You’ve gotten to know Jitterbug, the Chronicle’s Quadraped Correspondent, over her years of posting hilarious columns from a cantankerous draft-cross mare’s point of view. And now her “Human,” Natalie Voss, is joining our roster of bloggers to share her adventures as a hunter-rider-turned-eventer mounted on the ever-opinionated Jitterbug. 

One night a few months ago, I pulled my mare Jitterbug up (there’s no other way to phrase it, as our attempt at a collected canter had turned into a leaping, teeth-grinding, galloping fit) and completely broke down.

It was nighttime, so I had the arena to myself and cooled her out while sniffling into my riding gloves. It was not pretty crying, either. She was not even the least bit sympathetic, and took the opportunity to throw a shoulder and walk around curled to the outside of the arena out of spite.

“I cannot ride this horse.”

It was the only thing I had room for in my brain. I like to think everyone has this revelation sooner or later, even about their own horses. Or maybe, as the mare suggested many times that night, I’m delusional.

We had spent the past week in a rut that I couldn’t explain. I’d spent a week or so on a business trip and now that I was back, it was if my body had completely forgotten how to ride a horse. In lessons or alone, I couldn’t keep my hands steady to save my life, and the second they moved a few inches, Jitter would lose all patience with me and begin grabbing the bit and throwing her head.

Which leads to what, ladies and gentleman? My hands flying all over the place as I struggled to keep my core still and leg on.

I knew the solution was ‘forward,’ but it felt like buying a half-Percheron was finally catching up to me—my legs seemed too short to wrap around her barrel firmly enough, and my arms were too stubby to keep shoulder-width apart.

For reasons that I can’t explain now, I thought the solution was that I couldn’t visualize exactly what I was doing (read: just how awful this actually looked from the ground), so I had the Horse Show Husband come out and film us. This had to be a mind/body control thing, right? So all I needed to do was think about it harder.

I spent an hour reviewing a 20-minute ride and marched back out to the barn the next night, only to repeat the whole pattern with the mare more angry than ever.

I didn’t buy Jitterbug because she is a great team player, or because she had a lot of training that could help me in my transition as a recovering hunter-turned-eventer. She possesses neither. She’s got a kick-ass bronco buck, amazing athleticism over pick-up truck beds, a complete and utter devotion to herself, and those are basically the sale flyer highlights.

Her total and endless self-worship means that if she likes someone (so far the list of Humans she likes is one), she’ll compensate for your fear with brash confidence and reassurance. She isn’t moved in the least by frustration, however.

I knew that a sassy former neglect case who didn’t carry a rider until she was 5, Jitter was already extremely limited by her late start in life; add in an adult amateur with very little green horse experience, and I guess I always assumed that our combined ineptitude would hit us eventually.

I’d just hoped we might’ve left the starter division first.

I spent the next three days before our next lesson mourning our too-brief career together, as she was clearly “over” me and I had reached the maximum potential of my biceps. I won’t tell you how many packages of Oreos I ate, or how many times the patient HSH had to listen to me wailing, “Why am I such a pipsqueak??!” as I stared at photos of Rolex-level riders.

At our next lesson, my ever-wise trainer did not want to hear any of it. We spent 30 minutes trotting, starting with my hands back in their hunter position, changing things up with lateral work and serpentines. She snuck in little edits of my position very slowly, and before either of us knew it, I had shifted my weight and stabilized myself without realizing it.

My supple, soft horse did a beautiful canter for half of a 20-meter circle before whining that she was too tired, and everything seemed magically restored to factory settings.

“How did you do that? What did you fix?” I demanded to know.

“You just needed to stop thinking about it,” she said simply. “Maybe go for a hack tomorrow. You know. Have some fun.”

I think even though we recognize ourselves as amateurs, it’s easy for the more motivated (/insane/unmedicated) of us to focus on a problem so intensely that we forget why we bought challenging horses in the first place—because if figuring out how to solve a problem was as simple as watching cell phone video, we’d have become film producers in our spare time instead of riders.

And because it’s fun.