A little adventure with Freya, part 1

"I need a drink!" Gemma exclaimed as she took a swig of her emergency stash of chocolate milk.  I nodded in commiseration and said, "I need a donut!"  Thankfully, I had the foresight to buy an extra Boston Kreme donut the day before, and I reached for the bag next to the driver's seat as my heart rate settled back into its normal rhythm.  

We had just survived the most unusual route thanks to my erratic navigation app, and we were now apparently on the right interstate headed in the right direction toward home, my trailer full of a probably confused Freya in tow.

The events that led to this more-exciting-than-I-really-wanted drive started back in October, when I found out about a clinic in North Carolina with my favorite horseman.  Well, actually, maybe they really started back in February 2003.

Back then, I was still fairly new to northern Virginia.  I had a cute six-year-old Appaloosa named Preacher, and I imagined that he was going to be with me for the next twenty plus years.  He had a mild, intermittent lameness that several vets had been unable to diagnose, but I was confident that it was something minor that we would figure out over time or that would resolve on its own.

I had become friends with a lady who was a big fan of a guy named Mark Rashid.  He had published at least a couple of books by then, and my friend thought they were gold.  She worked as a barn manager for a stable that had 50 lesson horses plus about 15 boarded horses, and she was always looking for ways to handle the horses better and easier.  She found out about a clinic that he would be at and it was only about a two hour drive, so she encouraged me to sign up with Preacher and she would be taking her horse.  The clinic filled fast, and we snagged the last two spots for our horses.

Even though we registered in February, the clinic wouldn't be held until October (I think - my memory is a bit fuzzy on the exact timing).  By then, so much had happened in my life.  Preacher was diagnosed with a fairly advanced case of navicular disease in April and the condition of his feet got worse and worse.  In June, the unthinkable happened, he shattered his hock when he was turned out in the pasture, and it was not something that could be repaired.  I watched while the life ebbed out of a very special horse when the vet came to put him down in the field, because he couldn't walk.

Despite my extreme grief over Preacher's loss, I knew that I would want another horse in the future.  So I held on to my stall at the stable I'd been boarding him, much to the irritation of the owner and probably other potential boarders.  It was then, and still is now, very hard to get stalls at good facilities, and when you do get a stall you only let it go if you absolutely have to.  So I was under a bit of pressure to find another horse to fill the stall. (I was still paying full board, but I guess seeing an empty stall really bothered the owner, and he started sounding like he would force me to let it go if I didn't get a horse soon.)

So I spent weeks looking for a horse.  I eventually decided I really wanted a Friesian yearling.  I would have been happy with an older Friesian, but the price of yearlings was the best my budget could do.  So I think it was about the beginning of August when I made an offer on a yearling named Hjalte.  He was sweet and seemed to have basic skills.  The seller accepted my offer, we signed a purchase agreement, and I transferred the purchase amount to her bank.

And once the money was transferred, I got a frantic call from the seller saying she'd decided she couldn't sell the yearling after all.  It was a bit of a mess, but I did get my money back.  I was definitely soured on dealing with private sellers after that experience, though.

So I turned my attention to a farm in Maryland that had lots of Friesians for sale, and whose business was actually selling them.  I felt more confident in the sales process, and the farm had two yearlings, a filly and a colt, for sale.  I ended up choosing the colt, who was a bit of a handful, but who had a huge personality and a clear love of people.  I made an offer, which was accepted, and then all of a sudden I had a horse again.  His registered name was Geronimo f/t Friesian Conn., but he seemed like a Nimo to me.  So that is what I decided to call him.

Nimo needed to be gelded before coming back to my barn, so arrangements were made, and the surgery was performed.  I was there, and it was hot and sweltering and there were a few complications.  In the end, Nimo was fine, but I admit to no small amount of anxiety while he was healing.

Once he was healed and vaccinated and his hooves were trimmed, a friend came with me to pick him up and haul him to his new home.  One of the first things that I discovered after we got him home was that he had a little trouble leading.  It wasn't so much that he didn't know how.  He did.  It was that he didn't always feel like moving forward.  And that was creating a bit of a problem at the stable.  The stable was a hybrid self-care situation.  Various boarders would do chores like feeding and turnout in exchange for a reduction in board, but boarders were responsible for cleaning their horses' stalls and providing hay and feed.  So the boarders were having a little trouble leading Nimo out to his field.  They solved this problem by feeding him treats with every step.  Sigh...Even then, that horse could con food out of people faster than you could blink.

I knew I had a problem that needed to be solved quickly and that's when my friend reminded me that I had signed up for the clinic with Mark Rashid.  I had forgotten about it in all the events that had happened, and to be honest, I wasn't really that confident that some random horse guy was going to be able to fix this problem.  On the other hand, I really needed Nimo to lead better or he was going to weigh 2,000 pounds in six months with all those treats.

So just two or three weeks after I had brought Nimo to the barn, we headed off to the clinic.  He did great at loading in the trailer, he was easy to haul, and he had no trouble going to a new place.  He was with my friend's horse, who he knew a little from playtime in the arena, so he had a friend, but he didn't worry about being separated from her.

When it was time for our session, I managed to get Nimo into the round pen where we'd be working and showed Mark the problem.  You'd be walking along with Nimo, and then he would just stop, and no amount of finagling would get him going until he was ready.  Mark watched for a few minutes and then suggested a solution - every time Nimo stopped, I would turn around and start acting like a crazy person.  I would be jumping up and down, waving my arms, and yelling.  Well, I can tell you who I thought the crazy person was about then.

But I'd paid a bunch of money and we were already there, so I gave it a try (or maybe Mark did it first and showed me how it worked...again, my memory is a bit fuzzy).  Anyway, Nimo was very responsive to the technique.  It took about 10 or 15 minutes before I got my timing right, and then we were in business.  I vaguely remember using the technique maybe a handful of times more after the clinic, but it didn't take long before Nimo was an equine good citizen about being led to and from his field.

I ended up auditing a couple of clinics with Mark in future years, but I didn't have the resources to pay for a full clinic session, and I wasn't that sure what we would work on.  By the time I realized that I could use some help from Mark and I had the money to pay for it, he wasn't coming to that location or any other location that felt close enough to haul to.  And I also had discovered Science of Motion, and for a long time, I really thought that was the right path for us.  (I still think it was, but I think a few tips from Mark would have helped us immeasurably, and I really regret not seeking out a clinic with him before Nimo died.)  I read all Mark's books over the years, of course, but for me, reading and doing are not even in the same universe, so the information has felt mostly theoretical.  Until recently.

Back in October, I stumbled across a Facebook post by a lady hosting a Mark Rashid clinic in North Carolina.  Well, much of North Carolina is within a decent hauling distance, so I mapped the location and discovered that it was about a five hour drive.  Because of all the hauling I used to do for endurance rides, that didn't feel intimidating, and I immediately emailed the clinic organizer and snagged the last available session with Mark, plus a session with his student trainer, Gray, and a bodywork session with Mark's wife, Crissy McDonald, who has become certified in the Masterson Method.

I was elated.  Even though the clinic was too late to help Nimo and me, it wasn't too late to help my daughter, Gemma, and her horse, Freya.  Freya has been going through her own saga, but at the time I registered for the clinic, I was seeing a lot of bracing in response to pressure.  Like tensing when Gemma put contact, even light contact, on the reins.  I also noticed that while she was incredibly responsive to requests to move on the ground, she was bracing through her response.  For example, if I asked her to back up, she would immediately back 6 steps, but she didn't seem able to soften or yield to the contact.  She also seemed incapable of backing one step at a time, no matter how softly I asked.

I knew that the bracing was a fundamental problem that needed to be resolved before we could advance with her.  I also knew how I would approach it if I was the one riding her, but I wasn't quite sure how to handle it on the ground.  I tried a technique that I watched Mark do with a new horse in his online classroom, and I just couldn't get my timing right.  Plus Gemma was the one riding her, and I didn't think she possessed the feel or the patience to work through the issue under saddle the way I would.

So I put my faith in Mark for the clinic and tried to tread water with Freya until then.  As it happened, she ended up with a chronic thrush infection in all four of her hooves.  I didn't realize it was thrush at first, because it happened during our dry fall.  And there was no odor or oozing fluid.  But she started looking sore on her feet.  I was thinking I was going to have to put shoes on, when my instructor checked her feet and noticed that she had cracks in the bulbs of her heels.  I felt incredibly ignorant, having owned a horse that never had much trouble with hoof infections, and I didn't know that heel cracks are a sign of a sometimes deep infection that can be really painful.

Once I knew, I immediately started treating, but the infection was unresponsive to several highly recommended products.  Finally, I stumbled on a product called No Thrush that is a powder, which was just what I needed as winter came in full force and temperatures were often below freezing, so liquid and gel products couldn't be used.  No Thrush did heal the cracks in Freya's hind feet in about a month, but the front cracks were stubborn, and I ended up doing a round of Today (an antibiotic for mastitis in cows).  That resolved one of the front cracks and made a significant difference in the other.  But I think it is going to be an issue for awhile.  At least Freya doesn't seem sore anymore.

I had pulled her out of ridden work for two months, because she was so sore from her feet that her lumbar area and neck also became quite sore.  I had the chiropractor come out once a month to help with the soreness, and finally, during our early February session, it looked like Freya was starting to feel better.  Shortly after that, I did a lunging lesson with my instructor, and she was moving so much better.

So I put Gemma back on her for short walking sessions for a couple of weeks, and then we added trot back in.  And it was clear that the braciness was still there.  Gemma was able to help work it out intermittently, but I felt we needed a better plan and a more structured approach that made sense to Gemma and Freya.  I should say that I don't think the approaches that were being taken by either of the other instructors we were working with were right for Freya at that time.  Freya's problem was so ingrained in her, we needed to find a very gentle way of chipping away at it without triggering her threshold for feeling anxiety.  Science of Motion techniques were too intense when used by me or Gemma.  I think if my instructor was the one working with Freya, it would be OK, because my instructor has years and years and years worth of experience that we do not have.  But the reality is that Gemma and I are the ones working with her, and we need to find techniques that work for us and Freya.  Luckily, we were scheduled for Mark's clinic.

So on Thursday, March 3, we loaded the truck and trailer, and hauled Freya down to North Carolina.  As I drove, I reflected that I really didn't know what to expect from Freya.  She is generally easy to handle, even if she is worried about something, and I knew she'd been hauled to shows before we got her.  But none of that meant that she would be OK at the clinic.  We were staying four nights, and that is a lot of time for a horse to handle being away from home.  And kind of a lot for a nine-year-old kid too.  But I knew in my heart that this clinic was the best chance for us to find a way through Freya's bracing.

What I didn't realize when we left was that while I knew Gemma would be able to handle a lesson with Mark, Mark was skeptical, so Gemma's participation in the clinic was by no means assured...