Dancing Horses: Lease- Kyra

Kyra

Last year in about August I found a horse named Kyra to lease. I don’t remember what her breed was but she was a fantastic horse to learn on, she was very understanding and patient and would try and try and try until she realized what you were asking her to do… however she was a little lazy and riding with a whip was a must to make sure she kept going forward. Kyra never had to be lunged or chased around a pasture to catch; she would come when you saw her and would try to rummage through your pockets for treats. She was exactly what I would have been looking for when I was 12.
She was a small mare (probably about 14.3 ish) so I looked a little awkward on her being that I am 5’5ish. The lady I was leasing her off of allowed me to ride as much as I wanted, and let me figure things out on my own with her which was nice… but with that came problems as well…. She felt that her little mare was the best thing on the planet that she could do no wrong. Kyra had some major issues with one of the corners of the arena… and that piled on top of my intense anxiety around horses ended up with me getting thrown pretty hard, I was in pain for a good two weeks. I did not blame Kyra at all I blamed myself and not paying attention but the owner was quite upset and felt that I was wrecking her horse (she never said this to me but people at the barn talk).
Being thrown just added to my anxiety but I kept riding and working through being extremely tense because I wanted more than anything at that time to learn to jump and to compete eventually in show jumping so I started taking lessons with my trainer Terena (who I am still training with) and she felt that I was ready to try taking Kyra over a few small cross rails, so one night we did just that we set up a jump and tried it out. The lady I was leasing Kyra from knew that I wanted to jump but when she found out that I jumped her mare she was very mad at me and asked me to never do that again… which is when I terminated the lease.
The lease lasted about 2 months and I rode 3-4x a week religiously but my riding didn’t improve very much, my anxiety didn’t improve either… I’m glad I didn’t end up buying Kyra because I don’t think we would have made a very good team in the long run. She was however an amazing mare and I loved her to pieces because she had the best personality. Below I added some pictures… the photos are blurry and please do not judge me on my jumping abilities lol or my posture looking at this now… well its embarrassing lol.