Maureen's Blog

Just after 3 a.m. I wake up.  I think I hear a faint horse whinny, and the dogs at the top of the hill are barking.  Then there is silence. It lasts. I am convinced that all the horses have gotten out, but I am not chasing them now, I’ll deal with it after the sun comes up.

I wake up at 6:30 and look out my bedroom window to the west.  Nothing.  To the east. Nothing.  Crap.  It’s close to hay time, someone should be around.  I get up.  I get dressed.  Then I see a horse.  It’s Maura.  Well at least one horse is here.  I expect Beauty to be here too.  I get my jacket on to feed them hay, then I see another head, and another.  Aware that I am up, the horses are moving into view along the fence.  Awesome. I see Roxanna and Lena.  Yay!

I go out and feed hay.  I check on Maura, she seems okay – no worse at least.  Then I notice that Shadow is looking up the hill, and so is Zola.  I look to see what has their attention.  I figure maybe some deer, maybe a turkey, maybe someone along the fence line at the top.  But I see and hear nothing.  Horses continue to look for a while then go back to eating.  Then I realize.  Lucy is not there.  This is shocking as Lucy is usually somewhere near Huey.

I grab a hay rope and duck under the fence.  I head for the hill yelling, “LUCEEY!”  She doesn’t answer, which isn’t like her, and I feel fear for the first time.  My imagination takes off.  She’s lying dead somewhere.  What else would keep her from Huey and food?  Why else isn’t she answering me? Just then I hear her whinny.  Thank God.  As I climb up the incline I see she is at the top.  Is she outside the fence?  No.  As she sees me, she makes her way toward me but is stopped by a fence.  I should explain at this point that a fence runs from a deep gully on the hill, all the way to the corner of the property.  There have actually been two mysteries – how do the horses get on the other side of that fence – and how do they get over the neighbor’s cattle fence.

It’s clear Lucy can’t remember how she got on that side of the fence, and equally clear that she doesn’t know the secret to getting across the cattle fence. She runs to the corner while I follow to check the fence.  I can find no way for her to have crossed it in that direction – so backtrack and go the other way from where I started.  I see a 2 foot gap, spanning a large log, on a steep section of the hill.  Is that how they got in?  Not the easiest thing.  I go further – all the way to the gully – and confirm that small opening is the only possible way across the fence.  The fact that Lucy couldn’t find it (probably since at least 3!) shows how inconspicuous it is.

I walk back to the corner – I should say hike.  Lucy is all over me waiting for help.  I now have a clear route in my mind.  I urge her ahead of me back the way we came, still planning on how to get her across that gap.  My path clear in my mind.  Lucy picks up a canter and vanishes.  I get to the gap and it appears Lucy has taken it.  This is confirmed when I get back to the horses – as there she is, eating with Huey.

Mystery number one solved – and fixable!  I will close that gap today and sleep good tonight.

But is it possible that Lucy read my mind so clearly that she literally galloped the exact path I had in my mind?  Finding her way without hesitation, at speed?  I believe so.  There is really no other explanation.  The torn up ground showed clearly she had been along that whole area many times – always expecting to get out at the corner.  Then, as soon as I urge her to go – zoom, she’s out.

I am so relieved that I can fence that gap easily and end this whole thing.

Recently a client recommended Jack Brainard’s book, “If I Were to Train a Horse”, to me.  By coincidence, the Chris Cox show on RFD-TV was airing an episode with Jack Brainard yesterday.  Since it was on at my lunch time, I watched it while on “break”.  I actually saw Jack in person at the 2002 Parelli Savvy Conference, and basically he was saying the same thing both times.  Footfall.  His thing is footfall.  Where are the horse’s feet and when is the best time, in relation to the feet, to ask for a movement?

I admired Jack’s horse in 2002.  He was beautiful and highly trained.  I thought Mr. Brainard made a lot of sense.  He is not the only trainer to focus on footfall, and the method clearly works.

A few weeks ago Showtime had a free preview weekend and I got to watch the documentary, “Buck”, about Buck Branaman. I have read two of Buck’s books as well.  It does seem to me, from watching the video, that he says one thing and does another.  But he is a popular clinician and people swear by him.  I do think anyone who has a chance to watch the film, should, to see what not to do.

I was pretty horrified by some of what I saw – but my big question is WHO would WANT to ride a horse in that state of mind?  And WHY?  Horses are dangerous enough when they’re well trained and behaved.  They can accidentally kill you without any bad intentions whatsoever.  Why ride a horse – or even try to train a horse – who is out of his mind with fear? I have trained three horses to saddle from scratch.  None of them so much as batted an eye when I put the saddle on.  None of them thought it was a big deal when I got on.  I didn’t spend hours and days working with them, I didn’t sack them out. Anyone who might have been filming me would have felt bored to death.  All I did was create a relationship.  That was it.  I got the horses to trust me.  One day I decided that I would put the saddle blanket on.  So I did.  I acted like it was just a normal everyday thing, and the horses accepted it as such.  The next day (or maybe a few days later) I put a bareback pad on and tightened the girth just enough to keep it from flipping around.  No one cared.  The next time it was the saddle.  No one cared.

To me, the relationship is everything.  If a horse trusts you and accepts you as a higher member of the herd, that is really the secret to horse training.  I also act normal.  By which I mean I drop things, maybe I yell at another horse or call to someone, I toss a rope over a back, all of it as it unfolds in reality, in the moment – not forced or as “practice”.  In short I do not go out of my way to be extra quiet, extra slow, extra anything.  I am just my normal self.  That is from day one.  The horse learns what is normal human behavior, and learns to accept that we are weird and do things for no apparent reason at times. And that none of it hurts him/her.

There are many ways to train horses.  Clinton Anderson’s method works for him and many others, ditto Parelli’s method, John Lyons’ method, Linda Tellington Jones’, George Morris’, etc.   But they don’t work for all people or all horses.  Parelli affirms that his method WILL work on all horses, but it’s been common knowledge for years that he couldn’t ride Casper.

People shouldn’t give up or feel like failures if a certain method doesn’t work for them, or for their horse. We are all different.  Neither should the horse be blamed or labeled stubborn, disobedient, stupid, or whatever.  We’re just all different.

Personally, Jack Brainard’s method will never work for me. First, I am incapable of keeping track of footfall.  I have tried it – a few different times – and it gives me a migraine! Second, I am not a micro-manager by nature.

I let my failure to master footfall make me feel less a horseman – for a while.  Then it dawned on me that I didn’t need to track footfall.  I had never needed to before, why start now.  The one horse that I trained to what would be considered First Level dressage, did beautiful canter departs on the correct lead, exactly when I asked.  There might have been a miniscule delay between my intention to ask and the actual depart – as the HORSE had to wait for his feet to be in the right position.  But that was his job, not mine.

I will admit, that perhaps when I was training him to understand what I wanted, it might have been helpful to ask at the exact instant that foot was in place. Maybe.  But there is not much precision in getting a horse to canter on signal the first few times.  What I have found that is helpful is to ask for the first several canters at the exact same spot.  Horse are very quick to make those kinds of connections. Then as the horse grasps the whole idea, start asking at different spots.

But that is me.  We are all different.  Our personalities, and basic nature, affect which training method will work best for US. Then we must try to figure out what works best for the horse.  What is their basic nature and personality?  Some horses are independent and get bored easily. Some find a lot of comfort in routine and can do lots of ring work without feeling bored or put upon.  Some horses can be yelled at, some must be sweet talked.  Each one is different.  For example, Zola evidently wants contact to feel confident and relaxed at this stage.  Chance hates to make lots of turns.  I’ve tried warming him up by trot work in an imaginary arena.  After the third or fourth turn he gets annoyed and I can almost hear him saying, “What the heck are you doing?  Let’s go somewhere!”  Not a great dressage prospect.  But I think he’d do okay as a jumper, certainly a trail horse.

That is where the relationship becomes invaluable.  When we are connected to our horses, we have a better chance of understanding what that tossed head or those pinned ears mean.  Most often they DO mean something, it’s not just the horse trying to be a pain.

So happy training to all – look for the method that truly suits you, or create your own.  Don’t ever feel bad because something doesn’t work for you or your horse.  We are all different.