Horse trouble. Horse triumph.

I was participating in a horsemanship program at a summer camp for Christian Scientists. I’ve regularly been assigned one of the more difficult horses because my counselors know that I embrace challenges and can handle them. This particular year, though, I was given an especially troublesome and skittish horse with whom I had not worked well the year before. 

At the beginning of our two-week session, I struggled to bond with her and quickly grew agitated when we could not complete simple drills. It seemed she was too afraid to do the drills properly, and we were also having trouble communicating. While I’ve struggled to connect with my assigned horse before, this year it was starting to feel like it was never going to happen. When I asked my counselors if I could switch horses, they told me to try one more day with her, and then if we were still struggling, I could make a change.