@contentandwell That Appaloosa sounds beautiful. My husband doesn't ride either unless I talk him into it. I don't let that stop me. Sometimes I have friends to ride with, but most of the time, we go out without other riders. My horse is well trained and what they call "broke to death" meaning he is safe to ride and doesn't try to take control. Since he always wants to come home faster, I have made him stop and stand there facing the other direction, and I started rewarding with carrots for doing that. Training a horse to stop is a safety thing. He will look back at me while I'm riding just in case I might be getting a carrot out of the saddle bag. He didn't want to walk through a creek by himself either, and was backing away, but munching on a carrot by the creek distracted him and I asked him to go and he did. Now he gets the carrot after walking through the creek so I won't train him to stop at the creek. You are training a horse every time you work with him, so you always want that to be positive, and the horse obeys because he wants to please you. You develop a relationship. My horse always comes to greet me in the pasture and he'll follow me like a puppy dog without being tied on a lead. When you start learning how to interact with horses, you need a calm one.