We're off the lead rein. :-)

The first few hacks I had with Lutine, my husband has walked beside us and kept a long-ish lead rein on us, just as a safety net. This was for a few reasons: it's not ideal to take a young, green horse out on the roads, even very quiet roads, on its own - would be much better with an older, steady horse as nanny; plus Lutine has a cow phobia that already caused one accident with my other horse and she's been nervous about being on the lanes ever since that car hit us just before New Year. But OK, I will admit - since getting hit by the car whilst walking her out, my confidence took a bit of a rattle too. So the lead rein was my psychological safety net. But on our little hacks we'd had some spooking and the odd bit of jogging and jumping about but she remained well under control and my husband said he was leaving slack in the lead rope all the time, so it was her rider she was listening to.

We did our hack out last night without the lead rope though my husband came along on his bicycle. Even having the bike there seems to help these young horses get a little bit of confidence and having my husband there seems to encourage the drivers to slow down for the horse. They take more notice of him than they ever did of me! (blimmin' chauvenists!) Just after the place on our lane where we were hit in December, another car came down the hill with a clanky trailer attached. Both of us were feeling tense - but we were in luck. It was a neighbour of ours who was very obliging and stopped the car while I turned Lutine, walked her back past the trailer and then proceeded to follow him down the hill. And bless her, she really did hold herself together and listen to me.

So another little step - we're off the lead rein and recovering our confidence.