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.

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.

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.

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.