Let It Be
A Thing Of The Past !
Yes Once again I'm doing silly things, but there is a point to this. Believe me "Purple Pony Skin" put up with a lot more of this type thing from me when I was a kid.
I advise you don't try this on your own unless you are absolutely sure you know the horse very well and are an experienced horseman with good feel and have a spotter around.
I also am actually thrilled for a mature gal on the back end of middle age, I can still do a few of these things.
So here is the story and the message.
This horse a fox trotter, 9 years old now and had a very hard start in his youth, the wrong people and hard methods. He now has a very different owner and getting the chance he deserves to be all he can.
He even has sever scars in the corners of his lips from being cut from a bit.
Due to his past resistance to very harsh training and trying to survive and screaming in his own way that he was unhappy He received a reputation of being a problem or troubled horse. It seems to have followed him for some time.
I found a very different horse in him. I road him 2 days, 4 years ago. Last year I could not ride him due to being unsound in the hind due to improper riding from an exercise rider. I spent that 3 days doing body work on him and just some ground work to create a relationship. This spring he was sound again and certainly remembered me and I spent 4 days riding him. I took the bit out and went with a bosal, I also the first year got rid of the bit and used a side pull. The photos above are of my recent last 4 days with him and again he remembered me and we started just where we left off like I had been riding him everyday.
So in total I have spent 13 days with this horse and ridden him 11 times.
Somtimes it's not what you do with a horse but maybe what you don't do as well.
My goal to help him see me as a different kind of human than he had experienced before, show him I had no fear of him so he would have no fear of me. I showed him how to do things through me teaching and positive responses for his try, never forced him, muscled or bullied him.
Just showed him , asked him and he gave right back. So soft ,so easy and with all the willingness in the world, never have I seen the scary things I have been told he could do.
Why? Because I knew his troubles were people troubles, not his that he created or ever wanted. I never brought the fear of those possibilities to him when with him , so they just were not there.
I trust him and he trusts in me.
My reason for doing the things above was to show he was not what he had been tagged ,but was one awesome horse, very talented and a very fast learner.
So often a horses issues are people created, be through just ignorance,
troubled humans or an incomplete training base, for what ever reason, if we can let the past go, then so can the horse. It just takes time, not always this fast but it can happen if we just try our selves and don't put it all on the horse.
We just have to believe in our selves to let the past go, so they can.
It's common for me to also see people bring their own pasts with another horse to the one they have today.
As I have said so many times before "Ride the Horse you have today".
Liz Graves
copyright 2008
