The determination of a little girl

When I first saw her moving under saddle, my heart broke just a little.  I could see that she was in worse shape than I thought.  I couldn't even begin to identify all the problems with her movement, but I was convinced there was something wrong with her left stifle.  It was clear that trotting was out of the question for her, and even walking was difficult.  And when I showed a good friend of mine the video I took, she speculated that the mare looked like her pelvis was broken.  What exactly had I gotten myself in to?

 

I've written snippets of the story on this blog before.  After we couldn't lease the lovely pony, Mini, for Gemma anymore because she needed to move to a new barn too far away for us to visit, I was looking for another option.  The only one that presented itself was an older mare named Star.  She'd been used as a beginner lesson horse for about eight years at the barn I boarded at.  In fact, she had been the first horse Gemma had taken a lesson on a couple of years before.  Gemma had always adored her and she continued to sneak her treats in her field over the years.

But the mare had been retired from the lesson program several months before.  She was having trouble and the instructors didn't seem to know why, but they recommended she not do lessons anymore.  The prevailing thought seemed to be that she was burned out.  But when I watched her move, it was clear to me that the reason wasn't mental.  Star was in an incredible amount of pain.

I approached the mare's caregiver (her owner had delegated her care to someone else because she had to live far away) about having a vet come out and do an exam.  I thought that would be the best place to start.  The caregiver agreed to set up an appointment, but before she could do that, Star was brutally attacked by another mare in her field.  She is likely alive only because one of the barn staff saw the attack and had the courage to intervene.

After the attack, Star suffered from significant injuries, but also emotional trauma.  She couldn't be turned back out with her herd, both because the mare that originally attacked her tried again, but also because Star was too terrified to leave the perceived safety of the run-in shed.  So she spent several weeks in the round pen until she could be moved to another field.

About two weeks after the attack, the vet came out for a follow up visit and that is when I was able to advocate for a more thorough assessment to find solutions for the pain she had been in prior to the attack.  The vet prescribed a medication for arthritis to see if that helped as well as Cosequin for her joints.  She also recommended that Star see a chiropractor.  

Star's caregiver agreed to try all of those things and after just a few days, it was clear she was feeling better.  So Gemma and I started working with her.  

I didn't have a good plan other than to start with easy stuff and proceed slowly, observing how Star was doing.  I decided we would just do some hand-walking with her a few times a week.  We worked up to about 20 minutes.  Then we added in some ground work, doing some yielding with her hind quarters and shoulders and doing a couple of ground pole exercises.  Finally, I put Gemma on her back without a saddle, and we took slow walks around the farm.

Because Star's temperament was quiet, it wasn't long before Gemma asked to take Star out for walks by herself.  And I let her do that.  Unbeknownst to me, Gemma had her own plan.  Over time, she started asking Star to trot, then canter, and then go over little jumps.  I couldn't believe it when Gemma showed me what she had been working on.  But the proof of her success was easy for me to see.  Star was moving comfortably and willingly.  Gemma could even ride bareback in a halter and canter in an open field.

 

In the meantime, I had decided to begin some in-hand work using Science of Motion techniques.  So Gemma was doing her thing with Star and I was doing mine.  I felt pretty unsure of myself with the in-hand work, so I got in touch with the instructor I had worked with when I was riding Nimo and asked if she could come out to help us.  She agreed.

The first lesson we had was sort of mind-boggling.  Star had been moved from one field to another and she was having a long temper tantrum about it.  I'm not sure Star has ever had a temper tantrum in her entire life.  It was so out of character as to be nonsensical.  (Star was often the horse used to keep other horses company when they were on special turnout and needed a buddy, so she was used to moving from field to field and had never shown any signs of anxiety.)  The only thing I can think of is that she remembered the field as the safe place she had after her attack and moving from it was hard for her.

We spent that lesson with Gemma, me, and my instructor being dragged all over the place.  It took two hours to get her to settle and focus on working with us, and my instructor actually recommended that I start riding her instead of doing in-hand work with her because it would be easier to manage her.  Of course, that recommendation was based on the way she'd acted that day, rather than her normal self, but I decided to give it a shot.

I'd been reluctant to ride Star simply because she had never carried an adult that I knew of.  And because she'd had some physical issues, I was concerned about her ability to carry weight.  But I also knew that Star has a good sense of self-preservation and she will not do things that she doesn't think are appropriate or safe.  So I figured she would tell me if carrying me was too much.

I started out by riding her at the walk for about 20 minutes around the farm - basically the same technique that Gemma had started with.  I did that several times a week for a couple of weeks.  Meanwhile Gemma continued to ride her on her own, and she was doing so well that I decided Gemma could start using her for her weekly lessons.

Once I felt like Star was very comfortable walking with me, I started asking for little bits of trot.  And then I had another lesson with my instructor.  I rode for about half an hour and then Gemma rode for about half an hour.  We worked on collection.  And my mind was blown.  I would not have believed Star could yield at the poll so quickly or that she could do this more advanced work so readily.  

It wasn't that Star simply started collecting herself.  She certainly fussed a bit and tried to go sideways or backwards when I gathered the reins and asked her to yield.  But it didn't take long at all before she was starting to get the idea.  And her understanding carried through to when Gemma rode her.  I about cried when I saw Gemma was able to get brief moments of yielding.

 

Gemma rode with her regular instructor a couple of days later and the instructor commented that the work we'd done with her must have really helped because Star looked more fluid.  And that's when we made the decision that Gemma could show Star in the upcoming hunter show.

It was almost unbelievable that a mare who looked like she had a broken pelvis five months ago was now ready to go to a show.  The thing is, Gemma always believed she would be able to show Star.  She talked about it constantly, and I kept reminding her that Star might not recover enough to ever show.  I mean, I knew what my daughter didn't.  Sometimes horses are too broken to fix.  And sometimes their owners and riders have limitations in resources and knowledge.

But it was a good thing that Gemma didn't know those things.  She just rode Star instinctively and kept asking her to do more things.  And Star responded by doing the things.

Which is why yesterday, Gemma and Star were able to put in an amazing performance at a local hunter schooling show.  I could not have asked for anything more from either of them.

I really didn't know what to expect from Star.  She often defaulted to her school horse shuffle if she was in the arena, which is a big reason why Gemma and I were working with her outside the arena as much as we could.  Also, Star had a well-known history of requiring a huge bubble around herself.  When we first started working with her, she hated other horses coming within 50 feet of her.

Over the past couple of months, though, I had observed that her personal space bubble had gotten much smaller.  I had taken her on a trail ride with other horses, and she did really well.  I'd kept her at the back, but inevitably, we were close to the other horses occasionally as we encountered trail obstacles and had to turn around.  And she didn't seem to be getting upset.  She did so well that I let Gemma take her on a trail ride with other girls at the barn by herself, and Gemma said Star was perky but manageable and had no issues with the other horses.

Also, Donut is now in Star's field, and Donut really wants to be Star's friend.  As a result, Donut consistently ignores Star's requests to move out of her space.  And she seems to have desensitized Star to the point that I have seen them grazing close together, something Star would never have tolerated in the past.

But as anyone who shows knows, horses can be very different horses in the show ring.   I didn't expect Star to be difficult or unsafe, but I did worry that she would move very slowly, struggle with trotting, and pin her ears at all the other horses.

Alas, she did none of those things, with the exception of what I refer to as her walk speeds.  She does still have a tendency to walk slowly, but it is a huge improvement over what she used to do, and Gemma did have moments of getting her to walk out a little.  Plus her trot was perfect for the hunter ring.  It was like a metronome.  But the biggest success came from her lack of concern about the other horses.  She consented to standing in the line-up with no indication of stress.  And during one class, another little girl on a pony missed her window of opportunity to pass using the quarter line and got stuck right next to Star as they trotted down the long side of the arena, pinned to the rail because of the jumps that were set up.  Star was on the rail and the pony was on the inside track.  Star never faltered.  She kept her trot rhythm consistent and showed no sign of distress.  It was unbelievable to see her so comfortable when she used to be so stressed.

Gemma likes to always be doing things, so waiting to get saddled up was the toughest part of the show for her!  On the other hand, Star was happy to eat the "special hay" while she waited:)

 

Gemma and Star got second place in all three classes and reserve champion in the Pre-Short Stirrup Division.

I don't think I can overstate how amazing this transformation has been.  And I don't think I can overstate Gemma's contribution to it.  I've been checking in with her regularly and doing some work with Star myself, but there is no doubt in my mind that Gemma is the biggest reason that Star has come so far.  Star and Gemma adore each other and anyone who watches them together can see it.

And watching the transformation and progress of the two of them has been pretty instructive for me too.  Because Gemma hasn't read any textbooks or gone to any clinics or studied with any masters.  She doesn't know anything about rehabbing an injured horse or prepping a horse for a show.  Yet her innate curiosity and enthusiasm somehow connected with a 24-year-old broken mare to develop a wonderful partnership when everyone else had given up.