Horses and my heart

I just read an amazing passage from the book I am reading, "The Wise Man's Fear".  It is a passage that explains or describes my love for those special horses I have loved in the past and present, Chance, Danar, Snowy, Colonel.  How I can love their faults as much as their attributes, yet expect perfection from humans is beyond me.  I am flawed.  Anyway, here goes:

 "So yes. It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love.  Reason does not enter into it.  In many ways, unwise love is the truest love.  Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.  But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too.  That is rare and pure an perfect."

The way Patrick Rothfuss writes is amazing.  It flows freely and speaks to me. 

Why does love work in this way for me?  Why am I so open to horses and forgiving of their faults but so demanding and expecting when it comes to human relationships of anything more than friendship?  Perhaps it is partially due to the nature of the relationship with a horse.  Horses are forgiving.  Horses are not demanding.  Horses can hurt you, but they can't betray you.  Men can crush you emotionally as well as physically. Horses want to adapt to you and after time they almost feel like part of you.  I can't imagine ever getting that close with a person, so close that they stop being a separate entity and become more like your arm or leg. 

I had an interesting talk with one of my guests this past week.  We talked about the reasons why horses mean so much women, but to teenage girls especially.  We talked about how some of it is the power thing.  In a teenage girl's life, there is so much that is beyond her control.  She isn't in charge of much at all, but when she is on her horse, she has control.  She makes the decisions.  She has power.  She has power beyond her own physical strength which is typically less than that of boys her age.  There is also the aspect of physical touch.  When I was a teenager, I wanted to pull away from my parents.  I didn't want them to touch me or be overly involved in my life.  I assume that most teenagers are like that. I wasn't ready for anything near sexual touch from other people.  I was deprived at least somewhat of the physical affection that I longed for.  My horse filled that gap for me.  When I needed a hug in the worst kind of way, my horse Chance was in the field for me. I could jump on him bareback and run as fast as the wind.  Also, we talked about the barbie doll aspect of a horse.  You can brush, primp, and braid them to your heart's content. 

I love my horses of my heart.  Sometimes it is love without reason.  Sometimes it is love without rational reason.  Sometimes that is a good thing. 

It was walking into the hoodo’s and seeing my parent’s fear as they walked over the scary cliff area.  I stopped worrying about this area and forgot that it was scary too long ago.  It was seeing how they thought it was worth it when we got there! 

It was going to sheep eater cliffs in the spring.  The torrents of cold rushing water could almost block out anything.  

It was taking my parents to canyon and seeing how excited people are who haven’t seen it before; reminding me of just how awesome it is!  

The park is amazing.  My family is great.  I know the horses out here better than most anyone.  My friends are also great!  

Story about the horse I worked with at home to keep us on the horsey topic:  

My adventure with Romeo and Bill

Sometimes it isn’t about helping the horse as much as it is about helping the person understand their horse! 

I just want to start out by saying that I am NOT a horse training.  I am just that horse girl from Eureka road who likes to help people with their horses. 

I was home for a bit of time this spring.  I decided to leave my winter gig early and I still had quite a bit of time before my summer job was starting, so I went back to the place where I grew up.  It had been a rough winter and I was rather down about so many silly things.  At home I didn’t really want to ride.  I didn’t want to take riding lessons.  I was burnt out from horses and riding.  It wasn’t my escape anymore. 

After I was home for probably close to a month, I saw an ad on craigslist from someone is my area looking for a horse trainer for their three year old standardbred gelding.  My horse confidence was at an all time low.  I had myself convinced that I was not good with horses.  I didn’t even want to learn more at that moment, but I have a weak spot for helping people and a weak spot for standardbreds.  Growing up, so many different people taught me so many different things about horse training and care.  I like passing on that knowledge.  I like teaching.  So, I replied to the ad.  I made it very clear that I am not a trainer, just a girl who likes the animals and likes to help.  The owner of the horse, Bill, decided to take me up on my offer… and that is how this short, eventful journey began.

My first encounter with Romeo had me a little bit frightened.  When you would walk up to his stall, he would go to the back of it.  When you went in with him he would get as far away as possible by backing up in circles in the stall.  He would keep his head away from you and not even look in your direction.  More frighteningly, he would turn his hindquarters into you as you approached him.  A ten by ten stall is not a large enough area to get out of the way is he had chosen to kick.  At that moment I was in over my head.  His owner said that he was able to halter Romeo, so I left the stall and left it to Bill to catch his horse.  Once the halter was on Romeo, he was slightly more handleable.  He didn’t like his face to be touched and he was very touchy about his belly and hind end being worked with.  I did a bit of groundwork with him inside the barn just to make sure he was decent about giving to pressure, then we took him out into the pasture to work him.  He tended to lean into pressure because his owner would hold him and lead him by his halter.  He had no freedom of moment at all. 

After we moved outside, he quickly learned that I meant business.  He quickly picked up how to direct and drive in a circle.  I would ask him to circle in the direction I wanted him to go at the gait I wanted him to travel at.  When I was ready to stop, I would ask him to swing his hindquarters to the outside of the circle to stop and face me.  He liked to crowd when he got nervous, so I also taught him to back up right away.  My boss in Yellowstone, Carrie, taught me to back up a horse by crouching and looking at their chest, the area you wanted to move back, then reinforce your body language with a swinging rope, then back that up by popping the horse with the rope in the chest.  It took Romeo a little bit to understand what I meant, but he got it after a bit. 

By the end of the first day of groundwork, we had a horse that was much more comfortable being handled on the ground.  At the end of the lesson, I was petting Romeo near his back leg and he kicked in my general direction, so as a reflex I smacked him on the butt and continued doing what I was doing.  He seemed to really get that message! 

The next day when I went out to work with him, he showed much better behavior in his stall.  He was still backing up a bit, but he didn’t turn his butt at Bill at all.  He was much happier about being caught.  I made sure to describe exactly what I was doing to Bill as we worked through it.  I wanted to teach both of them at the same time.  I wanted them to understand how to work with each other. 

Yellowstone...

It was one of those days where I was having a bad day.  Perhaps even a really bad day.  My boyfriend and I had decided that we wanted to be just friends a few days before.  I was frustrated at my boss just that morning.  Early that afternoon I had accidentally almost burnt down one of the buildings on the farm I work at.  BAD DAY!  To make myself feel better, of course after getting an ice cream cone at my favorite local coffee shop, I went into Yellowstone for a hike out to my favorite place in the park.  At least my favorite place that you can get to in a short evening hike.  It is a section of extinct terrace that was brought down in large boulders in earthquakes a long time ago.  It is a barren area filled with large white rocks, sparse vegetation, and populations of small critters and birds with mountains on the horizon.  

On this day, I just wanted to go up there to sit on a large white rock… a rock larger than any of my problems and write in my journal.  My hike out there was easy and fast.  I was going too quickly to see if there was much wildlife.  Some people run from their problems.  Apparently I walk quickly away from mine.  By the time I got up there I started to relax.  Cloud cover was moving in and a gray sky fit my mood entirely.  The wildflowers in the muted light looked mysterious rather than cheerful like they had the day before.  I selected a rock that was up to my standards and made myself comfortable.  Even the mosquitoes sensed my confused, cloudy mood and left me alone.  As I reached into my bag to bring out my journal, pencil, and set of colored pencils, a sound in a nearby tree captured my attention.  I watched a lovely, brave woodpecker climb up the tree in front of me.  Not the least bit worried about this girl in a tie dyed t-shirt sitting in front of him.  

I got some great writing and drawing in on that rock. I paused while coloring a small horse sketch, and looked up to see a Pika lift its head up and scamper forward behind another rock.  The shape of its ears caught my attention.  They were such a perfect shape.  After writing for a bit longer, a movement next to me made me turn.  Of course I focused on the movement too slowly to see what caused it, but there was a cheerful yellow bird sitting in the tree that the woodpecker had once occupied.  The movement next to me again had me focus on it, and this time I watched a small mouse scurry under the rock I was sitting on.  I was beginning to feel like I was having a “snow white” kind of day.  

My walk back to the trail head and consequentially my car and the modern world cemented in my feeling of the Evening.  The natural world was telling me that everything was and is ok. I took my time on this walk back.  After a beautiful view overlooking a waterfall, I entered a forested section of trail. Of course there were either small squirrels or chipmunks playing on almost every log.  At this point in my hike I had started singing out loud and more than likely off key.  If nothing else, I have learned in my time in Yellowstone that when hiking alone in bear country, it is rather good to make some noise even if it is off key.  A bit deeper into this forested section of trail, a rabbit jumped out across the trail in front of me.  This was not the type of bunny that we have back in Pennsylvania.  It wasn’t the fat lazy type that spends all of its time eating.  This was a large, lean, powerful creature with a darker body and white feet that powerfully propelled itself across the trail to safety.  It was beautiful treat to see it move with it bunched power.  Still while singing rather loudly I walked up on a mule deer next to the trail.  The two of us stopped and looked at each other for a bit.  The pretty lady stood there pondering why I was there that time of the evening for a bit before deciding to move a little bit further off.  There she stood, seemingly not the least bit concerned about me and my singing. 

I reached the trail head soon after seeing the deer.  I drove back home and back to a beautiful pink and orange sunset over my favorite mountain.  Bad feeling, sadness, and fear from the day receded.  Nature had given me a hug the best way it knows how.  My soul remembered what is important to it, nature, beauty, life, friends.  Even when things are bad, there is potential for happiness if I know where and how to look.  Here I may have to look under a large white limestone rock.  In Pennsylvania I may have to look to the bottom of a shallow pool in a swamp.  Nature and escape from the modern world are the reasons that I love the backcountry so deeply.  Those are the reasons that I love to share the backcountry with others. 

It is all starting to come together

 Working with the two year olds, we have been working quite a bit with turning the hip to open up the front end to then turn through the shoulder like a cutting horse or a reining horse.  This maneuver was baffling for me at first because I haven’t done anything like it.  To get the hip to move out from under the horse, you have to bring the rein back to your leg to bring their head around, turned into your leg and on the same side as your rein, you ask them to move their hip by applying leg in leg position three or what I always thought of as behind the girth (assuming that the leg position options are in front of the girth, on the girth, and behind the girth).  Then, when the colt moves his hip out from under him, then that same rein opens out, away from his body to ask him to bring his shoulder to that rein while the opposite leg helps by asking the shoulder to move with pressure in leg position one (in front of the girth). 

As I said, I thought this was completely foreign to me and I was having a lot of trouble with it, but as I was sitting here this evening thinking about riding, it started to come together for me.  I remember a distinct riding lesson I had a number of years ago.  In this lesson I learned how to turn an English trained horse completely off of an indirect rein.  Typically, to get a horse to turn to the left, I would ask for a bend with my left rein, support with my right rein, support the horse with my left leg on the girth, and ask for a bit of a bend by putting my right leg behind the girth.  To turn off the indirect rein, I would close my right rein to block that direction, open my left rein away from the horse’s neck, and apply right leg to ask the horse to move off of it.  This would in theory get my horse to move to the left through his shoulder. 

I suppose softness is the same thing.  When I ask for anything with the filly I just started, Mocha, I ask her start doing something, and I drop her.  As long as she continues to do what I initially asked her to do, I will not mess with her.  If I ask her to lope in a circle in a set spot to the left… then as soon as I cue her to lope and she responds, then I give her a loose rein and I take my lower leg off of her.  At least in theory I take my leg off of her… I am still getting accustom to releasing like this.  She is rather barn and buddy sour and doesn’t completely understand this concept yet, so if the goes off of the circle, then I use my rein to direct her back into the circle.  If she slows from the lope, then I use my leg to direct her back into the lope.  I understand what this method works.  When the horse is doing what you want them to, then you reward them by releasing them.  I assume this method also builds a self driven horse.  If the horse learns that by going at the speed you want, they will not be messed with by your leg, then the horse stays alert to that leg and is happy to move forward because it is easy and they won’t be bothered once they are going. 

Riding hunter jumper, this concept at first seemed foreign to me because in that discipline we typically would not throw away our reins or completely release our horses, but instead we soften with them.  If I want to canter my horse in a circle, then I use my inside rein and legs to set up the bend and I use my outside rein to half halt and control speed.  Of course this would be steering with the leg and following with the rein.  If my horse is going well in the circle, then my reins and legs are soft.  I am still there with both to support my horse but again, I am leaving my horse alone… it is just a different type of release.  It is softness rather than completely disappearing. 

This is all coming together for me today because after I worked three projects owned by the bosses (who I will talk about in a moment), the arena owner let me ride her dressage horse, Diamond.  It was great to be back in an English saddle and be on a horse that is English trained, and it really helped me put everything I have been learning over the past weeks/months/years into perspective.  This mare was soft and knew a heck of a lot.  It also help remind me that though I have a ton to learn in any discipline, that English is the discipline that I know best and to give myself some slack when it comes to learning.  I can’t be perfect.  I can’t be close.  I just need to have the desire to learn.  I have been quite frustrated with myself lately and I think remembering this will really help me. 

Each horse that I ride teaches me something.  I started today by working Scotch.  I would imagine that that horse’s name is becoming rather familiar.  He is ridiculously familiar to me and I really like him.  I started by doing groundwork with my friendly raincoats with him.  I sacked him out on the ground with it, and then I put it on.  One thing we have been doing with him is running at him unannounced like we are going to mount.  This is important for a horse with his job because out in the backcountry there are times that we need to be on a horse chasing down bison and the horse has to stand steady for us to jump right on him and take off.  We don’t always have time to walk calmly up to the horse to get on.  I did this same exercise today, but with a raincoat on with the hood up.  I have seen this horse tense up on the trail when a guest in a raincoat tries to calmly walk up to him then explode when they get on, so I think this exercise will really help him in the long run.  Today he did really well with it and I think he actually relaxed by the end.  After cantering and trotting him for a bit to relax him and get him focused, I got off and then put on the raincoat, mounted, and worked him at all three gaits with the coat flapping and making all kinds of sounds.  He was quite a bit more relaxed than he was over the past week or so.  He is really coming around. 

Next I worked Blackie, a newly acquired perch cross who just doesn’t really know much.  He is going to be a guest horse at some point, so I started today by sacking him out with the raincoat.  He didn’t even flick an ear at it.  He has the bad habit of walking off when you mount, so I asked him to flex his head to the side to start when I got on.  I mounted and dismounted a number of times and he didn’t walk off any of the times.  Next I just worked him a bit with some trotting and cantering work.  I just did quite a bit with steering and consistency at each gait.  Apparently this horse has done quite a bit more driving than riding, so not surprisingly he is much better at a trot than canter, but he is willing.  I think he just needs worked. 

I worked Mocha last.  She is the two year old filly that Kerry and Carrie helped me start and are helping me train.  She has a bit of trouble getting stuck in certain places, such as near other horses or near the gate… so today we just worked on consistency of gaits and staying headed in the direction I want her to go in.  We worked on trotting and loping in a circle at a consistent pace, then we worked on trotting through a pattern (I just did figure eights through the diagonals).   I can’t complain at all about how she is coming along.  She is a bit grumpier and more of a mare than the other filly that was started, but overall she is doing great for her seventh ride.