Horse seriously going sideways

I got up early this morning, hoping to avoid the motorbikes, and get out onto the trail for a serene ride in the state forest.

Lilly seemed a bit fresh, but otherwise everything was going according to plan.

Then we got to the top of the hill, where the state forest track starts.  It just so happens that the next door neighbour had chosen this exact same beautiful morning to send his cows off to market.  His quad bike was going up and down the hill like a growling monster, the family was standing around the cattle yards, the cattle, in the cattle yards, were knocking about, with the cattle trailer and ute on hand.  Oh, and the dogs in the back of the ute were sniffing and whining.

By the time I got Lilly past the show, she was having kittens.  It took me a little while to hop on, and then she considered backing into a tree and leaving me there.  I resorted to just sitting atop my steed quietly for a while, never taking my eye off that tree behind me.  Then some sanity overcame my horse as she proceeded down the track.

She was a bit nervous, but it was pleasant enough until we got to a fork in the road.  Lilly stopped and no amount of encouragement could get her to walk forward.  In fact, she just started going sideways - back towards home.  I tried to stop her from going sideways, of course, but she had stopped listening to me.

We travelled like this for a kilometre, while I considered whether getting off is a good idea or not.  Then she heard the quad bike again, and promptly proceeded to travel sideways, in the opposite direction.  "Oh goody", I thought to myself.  "She's not going forwards for me, but we're going where I want to go, so this is sort of good."  When we got within sight of the fork in the road, Lilly stopped.  She tried to rear, then proceeded to go sideways towards home again.

At this point, I knew that the horse had lost it.  She was no longer listening to me.  In fact, I had sort of become her arch enemy, she just decided I wasn't pesky enough to dislodge.  She was totally lost at what to do, she felt terrified, and didn't see a way out of the situation.

The smartest thing I could think of was to just make her stand still.  This worked fairly well, and when she stood still I stroked her neck and spoke softly to her.  When I thought I had restored some good will, and we had been standing still for a sufficiently long period of time, I got off.  I picked up the shoe we'd lost along the way, and then walked her towards home.

When we got to where my next door neighbour was loading his cows, I made Lilly stop.  I stayed as relaxed and calm as I could, and I let her just observe and work it out.  When she finally put her head down to graze, I knew this was as relaxed as she was going to get, and walked on home.

At home, we walked straight into the arena, and I worked Lilly for about an hour.  Mainly we worked at the walk, concentrating on lowering the head and relaxing.

The conclusion from this ride is - every horse has a reaction when they feel panic.  Some bolt, others buck, some rear.  Lilly's thing is going sideways.  That's what made me have such a hopeless ride a week ago - Lilly was going sideways in the arena.  But only on the left rein.