Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views: June 2015

Sunday, June 28, 2015

My Southern Heritage

This is Audrey. She is my daughter's closest friend. She was raised less than a mile from my house. More importantly, her family farmed the land around where she was raised for several generations. That land is between the land that my grand fathers farmed.

Her father and I shared the same values--work hard--teach your children to work hard,drive an old truck, take care of your hounds and take care of your family, get married and stay that way, get in the woods every chance you get--look out for little ones who might not have others there to look out for them, when vexed simply ask yourself what is the right thing to do and then go do it-realize that you are here for a purpose and get that purpose done, and never, ever give anyone the slightest excuse to question your integrity.

Her father was older than me. I am white and he was black but we shared the same southern heritage. It is those values that are my Southern heritage. Her father's funeral was at Emmanuel Baptist Church, about three miles from Bethany United Methodist Church,where my mother's funeral was.

Most, though not all, of the attendees at his funeral were black. Most, though not all, of the attendees at my mother's funeral were white. Both churches are small and beautiful. Some of the same songs were done at both funerals. The same themes of service to others were preached at both funerals. One of his floral arrangements was in the shape of a hound--just like at the funeral of Daddy's first cousin, James Albert.

Seeing how alike we are in death drives home that we are more alike in life than we often imagine.

My southern heritage gives me wonderful foods like cracklins, collards, and an old hen baked in rice. My southern heritage allows me to appreciate the beauty of the look of a bluetick coon hound and the sound of a pack of beagles. My southern heritage has blended the tongues of Elizabethan England and Africa to produce a dialect that flows like a tidewater marsh, easy, relaxed, steady, yet filled with power. My southern heritage keeps me from having to pronounce words using the often shrill cacophony of northerners who pronounce not only the letter "g" at the end of a word, but even worse, the letter "r" when it is not in the first syllable of a word!

Perhaps most significantly to me, my southern heritage gives me access to music with meaning, ancient songs, honed and polished by slight changes created by many generations of co-composers who changed a word here and a word there to make the song always fit the moment. My southern heritage allow me to appreciate black gospel music, blues, bluegrass, and ancient European ballads. My southern heritage gives me the ability to appreciate Levon Helm, Furry Lewis, The Carter Family, Jimmie Rogers and Ray Charles.

My southern heritage teaches me that, yes, "Some Glad morning, when this life is over, I will fly away," but in the meantime my southern heritage keeps me well away from Copperhead Road.

My southern heritage is not a war nor is it cause the cause of that war. But my Southern Inheritance is. My Southern Inheritance of slavery and war is an inheritance of unspeakable evil.

There is nothing in my Southern Inheritance that I admire. My southern heritage brings us together. My Southern Inheritance continues to divide this nation.

There is nothing in my southern heritage that I would give up. My southern heritage is best symbolized by a musical instrument brought over from Africa--a bania--a gourd and a skin that sang and danced-celebrated and mourned, laughed and cried as no instrument of Europe ever had. It was an instrument that took hold all over the south among blacks and whites, among mountaineers and those on the flatlands, from Baltimore to Brownsville-a bania-banjer-banjo.

If I were to design a flag to represent my Southern heritage it would look a lot like this:

Do You Really Want To Solve The Problems Of The Horse Industry?

The old model of little rich girls playing horsey and riding around a sandy ring is not working. The horse as recreation has too much competition.

But the horse as a path to moral growth, emotional healing, and ethical development has no competition. Riding in circles in a sandy ring does not bring the growth, healing, and development that springs forth from the practice of natural horsemanship.

The picture above is several years old.

A rough looking crew of bronc stompers! That summer me and this crew trained seven horses and one donkey to the degree that each equine could be safely ridden in the woods.

All this was done without a single buck. No horse, nor donkey bucked.

More riders--more horse owners--more families in which several members ride horses--riders who understand horses--riders who understand the importance of natural horse care--riders who love horses and loath the established horse world--these are things that will serve horses well.

But they will be of little use to the horse industry.

I care nothing for that industry.

I do care about building something akin to a horse ministry--where the goal is to enrich lives, instead of enriching agribusiness.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Ashley Edwards, Road To Repair LLC, and Important Things to Come

Ashley is starting to make a difference. She has developed ground breaking training for law enforcement and other professionals that deal with severely traumatized people. She uses horses and the lessons of the round pen to teach prey animal body language. She teaches and demonstrates how predator body language makes communication with traumatized individuals much more difficult.

She does those programs under her company Road To Repair, LLC

Go to this link for a tv news segment about her to learn more about this incredible young lady:

http://wtkr.com/2015/06/25/victim-of-abuse-adopted-by-prosecutor/

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

To Sum It All Up

An Honest Slogan

Slogan--the very word hints of dishonesty, puffery, and exaggeration. The catch about creating an honest business slogan is that it must be honest and good for the business. That has caused me to reject several potential slogans:

1. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--Fighting Mindless Conformity Since 1999!
2. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--Where Even Little Sissy Boys Can Learn to Ride!
3. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--You Got a Problem With That?
4. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--Dedicated to Curing Quarter Horse-ism!
5. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--Where Young Girls Act Like Ladies and Old Women Just Act Up!
6. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--If You Squint Your Eyes Up, We Do Not Look All That Bad!
7. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--Authentic Plains Indian Barns and Stables Circa 1840!
8. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--Where Gravity Still Has Consequences!
9. Mill Swamp Indian Horses--Wild Horses, Tame Riders, and Vice-Versa!
10 Mill Swamp Indian Horses--Where All Critics of Natural Horsemanship, Natural Horse Care, Natural Hoof Care, Mustangs, Kids Training Wild Horses, Old Fat Men Riding 13 Hand Shacklefords 50 Miles In One Day, Novices Training Their Own Horses, Keeping a Herd of Corolla Colonial Spanish mustangs Wild and Free, The American Indian Horse Registry, The Horse of the Americas Registry, Nine Year Old Riders Riding Fifty Miles in 10 Hours and 21 Minutes, and the Breeding of Chincoteagues to BLM Mustangs are urged to promptly leave the property and go home and let their obese, lame, expensive horses out of the stable and actually ride them instead of pretending that grooming them is the same as loving them! (This was my personal choice but the bumper stickers with this slogan were so big that they negatively impacted gas mileage.)

Friday, June 19, 2015

I Once Saw Some Quarter Horse Yearlings Who Were As Pretty As Average BLM Yearlings

Pause for a moment and go read the article at this link http://horse-journal.com/article/ite28099s-time-to-re-think-early-weaning-of-horses-5364.

If there is money to be made from it, the established horse world does not need to wait until a horse is grown before working to give it an unhealthy lifestyle. The article above explains why it is a bad idea to replace milk and forage with sweet feed for young horses.

Years ago I went to trim two quarter horse yearlings. They were lean, slick and beautiful, built neither like Arnold Schwarzenegger nor the Michelin Man.

In fact, they looked like horses--specifically yearling horses.

The owner was apologetic for their appearance. He explained that they lived out in the big pasture and that he had not been feeding them a lot of sweet feed. He went on to say that their father was a super star halter horse.

It seems that the owner of that stallion had seen the yearlings and had a fit--even said that he would not allow his stallion to breed anymore of the owner's mares.

He did not want people thinking that that was the kind of off spring his stallion produced.

Humans claim to love the beauty of nature, yet we are perfectly willing to trade natural health for ever changing whims about beauty--like binding little girls feet in china, using toxic makeup in Europe, or hailing anorexic models as paradigms of beauty.

Grass, hay, water, sunlight and exercise are the hallmarks of proper horse care.

Sugar, shoes and stables are the hallmarks of mindless conformity to the dictates of the established horse world.

(Ta Sunka Witco at about three years old--a healthy, happy Colonial Spanish horse, is shown above.)

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

A Great Old Post That I Bumped into From 2009

Encore

Now we play old time and bluegrass music. I play 6 or 7 instruments, though I am not great on any of them. My brother Joseph plays four or five and he is great on all of them. I have about ten little adopted brothers and sisters, all much younger than me. Nearly all of us play--guitars, banjos, mandolins, dulcimers, dobros, auto harps, fiddles, bass fiddles, harmonicas, bodhrun, and guitars. My daughters play mandolins and my wife plays an auto harp.
Lido loved the same music I did, ancient mountain songs of beauty and meaning. I made him a three string banjo and I hoped we could invent a style that he could play considering the limited use that he had of his right arm. We never got successful with that but he found that he could keep time on a bodhrun, an ancient Irish drum that is generally played with a tipper. Lido could not maneuver the tipper, but he could play an older style using only his hand.
There really is only 24 hours in a day and as my girls got older and I spent more time in the horse lot, we performed less and less.
It has been a little over two months since he died and Lido had his last concert on Saturday night. My brother Joseph is not merely good, he is a prodigy and has garned a tremendous following among regional blue grass fans. The day of the funeral he decided that on Feb 28 he was going to put on a big show for Lido. He assembled a number of bands and put on a seven hour show at the Isle of Wight
Academy. It was a huge success. I had been sick all week thinking about going to the show and I really did not think that I could sit through the show and think about Lido that for that long of a time.
But something interesting happened and I hope that it will take hold. As I listened to Joseph singing songs that I taught him the words to when he was five years old, I thought about teaching those same songs to Lido when he was a bit older. When Joseph was talking about playing on the bus with Kenny Baker and Bill Monroe. I thought about Lido following Jeanette Carter, daughter of Sara and A.P.Carter of the Original Carter Family all around the Carter Fold. I remembered how he had to assemble his gear to hunt with me when he was too little to carry a gun. He took his essentials--lots of candy and a stack of Carter family recordings on cassette tape. I remembered him at the right hand of the great old time banjo player Leroy Troy everywhere he went at one festival and from that point on referring to Troy only as "my friend."

And...those memories felt good. Up to that point I had not had a memory that did anything but sear me to the core. Particularly since I think of Lido all the time, it certainly would be better if those thoughts could just stop hurting so much. After Saturday night I think that they might.

One last point, the audience could go in the back and have a fine dining experience put together primarily by my riders and their families. They worked at a grueling pace and did a great job. That meant a lot to Daddy and even more to me.

(Lido was about 10 in this picture and Stardust was a yearling)

Sunday, June 14, 2015

An Old Post About a Young Goat

I Want to Ride In Geronimo's Cadillac

My daughter and her husband Jake grow and sell produce as Browder's Fresh Pickin's here in Tidewater. They like to do things as natural (and as efficiently) as possible. They have a chicken pen that has been idle over the summer and is over grown with weeds. It would be a bit of a job to hoe it clean.

Instead, this morning Amanda came over and picked up Spicer, my rare San Clemente Island billy goat, and delegated the task to him. Though we have a wide range of modern conveniences, we are without a goat transport system.

We had to improvise.

Spicer was looking good this morning riding through Smithfield on the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car. His only previous riding experience had been in a Durango, which demonstrates the adaptability and versatility of a fine Spanish goat.

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On Line Classes

Contact us at msindianhorses@aol.com in order to learn more about enrolling in our informative and affordable on line class on Natural Horsemanship, Natural Horse Care, and Natural Hoof Care. This no frills instruction explains how the training techniques, horse care and hoof trimming methods used at Mill Swamp Indian Horses.

"The Horse, The Herd, and The Hoof", allows even novices to develop the kind of relationships with their horses that we all should strive for.

Tuition for the 15 session class is only $160.00. Enroll now.

It's What We Do

From a recent Facebook post:

Kids--my throat hurts. Sometimes when you are in the middle of things you are not in a good position to appreciate what is really going on. A young couple came out to the horse lot to hear about what we do at Mill Swamp Indian Horses. I told them about preservation of the Corollas, and Baccas and promotion and breeding of the Grand Canyons, and Shacklefords. And the promotion of Marsh Tackys, Choctaws, Galicenos, and SMR horses. And the riding program. And that we teach people natural horsemanship and the taming and training of wild horses. And that Kay will be teaching painting to benefit the horses starting Saturday. And that we have built an early colonial settler's farm just to put the Colonial Spanish Horses in their proper historical frame. And that we built a Chickee, a traditional summer Choctaw home, beside the Choctaw horses to put them in their historical setting. And that we have rare heritage early colonial strains of chickens and goats. And that the 20th of June will be our first night of living history dramatic programs to promote the horses. And that patients in the local Veterans Hospital PTSD program come out every single week to work horses in the round pen. And that some of our riders and their families learn ancient songs and how to play obscure historical instruments. And that Ashley Edwards, of Road to Repair, uses our horses and our facility to teach professionals who deal with severely traumatized people how to better communicate with them. And that we ride at night. And that we sometimes ride very far. And that our riders range in age from about 10 to about 65. And that we have never turned a participant away for inability to pay. And that none of us get paid. And that we work together as a team. And that our horses are as healthy and happy as horses get.

And by the time I finished telling them all of that my throat was worn out. But it did give me a chance to think about how far our program has come.

Monday, June 8, 2015

Maybe a Bright Spot

Yesterday I rode several hours with the vast majority trotting or gaiting. I rode Manteo, a Corolla stallion, and Joey, a Choctaw. Great weather--great exercise--great to sleep so well.

This morning I got to the horse lot super early, took care of everyone and had time to gait 50 minutes through the woods on Holland. If somehow I can keep this up I expect dramatic improvements in my over all health.

Yesterday Ethan rode Ta Sunka behind Joey. While Joey trotted and gaited Ta Sunka cantered to keep up. It was the most cantering this new rider had ever done--Ethan is an athlete and in pretty good shape, yet he felt the full body workout that hard riding gives one.

Heals the body and clears the mind.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

The Death Of Your Horse

I have no understanding of grief,or,more particularly, the process of grieving. Most cultures develop various rituals to aid the living in dealing with death. In that regard, I know that my own feelings are not instructive. I cannot think of a single ritual, sacred or secular that gives me any more comfort than would putting on a straight jacket. I realize that there are very few who feel this way and it is good that there are so few. Death rituals are one of the most important building blocks of social cohesiveness.

Yesterday Kelly taught the kids, and several adults, tribal wisdom regarding death. She did so by directing a ceremony where I buried Red Feather Thursday. I am so glad that she has the knowledge to do such things. This is another aspect of being the educational institution that we strive so hard to be.

Theodore Roosevelt dealt with the death of his young wife by never again mentioning her name and struggling to keep her out of his mind. On the surface this might seem cold and uncaring but I am not in a position to judge what he had to overcome simply in order to continue to exist.

What I am certain of is that there is no emotional pain greater than that of loss. I do not know how to control it. Perhaps the cold,simple recognition of reality before the loss occurs is helpful in reducing the impact of a loss. When entering into a relationship with anyone, human or animal it is good to keep in mind that since the beginning of time every single relationship has ended either by death, desertion, or forced separation.

And this relationship will not break that mold.

Horses die. People do too.

People also simply leave.

Such things happen.

And when they do, it is best to remember that you still have work to do and it is time to get up and go get that work done.

Coming Home

( Below is a post that goes back to 2009. Rebecca's family has been living out of state for several years and as I type this they are en route to their new home back here in the area. That means that I will soon have Rebecca and her boys back in my horse lot.The end result will be a significant uplift for the horse lot and for me)

Rebecca came to ride with us as a present from her husband on their first anniversary. She quickly became a skilled rider. She was in her early twenties and had been a gymnast for years. Within a few months she had gone from merely learning to ride to becoming my most serious student of natural horsemanship. Monday through Friday she would commute nearly 1/2 hour to come out to the horse lot before the sun rose to help me break horses. She then would spend the entire day on Saturday riding and working colts.

Rebecca gentled one mare that I feared had been too emotionally scarred to ever settle down. She turned her into a solid trail horse with patience and skill that one would never expect in a trainer of such relatively little experience. To this day she remains the best person to work a scared horse that I have met.

Over the years she has continued to take an active role in everything that we do at the horse lot. I have learned to trust her judgement on matters ranging from whether or not to acquire certain horses to making major purchases for the horse lot.

People often asked me how I have been able to put our program together by myself. The answer is simple. I didn't.

(In the picture above she is riding my Spanish Mustang stallion, Ta Sunka Witco, after breaking him to saddle when he was a colt.)

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views: Compassion Without Action....

An old post--this year is our best chance ever to get the bill passed: Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views: Compassion Without Action....: ....does exactly the same amount of good as does cruelty. This foal died after being born with severe birth defects. It was one of the...

Deliberate, Confident Training

Swimmer is the largest formerly wild Corolla mare that I have seen. It had been a while since anything had been on her back and she was resistant and fearful.

Yesterday we moved her to another pasture. Without any prior plan to do so I took a moment and ran her through a session with the monsters. We progressed from the pool noodle, to the rock monster, all the way up to the bag monster.

I was surprised that she took the bag monster so well. It is a bag filled with cans and empty bottle. When shaken it makes a tremendous racket that generally sends horses into a panic. She quickly recovered from her fear and stood patiently while I shook it across her back.

Then a blanket and saddle and in short order I was standing in the stirrups.

There were several things that made this work. She is a Corolla and has the steady mind of a Corolla. I was not rushed. She has been living outside twenty 24/7 all of her life with a diet based on hay and grass. I was not afraid of her. I doubt if my heart rate increased at all while working with her. I was not worried that she might "disappoint" me by blowing up.

Proper technique, control of emotions, a horse living as naturally as possible, and deliberate and confident movement that allowed the horse to relax resulted in two days worth of progress in less than half an hour.

She was once ridden fairly regularly but has not been ridden regularly in years. Her new owner is looking to ride her in endurance events. This summer we will get her ready to take that rider anywhere.

Friday, June 5, 2015

You Can Overcome The Fear of Horses

Several years ago a lady came to me and asked me to teach her how horses thought. She told me that she would never ride but she wished that she could get horses to respond to her the way they do to me.

I told her that I could teach her that but I explained that within six months she would want to ride and I could teach her that too.

She said that that could never be but that she wanted to learn to understand horses anyway.

Within a few months she took her first ride on Nick, our large standard donkey. She now is is major breeder of a rare breed of northern European horses and she and her husband ride.

That is why everyone who wishes to either get on a horse the first time or simply learn to relax more and enjoy riding should participate in our clinic on June 27 from 9-3 at Mill Swamp Indian Horses near Smithfield Va.

There will only be ten slots open.

This is not a riding clinic--this is a fear management clinic--participants will be given the opportunity to apply what they have learned by mounting one of our very calm, well trained horses. But no one will be forced or shamed into getting on if they are not ready to do so.

Contact me now at msindianhorses@aol.com if you wish to attend.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Our Marsh Tacky Mare

This is Hickory Wind, our Marsh Tacky mare from South Carolina. This is Hannah who has done a great job training her. I want to ride her hard all summer and breed her in the fall.

She is as close as one can get to a Banker and will be the perfect choice for the very minimal out crossing that we are doing in the Corolla offsite breeding program. The out crosses are never modern breeds and we seek only ancient Spanish Colonial lines from horses that carry a Corolla body type to help prevent the extinction of these historic horses.

This fall I will likely breed her to Wanchese

My Red Feather Is No More

Of course, horses get cancer. It is still always a surprise to find it. In Red Feather's case his was in the back of the roof of his mouth. Yesterday, with no fear, no stress and no struggle his pain ended.

He remains an enigma. For several years I thought that he was the famous Red Feather who journeyed into Virginia Beach with his band of mares. Only later to learn that he was the son of that beautiful horse. He was captured because, like his daddy, he would bring his mares out of the four wheel drive area around Corova and out into the highway. Without being captured he had no chance of survival. He and his mares were removed for their own safety. The mares gave birth. One of the three born was a filly. He has another daughter living in Moyock, Matoka.

His half brother, Stitch is with us and has produced several foals. One of them, Poncho, is here at our horse lot.

He was the greatest athlete with whom I have ever shared around pen. He was the fastest Corolla that I have ever seen. Brent Speichenger, former two time Missouri state bareback bronc champion had worked on western ranches and rode mostly Quarter horses. If there was anyone who should scoff at a horse Red Feather's size I would expect it to be a cowboy.

Here's what Brent wrote abut him a few years ago.

"I recently had the privilege of riding Red Feather, a Corolla Spanish mustang. I am 5'11" and weigh about 170. Red Feather might make 13 hands [actually only 12.2] and weighs maybe 600 pounds. The first time I was on his back, he was kicking quarter moons. A horse cannot do that if he could not handle my weight! Recently I rode him in the woods for about an hour, trotting and cantering, one of the absolute smoothest gaited horses I have ever ridden."

(Those who have never ridden a Spanish horse may be tempted to show their ignorance by harping in that that is more than 20% of the horse's weight. Such a figure might be of value in setting the carrying capacity of an obese, stable raised, modern horse but is utterly inapplicable to a lean, healthy Colonial Spanish horse.)

He was an enigma. Only horse that I ever trained who displayed no warning before striking or biting. I mean it very literally when I say that he kicked and bit me more than every other horse in my life combined. Yet we became very close.

Were he a tv character he would have been Gibbs from NCIS.

I could write about him all day--but he would still be just as dead. Let me leave you with this:

Red Feather was well known, one children book has been written about him and Linda W. Hurst is about to release her second children's book on him. In the wild a famous picture was taken of him, missing the tip of his ear. That picture is on a post card that visitors to the outer banks who keep their eyes open will see on display racks. He had been involved in several training clinics that I put on.

So I really was not too surprised when a group of visitors from Boys Home came in one weekend. One of the boys, perhaps the smallest of them, immediately started asking me if he could get on Red Feather.

Not sure where he had heard of him. That boy went on to become a solid horseman, but at that time had much more guts than he had experience.

That's the pair of them in the bareback photo above.

He lived with dignity. Yesterday he died with dignity. And I do believe that he gave more than he got. He helped teach Lloyd how to train horses. He taught me to slow down in training. And he taught everyone that horses are not to be thrown away just because they have complex minds.

His nephew, Poncho, will be available to be placed with a family that is willing to participate in the off site breeding program. If you want to be part of keeping these horses alive instead of just keeping their legend alive he is your chance to do so.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

The Weight: When Annie Puts The Load Right On Me

"Do you ever regret throwing your entire life into the horse lot?", is a question that I was asked recently.

I did not have a good answer. I do not generally second guess decisions that I have made, with a few exceptions. I deeply regret having gone to law school. I should have been a high school history teacher.

Otherwise, pretty much what is done is done.

Even if I did consider such questions, this would not be a good time to do that. For the past six months I have been doing my regular job plus handling nearly all of the prosecutions in a neighboring jurisdiction as a result of the disability of that county's prosecutor. An injury has kept Terry out of the horse lot for quite a while and I am not longer greeted in the morning at the horse lot with Attila's huge smile.

A constellation of events have caused me to spend less time riding in the past six months than I have for many years. Riding is my main exercise and, therefore, the key to my physical health. And I am not as healthy as I am when riding hard. And, of course, I am surrounded by people who do not understand the implications of their actions and statements.

And yes it does cost me a fortune to keep this program going, but that is not a big deal for me. I really don't have anything that I would like to buy except for somethings for the horse lot like a tractor, and artesian well.

Last summer may have been the best summer of my life--riding and playing music and writing--all summer long. Perhaps what I miss the most is playing music.

However, the rational part of me kicks in and I can't help but realize that in four days Rebecca will be living locally again. Elise likely made it into the area yesterday and will be a great intern for me. I have another intern coming in in July. It rained hard last night. My grass needed it--serves as a reminder that even after a long dry spell the rain does come back.

But sometimes I wish I could just play a little music and lay down with my grandchildren and watch History Channel.

Things like that take a lot of the load off.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Applying the Theory of Fast Slowness

Read yesterday's post concerning Stitch if you have not done so. This morning I spent 45 minutes handling him. The noodle that terrified him yesterday was his comforting friend this morning. He lunged softly on a limp lead line. I scratched under his girth line. He wore a saddle pad as if it was nothing.

So I did a test saddling. He took the saddle with no resistance but was highly stressed. He bucked around the round pen until he got tired. Then I ran him around and had him go through all gaits with the saddle on.

And his next session......will be several steps backward. Yes, I could continue to saddle him until he was comfortable with being saddled. I could take quite a while. During that process one of the two of us could get hurt.

So I will go back to the monsters. Using a plastic bag tied to a crop, a small jug of rocks that is very loud when shook, a small tarp, and a large plastic feed bag filled with aluminum cans which makes an amazing racket. These monsters will give him confidence. They will teach him that when he stops moving the monster instantly stops.

It gives him control of his immediate universe which is the goal of all of our training--the contract between man and horse--if you comply you can count on the pressure stopping instantly, 100% of the time. Simply exposing a horse to monsters gives neither the confidence that monster training does, nor does it instill in the horse the concept that pressure immediately ceases with compliance.

After he conquers each monster he will take a saddle without stress.

How long will he take to conquer the monsters?

I do not care.