He's home again

Chief that is. I picked him up this afternoon after watching him and his new partner in crime belting around the paddock playing hard to get.

I did lots of positive visualizations while driving home, imagining myself and Chief riding around the farm and beach together.
And then I got here and it the wind was blowing, Chief was excited to be home and I nearly chickened out.

But I didn't, I saddled him up and went to take him to the yard and decided that we could handle the hay paddock. It's only about 8 acres of open space and to be honest, if anything is ever going to go wrong, it's in that paddock!

Chief obviously didn't do the same visualizations as me because he made a beeline for the gate to his usual paddock where his other partner in crime (Sooty) was calling him from.
A wee disagreement occurred and Chief was winning so I dismounted and just for a fleeting moment allowed myself to give in to him.
But then I got myself together, made him take notice of me and we headed to the yard. He had several more attempts at the same thing and I quietly just dealt with it.
Then we moved out to the paddock again, repeated our first exercise and things started to look up from then.
We had a lovely time, just walking around in the hay paddock. It felt great and even when he went rigid and shot forward, I kept myself together (Summer has taught me well) and carried on.
I am stoked!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With Chief and myself. Anyone who has known me from way back when, knows what a big deal that was for me. Me and my fear of being on a horse in a big open space is becoming a distant memory.

Just keep challenging yourself and try to scare yourself at least once a day has been my motto for a few years now. And it might actually be working.........