Pressure

Pressure is a crazy thing and something we all need, yet we all dread. The ARENA is the best place for learning lessons...lessons about horsemanship and lessons about life. One of the ranch horses has spent the last two years being a mama, rather than

under saddle. She wasn't able to have a baby this year so the conditioning program began for under saddle work. Breece was riding her and started pushing her hard, I (Katie) said "BREECE, what are you doing? She might buck if you do that?" His response was, "Mom, she was ready for it...we have to teach her to handle pressure, so she doesn't buck when we aren't expecting it like if we were dallied on to a steer."

Much to my dismay, he was so right. THAT is what we do in the arena....we teach people feel, we teach people to handle pressure and release in the form of horsemanship.

It's important as parents, friends, teachers, administrators, coaches, and community members to understand that there are pressures in life. They are everywhere, we can't expect our horses much like our kiddos to practice a life without them and then expect them to handle pressure when they haven't been given the tools. We have to integrate strategies to LEARN to handle PRESSURE SAFELY.

NOTE: (PHOTO WAS NOT TAKEN DURING TR 4 HAS riding sessions)