triggered memories!
Horses swelling up to prevent too tight a cinching etc.
We had a real prissy POA Mare that used to do the same thing, LOL!
But it wasn’t just the saddle she minded; while lunging her one day, my mom told me to jump up on her back for some weight...she bucked something awfull, tried to rub me off on the fence..LOL...got a dislocated shoulder from that escapade.
Dang! But I loved that mare.
Due to ?falling? off a horse at about age 5, I was not that confident around a horse that had a contrary streak until I was in my late teens. So Dad got the stallion. LOL. I got the mellow mare.
She could still swell up but she was a dear heart. Besides, it only takes one saddle falling under the horse to imprint more emphatically the importance of cinching sufficiently tightly.
I can imagine loving a contrary horse. Didn’t happen in my life, though. LOL.
Another memory—my horse would not easily jump the ditch. And I wasn’t at all sure I wanted her to jump the ditch. Dad was PO’d. Said he didn’t know whether to beat me or the horse.