It Takes the Time It Takes

One of the most important things that blogging has done for me is to allow me to reflect on myself and my work with horses.  That reflection has, without a doubt, helped me become a better person and a better horsewoman.  I still have a long way to go, but when I think about how I used to be as compared to where I am now, well, I'm thankful for the growth, and I'm sure the horses I work with are too.

Writing has also made me more observant about how others work with their horses.  I have found some professionals whose perspectives and techniques I really enjoy, but I also look at how other boarders at my barn, my friends, and even random strangers work with their horses.  And I have to admit that it is pretty rare when I see one of those people doing something I'd like to emulate.  That is not to say that I see people beating their horses or otherwise engaging in overt abuse, but I don't often see a technique that I think is really effective in a positive way.  

In fact, the thing I see most frequently is simply rushing the process.  And that rushing seems to lead to a problem somewhere down the road.  Whether it is a weird, inconsistent lameness, rushing fences, poor ground manners, or some other undesirable behavior, there is always a price to pay for moving through a horse's education too quickly.

I have watched young horses rushed through their education so that someone can show them or they can be sold for big money to someone else, who will, of course, have to deal with the holes in their education at some point.  I have watched off-the-track thoroughbreds restarted under saddle without a proper let-down period.  And I have watched people buy older horses, bring them to the barn, and then immediately start riding them without giving them time to settle in, determining what things the horse knows, or assessing the horse's fitness.

I have seen more than one video and Facebook post by Warwick Schiller where he emphasizes that when he starts working with a horse, regardless of its age or level of training, he starts from the beginning.  So he checks if all the buttons are there, so to speak.  Can the horse lead from the ground?  Can the horse stand for grooming?  Are there any places the horse doesn't like to be touched?  Will the horse pick up its feet?  How does the horse get on the trailer?  Can it be clipped?  How does the horse handle being saddled and bridled?  Once under saddle, can the horse walk, turn, and stop?  How about at the trot?  At the canter?  If the horse can do all those things well and without anxiety, then more advanced training or work can start.  But if the horse can't do one or more of those things, well, the things it can't do need to be addressed first.

One reason that I like working with a young horse is because of the time I have to take to get to know the horse.  It forces me to slow down because I can't ride, so I might as well work on other stuff like grooming, picking up feet, bathing, clipping, trailer loading, etc.  That way, by the time I get in the saddle, I don't have to wonder what my horse knows about ground manners, and my horse and I have developed a routine that works for us.  

I think when buying a horse that is already under saddle, it is easy to bring them to your barn and then ride them the next day and then show them the next month.  But then down the road, problems start to crop up.  They seem minor at first.  The horse struggles a bit with loading on the trailer.  Transitions aren't as clean as they should be.  The horse fidgets.  And then the problems get bigger.  The horse loses her lead changes.  The horse starts refusing fences.  The horse won't get on the trailer at all.   Or maybe the the horse becomes lame and needs rehab.  Sometimes the horse can get back to competition, and sometimes she can't.  All because people rush the horse's education and conditioning.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from my experience with Nimo in endurance riding was that working with horses at a more advanced level takes time.  It takes so much time.  There are gifted professionals and even amateurs out there who can take a horse from knowing very little to being more educated fairly quickly, but they are the exception, not the rule.  And there are gifted horses who can tolerate skipped steps up to a certain point, but if they compete at an advanced level, the holes become apparent in one way or another.  How many top competition horses have weird idiosyncrasies that have to be accommodated?  Would they have those idiosyncrasies if someone had really taken the time necessary to make sure the horses had all the information they needed to do their jobs?

And I kind of wonder what impact the "natural horsemanship" school of thought has had on our ideas of how quickly a horse should be educated.  I don't think they are so common now, but remember the colt starting clinics?  Where a professional might get a young horse and be riding them within just a day or two?  I know a lot of people don't do them anymore because they realized it was giving people the wrong impression of how a horse should be trained under saddle.  But I suspect there is this lingering sense that a horse can go quickly through a lot of steps if only you use the right halter and lead rope.

I can still remember when I first rode Nimo.  By the time I got on him, I had spent about two years getting to know him.  I had done everything I could think of on the ground with him, and I'd also spent a lot of time lunging (not a lot of time in one session, but rather a full year of frequent, short sessions).  It was a nonevent.  I would definitely approach the way I continued his education once I got on a little differently now - I've had another 15 years to learn since then - but there was no bucking, rearing, snorting, taking off, or even anxiety.  Me getting on was just the next step in a process that he was prepared for.

It is my hope that I'll have the same experience with Donut.  That by the time I sit in the saddle, she will feel so comfortable with me and I will feel so comfortable with her that riding is simply a continuation of what we've been doing.  But that feeling doesn't happen overnight, or in a week, or in a month.  In my case, it takes YEARS.  

I don't mean to say that everyone who gets a new horse should spend two years before they get on, but I do wonder how many issues with horses could be avoided if we simply took a little more time with them.  If instead of forcing them to conform to our goals of riding or competing or selling, we took whatever time was needed to help that horse understand all the things it needs to know to live in a human-dominated world.  Then that horse would have a much better chance at a good quality of life no matter where it ended up.

Of if we have a horse and we start seeing little things, like anxiety about daily routines that didn't used to be there, or an off step here and there, or performance issues, we stop our forward momentum and take a step back.  We review the training basics with the horse to make sure all the knowledge is there.  We check in with a vet and/or farrier to see if there are physical issues that need to be addressed.  We take a look at our feeding program to see if adjustments need to be made.  We evaluate the horse's environment to see if any improvements are possible.  And then we take the time it takes to resolve the issues without subjecting the horse to our schedule.