What I Used To Do . . .

 

is figure things out. I remember thinking about a particular horse all evening, going out the next morning, spending maybe 15 minutes getting the horse to look at me and walking away. The next time I would ask for a step. A single step in the right direction.

That particular horse had taken the 100 yard trip from driveway to barn on his hind legs at the end of a 22 foot rope. He left 90 days later being ridden bareback by a 14 year old boy.

There was a mare who came, bosal scars three inches up both sides of her jaw. At one point in her training with me, she flipped over backwards and caught the saddle under a panel. She left, on her way to a show career, walk, trot, canter under saddle, bold, brave, gentle and unafraid.

There are more on this list. They balance on the scales against the ones I walked away from. Somehow seems the day a horse became my own, I lost the ability or the desire to figure things out. To do what it took to reach the horse, help them be happy in understanding their job. To reach the body through the mind, the mind through the body.

Now I have Royal. I have journaled our ups and downs in fairly thorough detail on this blog and I need to go back and read it and find out what I did that worked. What I am doing this summer is not working, it has resulted in multiple injuries for my horse and a few for myself. Not the way this story is going to end well.

Our latest fiasco is again around his panic attacks in a two horse trailer. A certain amount of you are going to shake your heads and say, well hell, a LOT of horses don’t like a two horse trailer!

I am going to tell you I have taught trailer loading for years, and successfully loaded EVERY SINGLE horse I have ever worked with in the manner I know now. I had one, years ago, have a wreck but we didn’t see it coming, she’d loaded and rode for awhile before deciding she’d had enough and kicked out the back of the trailer.

I truly believe it is not the trailer, it’s in the mind. If I had the mind, he would not care what trailer I asked him to ride in. Peter Campbell told me last year my challenge was going to be how to keep him from leaving me mentally, which he did and does constantly. He told me he hoped I realized I had “bitten off quite a little bit here.” I acknowledged indeed I had, but the horse was worth whatever I had to go through to learn what I need to know to be who he requires me to be.

And he is.

I was taught a very long time ago that the Universe is generous and patient. When you have a lesson to learn, it will return to you until the point is made. The stakes, however, tend to go up as time goes by. I have ducked this challenge and now the stakes are too  high. I am not giving up. 

Royal is stitched and stapled wearing a compression wrap on his right hock. My absolute terror is that he will succeed in doing himself in before I do get it figured out. Nope, there are no more double trailers in our future, but as I said, that is not the problem. I don’t know where the panic will show up again next but I guarantee it will. It’s in him and will travel where he goes.

We have a winter ahead of us to figure this out, actually a lifetime. I will find a different horse on which to park cars while he heals physically, and then I will set myself to helping him (and me) heal mentally and emotionally. Damned inconvenient this wreck happens the week before Peter comes to town. Several wonderful friends volunteered to put horses under me, but there’s a good vet who showed up fast on a Friday night and did a wonderful job taking care of my horse. He’s getting paid first and on my budget, that leaves me a day to go down,  hang on the rail once again, soak up what I can and maybe go to dinner with my good friends.

I don’t know exactly what the answers are, but I understand exactly where I am at. The place to figure things out. Maybe 15 minutes and one step at a time.  Love ya, Royal. We are going to make it.

View From My Saddle

 

Ears and trees. As a rule. To some it’s only just that. For me, it’s coming around a corner, seeing a breathtaking panorama of greens, shot with stark gray, white, black. Bay curly black tipped ears, sorrel, palomino and black, my constructs are living breathing frames of reference. I breathe deep, settle in my saddle, pull out my phone and try to capture some of that magick in a snapshot of time and place.

It’s offering softness to hack horses, tripping down yet another hour long trail ride in a day full of them.  Going deeper in what “not give them opportunities to pull on me” means. Learning again that a soft feel is not collection, though it certainly is a precursor. Layers and levels. Shaking my head at how much I didn’t know when I thought I knew so very much and how much there is to learn from here that I have no way of knowing . . . yet.

People come to our ranch who have never actually even touched a real horse before, have no idea of the manner of beast they are stepping astride. It is my gift to try to help them realize, my burden to try to keep them alive for their hour of discovery, and hope they come back and try it again.

There is a solid reverence to be found appreciating the grace and beauty of the natural world, gifts that are still unspoiled in places and within reach. I have not lost my wonder that a horse will consent to not only carry a person about but even partner up and maybe have some fun doing it.

I confront fears, chase demons, find joy. Make mistakes, nearly tragic, and burst lightbulbs of discovery. I grin at trees because I am growing too. I get it. Mitakuye oyasin. We are all related and I am blessed when I can remember that.

All this stuff is horsemanship, and it’s life. I search for softness, effectiveness, in my marriage, my job, family and friendships. I seek to behave with integrity, can’t be one person at the barn and someone else, elsewhere.

When the rocks rattle pretty loud between my ears, and I am thinking there will be always times that happens, there are ways to find solace.  I am not alone on this journey and that might be the very best part of it all. Being one among my fellows allows me to be helpful when able and ask for help when needed. There’s a journey there, folks.

 

My buddy, Royal, is on his way back to his peace of mind as well. Thanks to my friend, Colleen Parmenter Hamer, who has made it her life’s work to get good with these things, he steps into a trailer with the same drama and verve that he does everything else in life, then  . . . stands calmly and waits.  The changes made during that process though were not about getting him in a trailer.

They were about getting him ready . . . to get in a trailer, yah sure, but to be good about his life again. His panic had come with him, from that wreck. That stuff shakes a horse up pretty bad and don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t. Takes some good therapy to help them recover, call it what you want, that’s what I saw . . . transition from fear, worry and doubt to trust, belief and willingness.

Looking forward to riding with Peter again in September. Smiling at Kristine’s “Woohooo BIG CHANGES!” We have not met face to face but I know what she’s talking about and am ready for the next wave . . .

 

 

Some photos taken by me, you can guess which ones! Others are credited to Christine Shenefield, Troy Shenefield and Karen Johnson.