The Mind of The Spanish Horse--Horses Without Borders

Several years ago there was a bit of a flap over an article concerning the tractability of the Curly Horse. (The American Curly is sometimes called a Bashkir but they are not related to the Bashkir horse of Russia. They are Spanish Colonial horses. Some of them have been produced from Karma Farms mustangs.) Some critics were skeptical about the claims of how gentle and how quick to learn these horses are.

Had I only exposure to the modern horse I would be skeptical also, but the simple reality is that the Spanish Colonial Horse tends to have a much lower flight response and a much higher need to bond than do modern horses. Those attributes make them particularly well suited to learn at lightening speed using natural horsemanship.

Yes there are exceptions, Valor and Red Feather are two Corollas that  require the highest skill in training. I am not going to go through all of the things that I have seen Spanish horses do with the most minimal of handling. Those that know the Spanish horse don't need to hear and those who have only known modern horses will have to see it to believe it. Check with David Grant to see what he thinks about the trainablity of the Marsh Tackys that he trains for hunting wild hogs. Ask Stephanie Lockhart about how easy it is to achieve real communication with Baca horses. Look to Croatoan, a wild teenage Corolla stallion when he was captured who was ridden by small children with in a few months of that capture.

And now I see the Choctaws. The picture above is of Joey and Twister, two Choctaws that just came in from Monique Shaeffer in Pennsylvania yesterday. They act in the same relaxed manner that I am used to seeing from Colonial Spanish horses. I will write more about them later, but they have caused me to examine why these horses are so easy to teach.

Of course it is genetic, but what factors enhanced that genetic predisposition to be calm, fast learning horses. Surely there are many dna explanations that I will never understand but I think that their "fencing" is a factor.

Frontier horses lived in an environment of flimsy or nonexistent fencing. The wild Corolla who had the greatest fear of humans retreated into the brush and it was those with a lower flight response that were most likely to interact with and be domesticated by humans. Those captured who were filled with terror of humans were quite likely to bust free from whatever fencing existed. The same is true of the Spanish ranching lines. The crazy and violent horse got out and ran off and it was those who bonded with people who had less fear that were maintained to breed for two centuries. Tribal horses could leave humans nearly at will for much of the year.

It was that docile horse who would come across several hundred yards of brush or marsh merely in response to a whistle that made up a large core of the Spanish horses that came into domestication whether by native, anglo, or Hispanic owners. The humans had little choice but to breed for gentle temperament because so many of the horses that consented to remaining in their control had such temperament.

How much of a factor that is in producing such super intelligent, gentle, affectionate horses is beyond my scope of knowledge? However, I will likely have more time to ponder such things.

Yesterday afternoon the Choctaws learned how to type and they will be taking over many of the administrative functions of running this place. They will join my Corollas who handle the book keeping and Nick, our blm donkey, who responds to the love letters that we receive from the established horse world, in helping me keep up with our correspondence. (In their spare time they read books to Quarter horses who did not do as well in school.)