Picture this. You're out feeding your horse. You're petting her, talking to her, and admiring how beautiful she is.
Suddenly, you get
urge to get on her and go for a ride. The only thing is, you don't feel like getting saddle and bridle - so you just jump on...bareback.
Now you're sitting on her. Her head is high, her ears are twitching, and she's wondering what's going on.
It's boring just sitting on her. You want her to move. So you boot her forward.
She moves. You're delighted. Suddenly, she starts going faster and faster until she's in a full gallop.
The fence posts go whizzing by. Your white knuckle hands have a death grip on her mane. In your raging fear you see a turn coming up and you're wondering whether your horse will take a sharp right or go straight.
In a flash you prepare for her to take a right so you won't be thrown to ground. Thank goodness you did because she took a sharp right. In fact, it felt like she turned ninety degrees.
What I didn't tell you is this whole time you've been yelling "Whoooaaaaa!!!"
No matter how many times you yelled "whoa" your horse didn't stop. It was like she never knew command - she simply kept moving despite what you said. And all while, all you could picture in your head was your life in danger.
Hopefully, this will NEVER happen to you. It's a sick feeling being on a horse you can't control and fence posts whiz by you while you quickly and silently rehearse your own funeral in your head.
This scenario actually happened to a friend of mine. She had help training her horse and did a decent job except for something very important. She didn't teach "whoa" lesson thoroughly enough.
