When the Student is Ready the Teacher Will Appear

 Easy Horses Teach You Very Little.

I often have to remind myself of this when I become frustrated, in the moments when I long for just a little more cooperation or when I feel that pang of nostalgia for my old mare Ollie.

Ollie was exactly what I needed growing up. She was dependable and forgiving. She could run like the wind and she had a shoulder to cry on. With the miles we ticked off riding over the blueberry barrens and backroads, she made me feel like we could take on the world.

But Kestrel? He's made me work. Where Ollie gave me the confidence I needed, Kestrel gradually stripped it away. They say when the student is ready the teacher appears, but it just might take a while to realize it.

Of course when we're young, cocky equestrians we see it from the standpoint of us teaching the horse, not the other way around. And that's where you can really get into trouble. If you're not open enough to admit when you've run out of knowledge then things are going to go wrong.

But if you're willing to let your ego take a backseat for a little while, you can make startling realizations that everything to do with horsemanship can be applied to the rest of life. That often those "problem horses" are actually opportunities. Opportunities to learn more about yourself than you thought possible from an animal, as long as you're ready to eat some dirt and accept hard truths.