A woman called me and told me she had a horse that lost its brakes, and she wanted me to install a new set of brake shoes (so to speak).
I went to check out the horse and found it to be a pretty sensitive animal. I spent over an hour desensitizing it to things it should not worry about, and sensitizing it to things it should. It was basically getting it to know me.
Then when I got on it bareback with just a halter and lead rope, it guided left and right and stopped and backed up fairly well. People don’t always like to see that because it proves the horse is fine, and shows the people at fault. She said that the “experienced neighbor kid” got run away with three times on this horse. I asked her if she knew that the definition of insanity was like what she observed those three times – keep making the same mistake and expecting different results.
Besides not having much lateral training and being high energy, the horse was not bad. Some learning was definitely needed, but it was more a human problem than a horse issue.
Monte Foreman – the first expert I learned from – had a famous horse with a beautiful sliding stop that was the envy of many people (in the early 1970s). He told me a story about that horse. He said that he bought that Palomino gelding from a livery string that had problems with the horse running away with the riders. He said it did not take long for him to develop the famous stop that everyone loved taking pictures of, or seeing the horse perform.
It was a magnificent stop to see. The horse would practically sit down on his hind end, flowing to a perfectly smooth stop for horse and rider from a dead run. When this famous stopping horse was sold to a new owner, he began running away with the human again.
It’s funny how we want to treat a horse like a car, and say, “fix it,” rather than wonder if there is just something about me or you that has more to do with the braking problem than the horse.
Another Jesus Christ principle that keeps us well grounded applies here. A sensitive, athletic horse needs to feel confident about its rider to respond to their communication.
Many people think that means to feed lots of treats and spend lots of time petting, and talking softly. That is not nearly as important as getting a horse used to our movement, and practicing all the dance movements we would use on the horses back on the ground first. We also need to do all kinds of crazy moves that we teach a horse to ignore.
The Jesus Christ principle I always like to point out here, is that the boss (the human) is going to work even harder than the horse (this is what makes us a smoother ride to the horse). A good partner does not expect the other partner to do all the work.
True love from a horse’s perspective is more the move-together aspect rather than the sugar bribe.
Mike Daniels is a horsemanship trainer and barefoot trimming specialist from Raymondville. Email: rlhorse58@yahoo.com.
