles, and an enclosed area without anything else in it. Fi was the one who volunteered for riding, and Siri was loose. For the most part, Siri did her own thing, but at one point all three of us ended up in the enclosed area. In the past, Siri has avoided interaction while I'm on Fi because of a history of resource guarding between them. This time, though, she took a risk and "ponied" at liberty. While there was still some tension, we did a few steps at a time and it got much better. The lesson here: be open to your horses' ideas. Sometimes things work out better than you'd expect!
Pretty much every time I go with my horses' ideas, I end up having more fun (unless they're not having any fun). There's a part of me that still feels like what I'm doing isn't "real" work, that it's not performance in the widely accepted sense, so it's not valid. But what is reality? Why is performance more valid? What if what I'm doing, and what like-minded others are doing, is shining a light, however small, into the depths of what's possible when horses are asked about their experiences, rather than how far we can ask them to go for us?
