Forgive and Forget

Last night as I drove to the barn I had the realization that I need to let go of the grudge I had toward Echo about my leg. 99.99% of the time I've gotten injured around a horse, I can look back and say it's my fault in some way. However I can't say that about Saturday's incident. The only thing I could have changed is having a chain on her, but I still think it would have happened. Plus she should be able to behave without a chain on her nose. My closest friends know I don't let go and I rarely forget the things that I dislike. I'm more prone to remember the bad than the good. Something I should work on in general. Since I don't feel like I have a real reason to fault myself over Saturday, I know that the last few days I've really really been holding it over her and it's affected my attitude toward her. I have to let go if I ever want to trust her and her, trust me. It's likely I would eventually forget, but my limbering around the barn and the shooting pain when I move my leg any direction but straight has been a constant reminder of her landing on it. The fact I came to terms with my attitude this quickly makes me give props to myself. #SelfGrowth

I cleaned Dakota's stall and did everything I could before I headed over to Echo, who was staring at me the whole time out her stall door. I took a deep breath, put her halter on and just said to her "we're going to go outside and we are going to get over it" - I led her to the round pen since the arena was in use, went into the pen with her and let her free. 

After a few rounds of bucking and being a total spaz, she wanted to do nothing but follow me around. She knew. I even tried ignoring her and she did nothing but nose me and want my attention so I gave it to her and just hugged her giant lovable head and scratched her massive ears. It's these moments I know she's bonded to me. She just has to learn about respecting which is an ongoing learning process for her. I've been trying to drill it into her since day one. Some days I feel like there have been baby steps and others, I feel like we've gone wrong direction. None the less, I'll take the good days like yesterday.

I left her alone while I went in and cleaned her stall and prepped it for the evening. We still had some daylight so I decided to take her to the opening of the track for a few minutes of hand grazing. 

Nothing but a dopey mare. 

So I'm going to push ahead and keep trying to forget. For now, I've forgiven the MareFace and we're back to loving each other. I have video of her spaz moments but I'll share those later this week. I want this post to focus on the positives. 

Tonight, hopefully a few minutes of grazing if it's not raining. Tomorrow, I'm going to the barn early and hopefully going to be there when the vet hits everyone in the barn for yearly vaccines.