I've been thinking again...

I know it's dangerous but sometimes necessary. This post should go up over at Wild Hearts, Willing Spirits and eventually it will be expanded and honed and posted over there along with the one about losing and regaining your confidence with horses. They are both pretty much tied together and until I get them sorted out, you will have the benefit (or boredom) of my musings over here.

This is what the deck looked like on July 6th last year. I'd like to skip that part this year! I think Mike had just brought home the water garden and we were trying to figure out how to set it up on the deck when it was intended to be buried in dirt.

Now why am I sitting here writing this today, Independence Day, when Mike and I had planned to take our horse boys out for their first hike together, to begin the mental part of working on an obstacle course/training trail we are going to build? That's easy...it's pouring down rain! I mean POURING down rain. I think this is probably the third year in a row that my prayers have been answered with soaking rains on People Try to Set the Forest on Fire Day. So here we are, curled up in our recliners with rain coming down and thunder all around us, dogs cozy in their beds, and me typing away.

The thirty acres of land that we don't live on is going to provide a wonderful opportunity to build a trail and obstacle course on it with natural features you would run into in the forest here...including big hairy sheep! In addition to the natural rocks and up and down terrain, we will build a wooden bridge and other things you might need to negotiate on a long ride.

Several people whose blogs I read daily have recently made the hard decision of realizing the horse they have and love, is not really suitable for them (HorseCentric, Laughing Orca Ranch) and that horse should move on to someone else. In one case (The Horseshoeing Housewife), the horse made that decision and seems to feel that running free in the desert is better than partnering with a human, even one with the skill and patience of a saint.

Star and I when he was around six on an endurance conditioning ride in the Santa Cruz mountains.

This all got me thinking about the emotional expectations we tend to put on our horses, myself certainly included there. I had a great horse, Star, who was also a total pain in the ass. That didn't matter and I loved him beyond reason anyway, in spite of the constant opinionated arguments, the airs above the ground just for the joy of it, and the fact that as a gaited horse I could never really ride him with anyone else because his flat walk was six miles per hour. Still, he was my brother in hooves and I loved and respected him for who he was and didn't expect anything more or less from him. In spite of all of his faults and eccentricities, I loved him and was furious with him when he died, much, much too young.

There was a period of time that I lived in northern California and bartered board for myself and Star in exchange for labor. There was a young woman trainer at that barn who taught the lesson program and also took horses in for training. This young woman allowed her emotions to be entirely too involved in what she was doing and it had a big negative impact both on her students and her horses. She measured herself too much in the successes and failures of her students and that is putting way too much pressure on young kids. Riding should be fun for them, not something that makes them a failure in someone else's eyes if they can't get it exactly right.

A child's parents can pull them out of a lesson program and find a better one if that child has stopped experiencing joy in riding. Not so lucky are the horses. This woman had a lovely big thoroughbred who was her own horse. I think his name was Coda (notice I remember the horse’s name and not hers?). He had chronic lameness issues mostly due to his conformation of being short backed and long legged which caused him to constantly overstep with his back legs, shearing the heels off of his front feet. This is something that can be corrected if only the trainer will take the time necessary to create softness and strength in the back so that the horse is capable of what is called in the dressage world 'self carriage'. This means the horse is capable of coming through with his back to lift his front end, along with the weight of the rider, up and out of the way of his back feet.

I don't remember her name and I'm tired of typing 'this woman' so let's just call her Jane (no offense to any Jane's out there who aren't 'this woman'!). Shortly after I moved to that barn, Jane brought her horse in from what had been about a three month pasture turnout to heal from his last injury. Instead of slowly and carefully working on suppling and strengthening him, she went right back to jumping without any conditioning or training time. In a matter of weeks, he was once again going badly and displaying the emotional issues of a horse in constant pain. I was walking between the barn and the house one day when I heard her screaming from the arena, 'You break my heart! You just break my heart!' as he once again pulled a front shoe and sliced his heel off. At that point, crying and in a fury, she pulled his tack, shoved him through the gate to the pasture and hit him with the rope as she yelled that she was going to sell him and would never get on his back again. I thought 'Good. Maybe he'll have a chance now.'

The connection between Mike and Llego has been clear from the first time they met and it has been beautiful to watch. You wouldn't think an untrained BLM mustang would be the ideal horse for the novice rider but in this case, it is. Llego's calm intelligence combined with his complete faith in Mike is the perfect combination.

The point of all of this is that if our happiness lies in believing our horse will somehow 'fix' us, or that in somehow 'fixing' our horse we will find happiness, or success, or recognition, or whatever tag you have attached to riding and having a horse, then everyone eventually gets hurt. The weight of a rider combined with the weight of those kinds of expectations is just too heavy for any horse to carry. Our happiness shouldn't be derived from the horse; it should be shared with the horse. For Jane, her horse had become her image of success and her world with that horse had closed down to where nothing else was acceptable. She couldn't see that she might not be the best rider for him, or that he might not be suited physically or temperamentally to be a jumper. It's all about getting ourselves unstuck from expectations.

Besol was a 'project' horse we saved from a downward spiral due to unintentional riding abuse. He is a sensitive horse with neurotic behaviors who was being over-ridden with an extreme bit by a large novice rider in a saddle that didn't fit. After facing down cancer in 2008, I didn't want to spend years rehabbing Besol, I wanted to enjoy riding and our horses right now. So we found a place for him in a riding program through a rescue we respect. He is doing well, I got Mio, and everyone won in this situation.

I have great respect for the two women who have sadly but wisely come to the conclusion that they and their horses aren't right for each other. This means that everyone gets a new opportunity...the riders to find horses better suited to their skill levels and the kind of riding they want to do, and their horses will get a chance to excel with riders more suited to their personalities and abilities. It's a 'win/win' for everyone because when riding stops being fun for either you or your horse, no one wins.

Me and my dream dressage horse, Cody, in 1984.

I learned this lesson in a very hard way when I was in my early thirties and found my ‘dream’ horse. Cody was this beautiful, tall thoroughbred who had the elegance, strength and purity of gaits to be exactly the dressage horse I wanted. I didn’t even have him a year when he nearly cut his foot off in an accident and though I fought hard to save him, I eventually gave him the mercy of euthanasia. My dream was shattered, or so I thought, until I realized that I didn’t have to have a horse to prove myself by competing with him…I could have a horse just because I love having horses.

From that moment on, everything I felt about horses changed and I began to honor them for who they are as individuals, not who I wanted them to be. I also began to develop a reputation of ‘buy high and give away’ as I would bring a horse into my life, then sell or even give them away when I found exactly the right person who they really belonged with. Sort of a matchmaking service between horse and rider!

Do I still have expectations of my horses all of these years later? Of course I do, but they don’t have much to do with my own identity anymore. I expect my horse to keep me safe and to be fun to ride. Following my own personal taste, I want them to be sensitive to the riding aids and to move freely and well. I want them to be safe on the trails and respectful of my safety and of other horses and riders.

Since I am always the one on the other side of the camera, this may be the only photo I have of me and Mio for a while. That's alright, I really like this one.

I no longer need a giant horse at least 16.2 hands tall who can be successful in the dressage show ring. Nor do I need an exceptionally attractive horse. Color means nothing to me nor does breeding, especially since we fell in love with the characteristics of wild mustangs. What I want is a horse I can relax on and take in the scenery on a trail ride; one that I can head into the arena with to do a little dressage for fun, not competition; a horse that I feel a bond with and with whom I share a joy of companionship.

Pretty Mio has settled himself in well with the rest of the herd and is proving to be exactly the horse I needed at this point in my life.

So far, Mio gives me all of these things plus, he has the added bonus of being pretty which was not something I was shopping for. He also happens to be my favorite shade of dappled bay and that nice blaze and pretty white socks in back were an added surprise. The point is, I wasn’t shopping for looks, I was shopping for a horse who filled my current needs. The only requirements I had besides being well trained for trail riding, safe, and good with other horses, was that he be a gelding, a mustang, and between 15 and 16 hands tall because I am six feet tall. The ‘pretty’ stuff was just the icing on the cake.

None of this has changed how I feel about my grey horse, Griton. I was putting entirely too much pressure on Griton to ‘save me’ from feeling so lost and terrified of cancer last year and this. He tried, but the big butthead is accident prone and has only been sound a few months at a time since we got him four years ago. First he injured his stifles not more than six months into ownership which is still a chronic problem. Then he injured a front foot resulting in abscess after abscess.

Handsome Griton showing off his current soundness up in the rocks headed towards the bluff.

He is currently sound and has been since around March but I never know how long that will last. This spring when I tearfully let go of the idea that he would ever be ‘that horse’ who carried me safely down trails and played with me in the arena, everything changed about our relationship. It is still as strong and close as ever, but the burden of carrying me has been shifted to Mio. And Mio is just plain fun and completely sound. Griton won’t be going anywhere because he is as happy as a sheep loving butthead can possibly be here with his ram, his herd, and us, and he certainly isn’t invested in whether or not he will ever be a riding horse! Since I have released him from that pressure, he has seemed to relax more and has less need to shift his own stress to annoying the other horses. I love that big butthead and would miss him terribly if he weren’t here.

So what was the point of this long, meandering post? Love your horses because they are worthy of love. Be realistic when you choose your horses and don’t be taken in by a pretty face, a pretty color, a breed or a sad story unless you have the experience necessary to change that sad story. Choose the horse that you can be happy with NOW, today, no waiting, get on and ride!

Unless of course you are one of those folks with the experience and the desire to raise and train a youngster, turn a green horse into a finished horse, or save a project horse from going down hill. Just figure out what you are good at, what you want your horse to be good at and grab the one that fits and if you make a mistake, let it go. Find the right home for that horse and start looking again. Eventually you will get it right and then you can ride off into the sunset softly singing…

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
gaze at the moon until I lose my senses
I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't..... fence me in!

Lyrics by Ella Fitzgerald ~ Don’t Fence Me In