Working Together

Three of us were out for a ride across the common and through the woods on a beautiful sunny afternoon in early spring. After cantering along the wide central path, we slowed down and turned onto the narrow path that runs along the edge of the wood, which is bordered on the left by a long line of back gardens. The sunlight was filtering through the moving branches and playing tricks with our eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a fox poke its nose through a hole at the bottom of a fence to my left, and I jumped: "Oh!" This, in turn, caused Artemis (my gelding) to jump, and he hopped to the right, tense and with his head held high. We recovered quickly, and I shared a laugh with Gwen, who was riding behind me, as she and I worked out that what I had seen was a shaft of light catching the edges of the revolving blades of a fan fitted at the bottom of the fence. A couple of minutes later, Havana, the warm-blood mare in the lead position, stopped dead in her tracks and wouldn't go forward. Artemis stiffened beneath me, and raised his head. As Havana tried to turn around, or to back up, Artemis tried to make space for her by backing and even turning. I blocked him, and we all stopped and stood still for a moment. Jane, on Havana, said she thought that there was something behind a fence a few yards further up the path. I looked hard in that direction, and checked it out. I noticed that Havana had her head turned and that she might have been looking at me. I pointed intently at the spot behind the fence and then, after a few moments, let out a sigh of relief and allowed my arm to drop slowly to my side and gave my wrist a little swish to indicate "all clear." I felt Artemis soften beneath me. I felt that it was now possible to ask him to move a step forward, which he did. This in turn seemed to soften Havana's stance, and as Artemis edged ahead of her, she stepped forward, following his lead. 

It might not have been quite as smooth and simple as that, but that effectively is what happened. Artemis seemed to have taken me seriously when I indicated "all clear." In fact, I remembered that we had done this before in another wood, and that I had noticed, on that occasion, that he dropped his head and relaxed immediately when I gave him the all clear message. It doesn't seem unreasonable or an exaggeration to say that, this time, once he accepted my "all clear" message, he set about making things work. One could almost say that he was helping the mare through this particular situation. Once we were out of the woods, so to speak, Havana was happy to take the lead, and Artemis happily took his place in the middle of the ride and we got home without further incident. 

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