My biggest challenge was in learning how to ride and jump a certain Halflinger named Avalon. He was trained completely differently so it presented a challenge to be able to just ride him.
The biggest challenge that my horse and I have overcome is trust. Every horse that just enters a new home must learn to trust their owner and that's what we have accomplished. I love being able to walk down to the barn and hearing a high and excited whinny in my favor as my horse rushes in from the pasture because he is so excited to see me!
my biggest challenge was over coming the fear off falling after i took bad tumble down a thirty foot drop with my horse rooling on me 3 times as we tumbled resulting in braking my pelvic bone in to 3 pieces, 2 vertibras broken in my back and 2 broken ribs, the fear was also felt from my horse. we had to learn to trust each other and have made it to that point after 2 years of taking it slow. Thank goodness my horse was not injured.
Lola and I have over come many obstacles, but I will only say the greatest. I learned to ride on Lola, with no lessons! That is even more impressive when I say that she has a progressive eye disease. Even though I ride Western, we have learned to jump and do dressage, Western gaming, Western pleasure, trail ride, and even ride bridle-less! Both of us have come a long way in just three years!
When my rescue horse, Charlie, came into my life, he was blind in one eye and horribly terrified of humans because his previous owner had beaten and starved him. No one could get near him without him rearing up and flipping out. After 4 years of hard work (and lots of treats!:))and patience we have gained each other's trust and have been able to jump bareback and bridless! Even though he is still blind in one eye, he will always be the best horse to ever walk the earth!
Mercy is a very secure horse and she needs her security. when we tried to ride on the loose rein she would freak out and speed up and get scared. after two years she will walk and trot on the loose rein. she still is a little funny with it but she works through it and is doing awesome.
Harry Potter came to me as a young stuck up Hunter/Jumper pony with no ground manners. I was use to a sweet old mare who never did anything wrong but still had the heart to run speed. My biggest problem with Potter was learning that there is a "soul mate" horse...you just have to work hard to find it. After a year of him teaching me how to jump and me teaching him how to do speed events we have become the best match. We jump 2'9 bareback with a halter and leadrope and we even place against real speed horses at shows!
My horse, Zip, is half arab and all crazy. He used to like to run away from being caught in any way possible and we tried, literally, every trick in the book. I swear... they could write a whole SERIES about horses like him. He loves ducking under fences to get away, too... but luckily he doesn't go thru the outer perimeter. (We have fences in between) we had to trick him into getting caught, all the time. But since we got our most recent horse, Jack, and I put him on a calming supplement, he is 99.8% better- with a few 'moments', but hes just like every other ordinary horse now. good days and bad, like when he just doesn't want to get caught. but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be- kicking at you as he ran away, yet again....
The biggest challenge that my horse, Passion, and I have encountered was his abscess. For more than eight months, he had an abscess in his hoof. It hurt both of us: him because he felt the pain, and me because I had to see him going through it. Though it took a lot of supplements, hoof conditioners, vet checkups, farrier visits, and experiments, he got better, and we're both happy.
My biggest challenges with my blind horse Molly was getting her to trust me and tolarate the farrier. But with a lot of love, patience, and courage, we have gotten a long way, together. and now we are best friends!