Happy Halloween!

It's almost Halloween, which is one of my favorite holidays. Overlooking the major candy benefits, Halloween has a few other bonuses. In trying to figure out why Halloween is such a fun holiday (again, other than the candy factor) there were two reasons that I came up with. First of all, there's no pressure; no big family dinners, no gift giving, and no cooking. A few hours of encouraging my child to go door to door and basically asking for a hand-out, is the only obligation. Second to that is the costume factor. Dressing up as someone or something else has always been a big thrill for me. I think I get that from my Dad. He would surprise people, being kind of a stoic guy, by putting on a goofy costume for Halloween. I remember one year when he dressed up as the scariest thing he could think of. A 1040 tax return form.

The great thing about going to horse shows, is that sometimes, they offer a costume class. It's like Halloween all Summer long! Occasionally, there will be a half-hearted entry that isn't really discernible beyond being a kid on a horse with some graffiti thrown in, but sometimes, there will be that entry that's gone full bore, all out, to the hilt so that the horse and/or rider are unrecognizable. That's awesome!

The most awesome thing abut it, is that the horses put up with that nonsense. They patiently bear the Rudolph noses, picnic blankets, or giant candy bar wrappers as if it were an everyday occurrence. I myself, am terribly guilty of desecrating my horses' dignity with costumes. Some were appropriately decorous, such as the Medieval and circus costumes, but most were just silly. By no stretch of the imagination am I any sort of seamstress, so my costumes have always been more accessory laden than actual outfits. One of the horse show moms, who was without a doubt, a fantastic seamstress, made elaborate clothing for her daughter's mount. Usually that mount was Pooh Bear who was as steady as they come as far as school horses. Pooh wore, on different occasions, a Raggedy-Andy outfit complete with a shirt, trousers and a little hat, a Wizard of Oz Scarecrow outfit, again with shirt, trousers and a little hat (except this hat had a little bird on it too), and a police car outfit with license plate, a set of wheels and a sparkly blue "light" instead of a little hat. Those outfits rightfully earned a handful of blue ribbons for his little rider.

Although I most always participate in the costume classes myself, there is rarely a time when even my most creative of costumes will not be bested by a cute little kid on a pony. The fairy/princess/butterfly on the unicorn/flower bedecked, shaggy pony will always take the blue. It's an unwritten rule somewhere that the amount of audible "Awwwww...'s" sways the judge's decision.

My own child has been a harbinger of "Awwww..'s" himself, in costume classes. When he was still young and malleable (as well as being free of encumbering embarrassment), I entered him in several costume classes. With the help of my Mom's and friends' seamstress skills, I was able to put together some seriously cute costumes. He's been a '50's rock & roller, a knight, the Tin Man and a pirate, and since I had to lead his horse for each class, I too was dressed up as a bobby-soxer, a squire, Dorothy and a parrot. At every show, he managed to win the blue ribbon. I take that back, there were a few shows where he wanted the red one instead (being his favorite color at the time) so he traded.

Costume classes require tremendous effort and creativity to be done well and for all the weeks of preparation, it comes down to 5 minutes of glory. Is it worth it? For me it is. The thrill of presenting myself and my horse as something completely different is like recess to a Second Grader. It's a chance to be outrageous, unexpected and silly. As a training side, it's also a chance to show how complacent your horse is. There are definitely some horses that won't tolerate drapery, trappings and little hats. It takes a horse that is unflappable and tolerant with a dash of silly.

Fun is where you find it. Some riders find fun galloping cross-country while their horses fling themselves over logs the size of Volkswagens. Some riders find fun in chasing down a scampering calf, roping it and then wrestling it to the ground. I like dressing my horse and myself up as thugs and trying to snatch the first prize out of the hands of a four year old girl dressed as a lollipop. Now that's fun.

Horse of My Dreams

This is not really about the "horse of my dreams" but rather a dream I had about a horse. The real horse of my dreams is a PRE (Spanish Andalusian) weanling that I could train from the ground up to be my next Dressage horse. Barring winning any lotteries, that will continue to be a fantasy for me. Hopefully, the horse in my dream will also continue to be a fantasy...

It began, as far as I can remember, with a horse dealer talking Bin & I into taking the last two horses for $300 each. I went out in the paddock to look at my horse and there she was, a white mare, cast (unable to get up) in the paddock, because she had rolled and was so fat that as she lay on her side, her legs didn't touch the ground so she was stuck like that. The sight of my horse stuck there didn't prompt me to get help but rather to figure out what I ought to be feeding her.

Back in the barn I went. John (from Stony Hill) was there and was some sort of feed rep. He was recommending taking her off the Senior feed and giving something else. He sent me to go check out the different feeds so I could shoose. There, in front of several open bags of feed I contemplated my choices. There was a bag of pellets, a bag of Senior feed and two bags with chunks of feed that looked just like Lego bricks. One bag had green bricks and one had pink bricks. Thinking one of those could be a good choice, I asked John what the difference was between the two. What would have been funny is if he said "The difference is that one is green and one is pink." but he didn't say that. Instead, he explained that those were sweet feeds and showed me the protein percentages of each. There was some discussion about a basic bare-bones pelleted feed and then I was suddenly back at the horse's paddock.

The poor horse was still on the ground but now I was filled with a sense of urgency and called to someone to help me roll her over. Then she was on her feet and I could see what she looked like. Her head was finely chiseled like that of an Arabian and her neck was fairly long with a nice arch. The rest of her... She was shortish both from top to bottom (I could drape my arm over her back) and from front to back (I could touch both ends of her at the same time) and very wide. The good news was that she only tried to bite me once.

Somehow, then I was back inside and describing my new horse to Bin. I said: Now that she is right side up I can tell you what she looks like. As I started to describe her beautiful face, the horse dealer interrupts and said that both of our horses are half-Arabs. In fact, Bin's horse was sired by the reigning World Champion stallion. There was no mention of my horse being any relation to a World Champion. The dealer did say that my horses was named after her deceased owner. The horse's name was Bessic Park.

Then, as often happens in dreams, I was suddenly back outside with Bin, to have another look at my horse. Bessic Park was up near the fence this time but instead of being compact and wide, she was built like a dachshund. Her legs were stubby and her back was a mile long. She trotted away with a fling of her head and a snort, her tail flagging behind her and her little legs going like pistons while the middle part of her kind of swayed. She looked like the Slinky Dog from Toy Story.

As far as I can remember that was the end of my dream. Thank goodness.

2 Sides to Every Issue

Traditionally, we do stuff on the left side of the horse. Lead, bridle, saddle, mount, dismount, etc. Tack is made to be handled from the left side. Blankets, halters, bridles, girths and more are all designed to be fastened on the horse's left side. And then we ride and we say to our horses: Disregard everything I have done to this point, now you must be equal on both sides, both leads, both directions.

The left side thing is something people invented. Horses don't care. They don't care, unless they've only had things done on their left sides, that is. When I work with horses, I make an effort to do everything on both sides as much as possible because I don't think it's fair or healthy to only work from the horse's left and then expect him to be ambidextrous in the ring.

Leading horses from the left was developed because most people are right handed so then they would be holding the horses with their dominant hand. Left handed people were out of luck. Mounting & dismounting on the left was started by the knights who were right handed and wore their sword scabbards on the left. It was pretty tricky to mount a horse on the right by swinging a left leg encumbered by a sword up and over the horse without leaving a mark. Plus, since they were already leading their horses on the left, it didn't make much sense to walk all the way around to the other side to get on.

Which is how I came upon the idea of doing things on both sides. Sheer laziness. One day, tacking my horse up in the barn aisle-way, I picked up my saddle from the saddle rack on the right side and considered how I was supposed to walk all the way around to the other side to put the darn thing up. That's just silly. Then it just made me think about the silliness and impracticality of working on the left in general.

I suppose the idea actually started to from way back when I was in college. A friend of mine was graciously allowing me to exercise her Appendix mare. There was one caveat - she would take off as soon as you get a foot in the stirrup. Not having enough experience or knowledge to know how to deal with that, I would cheat by getting on from the right. She wasn't expecting that and so had no anticipation or flight instinct. It worked for me and for her. Not only was it safer for me and anyone else riding in the arena at the same time, but it was certainly healthier for her back. Always mounting from one side means a consistent pull in one direction on that horse's back muscles. It also leads to one stirrup leather getting stretched out more than the other and even twisting in the saddle tree. Not only that, but from the point of view of rider fitness, you'd have stronger quads on the left from the thrust of lifting yourself into the saddle and one hip that was more flexible than the other from lifting over the horse's back.

Can we, as compassionate riders, ask our horses to bend equally, stretch equally, carry weight evenly, while we ride with one strong leg, one loose leg and one dominant hand? That smacks of irresponsibility to me. Not that I'm perfect (far from it) but I try. I do find myself cheating when something is difficult and switching to my right hand, but I try to recognize that and even out.

So for your horse's sake, and your own as well, be responsible and possibley lazy, and saddle up from whatever side of the horse to which you're closest, lead from the left and the right, and try to see both sides of every issue.

The Big Horse part deux...

Have I gotten to the part where I hated this horse yet? The more I rode Raffles the more I discovered and disliked his bad habits. He had a persistent and purposeful spook, he bucked like a slingshot and he gaped his jaw and pulled his reins. The more I tried to correct these behaviors, the more he liked it. Raffles loved getting into a fight and I was stubborn enough to not back down. And Dressage shows! Dressage shows were a study in embarrassment and frustration. Raffles is undeniably talented, athletic and amongst all the the fighting, had become very well schooled and was moving up the levels. As good as he was, it was a struggle for us to get into the 60% range because of the spooking. At each show, he'd pick something and that would be his focus throughout the whole test. It could be the flowers at M (but not at A, C, E, B, or any of the other letters), it could be one particular letter, or the horsey statue by the judge's table, the coil of extra fencing lying just outside the ingate.... It was always something. Raffles wouldn't just spook at something either. He'd spook every time he went by and would prepare for the spook starting at the other end of the arena. He'd come down the long side as if his parking brake were left on, eyes big as saucers, back hollowed and dropped somewhere around his fetlocks, and his neck like a lead pipe. The judge, never being impressed by his display, always gave scores for submission that were abysmally low.

It got to the point where I hated riding this horse. I avoided riding him. Dreaded riding him. Hated it. Which meant that when I did dredge up the ambition to ride him, I had no patience, was irritable and fought right back.

Contemplating the problem, I decided that the only solution was to learn to like the horse. I told myself that I had to learn to get along with him and we needed to start having some fun. Putting Dressage shows on the back-burner for the moment, we started going to some little local pleasure shows, did some jumping and trail riding and tried out some tricks. In doing so, I found out what my HORSE likes to do. He liked to show off. He liked to show off in a crowd of other horses so that he felt safe and he loved the cheering crowds. There isn't a lot of cheering at Dressage shows. Nobody whoops and hollers when we go in extended trot on the diagonal in a Prix St. Georges test. There may be some polite golf-clapping applause at the end of the test, but not always.

Things were still the same at home, he continually spooked down the long side of the ring and bucked if I told him to get his rear in gear, but now we had something to look forward to. I had found a reason to appreciate my horse and a way to have fun again. The clincher was taking him to the big shows put on by the Arab clubs. There are Arabs, Morgans, Saddlebreds, Friesians and an occasional Quarter Horse or Appaloosa, but no Warmbloods. Raffles fit right in with the snorting, fire-breathing, leg-flinging horses at these shows. He won a bunch of classes and developed his own fan club. People would stop by his stall and tell me that they go down to the ring specifically to watch his classes. Raffles loved doing a victory lap and always knew where the photographer was. He was a rock-star.

We've tried going back to Dressage shows and ended up leaving in disgrace, so I have stuck to the pleasure shows. As long as Raffles has a horse in front of him (that any potential monsters would eat first, thereby giving him the opportunity to get away) he was perfectly happy to go around the ring. He still bucks, especially when he gets carried away in Road Hack classes. He still spooks at ridiculous things. The difference is that I have learned to accept that and do not fight him about it. I still try to ride him through it and keep his attention but without having a snarling argument about the issue.

We have had some very memorable moments at the shows and the time spent with him has allowed me to bond with him in a way we don't get to at home. He will always be the same foolish horse that swaggers around the farm, ogling at mares, and threatening to bite the heads off small geldings. He will always spook and buck and pull his reins. The difference is that I have learned to ride him. Sure I may have helped him learn tempi changes and half-pass but only because I learned to train him around his personality, not through it.

At 24, Raffles has settled down a little but not enough. Now, I love him; love riding him and showing him. Do not love the spooking, but we deal with it. The too of us are like an old married couple. We bicker, but don't fight. He puts his ears back, I call him a knucklehead, he tries to step on my foot, I holler at him to knock it off, ... but that's just our routine. I know and he knows that in the end, I'll tell him he's a handsome boy, pat him and give him a cookie.

The Big Horse Episode I

Rocket got his own blog so in all fairness, I suppose I ought to devote one to The Big Horse. The Big Horse, Raffles, is not really all that big but he thinks he is. At 16.2 he's on the smallish end of the Warmblood scale but if machismo entered into it, he'd be off the chart. Raffles, Raphael, is a Swedish Warmblood who is actually branded as such, though you can only see the mark in the Spring and Fall as he starts shedding. It's as if the Swedish Warmblood society didn't want to wholly admit he was one of them. Not that I would blame them. He's a dunderhead. A damn fool. But also, gorgeous, athletic and my pal.

Raffles was sent to me sight unseen. He was a donated school horse to my alma-mater and he was geting the pink slip. The head of the program called me and asked if I'd like to take him in. He'd been on stall rest for a year after a suspensory ligament injury and in the meantime, they'd received more appropriate horses for lessons. She told me he was black, that he had funny colored eyes and that he was a "10" mover. "Sure", I said, "Send him up." It wasn't until after I'd agreed that I found out he also had a habit of putting riders in the rafters.

The first impression I had of him was that he wasn't black but he did have funny colored eyes - very light almost gold colored. He was dark bay and as I was to find out, like a chameleon, he changes colors during the seasons. In the Summer he is almost buckskin and in the Winter almost black but still a bay. People that have only seen him at horse shows during the Summer, don't even recognize him in the Winter. What is recognizable in any season, is his big trot and his big spook.

I encountered the spook first. After being in his stall for a year (and eating oats because they thought he was allergic to corn) he was a little high strung. To bring him back to condition, I had to begin with hand-walking. Hand-walking that horse was like walking with a keg of dynamite over hot coals. Once, I sneezed during a walk and he went straight up in the air doing his best Black Stallion impression. He got away from me once, during a walk, when he spooked and then dragged me through the mud like I was water skiing until I fell and he sprinted back to the barn. After that, I thought it would be better if we hand-walked in the arena. With a chain over his nose. And a second leader. Even then, if a leaf crinkled - he'd snort and leap.

Eventually, we both survived hand-walking and progressed to light riding. I had been riding Rocket who I was so in tune with that I could just think about what I wanted to do and he'd offer. Riding Raffles for the first time, I thought " This is like going from driving a Ferrari to driving a box of rocks." He was stiff and clunky and much broader than Rocket. This was going to take some getting used to. And it's apparently going to take more than one post to tell his story. This will be continued...


Oooohhh - a cliffhanger....

Just Say No

Sometimes, when a horse comes in for training with a specific issue and I can help change that, the owner will be pleased and ask me "How did you get him to stop?" My answer is: I told him to stop. I don't know if it's owners not being confident or if they are trying to find a root cause or if they have learned to accept certain behaviors from their horses, but most of the time horses continue with unacceptable behavior because no one tells them they shouldn't.

There are behaviors that stem from a horse's personality that can not be changed. Training can help a horse be a better partner but it can not change a horse's personality. There are exceptions; the horse that is normally mild mannered but has become aggressive due to a fearful owner or horses that have come from abusive situations and have become fearful or withdrawn can be rehabilitated. In general, a horse's personality, that it is born with, is what you have to work with, not try to change.

The most common behavior problem I see with horses that come to my stable, is that the horses aren't aware of boundaries. Either they've never been told or they've been allowed to slip into bad habits with regard to personal space. Fortunately, it's one of the easiest concepts for a horse to accept. As long as the handlers are consistent and fair, that is. Nothing is more confusing for a horse than inconsistency. One horse that comes to mind immediately is Mod. Mod is an enormous gentle giant of a horse but because of her size and gentle nature no one had ever told her she needed to look out for people. She wasn't mean or aggressive or bossy but when she walked somewhere, people got out of her way. In a single lesson, Mod learned that she ought to be more aware of people in her life! When I told her she needed to stop when I did and that she couldn't come within an arm's length of where I was, she said "ok" and accepted that. Whether it was her size that intimidated people or if people just assumed that because she was so big, she couldn't be stopped, Mod had learned she could pretty much go where she wanted and people were little more than speedbumps.

I told Mod, No you can't, and she was okay with that. Horses are like that. They just want someone to be in charge. If the person isn't going to do it, then the horse has to do it. Horses don't understand that sometimes, we want to be in charge and sometimes, they can. That's a disaster recipe. The person has to be in charge 100% of the time that they are in the horse's company or the horse just doesn't accept the leadership. They will not put up with wishy-washiness!

Saying "no" isn't all we have to do, we have to back it up with what that horse should be doing. An example is the horse that keeps moving around at the end of a leadrope when he needs to stand still. It is not good enough to stop him from moving, you have to put him where he is supposed to be. If the horse takes three steps forward and you tell him to stop, he's still accomplished his goal of moving forward. If you tell him no and then put him back where he belongs then he understands he's not supposed to walk forward. Just stopping him says, that's far enough. It doesn't say, stop walking away. If you want him to stop walking away, he's got to be put back where he was, thereby making no progress.

So how many steps does the horse get to take before you tell him no and put him back? Often I will see people letting the horses take a few steps or make a couple of circles around them before they finally say, enough. When I work with horses, I try to tell them no when they start to think about moving. They tell you they're going if you pay attention. They lean. Or they check to see if they can move just one hoof. If that one hoof goes uncontested, they move another one and another.... Before you know it, they've left town.

It takes effort and consistency and that can be tiring or boring but in the long run, it's worth it. Eventually you will rarely have to make a correction because your horse just expects and accepts your leadership. For those horse handlers who feel like they are being to bossy, keep in mind that 23 hours out of the day, your horse can do whatever he wants to and go wherever he wants as fast or as slow as he wants. For one hour a day, in your company, he can be told what to do. I'd be pretty content if I only had to work an hour a day.

Scout's Show

It's been a long bout with computer trouble, internet trouble, horse show preparation and attendance, as well as a spell with a bad foot (1600 lb horse vs. size 9 foot = horse wins) but I am back to writing.

At one point during a horse show attendance and the bad foot, I took Scout to his first horse show. This Summer, I also took Ruby to her first horse show. Scout is a very different creature than Ruby and the experiences were vastly different. Ruby's horse show went smooth as butter while Scout's was more of a rocky road ice cream cone that got dropped on the sidewalk. Both horses are young but came from very different situations so their individual mind sets were polar opposites.

Ruby had the advantage of going to a very civilized and quiet Dressage show. Scout was thrust into a carnival with a pleasure show going on right next to a softball game and behind the bounce houses. His classes had 18-20 horses all going around together in a ring half the size of the one Ruby was in. Needless to say, Scout was dealing with some sensory overload.

My plan was to take him into an equitation class, 2 pleasure classes and one of the games. We made it into the ring for one of the pleasure classes. The rest of the time was spent trying to get all of his body parts going in one direction ( a direction of my choosing) and for his brain to be plugged into me a little. Scout's biggest issue was wanting to be back at the trailer. Even when the other horses from our stable were up at the ring, Scout wanted to be nearby the first train out of Dodge. Each time we left the parking area to go up the hill by the ring to warm up, he had a tantrum and would try running backwards, sideways, over bleachers, pedestrians and loitering Quarter horses to get back down the hill to his trailer. Each time I managed to wrestle him back where he ought to be but as soon as he was settled, I let him go back to the trailer.

However, once back at the trailer, I worked his spotted pants off. Then we would go back up the hill, presumably to let him relax thereby letting him know that being at the trailer might not be as much fun as he thought. After a few rotations between ring and parking area, the plan worked, somewhat. He eventually stopped wanting to go back to the trailer as much as he had before but he never really relaxed. He couldn't stand still for more than a few seconds so we just cruised around near the show ring for the entire time he was up there.

The one pleasure class that we did manage to get into the ring for was pretty good considering how Scout had been performing outside the ring. There were 8 other horses so it wasn't a huge class, like the ones we skipped with 18 or more horses. Scout was tense but he walked, trotted and cantered when asked and made decent transitions. There was trouble with the canter in that he broke once in each direction when he got nervous about horses cantering behind him. By the end of the class he started to let go of some of his tension but the class moved along quickly and just as he was getting good, it ended. So, no ribbon for Scout, but I was pleased nonetheless that he was able to maintain composure and he was cooperative.

Someday, Scout will be a good citizen. My bleary-eyed fantasy is that, like in the movies when the troubled inner-city kids meet up with the tough as nails but deep down, kind hearted teacher and the kids become honor students, Scout will be reformed and eventually be a happy, well-rounded partner for some pony clubber or similar scrappy young equestrian. In the meantime we will cruise around and try not to go bowling through the spectators and maybe we'll eventually actually participate in the classes.