Cardinal Rule #1--My first Ah Ha! Moment

I'll admit, I'm not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to schooling leads.

In 2009, shortly after her 4th birthday, Chev bowed a tendon twirling like a maniac on turnout in the roundpen.  When I brought her in, she was tender on the rocks.  She was barefoot at the time, and she always had hard hooves.  She was never stone tender.  That got my attention right away.

When I lunged her to assess her better, something was definitely wrong.  Chevy has a lot of head movement at liberty or on the line at the trot.  I've had two vets assess her, and they both said, "It's just the way she moves."  But this time I could definitely see a head bob.  There was the tiniest bit of swelling in her left front just below the knee.  No heat.  Everyone told me it was a stone bruise.

I should probably mention at this point that I have this strange "feeling" sometimes around animals.  When I look at an animal, I can usually tell if something is wrong, even if they look fine on the outside.  It's really strange.  I guess I probably just notice things other people wouldn't notice.  With Chevy, I couldn't explain what it was, but I knew something was wrong.

I called the vet and made an appointment to come out the following morning for an ultrasound of both front legs.  I felt a little silly doing it, since I didn't have much reasonable data to indicate a problem.

Sure enough, her left front superficial flexor tendon was bowed.

A "bowed" tendon technically just means it doesn't appear normal.  This could mean anything from minor swelling to a tear, a hole, or even complete severance of the tendon connection.  Major injuries give the tendon a bowed appearance.  This is pretty common to see in Thoroughbreds.  But it can happen to any horse.

In Chev's case, luckily, the tendon was just swollen without any perforation.

It still meant she was on stall rest for two months.

Imagine confining a three-year-old child to a crib for two months, and you pretty much have how much fun that was for both of us.

I spent many evenings down at the barn walking her in slow, big loops around the barn.  Soon everyone knew us.

After a month of nothing but hand walking, we graduated to a few minutes of trot work.

Eventually she was back on the lunge line again.  I was terrified she would re-injure herself and be unridable.

Anyway, the point of all this is to explain why, at 5 years old, my horse was just learning how to canter under saddle.

I started riding her again about two and a half months after her injury on the advice of the vet, in late August of 2009.  We did a few minutes of trot a day, but most of it was walking, halting, and learning to steer.

I didn't really get her cantering under saddle until almost her 6th birthday, about a year ago.

I mentioned before that my horse is one-sided, like many horses.

I could get her going on one lead, but not the other.  She was completely "one-leaded."

My gelding had one lead, and while I loved him absolutely, I didn't really have to heart to push him into working on both leads all the time.  Before he was retired to a life of trail riding (which he loved), we could do flying changes when he was 23--but it wasn't much fun for either of us.  I decided at that point in his life, he had earned pleasant rides under saddle that he enjoyed.  His show days were over, and he deserved to just have fun.  Plus, he was a real blast out on the trails, where it didn't matter what lead he chose.

Ben at 22 in his right lead canter, me with terrible equitation & a bareback pad

But I was determined my filly would have both her leads.

I worked day after day, trying everything I could think of to trick her into picking up the lead.

I saw our lives unfolding before me:  Megan and her one-leaded horse.  AGAIN.

It was very discouraging.

When you're in this situation, trying your hardest to canter your filly correctly in an arena and not kill anyone or yourself, you tend to solicit a lot of unwanted advice.

"Stop her and back her up hard when she takes the wrong lead," one teenage know-it-all said.

"Get her in a tight circle and then ask!"  Another yelled.

"If she's on the wrong lead just put her in a circle and she'll have to switch!" the first one said again.

"You have to turn her nose to the outside or she'll never get it!!"  the would-be trainer told me.

"TURN HER HARD AGAINST THE WALL AND THEN ASK HER HARD FOR THE LEAD ON THE WAY OUT!!!" someone else shouted.

It was ridiculous.  And very frustrating.  I didn't see the logic in any of these things, but I faithfully tried them in front of my audience, and every one failed.  Repeatedly.

After a while my teenage audience wrote us off as a lost cause, and left us alone.

It wasn't that Chev was trying to be bad.  Chev didn't know she had another lead under saddle.

She was just trying to chug along in the most comfortable and balanced way she knew how.

And I didn't want to punish that.

But I didn't have a clue about how to get through to her what I wanted.

I went home every time frustrated and defeated.

I was reading a lot of mugwump at this time, since her advice seemed really solid, simple and straight-forward to me.

I remember I was reading an entry on stops.

She saw the stop as a reward for the horse.  A chance to get a break from work.

Slowly the gears started turning in my brain.

I had an idea.

The next time I was out at the barn, I tried my theory.

After a long warm up, I asked for the canter.

Chev struck off on the only lead she knew.  It was wrong, but instead of stopping her, I let her chug along for a few laps around the indoor arena before I said "Hhhhho."

She rested a minute, we walked off, I asked again.

Wrong lead again.

I had her keep going around and around until I felt I'd made my point.  I let her halt and air up a little bit.  Then we struck off again.

Wrong lead again.  Around and around and around we went.  Probably ten laps.

We stopped.  She was getting tired.  I could feel her thinking about what she could do to get out of this crazy routine I had invented.

I asked again.  She picked up the wrong lead again.  Around and around and around.  Fifteen laps this time.

Whew!

As she aired up a little, I considered what had happened so far.  This was a lot more pleasant ride than the other ones, even if it was all spent on the wrong lead.

We walked off, I put her in a trot, stopped my posting and clearly asked again.

And guess what?

My little pony picked up the correct lead.

I was so happy I nearly cried.

I stopped her after four or five strides, let her rest a good long while and praised her lavishly.  I resisted the urge (and potential pitfall) of making her stay on the right lead for more than a few strides.

We walked out, she cooled off, and we quit for the day.

The gears were turning.

My next ride started off about the same, but it only took her two times of loping around and around the arena on the wrong lead before she figured it out.  I only had her go a few strides on the correct lead before letting her rest.  That way she knew the difference, and knew she could expect a reward if she did the right thing.

There was no yelling, no thumping, and no stress to this approach.  There was no cranking of the reins, tight turns, loss of balance, or stiffening of her neck.

Even though she's still much more comfortable on her left lead, I never had much trouble getting her leads after that.

This was my first really huge "ah-HA!!" moment with Chev.

So thanks, mugwump, for helping me figure out my first cardinal rule of training.

Rule #1:  Make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing hard.

 Chev on the right lead canter.  You can see the right lead originates from the left hind.

Lightness, or how your horse knows not to dump you in your moment of vulnerability

So, mugwump brought up a great point today.

She said she has one moment where she is completely vulnerable to her horse.  The moment when she swings into the saddle.

For some reason, over all the years she had trained and worked with rank youngsters, no horse to date had taken advantage of it.

I loved this post, because like most of hers it got me thinking a little about my relationship with horses.

We all have our vulnerable moments in the saddle.  (and out, for that matter.)

I feel like it's a bad idea even mentioning this, but it's been a long time since I've fallen off.

A really long time.

The more time that passes, the more nervous it makes me.

The last time I fell off was shortly after I got my gelding, Ben.

I remember I was schooling him in German sliding side reins in the lower arena.  We had just finished our workout.  You know the saying, "a tired horse is a safe horse"?  That saying doesn't really apply to the hot breeds.  About half the time, Arabs are just as amped at the end of a workout.  Especially when you are just getting to know each other.

I remember picking at something on the saddle, and Ben skittering out from under me at the noise I was making with my fingernail.  I stuck with him just fine.  I distinctly remember thinking it would be a good idea to continue making the noise, so that he would understand it was nothing to fear.

Next I know I'm the victim of Arabian horse teleporting ability, and I'm on my ass in the shavings.  He's come over and is giving me the usual sheepish look horses give you when you unexpectedly end up on the ground.

But I think in some ways, I was giving him permission to dump me.

If you can call it that.

I guess it would be more appropriate to say I was giving myself permission to fall off.

Of course, I didn't think that would happen.  It had been a couple years before that since I'd hit the dirt.  You may remember from my earlier post that I grew up riding young Arabians, I fell off a lot as a kid and eventually developed sticking ability and a sixth sense for spooks.  I considered myself pretty hot shit for sitting spooks.

I totally did not see this one coming. 

But at the same time, it was okay.  Ben was not going anywhere.  I was completely in love, and nothing he could do would change my love for him.

I didn't have another fall off him before the end of his life, 5 years later, even though I did plenty of stupid things.  He never behaved in any way but exactly as I expected him to.  Steady, steady, steady.

But that first and only time, it was almost as if he needed to know what I would do if I fell off.

I'll never know what landed him at the feedlot a few hundred miles from the Canadian slaughterhouses, but I would be damned if he ever had another day of his life where he felt scared, starved or alone.

And I never let him down.  I held him in my arms when he breathed his last breath, when the vet and I were unable to save him.  I was able to give him peace, and to be there every step of the way, to tell him he was loved.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is we had an unspoken understanding.

From the day when I picked my butt up off the sawdust of the lower arena, gathered his reins, and swung up on his back without any fear or anger, we were bonded to each other.  I would do whatever I could to make sure he knew he was loved and respected, and he did the same for me.  Although he was an Arabian, he was never a spooky horse after that.  I think he trusted me with his whole being, and something in him relaxed.

He became the best trail horse I could have hoped for--he was fearless and went anywhere I pointed him.

Though it's been near two years since his passing, I still miss him every day and the bond we had with one another.  I gave my whole heart to him, and he did the same for me.  I think it's hard to ever love as freely as you do with the first horse you lose.  But the hole in my heart is the proof I carry for the love I had for him.

I wish we had been allowed more time together.  I wish I had found him sooner.  But I wouldn't trade the five years I had with him for anything in the world.

So what is it about horses that allows them to trust us?  How can they see our weaknesses, and decide not to take advantage of them?

Chevelle can buck like a bronco.  She is Hancock, after all.  The bucks and twists she throws loose in the arena or at the end of a lunge line are awesome to behold.  Sixteen hands and 1200 pounds of baby sorrel fury.  Any time she stumbled, she'd come out of it bucking like a maniac.  (this has improved a little with age and balance, thankfully.)

So needless to say, combined with my lack of fall experience in the last many years, I am pretty scared of falling off.

I have had her going under saddle for three years.  I had a lovely, sensitive-minded girl just starting out her training biz work with her for 30 days as a 3 year old, while I watched proudly from the sidelines, trying to learn something.  Chev didn't know much, but she was honest.  If she stumbled, she'd toss a few half-hearted bucks out the back while she tried to find her feet again.

I think the fear I have of her going into a hard buck frenzy is palpable.  I must communicate that somehow, because she's never thrown any more than a little dolphin hop with me in the saddle, and not even that for the past year or so.

So how does she know?  And even more strangely--why doesn't she take advantage of my fear?

Sounds like I've got some more questions to ponder.

A day of thanks

I owe more than a little bit to a great trainer.

I haven't ever met her, and I doubt I ever will.

She isn't a BNT, and you won't find her DVDs on ebay or her show on TV.  She doesn't do clinics, or train horses anymore.

But she's helped me more than anyone else with understanding my horse.

I know her through her blog, the Mugwump Chronicles.

My blog name is a tipped hat to her.

If you haven't already, it'll be worth your invested time to duck in & give it a read.

www.mugwumpchronicles.blogspot.com

It's always time well spent.