I'm so done with life. Why does everything have to be either shit from the start or ruined just as it gets fun...
*Very* long rant alert.
Basically, I'm enrolled in a university where I study horse husbandry and equestrian event organization. A dream come true, right?
Right.
However, I've come here as a complete beginner. I didn't know how to ride a horse. The course has no initial requirement, and they all said it was fine. I had 3 other girls with me who also were beginners.
The beginning was already a little shaky. We each had to buy our own grooming supplies, halter and leading rope, because the stable of the university said "their stuff always got lost so from now on everyone should have their own".
All the horses owned by the university are Gidran, a breed known for their temper and notoriously skittish nature. They keep mostly mares, with two stallions. The mares are continuously in foal, or with a foal at foot. There are maybe two or three out of twenty horses that aren't with foals. They had six foals they worked with, the more senior students were saddle and carriage training them.
On the first riding class, the evaluation, many people fell off. On the first riding class of us beginners, we were made to canter, by the instructor saying "Let's see how you manage canter" even though none of us ever cantered before. During the first semester many of us fell off, somehow I managed to stay in saddle all the time.
There came the second semester and our lounge mare went to give birth. We got another one instead, which was alright at first, but then turned out to be very very skittish. She would get scared of literally everything and anything, and her reaction was to bolt. She also picked up a habit of switching legs in trot, when she did so she jumped a little, and as soon as you were sitting on the correct leg, she would change again.
Around March she also began sometimes starting her canter with a few fast, long gallop strides. She always fell back to nice and slow tempo afterwards, but the first two or three strides were violent. It was due to this that I fell off the first time. I got back on right away, and it was fine. I was left a little scared of canter, and I had to skip 2 weeks of riding because I fell on my back and I got a nasty bruise (I was wearing a protective vest and I always do still).
In the beginning of April, just as I got the all clear from the doctors to ride full time again, I was put back on the same mare. She stood in the stall for a few days prior due to a leg injury, and the instructor said that we wouldn't do a lot of cantering to go easy on her leg. We would start her into canter, go two or three strides, then back to trot. It would be good practice for us too. And it was, until my fear took over me and I requested to let go of the reins and hold onto the saddle a little bit because I felt my seat wasn't solid. In the meantime another class arrived into the arena and my instructor was hurrying me to canter a bit more "before the grays arrive behind us". And that's the time she chose to do her gallop thing again, and sent me flying. I broke my sacrum and I was out of classes for the remaining of the semester.
The next time I rode again was during my summer internship (which was basically just slavery for 3 weeks, I could do a whooole lot fo ranting about that one too). I was put on another mare, the oldest in the stable, and she helped me a lot to be less scared. At first my mouth went dry and I could barely breathe when I was made to trot on the lounge, but eventually I was taken off lounge and made to go about in a smaller, more separated area of the arena while the others were riding their classes in the middle. These went great. I felt like I improved.
September arrived and I was thrown into class riding on another mare. I used to ride her before, during the first semester, off the lounge, just fine. But never with other riders around. This time, however, there were 5 of us. She was one of the mares who stayed without foal for a while, but they somehow decided to cover her too on Monday. She hadn't been ridden or worked for 3 days. Tuesday morning our class comes, and as I got on, she barely started walking. She kicked with her hind leg instead, walking backwards. They called a more senior student to ride her around a bit to get her going, which she did. Then I was on, and in between the others.
Boy was that awful. She was hurrying, I could barely hold her and I felt that I was basically holding onto the reins for safety. I tried to relax, I tried to get her to slow down with the small signals we learned (pull on the reins then let them looser in repetition, with putting my weight behind) but it didn't work much. She kept raising her tail and releasing that liquid they do when they're in heat, and yes, there was a stallion in the class being ridden too. Then she got scared of something outside the arena, jumped to the side a little bit, and bam! I was on the ground again. This time I immediately got up, dusted myself off and got back on to walk a bit, but this kind of destroyed my confidence.
I feel my riding is all over the place. I can't control the horse. She basically goes wherever she wants, after the horse in front of her. Of course I told the instructor about this, but he told me to talk with the head of the course because they don't have the capacity to put me back on the lounge. The first year student who has never ridden a horse before had her lounge class held by one of *my* classmates, while the intructor was watching 3 other riders.
The head of the course told me that they cannot make an exception with me and if I really can't ride I should just go to the general animal husbandry agricultural course instead. By the way, the head of the course was the instructor to us beginners last year (yes, I broke my sacrum because of him too). Out of the 4 beginners 2 left the course because of similar issues.
I really want to learn to ride properly. But I feel like I've been robbed the opportunity to finish this course. This whole place is a joke.
After 2 different universities, 3 jobs, living in 2 countries I finally find a place I like, where I feel like I'm doing something I enjoy, I'm learning something I can put my whole being into, and I'm being f*cked over by incompetent people running a stable I don't even know how can still operate...
Sunny
