Frame of Reference

I get a lot of calls from people who have horses with serious issues that they no longer want to keep. One call I got this past summer was from a woman who had bought a mare that she was told was well trained. She was sure that the seller had lied to her, or that the horse had been drugged when she bought her because the horse was absolutely crazy when she brought it home. The mare was uncatchable in the pasture and would bolt every time she went near her. She would rear up whenever she led her, and pin her ears and strike when she was upset. The horse wouldn’t take the bridle and when she tried to mount the horse would run off. This woman called me several times almost begging me to take the mare and I kept thinking “Why in the world would I want that horse!”
But of course I took her in anyway; I just warned my friend that this one may not get in the trailer! When I started working with the mare, she did everything the woman had warned me about, bolted, reared, pinned her ears and moved off when I tried to mount her. But I had her out riding on the trail the very next day. While you may have a picture n your head of me hanging on a crazy horse and dangerously flying down the trail on an un-broke monster, this was not the case. When the mare reared up, her front feet didn’t come above my ankle, but it was a rear. When I bridled her, she lifted her head and wouldn’t open her mouth, when I mounted she moved her hind end away from me. So it was easy to see why her previous owner had had some problems with her.
It would be easy to say that the previous owner just had no idea what she was doing with horses, but the truth is, she had many years of experience and had owned horses for most of her life. She had just never had a horse like this one before. Her frame of reference for horse behavior was much different from mine. The original seller hadn’t lied about the mare or drugged her, but her frame of reference was just different as well.
Horse training, especially NHT, is extremely popular and it seems to put a huge amount of pressure both on horses and horse owners to define levels of training. It suggests that we can easily put horses in definite terms and little boxes of broke or un-broke. The reality is, green broke to a pro Reiner is very different than green broke to a pleasure rider because their frame of reference is very different. Horses and people are extremely versatile and before we jammed them into our own point of view and fit them into different “levels” (as if one is higher than another); we should take the time to understand others point of view. Just because someone else's experience is unfamiliar to you, it doesn’t mean they know less, or are doing something wrong, or they are on a lower level than you. Neither is their horse. Keep an open mind and understand that no two horses are alike, no two people are alike and no two experiences are the same.

Elephants on the Trail

My friend Mike keeps mentioning elephants so I thought I would fill you in on our inside joke!
Many years ago, Alexander the Great arrived in Philadelphia to go to work as a carriage horse. He had come down from Canada where he had been previously used as a hitch horse in a show hitch. I was pretty intimidated by him since he stood about a foot over my head, but I took him downtown anyway. Alex was an amazing driving horse, he would prance around town with his head held high, and he was an eye catcher and a show off. But he was a little nervous about the new sights of the city; our first few days were a little hairy. Alex had become so used to having a teammate next to him that he would have trouble standing still when there wasn’t another horse that he could see. I got around this by stopping him next to a window when we were at a red light and turn his head so he could see his reflection. If we had to park in a location where there would be no other horses, I would hop off the carriage and stand by his head. I had tried holding him firmly by the halter to keep him still, but he would just toss his head, pick me up off the ground, and swing me around. Very entertaining for the tourists, but certainly not safe! So I learned to carry several pounds of carrots to bribe him to stay in one spot. 

 One day something spooked him and he bolted down the street. I very quickly discovered that my 120 pounds had little to no effect on slowing down his 2000 pounds of solid muscle, so after that fiasco, I had to come up with a new plan to keep him from bolting again. Every time I saw something that had the potential to scare a horse, I would stop, pull him over to the sidewalk, and let it go by us. This worked out well; Alex picked up on this very quickly and would simply park himself anytime he felt a little worried. It was perfect, I barely had to do anything, I would be turned around backwards giving an in depth tour of Philadelphia and if Alex stopped, I’d simply look around to see what might be scary. I now had a bombproof horse!
 We were headed home after a day a work, Mike was behind me so it’s very likely that I was completely backwards in the driver’s seat talking to Mike. After all, Alex didn’t just know the way home, he actually had the timing of the lights down as well, and he didn’t need much help from me to give him direction. As we made the turn onto Arch Street, Alex stopped dead. He didn’t just stop to park himself, he stopped so hard I nearly fell over the dashboard. When I looked up, I realized that the Barnum and Bailey Circus had come to town. In front of us was not just one elephant, but three very large gray monsters all decked out on shiny costumes. With their ears flapping and their trunks in the air, they were clearly the only thing that Alex had ever seen that was larger than he was. All four of Alex’s size 7 feet were planted, and he then performed a rollback that would have scored high in a reining arena! We decided (rather HE decided) to take the long way home, as far away from the circus as we could get, Mike laughing all the way home behind us.

 

Now, Alex went on to work successfully in every situation, he’s done weddings, parades, special events, he taught all my new drivers how to drive in Denver and was literally the best horse I have ever had. But because of that one day, I just don’t believe in bombproof horses. You never know when you will find an elephant on the trail!