Winter is terrible and beautiful. I love the quiet, and the landscapes of snow and ice formations are stunning to look at… for a time, however when this frozen landscape drags on for “too” long it becomes the winter of my discontent!
This year our endurance activities are coming back into focus alongside the community that has been forming around horsemanship clinics and whole horse approach to having powerful partners in whatever we do. After a long winding journey to get through a single-day 100 mile ride, I took some time off and this winter finally, after a little space, have gone back to revisit the long-running blog greento100 from the beginning.
The upside is being able to recognize growth. Growth in my writing (the early blogs were hard even for me to slog through), growth in my approach to both the horses and the people around me, growth in my understanding of how to help a horse develop and prepare for a goal… the downside is looking back to the 10-year-ago me and seeing the view before the growth! I’m exhausted from spending so much time with her lately… she was hard to be around. I’m grateful for the ones who saw the potential of who I could be, and gave me the space to develop, and stuck with me through the process.
This year, as the future path comes into focus, I’m both excited and much more relaxed about the journey. I saw my desperation as an early endurance rider to find the commonly accepted riding calendars and mileage and speed goals to preparing a horse and the constant pressure I felt to do my part. I feel much less pressure now- even after almost a year between my last competition event and our first one to come, with much less riding in between. I am picking up in the most challenging time to add fitness in the mountains: Winter. To add a layer, it’s a particularly tough winter due to lingering snow that has meant a lot of ice and really hard snow crust that can irritate a horse’s lower legs if too much time is spent crunching through it. The risk versus reward equation looks different to me now than it did ten years ago.
This year I look outside when the temps are below zero and the ice layer is thickening and I add a log to the fire, go back over more old blog posts in order to understand where I’ve been, and figure we will get out there, when it’s time. I’m far less worried about miles and miles per hour today. I have learned that over training is a thing, and as I review my endurance beginnings, I see it’s a thing I once did too well!
Still, not getting any exercise is an equally poor plan, so I take a day here and there when the weather cooperates enough to make the risks less adverse and we either go for an in-hand hike up the hollow or if it’s favorable enough saddle up to get into the woods from home. I am very fortunate to have options right from my doorstep and am grateful for them because my trailer is snowed in for going on three weeks now.
While there is less happening externally, I’m focused on some internal things. I am looking for a framework over which to tell the Green to 100 story- if there is one – in a way that entertains and enlightens. It has also timely for me as I begin a new adventure to visit how the old one began, and remember the things I would not do again. I am living proof that Ronnie Moyer is right when he says: Change IS possible!
I am pretty excited about the year to come. The community around PowerfulHorse is organically beginning to form and I truly enjoy the family that is coming together around this approach to horse life. We will be sharing time this year around some horsemanship clinics as usual, but I am working on some fun bonus days to meet with other professionals such as Stephanie from Indigo Ancestral Health, Deb from Optimal Posture, Dr. Hancock (Osteopathy) from True North Equine, and USDF Dressage Bronze Medalist Mattalyn Rogers who has shifted from a very successful dressage career to exploring how to do better for the horse combining her dressage experience with the horsemanship experience that aligns with our approach based on more thought and freedom and less force and pressure.
So as January turns (a bit too) slowly toward a close, I greet you dear reader with a warm spirit, for those who have journeyed long and far with me- a thank you for your grace and patience. For those who are newer- an energetic welcome and my own expectation that this connection should require slightly less grace and patience than some of the long timers. I am also excited that our local newspaper has invited me to share our current journey to the Vermont 100 with the local community in a print series, so I’ll be doing a bit more writing than usual!
And so I am spending more time by the wood stove, with my new favorite camping blanket and my laptop, but also ramping up my gym time because I have lost fitness in the last year that I spent falling in love, getting married, and dealing with some personal health challenges along the way. It was a good year for rest and celebration! Now we have work to do and the gym seems a good place to start while the world around me is iced over.
Meanwhile I look for the few days above freezing and where the terrain is less crusty or slick or deep and get a little riding in. I’ve been posting some videos of us out in the wild on our YouTube channel so you can check those out if you’re also frozen in the house this January!
Stay tuned, and invite some friends to the party! I love the family that is coming together – everyone on their own adventure – finding a place to share the stories and learn from each other. Currently we are an in-person ragtag bunch that come together around horses, clinics and good food, but I foresee an online group will be hatched as well to help us stay connected during the “in between” times, and include some who cannot get to in person events. I will keep events updated on the PowerfulHorse.com site and we invite new friends to come, even without a horse, to enjoy the camaraderie and discussions of ideas and approaches.
Now… to get off the couch and get outside, it’s one of those above freezing days, and I have to get to work later!
I love my horse, but I’ve been asking the question recently: Does my horse love me? Followed by the related questions of do horses love anywhere near the way humans think of love? Does it matter? Can we be friends? What DO I want from my horse and what can I give her? What is best for her needs as a creature in my care?
I came across an article by Australian horseman Ross Jacobs (Why Can’t I be my Horse’s Best Friend?) where he considered if we are looking for horses to fill an unreasonable expectation of relationship, or if we expect to fill an unreasonable relational position in their world.
Today, horses rarely exist as a necessity for our daily lives. Few of us rely on them for life and livelihood. Most of us keep horses by choice for enjoyment. We might participate in an equine sport, trail ride for pleasure, or even use our horses in some chore or farm job, but rarely do we in the developed west depend on them for primary travel or farm work. Most people I know who have horses care for them as a large outdoor pet. Most people I know love their horses. Regardless of the actual statistics, I don’t think I’m alone in saying I love my horses and admitting the desire for my horses to be my friend.
With an animal so different from a human, is this possible to the extent I wish it? How would I measure this friendship? Is it a reasonable wish?
I am also a dog person. Dogs already have the nickname of “man’s best friend” and there must be a reason we gave that title to the dog and not the horse. One thing we share with the canine is the predator nature. We both work for food, and have the instinct to survive by overcoming and climbing as close to the top of the food chain as possible. Horses are not like us, in fact they are naturally a direct opposite of us in how they perceive and process their environment and how they go about their day.
My dog Samwise really is my little buddy. He regularly chooses to be close to me, he is always excited when I come home. When I sit in the mornings to read and write with my coffee, he always comes and sits as close as possible, if he isn’t touching me he isn’t close enough. If he engages in a behavior that disconnects our relationship he is quick to repent and is always seeking to reestablish connection. These are evidence for my case that Sam is a kind of animal friend to me.
Samwise and Peggy Sue cuddled up by the warm fire… friends!
When I look at horses, they don’t generally want to touch each other, at least not unless there is a reason- usually being the need to correct a horse for inappropriate behavior. Occasionally there are mutual grooming sessions, but this seems more like meeting a need than the dog attribute of laying close together in a puppy snuggle pile.
I am certain horses are capable of thought and emotion. I don’t know how complex these systems get. I believe horses don’t lie, and they don’t plot and scheme together for future barn take overs. I don’t believe they think over how to complicate life for us on the next trail ride. They learn by experience what works out for them and what does not. They are fabulous at observing and learning patterns and can be incredibly smart when it comes to connecting and even chaining together patterns. I believe as prey animals, they are wired to flee problems, discomfort and imbalances in their environment in order to survive another day. I also think horses have preferences and distinct personalities.
What would it look like for a horse to love a person? I remember Iva talking about her experiences at various local schooling barns as a young teen. She has a quiet spirit and has always been keenly observant. She told me that she would look around at the horses and the horse girls and see them cooing about how much their horse loves them and to her eye it seemed clear to her that the horse was rather uncomfortable or unhappy in their time together. Horses are subtle creatures. Would a twelve year old girl who wanted to believe her horse loved her and was her friend be able to tell if this were actually true? Do we still do this as horse girls grown up? Do we really want to know?
This essay by Ross Jacobs grabbed my attention because I had been thinking about my own connection to Khaleesi and how it has developed over time. I started her from an unhandled four year old without much human baggage, but she has still had about four different owners in her fifteen years, all of them being me. She was my first horse to start as a filly and the process of growing up with her certainly impacted me, and I’ve experimented with a few different horsemanship avenues along the years that have impacted how she felt about spending time with me.
In my earliest years with owning horses as an adult, I remember considering my first horse (Faygo) my friend, therapist, confident, and adventure buddy. Today I see that was an immature starting point of understanding these majestic creatures and how we might relate in a way that is good for both them as us.
Now I cringe at the memes that claim horses are therapists. In fairness I know it is therapeutic to be in nature and it has helped me grow as a human being to understand my horse and how we relate on a more simplified relational level and truth about myself has been revealed in the process. So if you would champion those truths as a reason to call horses “therapy” then I stand with you. However I can’t get behind the practice of subjecting my horse to carrying my emotional baggage for the long term, and fix heart issues I don’t want to put the work in to resolve. I attempt to bring my honest, best self to work with my horse as I want to see her honest best as well. In nature, horses do not want other horses in their herds who have emotional instability, and I think it’s quite rare in nature. Emotional instability is inherently dangerous to survival. I think most emotional instability in horses we see comes from experiences with humans.
As I ponder the behavior of my main working horse, Khaleesi, I have been on a journey to increasing her freedom and choice within the confines of the fact that we always have limitations within our freedom, and every choice comes with consequences. Still, I have been letting go of trained pattern auto-pilot behaviors (push-buttons) in favor of as conversational real-time communication as I can get between two such different creatures and she and me. What is the impact of this between us? I will admit I do not think that horses (or dogs for that matter) have the kind of love that humans are able to engage in, however I want my animals to want to spend time with me. I am not sure if I would call this friendship today with my horse, but I certainly want a solid positive connection.
What does this look like? Maybe take a moment and ponder this yourself and consider your own answer?
Would it look like her coming right over to me in the pasture when I arrive? Seeking to be close to me when I’m in her space? Putting her head in the halter ready to go do something together? As I look at my short list, I see they are all physical signs.
What is the reality of our experience? It varies. If I don’t have a halter she is often curious because usually I have some form of food. She comes right to me when I’m carrying hay or a warm meal. Is this friendship and connection? Possibly! But it’s not about me, it’s friendship and connection with hay and feed!
When I do have a halter, sometimes she stands in place while I approach her and when she is ready she always dips her head at least slightly into the noseband. But some days she runs around like a maniac and kicks out her hind legs with clear messages of: NO! I’m not going with you right now. If I am not clearly carrying food, she almost never approaches me looking to go into the halter and see what I had in mind. I think there are times in years gone by this horse was more reliable and easier to catch in the field. That was when I had more training and conditioned responses built in. Is this good or bad? What is behind these behaviors?
I do know horses like patterns. When I had the approach of more natural horsemanship, direct pressure driving, and there’s right answer- let me increase the pressure until you give it to me, I think she was slightly more likely to be caught sooner. Maybe horses appreciate the confidence of a right answer and a conditioned response they don’t have to engage in thinking. Humans are not much different in that respect. Apparently most of us spend a vastly higher percentage of formulative conversations than generative ones. We prefer the how are you? I’m fine thanks for asking… exchanges. We get uncomfortable if someone takes what is supposed to be a formulative and quick exchange and turn it into a generative conversation that is less predictable. And yet there is almost no true connection in a formulative conversation. Connection is more time consuming and risky. I find myself drawn to generative conversations and a generative life. Maybe some horses find the formula, rules and auto-pilot way of life a bit simpler. Maybe my horse, on some days, would rather stand at peace in the sun than have to work out together how to get something done. Is that so wrong?
Maybe even that assessment is too complex. When we set up patterned behavior and horses learn that compliance is the best path, they seem to be agreeable. They don’t have much freedom of thought or choice when we enter the picture. If we have a halter, they answer is go with the person and do the things. Conditioned response learned from patterns in experience. I do think horses some horses who are trained to respond in a way an owner prefers is seen as the horse being willing or being a buddy/friend. It may or may not be true if the horse has learned this is the response that means less trauma. They can respond with the “right” answer and still not feel very good about it and still have their mind over with their buddies in the sunshine. I’ve found the horses are actually pretty good at pretending to be present where the body is, going on autopilot, but actually having their mind somewhere else. This works out ok, until it doesn’t! Easy, simple, and routine doesn’t mean bad or good. In any relationship, lack of conflict does not equal strong connection. Of course regular conflict does not equate a good or strong connection either.
On the other hand, the horse who does always approach me in the field regardless if I have food, a halter, or a rake to clean the run in, is Wyoming. For many years I could assure you this horse was NOT my friend and we did not have a good connection. I would guess she approached me because I was an invader of their space and their current life situation and she had the curiosity to find out why and possibly intervene if she could. This horse taught me that the act of approaching in the field was not an indicator that the horse wanted to be my friend. We have come a long way, she and me, toward a more positive relationship, but it’s in her nature to come greet me whenever I enter the field, where its’s still Khaleesi’s quieter nature to watch me from a distance and conserve her energy as she stands in the sun or munches on hay.
Some horses simply seem to have different personalities and different ways of reacting. I’ve known some people who are constantly looking for a different horse, sometimes they finally seem to find one that suits them. I think they have in mind what a “good horse” is like, and the horse that fits that mold in how they approach the world is the type of horse that will work for them.
What about the days when Khaleesi stands quietly as I come in with a halter and then when I approach her, hold out my hand and she touches with her nose briefly, and then waits while I step over to her neck and offers the halter- she lowers her nose and then walks with me when I lead her out? She doesn’t approach me, but is the fact that she is calm and relaxed enough to wait for me to come to her a sign that we are, if not actually friends, at least on good terms? My presence did not disturb her relaxation in peace. So far in her life I have observed she is a naturally aloof mare, maybe this response aligns with her honest nature. Maybe it’s similar to the truth that there are people who naturally greet and hug everyone and people who tend to stay in place until the new arrival makes their way over to them and then has a pleasant conversation without feeling the need to physically touch with a hug? Is one bad and one good? Or is one simply preferable to certain people and less inviting to others?
What about the days when K is downright difficult to catch and tries to evade me at least for a time? Do we have a bad connection? Or do we have a strong one? Does she know she has the freedom to express her thought about leaving the pasture? As a lead mare, she usually has reasons on these days that might have nothing to do with me. She may sense a dangerous presence nearby and doesn’t want to leave Wyoming alone. She may sense something in the environment and would prefer the safety of her yard to going for an adventure where the danger lurks. The fact that she is communicating clearly she does not want to be caught and haltered may not mean she doesn’t like me today. However I think if she ran every time I came to find her, that would seem an indication of how she feels about me, or the work she is going to be asked to do.
I don’t have confident answers to these questions. I am also not sure if they have any relevance. Is it ok that the twelve year old girl thinks her horse loves her when someone with a little more experience can see the signs that the horse is incredibly uncomfortable? I’ve known people who always carry some kind of treat for their horse when they go out in the pasture, and they will tell you their horse loves them. I’m both a little jealous because who doesn’t love their horses always coming to greet them, but I know too much to allow myself to think the horse loves me in that case, so it wouldn’t work for me anyway. From an outside perspective however, when the horse comes running to them it sure looks more convincing than my horse jogging away with two hind feet kicked up in my direction.
It might be fun and make us feel good to convince ourselves that horses feel the warm and fuzzies about us, but then what? What happens when something tests the connection? Will it survive? Does that matter?
Yes. This I do know. Our connection to the horse will be tested someday when their brain or instinct wants to do something very different from what we need them to do where our safety could be on the line. If we don’t have a strong, healthy, real, connection we can lean into, it’s likely the horse will not be able to stay engaged when things go sideways, we can end up on the ground, in the hospital or if we’re lucky just a good scare. I think a fair amount of equestrian injuries come from deep misunderstanding of what is going on between the person and the horse. In fairness, even with a good connection things can go wrong quickly leaving us injured, but there are times that connection can save our lives because we need the horse to set aside it’s instinct to stay with us and think through what we are asking. If the connection is true, it makes a big difference when the turkeys (or grouse) leave the road. If we aren’t honest about what’s really going on between us we may not know the kind of thin ice we’re actually walking- especially if we are lucky enough to not fall through the cracks very often.
Just like between people, this kind of connection and relationship has to be built through experience over time.
Ross asserts that one challenge we face in really becoming a friend to our horses, is that they do not see their days as meant for flying lead changes, trail riding for hours, having their hooves trimmed, or whatever else we want to do with them… He observes being a horse is about grazing, drinking, snoozing in the sun, chasing away a pesky new herd mate, and etc. One problem is we are generally an interruption in their day, not a true part of their lives. They might be willing to engage in our desired activity, but take care not to automatically equate obedience with willingness.
Ross asserts that it is not bad to want to be your horse’s friend, or hope your horse wants to spend time with you. I agree for sure. I suppose I wonder how much a predatory human on two legs can provide in terms of what we look at as a true companion to a horse. He found the times he went long-trekking for hundreds of miles were the closest he came to possibly becoming enough a part of his horse’s life experience that they had a bond that became almost a friendship. He was not an interruption anymore, they were doing life together 24/7 as they moved across the landscape each day. I suppose folks who actively work their horses in real life jobs have a tighter bond than I am likely to even have with my horses, even as an endurance rider who occasionally spends entire weekends together.
Yet this is also ok. Is it possible I might go too far in what my expectations are for a willing partner to be also a best friend (when I have time for that friendship)? Does a horse have to love me in order to be a great partner?
Maybe these answers are as unique as there are people with horses. For me, I am beginning to question if we have to be friends the way humans think of friendship. Some people might feel the need for their horse to come running every time they enter the scene or their feelings are hurt. For me, right now, I think it’s more honest that my horse doesn’t have the same response every day, and I do want her to be have integrity of thought and feeling more than a compliance mindset. There are probably people not ready to have generative conversations with their horses, and compliance and obedience is going to be the best they have in this season. When you begin to allow your horse a real voice in the conversation, like with any relationship that enters a deeper level, we may hear things we don’t really want to hear. Ignorance can be bless! Sometimes when my friend Tom Moates helps a horse come out of a shut down and compliant place the people don’t really like what had been safely buried down in there. They’d prefer the shut down, dulled out, compliant horse, in many ways that’s easier than having real conversations and figuring out that the horse needs more than we have the tools to provide yet.
One thing I am sure of, I want my horse, even if she sees me as an interruption in her day, to not find our time together painful, confusing, or anxiety creating. I do want to know what my horse thinks and feels, and I want to be able to have influence over those thoughts and feelings. I want the work I do with my horse to leave her in a better place physically, mentally and emotionally better than she was before. I fail at this from time to time, but I believe it is possible. I want our connection to be based as much as possible in truth and reality. May I honor my horse for the wonderful creature she is and not who I want to think she is, as I know I have done in years past. My understanding of this over time may shift with new experiences, but may I always be curious and open minded to see what is actually in front of me and not a projection of what I wish were so.
If you don’t have something working really well in ideal conditions, you don’t have much hope of them working out in adverse conditions…
I’ve heard Harry Whitney remind people of this as a fundamental answer to various questions they ask about trouble spots with their horses. It pairs well with another quote, which was my own take home from two days in June watching him at Mendin Fences (TN):
In my experience, most people don’t know what it looks and feels like to have a horse truly mentally centered and present with you, and so most people don’t really get there, and this is a reason many people can’t seem to get a real change come through. The horse was never really centered up and present.
It’s been a priority to address Wyoming’s mental centeredness since I’d met Tom Moates early last year. Tom has been learning from Harry for years, and attention to the horse’s mind is a central focus for him as well. This doesn’t mean I’ve been successful it. We’ve made some significant strides in helping her become more relaxed, less angry, and significantly more cooperative than the other approaches I’ve tried over years. Yet I sensed a trouble in her that I had not gotten to the other side of, even as of this summer and the clinic we hosted in July.
Harry Whitney, Wyoming & Jaime in Floyd VA, August 2024
In mid-August, during Harry’s five-day clinic in Floyd (hosted by Tom), the question came to each participant: what is it you most hope to address this week with your horse?
I had one request: show me what it looks like to get Wyoming mentally centered and present.
Harry was willing to guide us through this, and on day one, our lesson hour was spent, from the field to the work space, on learning what she looks like when she is fully present and how to require that she make that a way of life for now.
Additionally, my job was to make the times she was present and relaxed as sweet as possible. This is the place that feels good. At first, any time I asked for her attention, she would start throwing out options I might ask her for, like walking a circle. It was as if she had a hard time believing I could ask for her to be relaxed, ready, and present and then just breathe a moment and find peace in that space. Probably I don’t find as much peace with these creatures as I could, and a change here will serve us both. This was all we did.
Harry & Wyoming finding a sweet spot with her mind present.
At the end of our session that day, Harry suggested I take her all the way back to her paddock walking backward and not taking a step she wasn’t “with me.” It took a lot for me to stay that present and focused.
It took a lot of focus on day one to walk backward to the gate connected at every step to release Wyoming from class. But I was committed to the process. Harry helped me to be able to see when she was present, and bring her back when she wasn’t. The entire week I did not take a step without expecting she would come back to being mentally centered. This is not to be confused with being “hyper focused” on the human at every second for fear of punishment. There are training methods where a horse is ambushed or punished for looking around. Though I use a flag for some of this work, it is built around creating an indirect distraction or sound or movement that draws the attention back to me. The key difference is intention: the actions is not at her – not a threat toward her. I need to become more important or interesting than the other distractions. Working with Harry, we don’t use fear or force as a motivating factor. Doing this takes a shift in thinking.
Once this becomes a way of life, the horse can look around and notice the environment because they have learned to quickly make note, let it go, and return to the place of peace which is back mentally centered with the human in the work. It is part of learning to let go of a thought that doesn’t serve the horse.
Wyoming is a highly sensitive horse that has her attention split, keeping everything around her in check in order to survive each day. When she is distracted keeping tabs on everything within five miles, she can throw out autopilot training moves, but she cannot stay present in the active conversation I want to have with her. I don’t want push button autopilot. This has not served us at all. I want actual communication, in real time, addressing the present moment we are in. In order to do this she has to let go of the other things and stay with me. As Harry helped us make this a reality, secondary issues began to dissolve on their own.
During the week we addressed some different challenges I had been working on. We loaded her onto a trailer that was darker and had a step up entrance (instead of a ramp).
Borrowing a strange trailer
I worked on “knot work”- addressing the claustrophobia from early halter trauma that’s been present in some form the entire time I’ve had her. The day we explored knot work, I expected to see at least some extreme reaction to the halter, but it simply never came.
Knot work
I rode her in the round pen; I’d had trouble in the past getting a forward thought to walk on without driving her. We came up against a little drama here, but worked through it in short order, and had a nice shift in riding as well.
Finally I felt a shift that seemed a significant change and I’ve continued this work at home. If this mare is not mentally present or centered up things do not go well. She gets annoyed at having her thoughts interrupted when she’s concerned about other things. Sometimes she still gets dramatic when she shares her feelings about her own ideas being interrupted or blocked. When she is mentally centered she is like the wonder horse I’ve always wanted. She is soft, adjustable, responsive, and willing.
I’ve been riding her at home in my round pen, enjoying great sessions where we are building like one would a green colt, forward, steering, stopping and backing.
I am trying to start this journey in as ideal conditions as possible. I continued to prioritize mental connection. I can put on the halter without fuss, load her on the trailer, and ride her in the pen. Each day more positive experiences and progress. Last week, Matt and I took her on a solo adventure, loading her on the trailer for a short drive to our local recreation area. We unloaded her, took a walk, then loaded her and returned home. It was a great success.
Matt, Wyoming & Jaime have a successful adventure
My next plan was to bring her to visit my farrier for Khaleesi’s shoe visit on Friday. I want to keep building on experience a real horse can have and farrier visit seemed a great next step to me. I trim Wyoming’s feet myself, and if we were able to get some trim work done or not was not important. Simply the experience of going on the trip successfully was the goal. Keep it simple.
What I did not account for was hurricane Helene.
Adverse conditions.
First, Hurricane Helene turned tropical storm was making her way through the South and though we never had the destructive storms, we had almost 2” of rain and gusty winds. All this boils down to prey animals on high alert. The mares were spring loaded by the time to get going came.
Second, the weather was crummy enough that though I was minimally willing to do what seemed necessary to have this adventure, I was less willing to go out early enough to assess her mental state, and intervene to find a working mindset before even considering loading. I gravely underestimated the effect of these adverse conditions. I might normally have planned a few minutes to shape this up… What I really needed in these conditions (in hindsight) was an hour of focus… and still, it might not have brought success.
Third, we had a soft deadline. I highly value my farrier and drive an hour over the mountain to haul to him. He was at home, and happened to be flexible. Still, night would fall at some point, and though I had a time window, it wasn’t endless. Time restrictions always feel like pressure. Pressure brings fear of failure which often makes for poor decisions.
To make a painfully long story shorter, Matt and I did the things that were successful in the past for about an hour. Over that time I watched the stubborn mare I used to know show up stronger to the forefront and dig in her heels. The more we insisted she join us with the trailer plan the more she resisted.
I made a pretty good mess of it as I became desperate to get it done. Matt was a phenomenal help, and he never got frustrated though things were not going well. When our best efforts and closest moments dissolved into escapes off the ramp in panic, I saw I was doing more harm than good and creating problems I was going to have to fix. I knew the frustration I kept at bay was getting closer to the surface, and I knew that would only make things even worse.
I made one good decision to set aside my own stubbornness. I made the call to abort the mission, put her back in the lot, and take the horse who needed shoes before we had to abandon altogether. Wyoming did not have to make this trip.
It was hard not to consider this admitting defeat and total failure. Because that’s exactly what it felt like, and I am not one to admit defeat easily. I told myself years ago I would NOT allow work with my horses to become a win-lose scenario. I am not in this to make my horses into losers. How I want to function is a growth model, and it’s a long journey. I was recently reminded by Adam Grant in his book Hidden Potential:
though straight line growth feels faster in the short term, it’s been proven many times that growth curves and loops are the only way to get farther over the long term.
For a straight line thinker I have to remind myself of this intentionally, often.
The mare was not with me, and we were way too deep in adverse conditions to swim out- especially considering it wasn’t necessary. Hopefully this was a loop in the long term trajectory that would carry us farther than my preferred straight lines of success ever would.
My biggest miscalculation was to think I could get her out of the field after a half day of being jacked up by her environment, and then load her as if we had already mastered this because we had a few successful trips in ideal conditions. If I would have stopped to ask myself if she was mentally centered up sooner it would have been obvious that she was not. For some reason I thought I could overcome this deficiency by sheer willpower. Strangely enough eight years of trying to overcome her inattentive mind to get her to do anything never worked. Why I thought I could revert to my old ways and get a different outcome is… mostly embarrassing.
After over thirty minutes of this idiocy, I saw it clearly. I realized she was minimally mentally present and that was my biggest problem. She wasn’t running me over or creating a danger and so I accepted it as good enough- but she was still highly distracted. After starting the process and getting very poor results I took her away from the rig to address her mental connection.
This was the most challenge I’ve ever had getting big enough for her to let go of every outside distraction a stormy day could bring. She would look at me and immediately avert her eyes, head, neck or even her body, to a sound or rustle or leaf in the air. To her this was survival and self-preservation. I couldn’t keep her mind for more than two seconds at a time. I worked very hard to get very big and very loud and very active and I could get maybe five seconds. If so I would take a few steps do it again and get a few seconds and take a few steps. In this mode I got her all the way onto the trailer, but as soon as matt touched the butt bar she would explode off because even though I could get her body on, her mind had not settled there.
It was a lost cause. I might have stopped after I realized she was not capable of staying present, and I should have realized that within five-ten minutes. I could have asked that question sooner and I might have realized that I was into depths we could not swim successfully. Possibly if I’d have addressed the mental state better in the first few minutes I might have had a chance. I don’t know.
As always there are the growth opportunities. I get to experience once again as a reminder what many people I care about are also experiencing when they get some momentum with their horses and then skip over – sometimes purposely and sometimes without realizing it- to the deep end and get into a bad situation. Not only is it humbling for me to hit a place I cannot overcome in one fell swoop, it’s good for me to have to experience what people around me are going through. I am willing to go through challenges in order to learn things that might be able to help others. And so as James tells us in his letter: Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds! For you know the testing produces steadfastness, and let this have its full effect that you may be complete, lacking in nothing!
Also, it reveals to me me the dark, stubborn, frustrated part of me I hope to identify and eradicate. If I could have done so, I would have picked up that horse, hog tied her into that stall, and forced her on the journey. At some point I lost most of my compassion for her and the real sense of threat and pressure she felt.
Working in ideal conditions
In ideal conditions I have grown so much! I have tons of patience and empathy for what the horse thinks and feels. I can say I am here to help you and mean it. When the conditions squeeze me, what comes out? Eventually frustration and the desire to beat her with my flag until she complied by force, broken mind and broken will. I did not go there, but it was because I know that doesn’t work- not because of my stunning maturity and grace. It’s good to be reminded of the garbage that remains in the darkest corners that still need cleaning out. Lord help me, and thank you for exposing it without me acting on it.
Something encouraging I considered in my personal debrief: this mare has a history of going to fight mode unusually quickly. She has threatened violence when she feels treated unfairly, with punishment or force. Friday, her stubborn will engaged, refusing to be loaded on the trailer, however, she never threatened with dragon ears, rearing, or nipping. She refused, but she didn’t fight.
In the end, the conditions didn’t seem adverse enough to me to create this trial. I was wrong. Also, I had thought that our ideal conditions work was going well and it was. But I’ve learned from Harry that me, and many of us who are pursuing excellence and a higher working connection, are not aware enough yet of the subtleties in the ideal conditions that his eye would be. I can hear him say: you’d better get that working better because it won’t hold when things get adverse. The same as he has observed: most people don’t know what it looks and feels like for a horse to be fully present and truly mentally centered.
Practicing going forward and back through the gate keeping her present each step.
It seems many of us have to feel in mortal danger before we dig into what seems good enough. Apparently, for each person, there is a different threshold for working good enough. All foundations have a certain amount of weakness. Will it result in a tragic wreck or only sub-standard performance? It probably will depend in part on what kind of conditions you face. For Khaleesi, these adverse conditions were not a huge deal, for Wyoming they were a deal breaker. I want to be someone who digs deeper even when things are not downright scary and grow even when things seem good enough.
Harry… the ‘Coast Guard’ Whitney
I still having a long way to go. This means more time in the ideal to expose foundational cracks and more gradual steps into incremental adversity so the cracks are patched up before being totally overwhelmed beyond hope without a rescue effort from the coast guard. Someday I hope to see morelike Harry. Because of his experience and attention to details, time for him is shorter in the shallow end, and he has more tools and experience in the deep end- I suppose in some ways Harry is the coast guard.
Today I am grateful that horses have memories and experiences, yet they also shift quickly with their experiences. I am pretty sure I caused problems I’ll have to fix, but if I show up fresh the next day, I believe she will as well, and if I bring my A game she will respond. Nothing is beyond repair, even though repairing damage I’ve caused isn’t a good way to proceed.
Epilogue.
The following day we had a break in the rain and I spent some time with Wyoming to assess the damage. She was more difficult to halter in the field, but once I had her on line she came with willing softness and keeping her attention centered was easier in the calm sunny afternoon. I struggled to load her as easily as previous, but Matt had been watching and asked if he could try. It took some communication and patience, but he was able to load her twice fully on where she felt relaxed and calm. We did not close the bar, but took the progress and moved on.
Matt and Wyoming regroup after the storm
Matt then kept her attention and held the rope while I attended to her feet which did need a trim. She did so well we also put on her saddle and did some work in the round pen. All of this went well and Matt took the lead (literally) on much of it. He has a grace and patience for that mare I sometimes struggle with, and she responds well to it.
Yes there are some setbacks, there was a price from the poor choices and miscalculations I made, but these things will pass, the growth will continue in loops and curves. As always… Hope continues.
My eyes began to water in the heat of the afternoon as I stood in the large dirt arena watching the scene unravel. I was glad it wasn’t likely anyone would notice. My back was to the onlookers, and Mark was working with the wild mare, too involved in what he was doing to notice. I’m not so concerned about tears in public anymore, though it’s not my favorite, but I was pretty sure anyone who did notice would misunderstand the reason for the emotions gripping me in the scene.
They didn’t come from watching my mare rear violently in reaction to even feather light pressure on the halter. Particularly when she became so reactive she fell on her side in the dirt which was quite dramatic. (She wasn’t hurt).
The emotion didn’t come from worry that Mark was being unreasonable in his approach, creating unnecesary fear and stress, and watching him work with her might upset me. I knew he did not create any of what I was observing, it had been inside her as long as I’ve known her.
What grieved me as I watched Wyoming flailing on that lead rope like a fish on a line was a snapshot I had somewhere in my heart of how many of us go through life or seasons of life like this. We are fighting and we can’t seem to stop fighting. We end up getting hurt, and hurting those around us while we flail and fight against what we perceive as life threatening pressure but what is intended to be a comfort. I saw myself at times. I saw people I love at times. I saw humanity. I saw my beautiful mare react in dramatic fashion as if her life was in danger, unable to let go of her past experience, trauma, and fear to trust the guidance. It touched me in an unexpected way in that moment.
Mark Langley working with Wyoming
Mark Langley, who was instructing the four-day clinic on the last stop of his USA tour, cares deeply for the horses and this thing in her that overreacts to any pressure is a torment she does not need to carry. He was hoping he could help her get through it to the other side of this trouble. There is a physical or mental memory (maybe a combination) in her that was seared into her on day one of her mustang make over competition training.
I was told the history when I picked up the wild mare in Tennessee: the trainer put the halter on Wyoming, the mare reacted in fear and came aggressively toward the trainer, the trainer (in her own words) overreacted, putting excess pressure on the halter, and sent the mare up in the air. Her first experience of education with a human ended in a rear up, back flip, and injury to her neck that took her out of the contest and put her on a trailer to Tennessee to have a slower longer training process through the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Trainer Incentive Program (TIP).
It’s likely with the trainer’s natural horsemanship approach: round pen, energy work and driving to create draw, the mare could be successful and avoid having the feel of restriction of the halter on her head. She became an amazing energy and body language reader. She became a punishment avoiding release hunter. When we picked her up as total strangers, just walking into the small arena, she would hook on to us or whomever it was, and follow closely. It didn’t occur to me that so much draw had been created in this mare that she felt the only good place to be was next to a human in order to avoid being sent out and driven.
Since I’ve had the mare, asking her to back up and out of your space brings pinned ears and stress. It’s a huge feat years later to ask her to comfortably stay just out of your bubble. If I do get her to step back three feet and stand she gets anxious and begins to try to offer a circle or creep back in. She has the expectation that the human is going to ask something of her and she throws out possible options anticipating what might come next. She has learned if she doesn’t comply quickly enough with a request, the enforcing punishment will come via escalating pressure: a lead rope to her hind end, a flag will touch her, the bump on the halter. She lives in the future of what might be coming, and how to avoid it. If she can’t avoid it she feels trapped, gets angry and fights back.
the potential for pull back is serious in a trailer
I stopped natural horsemanship style driving about 18 months ago when I watched Harry Whitney work horses in February of 2023. I think it’s begun to help change some of Wyoming’s experience and reactions, but the deep early formative work with her is still churning away at her core, and when it gets poked it comes out in big reactive displays.
The physical feel is only one thread of the knot which is inside this horse. Many horses comply to driving pressure (I have one who did), but Wyoming was one of the horses for whom the combination created a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde monster. She is either snappy quick, spot on with her reaction to a request or super angry and violent. Additionally in layer of wound up layers, she is a mare who has a hard time letting go of anxious thoughts.
Jaime working with Wyoming during the clinic
Not only is strong drive and draw set into her, but when she is very close to me she can keep track of me physically while keeping her mind out on the larger environment. Asking her to back off three feet also means the human become part of the larger environment and she has to give mental space to keeping track me as well as everything in the next three miles in every direction. She has yet to become truly mentally centered in the way she can let go of the “other things” she holds onto for her survival.
It’s stunning how she can be in this mental, physical, emotional place and still function to the level she does. If we could ever get to the other side of trouble there’s a phenomenal mare in there.
How do we get to the other side of trouble?
If I could answer this definitively I could have helped a lot more people and horses than I have to date. Yet somehow I’m still at this mystery even when I get discouraged. I wonder if I’ll ever know something definitely enough to be of value to a horse- or maybe even some of my fellow humans who are willing to take the mysterious journey into this wilderness of trying to understand how to help a horse feel better and be a more powerful willing partner.
I do believe it is possible and so I don’t give up even when there are setbacks and it gets hard. I do believe with a horse like Wyoming it is a matter of going through to the other side of the trouble and not letting the trouble make her world smaller and smaller until she is afraid of any pressure at all.
It’s likely that Wyoming’s early training taught her that pressure meant she needed to adjust in order to get the pressure to go away. Unfortunately, anytime someone takes a rein in hand it creates a pressure or imbalance that the horse has to respond to – if done well it should bring the horse comfort through guidance, but if they have been trained to avoid pressure and seek release we have lost the ability to guide them through the reins or the lead rope. Very few people work their horses in the real world without reins or a lead rope. Nor do I recommend it as the ideal. Yet this means anytime someone picks up a rein to communicate with their horse, instead of relaxing into a guiding hand, many horses respond with anxiety to seek immediate release of pressure/imbalance which creates brace and tension through the body which works against strength, balance and grace in forward movement.
Jaime & Mark with Wyoming & Khaleesi
I have a hope that Wyoming can get through this extreme fear of pressure that was created early in her training (and solidified for a time by me) so she can trust me to guide her. I want her to feel the rein or lead rope guide her into where she will find peace and safety in my leadership. I want her to correct the imbalance she notices and in doing so find she has choices, and the freedom to choose a path of lease resistance that is fairly available to her because I am able to offer that. But I also want her to be able to stay connected at the end of the rope in appropriate balance of pressure like I would hold my dad’s hand to cross the street as a child.
She has to stop fighting first. If she would stop fighting she could follow that feel and see it would not bring her danger or pain, but comfort and safety. I asked myself if this deep sadness that came over me momentarily was indicative that this scene was playing out in my own life, or was a memory now. I’d like to say I’ve learned not to fight against the hand that guides me with strength, kindness and love. I know that my own journey through the wilderness is far from over, and sometimes I don’t even realize that I’m fighting the guidance that feels like pressure and imbalance and sometimes downright life threatening to me.
I’m sure Wyoming doesn’t understand what I’m trying to do in the bigger picture just as I really don’t always understand the big picture of what is going on in my own life while I’m in the middle of it all.
We were not able to get Wyoming to the other side of trouble in the four days of the clinic, but I learned some things that I hope will help me continue to guide her through. As with most worthwhile journeys, I feel like we’re deep into the wilderness, but in recent years I’ve learned something about the wilderness. I’ve learned it’s the place we least want to go, yet it’s the place where the transformation takes place. If we are going to get to the other side of trouble, chances are we have to be willing to be led into the wilderness.
Endurance News Summer Extra just printed this article I wrote, since it’s been officially published I can now share it here for my own readers.
Anyone who’s attended an endurance event has heard the conversation with the rider who has the horse that pulls their shoulders out of joint, determined to run at the fastest speed possible, oblivious to any influence from the human and on the edge of control for the first loop or two. This scenario is common enough to have a name in the endurance world: Race Brain.
I haven’t ridden that horse, but I have ridden the one who wouldn’t leave camp after the first loop without a crop. I’ve known horses who can’t continue in an event if their buddy is pulled. These issues may appear unrelated to many, but I believe they share a common root cause.
Perched on the periphery of a round pen last year, I watched Harry Whitney work a troubled horse. “When the body is in one place, and the mind is in another, there’s trouble in the household,” Harry said, wanting us to understand this anxious horse who was pacing and calling to friends in a faraway stall, had quite literally lost his mind. The owner had brought the horse’s body to the pen, but the mind remained with his friends. The body and the mind needed to be reunited, but there was disagreement on how. The horse was expending great effort to take its body back to its mind, but Harry was determined to bring the mind to be present with the body.
Harry Whitney in Vista, CA
I watched Harry do very little, but at the right time, in the right way, and saw the horse’s mind come present, and peace settled on the scene. I knew this was different but not sure how. Seeking clarity, I asked him a question, and I’ve returned to his answer time and again:
What it comes down to is your intention, are you trying to move the mind or the meat?
What Harry was explaining, is often people determine to mechanically manipulate the horse’s body. But Harry advocates engaging the horse’s mind, so the horse can move himself in a relaxed and willing way. These approaches produce vastly different results, and establish very different relationships between horses and humans.
Any time a human has trouble with a horse, Harry insists, it’s because a human had one plan and the horse had another which he could not let go of. It’s in the solving of this problem we have a myriad of techniques, opinions, and more disagreement!
We know it’s not good for the horse to run inverted and braced against the rider. This is one reason many riders choose to tie down the horse’s head in a martingale. Also, I haven’t met a rider who enjoys riding a horse with a lost mind. These horses run through even severe bits, so that is ineffective for extreme cases. Many horses, (and riders) on race day are high on adrenaline, and that brings excessive strength for the short term, but at a cost. The sympathetic nervous system is intended for quick reaction to life-threatening circumstance, not for hours in a day.
Mark Langley shared a story on his podcast of an endurance horse in Australia that finished in the top 5 in most races. Eventually, this talented horse was breaking down and experiencing muscle wasting. The horse had been competing on adrenaline, which was a factor in his success, and the stress was breaking his body down from the inside out.
The first step in solving any problem is identification. The fact we have the term race brain tells me somewhere we know this is a problem of the mind— we don’t call it race body. I’m not sure why it wasn’t obvious to me in years past, that we can’t effectively solve a problem of the mind with a mechanical approach. Approaching my horse with a view of where her mind is has meant changes to my riding. I no longer carry a crop and I’ve learned ways to bring her mind along with us when we leave camp. In some cases we can force the body to our will, but it puts us at a long term disadvantage. When we add a more severe bit, a tie down, or a crop we might get the job done, but the horse doesn’t move in relaxation, balance, and strength. They aren’t feeling good about the work or the relationship. The horse is running under stress and the effects will show up in the body.
This kind of mental approach isn’t a quick answer training plan; it’s a fundamental shift in my thinking. It’s a practice; a way of life. It’s also endless in possibilities— I get better every time I go learn from good horsemen who are further down the trail in this practice. I am increasingly aware of when her mind is with me and when it’s not, and it’s easier to make changes before the separation is too great. I’ve had to get creative and ask myself: how I can get it done through the mind and not the meat? and I still find myself trying to get things done by force more often than I’d like to admit.
Photo by Becky Pearman: Start of the OD 100 2023
When my horse’s mind comes through and she is present in our work, I see and feel it in her body. Not only is everything more enjoyable, but I’ve seen these changes bring better performance in events over the last year. This is also a key to longevity. A horse moving in relaxation and balance will stay strong and sound over more miles than one mechanically driven. So next time you are problem solving a challenging horse behavior maybe you’ll also start with the question: mind or meat?
Though the ideas here are simple, they can take a lifetime of practice to truly master. What has helped me progress along this journey is finding good horse-folk to observe, learn from, talk with and work under. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn from Harry Whitney as an auditor and in clinic with my horse, invite Tom Moates to work with me in my own neighborhood in our special event roving clinics a few times a year, I’ve spent some time with Ronnie Moyer, and I have a unique opportunity to host Mark Langley on his USA tour in less than two weeks (July 4-7, 2024) here in Virginia! I have heard some other horsefolk thinking in this vein though I know less about them personally: Charlie Snell, Ross Jacobs, and Libby Lyman.
While you have to find Harry in person, he does extensively tour the US and you should be able to get to him in some corner of the US. I flew to California for my first visit with him for a 5-day clinic (auditing) and have never regretted the investment. I could have found him closer to home but I didn’t want to wait the six months until he was teaching in Virginia, but I brought a horse to that clinic and learned a ton.
On the other hand, Tom Moates has a myriad of great books walking readers through his horsemanship journey that are incredibly helpful. He’s also a regular clinician for Hope Horsemanship here in Virginia, so contact Jaime if you’d like to get in to work with him!
Jaime & Wyoming with Tom Moates in Virginia
Mark Langley has a great podcast you find on Apple Podcasts and other podcast players. He also has a solid video library with a very inexpensive monthly membership ($15/month) and answers member questions — and does a pretty good job helping walk people through challenges online, which is tricky!
There’s no other way to fasttrack this kind of shift in human thinking that helps support our horses, than finding someone farther along the trail to learn from. Find the step that most suits your style and give it a go!
And stop in to say hello during Freedom Week at the Powerful Horse Expo and definitely if you’re in driving distance from Greenville, VA come audit the Mark Langley clinic July 4-7, 2024. Mark will give a demo on Friday evening, July 5 and tickets are available here: Mark Langley Demo. I’m still open for a rider spot for the clinic as well, though that could change quickly… but certainly contact me if you’re interested to see if it’s still available!
Last year I spent some time with Harry Whitney, read some books by Tom Moates– and invited him to come visit with us here in the mountains, and listened to a fair amount of Mark Langley‘s podcast. I was steeping myself in this way of considering the horse that was a fundamental shift in my approach as much as possible.
I had some nice changes with Khaleesi over the year that I’m loving watching take root into an early harvest this Spring. As we prepare for some events this year, I can feel her new levels of relaxation and adjustability in movement! However Wyoming and I had a rougher go of the changes and trying to sort out how to understand each other in a better way. Last summer there were a fair amount of death threats (probably from each of us) as the lines of muddled communication began to untangle, and sometimes things get looking worse before they begin to smooth out.
Regardless, I knew there was something important in the process so I kept at it.
Then the horses moved home in November which has been a big change for all of us that is settling in nicely now six months into it… and I’ve begun to spend some time working with them again.
The initial work with Wyoming this year has been promising, and in the subsequent sessions, I’ve seen continued progress toward more partnership. Certainly the difference rests mostly in me. Change is possible, but it has to begin with “me” because usually the horse is a perfectly good horse doing what horses are created to do, and usually what the exhibit is in response to the way their environment (mostly human caused) has shaped in them. So regardless of who that human (or humans) were and what it was that did the shaping- that’s not nearly as important as where to go next. The change has been happening in me as I continue to seek and grow and take an honest assessment of my flaws and weaknesses in order to commit to address them.
I’m encouraged by the start of this year, and it gives me hope that there really is change possible for the two of us. I have a sliver of excitement that maybe this could be “the year” for Wyoming and me to begin to function together in a positive way!
Change is possible, but it has to begin with “me”
People have mentioned lately that staying with this dysfunctional situation for over six years must mean I have a whole lot of patience and determination. I suppose in some respects that is a little true. However… I remind them that she had more patience and determination to help me, because she is the one who refused to get on a trailer for that long- and I live in the end of nowhere… which meant I couldn’t move her on if I wanted to and pass her education on to someone else! Unless I was willing to shoot a perfectly healthy horse (which I did consider once or twice, but never seriously!) I wasn’t left with many options but to keep slogging onward. Considering in all those years of lots of sound and fury and threatening, she only once gave me a bruise from trying to bite the halter and grazing my arm, I think she’s been the one to praise. Apparently she never gave up on me.
I won’t get ahead of myself yet. We have a long journey ahead of us, but I think we’ve begun to sort out a better path, and maybe you’ll begin to see some exciting changes in our story this season… stay tuned and see!
Meanwhile, here are two videos that will show more than my words are able how the progress is coming for now.
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people, they give up their secrets also – if you love them enough.
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver revolutionized agriculture in the South after the Civil War. Working with children of ex-slaves in a land exhausted by cotton and a painful history, his hope was to “improve the lot of the man farthest down.” He made it his purpose to find ways to renew the land and teach farmers about self-sufficiency and conservation. An article from Tuskegee University revealed that: Dr. Carver took a holistic approach to knowledge, which embraced faith and inquiry in a unified quest for truth, believing that commitment to a Larger Reality than ourselves is necessary if science and technology is to serve human needs rather than the egos of the powerful. His belief in service was a direct outgrowth and expression of this.
This resonated with me. I also am on a unified quest for truth in each part of my life with a commitment to a Larger Reality (a creator God) who gave us an orderly world to be studied and deep truths uncovered that hold true in many different applications. I also believe if we seek in honest humility and the heart to love and serve other instead of self we will have more clear vision and understanding.
In other words, in the language of Dr. Carver:
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.
This quote came at a time when I had begun to see what appeared to be positive changes in my progress with Wyoming, and I had been considering what was bringing about the change after so many years… It is always likely the change is more in me than she (my wild mare is already just about perfect at being herself) but what was the change in me? I knew it was a deeper level of serving her needs above my own, which coincides to a deeper love for her than I’d been walking out previously.
I am also a violinist and I’ve played more weddings than I could count. There was a local Catholic priest who always had the same wedding homily. He would talk about love. I remember him saying we throw the word around for too many things— we love chocolate or coffee or wine or soccer or traveling or staying home… we love people to death (what does that even mean?) in English we have one word and we use it to speak of our favorite sports team in one minute and our “till death do we part” spouse in the next. I don’t think I completely followed him to what this meant about marriage, but the point that our language falls dreadfully short in expressing more accurately what we feel-choose-carry in the way of affection.
I have always said, and believed, I love my horses. More than chocolate (anyone else humming along to that lyrics your love is better than chocolate… better than anything I think I’ve tried….) But what did it really mean to say I loved my horses, and was it true? Could it be truer?
What I propose in this meandering ponderance of truth, love, and deep secrets, is that a shift came in me that brought new levels of improvement between Wyoming and myself. I really do like her- even as she has been unable to cooperate with me in any way that could be seen as successful from any angle for about seven years (that’s a long time to have and try to work with an uncooperative horse I think for most people…) and regardless of her performance I have been dedicated to staying in the process with her. Yet though I’d say I love her, I realize how I saw her was a problem/project to conquer. This summer, gradually, I began to see her less as a complicated mystery to untangle, less a representation of my current failure to work with an equine I’ve had in my care for many years… and I began to see her.
As I was able to release more of my ego, to let go of my need to fix things and solve problems, I began to have a more authentic compassion for her, how she feels, and what her experience was in all of this. The filter I’d been seeing her through which created some minor distortions was disintegrating, and the more I truly loved her (instead of what I might be able to do with her, or how she could perform for me, or even what she could teach me) the more I had clear vision of what was happening in the moment between us.
Wyoming has been challenging, but I often related to her strong willed, fiery spirit and refusal to go along with a program that was not working for her. The mare in all these years has never given up on me, and I haven’t given up on her. We’ve gotten in a few near wrecks, and yet she has always come back to reconnect with me and try again. For a mare that occasionally threatens my life, she actually has a lot of grace.
But did I love the horse? I wanted to. I thought I did, and maybe I did in part, but not the way I have come to recently.
I didn’t understand: what was it that kept her from walking in the compliance I could extricate from Khaleesi? What on earth did this horse have to fret about? She didn’t want for any necessity, including pasture, a stable herd to depend on, shelter, non-invasive but attentive health and nutrition care… I’ve never been able to ask much of her- so her life is pretty ideal it seems from my human point of view. I could not wrap my head around why on earth she could be so snarky and grumpy at every interaction that wasn’t custom fit to her short sighted equine demands. I’ve had her checked out physically on just about every level. This inability to understand what could possibly be so bad that she’d threaten to take me out when I try to work with her has been mystifying.
This is not happy to see me…
Then I began to work with Tom Moates, who has been a Godsend for getting an outside pair of eyes on us and guiding me to work with her within the truths he has picked up from years of close work with Harry Whitney. His regular visits to help us sort out a better path have been a game changer to chipping away at the trouble we seem to get into.
That doesn’t mean it’s been roses and sunshine. Honestly, it has looked on the surface like everything was getting worse, yet I sensed something was different this time. I felt that deep tuning fork reverberate, telling me that we were going deeper in, digging out some wounds, some history, some infection, some sewage, but if we could face these things together and try to release them without fear, maybe this time we might get to a new place. So I kept trying.
Over the summer, armed with guidance from Tom in person and via email/video, I spent many hours a week trying to find common ground. Wyoming’s stall (aka the shark tank) has been my classroom this year.
The halter has always been sticky to some extent. Though for years I have been able to get her head in the rope halter (and she will comply), I have always sensed that it was not ok. My gut tells me this is a key: the halter is a basic loss of her freedom, and it takes a lot of trust to volunteer to submit to anyone in that way. I am still not on her list of trustworthy enough to relinquish that level of control.
It is worth considering that putting a halter on a horse- a very small piece of equipment- takes away almost entirely their ability to self govern. There are limits, horses can jerk a lead rope out of a human’s hands, or I’ve had Tom tell me I looked a bit like a kite as she pulled me right off the ground in retreat, but once we have the ability to control the somewhat delicate head with all those nerve endings and the soft tissue places around the nose, we have a powerful level of force over them, especially if tied secure to a post with a strong rope.
Over the years I have tried to find better ways to use the halter than force, and last year when I heard Mark Langley talk about guiding horses instead of driving them it impacted me as kernels of truth tend to do when I hear them. Being prey animals, horses can be driven into things especially if we have a halter/lead rope that prevents real escape. I have driven her over the years to do a lot of activities, but she has never felt good about it, and no matter how pretty and snappy she looks trotting or cantering around me, she is not relaxed or happy.
I didn’t not love her. I wanted what was best for us both, which is a cooperative relationship with her humans. She lives in a human world now. The wild life is not all it’s cracked up to be so I do not agree that she would be better off left on the range. There’s starvation, drought, predators, and extreme weather there. I doubt she would be less fearful than she is here when she goes into high alert when the deer roam through at night.
Still, I didn’t know how to help her or me, and I flailed around with various levels of success and unsuccess and the mysteries remained out of reach.
As I continued to regress this summer to the most basic fundamentals, I once again asked: can you be ok with me putting the halter on you? I found myself summoning the courage (thank you Tom for being the guinea pig and flag man) to open the stall gate and stand in the gap, vulnerable to attack,and offer the halter to her knowing she could choose to take me out. But oddly enough, if I came in with too much self-protection, she felt the fear brace in me, she would brace right back against me, and we could not breach the impasse. I had to make the choice to risk being hurt and show up with a white flag (actually no flag) instead of a weapon. With some basic safety in mind, I would hold out the halter from one knot away from my body so the noseband draped open and allowed her to make the choice to put her nose in on her own.
I did not encourage her to bite at the halter. It’s not good manners at the minimum, and I don’t want her nipping at my tools to “work out for her” but the other problem is, her reaction to that piece of equipment is actually that strong so I also had to acknowledge that without punishing her. I don’t want her to spend her life thinking it’s ok to bite at my equipment- or at me, and I don’t want to send the message that I don’t want to know what she’s thinking or feeling. It was a very fine line, how to express ones thoughts and feelings in an appropriate way! I’m sure I did not always successfully navigate this delicate balance and it takes impeccable timing. She must think it’s her action of nipping at the halter that creates the reaction that might be a poke from my finger at her cheek, but that she has control of not being poked (try not nipping at the halter!). The right instant timing is action-reaction; just a moment too soon in anticipation is picking a fight; enough delay becomes punishment (which we NEVER want). However, as I began to care more about how she felt and helping her, than getting my task done without being injured, something shifted.
It seems that letting go of what I really wanted was the path toward actually receiving what I really wanted.
Harry and Tom both talk about creating an imbalance that the horse will work to correct. Take for example how a bit works. When the human takes “hold” of the bit in some way, it creates an imbalance that the horse will move its entire body around to fix, which is how we can control so many things along a huge animal’s body with a small piece of metal carried in the mouth.
I had come to see that just my presence creates a strong imbalance for very sensitive Wyoming. I can stand in Hope’s stall doorway a very long time before she bothers to find out why I’m there. I might need to make some noise to get her to care at all. With Wyoming it’s different. Even without the halter, just standing at her stall gate, it did not take long before she stopped munching on hay and began to move. She looked out her window… but she was not unaware of me, she was trying to find peace, and if she could send her mind out the window it might help, but, as I waited I saw it did not work for her. My presence was still too disruptive even if I did nothing but stand there.
I added the halter and this was even more disruptive without making a sound. The same looking out the window was her first try to make things right, then she would look at me, then look back out the window, then look at me again. Then she would take a step in a circle toward me, and pin her ears giving me threatening dragon face. Maybe she could scare me away. Nope. I just stood there with the halter held out. She would step toward me and nip toward the halter, I would do various things to discourage that without picking a fight. Then she would stand with her nose over the half wall/gate to khaleesi’s stall, a position that would be very hard for me to force the noseband on her. And I would still wait. Someday, I hoped she might choose to allow the halter. If she would choose, it would change everything.
In the process of this I could see the depth of how disturbing this was for her. It didn’t make sense in my human brain, but I could not disregard what was in front of me. I began to be intensely curious toward this dynamic. She did not go back to eating hay. She would occasionally cycle back to the window, but never for long. For most of the time she would stand very close to me, I could touch her with the halter on the neck, or other parts of her body, but she did not want that noseband to capture her. In all this I did nothing to force her to participate, and yet participate she did, in the all the ways she could.
I had begun paying more attention to what the truth was for her, as strange as her truth seemed to me, than what I was trying to do or get done.
Gradually I was able to halter her with increasing relaxation. This process wasn’t a dramatic moment where she chose as I hoped to put her nose in the halter voluntarily. It started with a shift in position where she seemed to suggest: I cannot bridge this gap yet, it’s too much for me, but if I stand here quietly you can put the noseband up my nose and I will try not to fight you.
The reason I believe this is accurate, is because when she did begin to position herself allowing room where I could put on the noseband, she had minimal nippy reactions, and once the halter was on and tied she began to relax there in the stall with me. This is a time when I would stand there in the stall with the halter on, rub on her, scratch her, breath deep, and make it a really nice place to be together. It was here I began to notice just how much tension she carries in her neck. She has such a level of self-protection about her it’s no wonder she feels terrible.
Some of the work this summer staying in tune to how she is feeling in the work
As summer melted away to fall, I had a shift in routine that meant I had to bring the horses in and out of the barn across the yard to a remote pasture which meant I had to halter them. I knew this would come and it concerned me- having to take my life in my hands to manage the wild thing did not sound fun (in the summer I could get the halter on or walk away and it didn’t really matter, now I had to get this job done in order to move her). However the foundation we built through the summer set us up for success.
At first I’d move the herd one at a time. I liked spending the time and attention on Hope solo, who is slow, as we did the walk together. Khaleesi is pretty manageable at whatever pace or need, but Wyoming benefits from focus and clarity in everything we do, so walking her alone was preferable. This meant some days I would start in the barn and take Khaleesi into the remote field. When I returned Wyoming was already becoming stressed because of the imbalance in her environment (herd separation). She is smart enough to realize that it was the halter that was her pathway to rebalancing in rejoining her lead mare. Instead of a mess or violence I would step into the stall and she would come to me and dip her head at the noseband (very willing) and I had to ask her to slow down and not revert to autopilot with her brain already in the other field and her body stuck with me (this the the condition where a horse has lost her mind). In this way she began to invite the haltering process because it had meaning attached to it she wanted to engage in. Similarly in the large field where I worried I might never catch Wyoming again, she was usually the first one who came to me and agreed to the halter to go back into the barn for breakfast and a break. This new routine I worried might get one of us killed actually helped us establish some good patterns.
One of the days I moved them all at once for necessary efficiency…
Looking back however, it was one of the days I was rubbing and scratching the mare in her stall trying to help her see she could let go and relax and trust me even with the halter on, that the rock hard muscles in her neck simply would not relax. Even as her eyes began to soften and she was reveling in the butt and underbelly scratches she was getting, the tension was rooted deep, and it was here that something broke loose inside me.
Harry Whitney says it would really help horse people if they could learn to recognize the motions that go with good emotions, and the motions that go with negative emotions. As I stood next to this wild creature who has lived with us for seven years, I realized looking back how much tension and brace this horse carries all the time. Tears stung my eyes as I considered the depth of the worry she carries around, and I felt overwhelming compassion for her.
I have not loved her like this before.
I didn’t want to fix her issues. I didn’t want her to have safer “manners” for all the human interactions that would be required of a normal horse. I didn’t want to know I could get her on the trailer… I didn’t want to solve the problem of why I’ve had this horse seven years and can’t ride her still. I didn’t even want to know I could halter her without her nipping at me. (Although I did want those things, they became highly insignificant)
I wanted to know how on earth I could intervene in her world in a way that could help her let go of some of what she was packing around, and that she would feel better about her life. I found myself begging for the insight that would help her to feel good for maybe the first time in her equine life since being rounded up on the range all those years back.
This is when something began shifting anew.
What changed?
Me.
I have always loved this horse, I thought.
But not like this.
George Washington Carver was knows for his humility and service. He cared so much for the people that were struggling, forgotten, rejected, or oppressed, that he went into his lab with the peanut and love poured out of him. A kind of love that opened up the secrets of the soil, the peanuts themselves, and in that place revelation came and revolutionized agriculture forever. Crazy and unscientific as it might seem, it was in his posture of love and not ego or fame or self-interest, the secrets were revealed.
I had a glimpse that day in the barn with Wyoming, when my heart broke for the years I’ve seen her gallop across the field with tension through her body brought on by stress, neck raised and stiff, instead of that beautiful fluid movement that comes with relaxation and a stretching out of the muscles and joints, and I grieved that I hadn’t yet figured out how to help her. Not for my ego. For her.
Hope Horsemanship carries a verse instead of a tagline or motto. It is Jeremiah 33:3 Call to me, and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. I then pondered another truth in the same big book of wisdom: If I had a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets… but have not learned to love, then I am nothing.
We are not worthy of the deep secrets, we are not trustworthy of them, if we don’t love first and foremost.
Wyoming, and most people around us- know the difference between saying we love and having that love authentically pouring out of us. You cannot fake what is in the heart. Not to a horse at least. Until she knew that love coming through me authentically, her secrets were kept under a tough braced up shell. She couldn’t trust me with vulnerability. This is a road. I have not arrived. Still, I can see progress.
Wyoming trusts enough to willingly ride in the trailer for the first time.
I wanted to say she didn’t have much choice, as a horse she couldn’t choose another owner. But the truth struck me that I also didn’t have much choice! Considering she wouldn’t get on a trailer to save her life, I didn’t have much opportunity to sell or give her away either! We have been bound together for some greater purpose. Now she appears to be at least somewhat loadable, but it’s too late to go back now. I am hers and she is mine. Hopefully the mystery will continue to reveal and it will be a good story when it’s all told.
Last weekend I went solo to the Fall Biltmore ride. I suppose Khaleesi might have something to say about calling it solo since technically we went together, and she might even contend that she’s the one who counts. Regardless, I hadn’t initially planned on this ride when mapping out my tentative calendar, and as it approached, and I kept seeing no reason not to go, my usual crew were all otherwise engaged. I used to ride crew-less fairly regularly years back and it seems the Biltmore is a good ride to take on without help since the vetting and crew area is the same throughout the ride and is near camp. Thankfully, Brandea and Abigail live in the area and though they weren’t available to crew on the Saturday, they met me in camp Friday afternoon and helped me get the crewing area set up.
Crew area
Biltmore is a “fun” ride for us so to speak where we aren’t so concerned about each minute counting and being concerned for the clock. The difference for us comes down to the footing. There are tons of loose rocks dispersed around gravel roads and paths, but no rock climbing or embedded rocks in the wooded areas that slow us down. The elevation, though it adds up, is never a five mile grueling climb over a mountain. Rolling hills take their toll, but the climbs are reasonable and followed by a recovery plateau or a downhill in short order.
Our last event was the Old Dominion (OD) 100 in early June and most of my readers might notice that the summer has been spent on the herd with more focus on Wyoming than Khaleesi, so with a few exceptions here and there to get her out for a hike or a ride, and the fabulous Harry Whitney clinic in August, she’s been on a break. I thought this ride would be a good prep for the (Old Dominion Series) Fort Valley which is more challenging due to the infamous OD rocky technical terrain and the trail of tears climb that historically happens in both the first and second loop up the rocky side of the mountain. I wasn’t sure what I would find as she increases in fitness and strength over the years so the Biltmore would give us a dry run, revealing what we were going into the fall with under the hood.
Overall I was pleased with what I found. In May the ride was a 55 mile but basically similar overall to the September 50 mile ride. I calculated an overall ride average of 7.3mph for the May ride and a 7.5mph average for the September ride, so comparable all in all.
Photo credit: Becky Pearman
The difference that was glaringly clear to me after a few days looking back was in the post-ride. After the May ride I had a horse that stood longer with a foot cocked taking rest naps. Eating off and on, but moving around generally less. In walking her later that evening she was slightly shorter strided and a little stiff. Her return to the herd and home field was average, walking around like normal, taking a roll, getting a drink, but in no hurry. Because we live in a river valley and do a lot of climbing in our home riding, and we see a fair amount of rocky terrain, I find the Southeastern rides wear her out more physically because though we do train on the scenic river trail a fair amount adding long trots and cantering intervals, it’s not our normal jam so she is less accustomed to speed over long distances like that.
After this ride she was less “nappy” and spent more time wandering around her pen as I organized our gear to leave the next day, curious about what I was doing, asking for carrots, taking a few bites of her food, picking through the hay for favorite parts and looking for some grass that might have been overlooked in earlier perusals. When I walked her later she was more energetic, clearly limber, and considerably less stiff. The following day we hauled the six hours home and I took her into her stall intending to remover her leg wraps before setting her loose.
I hadn’t noticed her rope lead had worked it’s way to the end of the rope in the halter and as I walked her into the stall from the trailer, I turned to close the outer stall door and saw her leaving the stall into the field while the rope was still in my hand- her end limp on the stall floor. She headed out to greet the herd and I was amazed to see her floating around trotting the field. I grabbed my phone to catch some of it. She wanted to roll and Wyoming (too excited to have her leader return) was crowding her so I watched K warn her, then kick and then in a graceful front-feet-stand send both hind legs toward her asking for some space to roll. Well she can’t be too sore if she’s pulling those acrobatics today.
Then she got up, trotted around almost in a sort of homecoming victory lap, then around toward the water trough to drink before she returned to me in the stall to have her leg wraps removed as if to say: It’s sure nice to be home, I got the herd in line out there, but I’m back. Can you take these leg wraps off?
Not only did I like seeing her floating around the field doing acrobatics, but I like that she presently returned to me before I had to retrieve her. Not only did the ride seem to do little harm physically, it seems we’re still on friendly terms.
As for the ride itself, it was basically smooth, peaceful, and quiet with no problems or snags from doing it without crew. The details aren’t particularly interesting, except the following two experiences that I took particular note of.
In chronological order, the first vet check was easy. All day she had ‘A’ scores and good heart rate recovery (52, then 56, then 64). I was ready to leave a few minutes before my out time in the hope I might be leaving around the same time some of the riders who finished the first loop roughly when we did. This would make leaving camp a little easier for us as this is the biggest challenge for me. After a great 15 mile first loop and returning “home,” my horse is never very excited about leaving again at the Biltmore. Oddly enough, I don’t seem to have this same issue at Big South Fork when she almost seems to drag me back out on trail… The long gravel road along camp seems to have a magnetic draw that is unusually strong in this ride and I think it’s always been this way for us.
Considering we were in the front third or so of almost sixty riders, I didn’t have much to worry about finding other horses going out on trail. We were released with a couple other riders, and there were a couple just behind. This seemed set up well to help us motivate out into the long middle loop, and if we could just get past the magnetic thought field of base camp I knew she’d go along fine. Or so I thought. Within a few steps, we began to trot along with the small group and to my horror Khaleesi began limping at the trot. This was not a questionable, am I imagining she might be off, this felt practically three-legged lame. We walked a few steps and tried again only to find the same limp and immediately dismounted. We were still next to the crew area and I was sure she had a big rock in a hoof that was painful. I inspected all four feet, and just as I had checked them earlier, there was nothing there. That worried me even more. Another crew person I didn’t know at all was near us, saw me, and brought over a stool so I could get back on. Meanwhile my small group was already gone as they weren’t riding “with” us as much as we were overlapping. Now for the time being we were alone, but it didn’t matter because it seemed to me we were not going out regardless.
I took a few minutes to walk and consider. The next few riders went out and jogged by. I wasn’t sure what to do. This is odd, because it seems obvious. My horse was lame. Unquestionably lame. Yet, I had this nagging in that inner place that said walk a bit more, and lets see what happens.
The other voice said: this is the long loop, it’s 20 miles and lots of climbing, aren’t you kind of glad you have a good reason to bail, clean up your stuff, and hey, I even bet you could get on the road today and get home a day early… your own bed… a nice bath… You had a great first loop, considering a good training ride… pull out and don’t do any more damage…
And more quietly, the other voice stood firm: walk a little, get on the grass, see if you can get a decent trot, and you can always turn around, it’s early in the day and even if you hand walk her back a mile or two you have time. Let us see what happens.
And so we left camp slow as molasses not only from the challenge of leaving camp alone, but the concern of a potential lameness nagging me. Alone (as we so often are!) I prayed for wisdom: God, I have nothing to prove and neither does this horse. We have been blessed with a huge victory this season completing the 100 in June, and everything else is gravy. I do not need to complete this ride and I am willing to pull out, but I sense an urge to not give up just yet. The last thing I want is to damage my amazing horse- who is a gift from you that I always want to honor. Please give me clarity on what is best to do here. And if you’d like to just fix it and heal her issue, that would be great. Whatever you decide just please let me know so I can get on the same page.
And I kept hearing that quiet, still small voice urging me not to quit yet.
So we got past the gravel road now almost a mile out. We hit the grassy “runway” and she began to trot-walk transition. I was not convinced she was sound but she was less lame than she had been earlier. I kept thinking we can always turn around if it lingers, maybe she hit a rock just right and it hurt at the moment but it’ll work itself out.
Photo along the grass runway leaving on the second loop by Becky Pearman.
As we continued, a trio of riders came up from behind at a nice steady pace and now about 2 miles out of camp she let go of the anchor her mind had been and seemed to worry less about both leaving camp and whatever was painful and she fell in with them. As we picked up a steady pace I was hypersensitive. First, a little heavier on one diagonal, then in another mile increasingly more even. I worried slightly because she offered to canter more throughout this loop and I don’t know if it felt better on a sore hoof or if she just came round and was feeling good.
Our little band stayed together the entire twenty mile loop which made it less lonely for both of us — I always feel Orange West is longer than the mileage somehow. I figured the next vet check would give us some information if she seems at all off in the trot, but she passed with flying colors again and we were released to finish the ride.
From this, I felt a reminder that sometimes the still small voice doesn’t align with common sense. I felt an encouragement that sometimes we’re called to do things that go against what we can see clearly on the surface in front of us, but when we listen to the guidance which is often the softer deeper message, we may be surprised at what miracles can come if we follow. I tend toward the conservative when it comes to my horse and her needs, but in this case, playing it safe was not the call. I’m a bit astounded by it. I’m not sure if it was a miracle or simply a knowing that this was distraction and not injury. Regardless I am grateful.
The second take away from this ride comes in leaving camp for the last loop, again alone. It’s like variations on a theme! Harry Whitney has a saying that there is nothing heavier to move than a hard thought, and there is not much lighter than a willing thought. Anyone who has tried to drive a horse across a bridge, a river, on onto a trailer when the horse’s mind is convinced otherwise knows, this is a deep truth.
There is nothing heavier to move than a hard thought, and there is not much lighter than a willing thought.
Harry Whitney
Somehow the Biltmore events host the most magnetic ride camp of any we face. Every single ride here, leaving on the third loop is the greatest challenge we face. Last year, on the third loop, before I found the horsemanship strain of Mark Langley, which led me to Harry Whitney, and then to Tom Moates, I had to absolutely DRIVE her down that mile long gravel road and DRIVE her into the grass runway that leads toward the river and out into wooded lime trail where she begins to free up.
Now I have better tools to influence her thoughts, and I ask her to let go of hard thoughts in our day-to-day world anytime it’s helpful. I also have experience helping her find a FORWARD thought since our August clinic and this is a case where her body will comply with my driving forward while her brain is cemented back at the trailer and that means tension, brace, and a fight. With this particular horse it’s a fight I can win, but I hate fighting with her. It’s exhausting.
I was able to guide her thoughts forward without driving her this ride. I was able to get her thinking in transitions to bring her BACK to me at the present place and present time. I was able to bring her mind along sooner and with less disruption than in times past. It felt like trying to leave a magnetic field, the grip the thought rooted in camp had, loosening as the yards went on, and her mind breaking free and starting to roll again. This has happened in the past as I drove her body onward- eventually she would begin to reunite her brain and body in the place I had forced her body to go. This may seem obvious but some horses who have become experts at clinging death grip-like to their own thoughts, can run their body through an entire ride and have never brought their mind from the buddy or the trailer or the food they’d left behind, only rejoining mind and body once they completed the loop.
Last white west loop went along the lagoon and vineyards it was beautiful!
This final 14 miles we did largely alone though we leapfrogged a bit in the final miles with two riders who we ended up crossing the finish line with. There was no sign of lameness for K, and though it was the hottest part of the afternoon, and this tends to be our slowest loop, we hung pretty steady once the mental ball broke loose around a 6.5mph easy trot.
The final vet out was solid, and she maintained the ‘A’ scores and good gut sounds. Nick congratulated her (wryly) on appearing not to lose a pound in the 50 miles. (In fact she lost 40 total if the scale is correct, but that’s not much in an 1100 pound creature).
In another small miracle, as I looked somewhat unhappily to hand carting my crew stuff the 1/2 mile from crew to trailer in a few trips after finishing 50 miles, I was offered a ride by a new friend that was next to us in camp. That was a blessing for sure.
I think Khaleesi’s stronger recovery from this ride is in no small part due to the help Harry Whitney gave me to increase awareness of when my horse isn’t moving in her most relaxed state. When brace or tension creeps in we are not in best form, and tension creates way more muscle soreness that simply the workload alone. That also goes for me as I felt pretty good after the ride and made a concentrated effort to keep my own body in softness as much as possible.
When we work at our home territory along the river scenic trail, I have been able to keep her softer with good forward motion in the upward transitions into a loose powerful movement. Things on the river trail that creep in to destroy maximum relaxation are usually environmental —like when we pass the handful of homes with tarps, lawnmowers, goats, barking dogs, etc. Her head and neck raises and gets harder in brace as she becomes alert and concerned. I use those moments to influence her, inviting her to let go of her worry, trust me, and relax again. I have various levels of success in this, but the usual distractions are more regular for us as we travel that trail often, and it’s the same goats, the same tarps, etc. most of the time. She can “let go of that” and come back to me more easily because it’s less novel.
View of the Biltmore house from the trail
In the Biltmore ride there are novel concerns all over the place. None of these has her fleeing in fear, but they have her more alert and less relaxed than ideal conditions. Not only the other guests on trails with baby carriages, bikes, and whatever other ways they move about, but the property is a working farm with large equipment in the distance banging, pigs, sheep, goats, and even other horses in other areas to pull her attention. In last weekend’s ride, because I’m more aware of how this affects her quality of physical movement, I was able to influence it more often. Her relaxation in movement Saturday was better than in any ride past I believe, however it’s not going to match what I can get working in ideal circumstances.
This would be point three if there was a third point. A reminder that any event is going to take the highest level we have come to either in control, attentiveness, relaxation, or focus and it’s going to take that down a few pegs in the least, or blow it out of the water completely in worst case scenarios, or simply accumulation of factors. Whatever issues we are working to improve with our horses (and I hope I always have something I am working to improve!) the ride will test it, and I will always be less effective than under ideal circumstances. This reminder encourages me to work even more with focus in ideal conditions to improve to a point that losing ground in the real test will still leave me with high quality performance. Not only do I head back to the river scenic trail to work on longer trot segments and canter- walk intervals, but I’m insisting on quality relaxed transitions and holding softness in all the gaits to increasing levels each visit.
No wonder I ride alone most of the time…
Aside from the fact that my horse continues to gain in strength and endurance as her years accumulate (she is now 13 and continues to gain momentum as she heads into her prime years), and the fact that she came through a 100 in a lot of strength this year — which means she is in a good year for building, I believe that the increase of relaxation and softness in movement and being able to increase that softness into transitions and higher speed (speed is usually where we find the breakdown) is why her recovery was so drastically improved over past rides.
This is exciting for me because I believe it will open yet another layer of increased performance as we build on it going forward.
If you’re interested in the principals of guiding over driving, of working first with the horse’s thought and not only focusing on the horse’s body, I highly recommend checking out Mark Langley because he has so much available to get started online from a really good podcast to videos on how he works with indirect pressure and guiding.
Mark’s materials are the quickest and easiest to access, but Tom Moates has a 5-book series that is a raw, honest journey into this mental focused horsemanship following Harry Whitney. The journey begins with book 1: A Horse’s Thought. Tom has written hundreds of articles for publications from Equus to Western Horseman and Ecclectic Horseman. He’s studied and followed around most of the “important” recognized horsemen and interviewed them while walking out his own horsemanship journey. Years ago, though he still does plenty of interviews, he began to follow Harry just about exclusively. Tom is a fabulous horseman as well and if you’re not too far from him here in VA you might be able to catch a lesson or put together a clinic with him!
Though Harry Whitney is, as far as I’m aware, the most gifted at sharing this mode of horse work, and has a heart for the humans as much as the horses (which I have observed can be rare) – he is the most challenging to learn from because you simply have to get a seat around a round pen in a clinic, or if you’re fortunate a spot with a horse. He only works one-on-one in his clinics so the participant spots are limited, but I find them pretty paradigm shifting. No one seems to limit auditing spots, so as long as you can get to a place he’s teaching you should be able to find him! If you can get to meet him sometime I can’t recommend it enough.
Happy trails from the Biltmore!
Regardless of where you are on your horsemanship journey- or if you’re one of the readers who enjoy following my stories and don’t even have a horse… I wish you the best, and the guidance of the still small voice as you go along the way.
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Hope Horsemanship 