Some Questions Best Not Be Asked

Feel free to brag about how much your saddle costs. Tell the world about all of the money that you spend on lessons. Crow from the highest tree of the ribbons that your horse's great grandfather won. Just make sure that there is a period after each utterance. If there is a question mark after such utterances you could run into a problem when talking to some of my little riders.

Don't ask an 11 year old what she could possibly do with one of those wild horses. Her response might simply be "Fifty miles in a day last spring, but I am trying to work my way up to riding 100 miles in 24 hours."

Responses like that make your horse's great grand father look, well...dead.

A Size Surprise

Here is Pasquenoke at less than five months old. She is only about an inch shorter than her mother, Secotan from Corolla and is taller than her father, Wanchese, from Shackleford. Anecdotal information hinted that crosses between the herds from these two different islands on the Outer Banks often produced offspring larger than the parents seems to be bearing out here.

She is the first foal produced in the offsite breeding program using these two Colonial Spanish mustang herds, (Bankers). Go to the Horse of the Americas website and pull up the Corolla/Shackleford inspection report to see more about these two herds.

When Only the Worst Is Good Enough

I spoke with someone that was concerned about the expenses that they are incurring with their horse care---full stable board, feed, supplements, turnout blankets, joint injections, shoeing expenses, and steady vet bills. In short, the rider is making a very substantial, non-tax deductible contribution to the established horse world which advocates for the horrific living conditions that most modern horses are required to endure.

If there was real honesty in advertising the established horse world's slogan would be "Show how much you love your horse. Keep him, fat, sick, weak and lame!"

What these poor horses need is for their owners to get a literary supplement. Start with Joe Camp's "Soul of a Horse" and learn how to stop making your horse miserable.

Not That It Would Need Another Verse

But if Gram Parson's spectacular song about the death of three people that touched his life needed a posthumous verse perhaps this would fit:

Only twenty six years old, his life could not be saved.
Like his Daddy and his Momma, a much too early grave.
Now who will sing of the Grievous Angel beneath a Joshua tree?
Or the songs he'd do with Emmylou, and who'll write songs like "She"?

In my Hour of Darkness
In My Time of Need
Oh Lord grant me visions
Oh Lord grant me speed.

Training With Raw Power and Domination

I am not averse to flexing. I believe in being modest and humble unless modesty and humility reach the point of dishonesty. Then they become no more virtuous than any other lie.

I believe that effective training of horses and kids requires the proper exercise of raw power and domination. When I was young I was a politician. Exercising power was very rewarding for me. There are two ways to exercise political power--by getting things done or by preventing things from being done. I never understood the "preventers" who showed their power by staking out turf, being obstacles, waiting for others to show proper obsequiousness to them.

I loved showing my power by getting things done to help people that could use a hand. The reality is that it takes more power to open a door than it takes to shut one, and I never enjoyed shutting doors. I never minded the use of raw power to open doors and I used whatever raw power was necessary without the slightest regret.

The same dichotomy exists among many teachers and trainers. I do not believe that the proper, or most impressive, use of raw power is to beat or humiliate a horse into compliance. I am not impressed by a trainer that is so smart, skilled, and shrewd that he can outsmart a horse that has, at best, the mind of a five year old child. I am not impressed by the use of a "stud chain" across a horse's nose. The stud chain is a perfect symbol of hatred.

I am not impressed by hate.

I am impressed by extreme demonstrations of real power such as that shown by the trainer that has a wild horse following him around the round pen while disparately seeking to comply with the trainer's request. I am impressed when a terrified horse approaches a rushing stream and actually looks back up at its rider and then, after seeing the reassuring look in the rider's eye, gets the courage to ford the stream. That rider shows raw power. That rider shows domination. That horse moves in spite of its fear of the rushing water, not because it is afraid of the rider. That horse moves out of love.

I am impressed by love.

The exercise of raw power and domination out of love is the only force on this earth more powerful than the exercise of raw power and domination out of hate. Love does not require that discipline be ignored. Love does not require the rider or trainer to allow the horse to decide what it wants to do. Love does require that power never be exercised out of anger or frustration and that the amount of force used is no more than that which is necessary to teach the horse to succeed.

The proper exercise of raw power and domination in training requires one to be perfectly comfortable both with having a shot gun in hand, and in never having to use it.

To those who feel that I give horses too much credit for ability to have feelings beyond the instincts that are necessary for survival and insist, "A horse can never be taught to love me." You may be correct. If so the flaw lies in you, not the horse.

This all comes back to the basic reason that one should practice natural horsemanship--to become a better person.