The Chill Factor

If you’d told me four months ago that before the end of the year I’d be riding Qrac, my nine-year old Lusitano, alongside bulldozers, streamrollers and pneumatic drills I’d have said you were mistaking me for someone else.  If you’d insisted, gone on to say, “Seriously, Cesca, you’ll see; pretty soon you’ll be cantering around an outdoor arena while workmen dressed in fluorescent clothing clank about with tools and giant pieces of equipment! There will be a giant crane swinging overhead, lorries rumbling in and out of the property loaded with all sorts of building materials. There will be welders creating mini firework displays in dark corners, giant sheets of plastic flapping about in gale force winds. You name it, there’ll be it! And you’ll be riding in it!”

By then I’d probably have checked your forehead for fever, whereupon you might have nodded knowingly and carried on telling me fairy stories about Qracy and I plodding past cars and tractors and miscellaneous trucks on country lanes, reins long and loose. You might have mentioned us ambling past curious cows, trotting and even cantering along dirt tracks flanked by apple orchards swathed in anti-hail nets swelling and whooshing in the breeze.

Pff! At this point I’d have been really worried about you, potentially suggesting a quick trip to the hospital.

The thing is: those fairy stories came true. Since moving to our new stables in mid-August, Qrac and I have experienced all of the above and more. My spooky, pretty volatile Lusitano and I have had to learn to cope with living and working on a building site, with trail rides mandatory when heavy rain turned the arena into a gloop-fest.

I hadn’t planned on moving Qrac to the stables in my village before the beginning of December, when the new stable block and indoor arena are scheduled to be completed (by the way, they open this coming weekend! Woohoo!), but circumstances beyond my control decided otherwise: I tore the ligaments in my ankle while on holiday, needed crutches, and couldn’t drive the 60-odd kilometres to where Qrac lived. Luckily for me, someone moved their horse out of the village stables, freeing a box and allowing me to bring Qrac here four months ahead of schedule from one day to the next..

Frankly, when I took the decision I hadn’t given much thought about what it might be like working him in conditions that, at times, have been pretty crazy. If I had I’d probably have decided moving him early was far too inconvenient, not to mention dangerous, and I’d have sent him down to the south of France to his breeder (Elevage Massa) for a few months of training. Had I done that, right now I’d probably be on my way to Les Arcs-sur-Argens to pick him up, returning with a finely-tuned horse well-versed in the art of beautiful half-passes, magnificent flying changes, and in possession of a far more established, far more balanced extended trot. Viewed from a purely dressage point of you, this would have been great. But I’d have missed him like crazy.

And you know what? Now, less than two days away from the official opening of the fabulous new installations, I’m really happy Qrac and I were here to witness the construction almost from start to finish (the foundations were down before we came). Sure, there were some pretty hairy moments the first few times I worked Qrac in the paddock with bulldozers bulldozing away approximately two metres from the rail, and buses and trucks zooming by on the adjacent road. He spooked. He spun. He tensed up. He wasn’t always one hundred percent with me. But thanks to all this commotion we've both been forced way out of our comfort zone. Qrac has developed coping skills he never knew he had, and I've gained so much confidence. 

We've done more hacking in four months than in two years at the previous stables, heading out in beautiful weather as well as horrendous weather, learning that we’re quite capable of dealing calmly with things previously considered totally out of the question. We’ve done other “different” things too: we even had a jumping lesson, both thoroughly enjoyed it (Qrac quite fancied himself as a show jumper!), and will probably do more of that once the indoor arena opens this weekend! Oh yeah, and we did a dressage competition, too, ten days after I got back into the saddle after my injury, practicing the test alongside diggers and heavy machinery. We did ok, all things considered!

But I’m ready for an indoor arena now. The past two weeks have been particularly trying; the outdoor arena is pretty much frozen due to insane northern wind bringing us arctic temperatures. Hacking out is horrible, the wind so strong that Qrac has to put his head down and really turn on his rear engines to get us back to the stables. Still, seen from a positive perspective I know I wouldn’t even have considered riding him outside in such conditions! But when you’ve got to go, well, you’ve got to go. We’ve gone, been pretty blown about, got somewhat rattled in a couple of areas (the clanging flagpoles and flapping flags at the village dump, the hail-nets covering the apple orchards, the bamboo hedge near the vet’s house, and various renegade plastic bags), but made it back to the stables without too much ado.

The indoor!!!

So when the indoor opens this weekend, and we’re once again able to enjoy riding in the lap of luxury, I know I’m going to continue going out hacking as often as possible, trailering to different places, doing more cavaletti work. Variety really is the spice of life, but isn’t it funny how it sometimes takes an incident to make us realize this?

How about you? Have you been forced out of your equestrian comfort zone and reaped all kinds of benefits?

How to "Train" a Solid Trail Horse

                                    by Laura Crum

            In the comments on my last post, Val mentioned that a friend had tried to “desensitize” a horse that was frightened of the farrier. And I replied that the word “desensitize” just made my hackles rise. I’ve never seen it used by anyone who was a competent horseman.

            So I got to thinking about this and realized that it may, of course, be a completely unreasonable prejudice on my part. I don’t like the word, or what I’ve seen done in its name, but then again, I don’t really understand the concept. I only know what I’ve seen.

            Today I am going to describe what I’ve actually seen done under the heading of desensitizing, which was mostly aimed at creating a horse that wasn’t so spooky out on the trail. In my view, it was a dismal failure. And then I am going to talk about something that will actually help a horse to be a solid horse outside (and in the ring, for that matter). After you read this, you can all tell me where I’m wrong about this desensitizing issue, if you want.

            Maybe twenty years ago my friend and I had permission to access some trails behind a local training barn. We parked our rig in the barnyard and rode our young horses (three and four year old QH rope horses in training) out the back gate and through the hills. Our goal was to teach our young horses to be calm and reliable on the trail and to this end, well, we rode them on the trail…a lot.

            On our way to the trails we passed the various rings and arenas where the trainer and her assistant worked with the horses they had in training. These people were, as it happens, NH type trainers. I always looked curiously at what they were doing, because it never looked anything like what I did when training a horse…or for that matter what any horseman/trainer that I knew did. One young woman was schooling a rather flighty looking bay mare with a big blue tarp one day. The mare was walked over the tarp and then she walked under it (they had one part of it draped over a pole to make a tunnel). The mare seemed fine with this.

            I smiled at the young woman assistant trainer as we went by, and asked idly what she was doing. “Desensitizing,” she said rather brusquely, as if I should have known.

            I shrugged, and we went off to ride several miles through the hills. Here we climbed and descended steep trail and met various obstacles. We were patient with our young horses, but persistent, as they learned to cope with what the wild woods had to show us.

            One day, on the way home, we met the young woman assistant trainer on the same bay mare. She was less than a mile from the barn and her mare was pitching a fit over passing a small tarped stack of hay. The tarp was brown rather than blue, a cube shape, and flapped briskly in the breeze. The mare quite clearly was having no part of going by this odd obstacle, despite all the “desensitizing” with the big blue tarp in the ring.

            Our two young horses cocked their ears at the tarped hay, but went on by, ignoring the nervous mare. They had, of course, been by this obstacle before, they were tired, and they knew we were on the way home. We stopped and offered to give the mare a lead past the tarp monster, if the gal wanted.

            We got what I can only call a venomous look in reply and a curt “No need.”

            Well. (In my view, she would have been wise to take the offered lead. Would have built her mare’s confidence with no conflict needed. But instead, she dismounted and began some sort of training from the ground…and quite truthfully I felt that dismounting was exactly the wrong thing to do. Merely reinforced the idea the haystack was a problem and taught the mare that pitching a fit causes rider to dismount.)

            Since then I have seen (and heard) of many things like this. Rub the plastic bag all over the horse at home and its all good. Meet a different plastic bag blowing along the trail and the horse goes bat shit crazy.

            My answer to this is simple. You don’t desensitize a horse to specific stuff (I don’t believe this works). You teach a horse to be confident out on the trail and able to handle the various unpredictable stuff that comes along without losing his mind. It’s two completely different approaches to the same problem.

            Training a horse to be a calm, confident trail horse is in some ways simple. Uhmm, you put a lot of miles on the horse on the trail—preferably when he is a green horse in training. I realize this is oversimplified, but it is the root of the answer. The best way to do this is, at least initially, is following an older steady horse down the trail. If no such horse exists to help you, then a companion of any sort, including a calm confident human on foot (a husband who hikes, for instance) will work.

            Second point, again obvious. If you want a calm, confident trail horse, choose a horse with a calm personality. A sensitive reactive spooky horse can be a good trail horse within his limits, but he’ll always spook. This can be OK, if you don’t mind the spook.

            My horse Gunner was and is a hugely spooky, very sensitive, reactive horse. I got him broke to death—I rode him on hundreds of trail rides and gathers. He spooked on every single outing, at least once or twice, if not twenty or thirty times. And I mean really spooked—instant relocation twenty feet to the left. I was used to it; I rode with one hand on the horn; Gunner never dumped me. He also never bolted or became in any way out of control. He spooked, he jigged when scared, but he stayed in my hand and went where I told him. In my youth I found this to be fine. And this is the best you will get out of the truly sensitive, reactive horse. Trust me on this one.

            As for horses like my Sunny and my son’s Henry, who march intrepidly past just about everything, they first of all are very calm sensible horses by nature. Secondly they have been exposed to a lot—many miles outside, hauled everywhere…etc. And there is a third thing. The big secret—worth far more in my book than any amount of desensitizing. And it is this. These horses have been tied up for long periods. They’ve learned how to be calm and patient.

            Tying does a lot of things for a horse. It is the single most under-rated training tool there is. Ranch horses are caught and saddled and tied—every working day. If they are young horses they may only be ridden for a short ride in the company of an older horse than can give them a lead, or not ridden at all, if the work of the day is too tough for their skills. They are watered at lunch time. They learn to be patient and calm through this tying—without any other “training.”

            And now I am going to tell you something I just learned last week about tying. It really opened my eyes. I’m still sort of pondering it.

            My Sunny horse came from Mexico. He is the single most calm, confident trail horse I’ve ever ridden. He goes just as well alone as he does in a group. He can be first or last or in the middle. He has no problem leaving the others. He is a calm, intelligent horse by nature, but even so, his complete lack of herdbound behavior and his self-confidence continue to amaze me. I’ve often wondered how he got this way. Well, now I think I know.

            I’ve known maybe half a dozen of these horses that came from Mexico in my life—and they were all like this. Nothing bothered them. They all tie perfectly. My friend Mark has a little gray horse from this same place right now, and he is just as bombproof as Sunny. I asked Mark, “How do they get this way?”

            He laughed. “They tie them up every night to trees—each horse where he can’t see another horse. That’s what I was told.”

            I thought about this. My first impulse was to think—wow, that’s rough. I could never do that to a horse. But then I thought a little deeper.

            I believe in the tying method as we used it on the ranches. But here was something more intense. The horse must cope with a lot of fear to begin with, certainly. I imagine the first few weeks are pretty rough. But then the horse learns that nothing bad happens. The humans come in the morning and bring him hay and take him to get a drink, so he is happy to see the humans. They saddle him and ride him and he gets plenty of exercise doing ranch work. In the end he accepts that there is nothing to do but wait patiently by his tree alone all night. Being alone will not hurt him, fretting will not help him. And thus is a horse like Sunny trained to be such a calm confident trail horse, with zero herdbound traits.

            Those who will cry “How cruel!” need to take a moment and think. Yes, I think this training method would be hard for a horse, especially to begin with. I’m sure some horses are injured or colic due to stress. I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to do it, to be frank. But…

            Half of the folks I know (both on the internet and in real life) who would protest such “cruelty” to a horse cannot climb on their horses and go for a trail ride. They are literally scared to do this with their horse. Their horse is too spooky and nervous, too herdbound to ride alone outside an arena. This is not a problem if it’s not a problem for the owner, of course.

            But in many cases it IS a problem for the owner. The owner finds the horse frustrating, or the owner gets hurt on the horse and realizes the horse is truly dangerous. The owner WANTS to love the horse, but the owner also wants (very much) to enjoy riding in a relaxed way down the trail. And eventually the frustration and anxiety and sometimes true (and realistic) fear is just too much for the well-intentioned owner and the horse is sold. Very frequently such horses do not come to a good end—we all know this.

            Contrast this to a horse such as Sunny, who is a real pleasure to ride down the trail. Anybody who can ride can ride a horse like Sunny on trail rides and enjoy him. I enjoy Sunny’s ability to go solo or in a group and his complete lack of herdbound behavior makes him a joy in so many ways. If Sunny did not have these traits I would not have bought him (I was looking for a solid trail horse) and/or not have kept him. These traits (acquired through the “cruel” method of tying) have earned Sunny a forever home. And to top it off, they have given him a calm, relaxed, non-fearful attitude towards anything life sends him. If Sunny (or any horse) had the sort of brain that allowed him to ponder and choose, don’t you think he would have chosen the stress of his initial “tying” in order to get the happy life that has resulted?

            Contrast this to the nervous, unhappy horse whose owner dares not ride him down the trail. Consider the potential conflicts, the frustration on the part of both owner and horse, the likelihood of the horse being sold and ending up at the killers. Which life would you rather have if you were a horse?

            Something to think about, for sure.

           

           

             

Choosing the Right Horse

by Laura Crum

Lately I’ve been reading some stuff about desensitizing a horse. The whole thing got me thinking, and I want to discuss a point that I think is worth considering.

The notion that one can somehow “desensitize” a sensitive, reactive horse through training to be a laid back, bombproof horse is just not true. The idea that you can ask someone what they want in a horse and if they say “bombproof trail horse,” that you can then proceed to teach them to desensitize said sensitive, reactive horse and turn him into a bombproof trail horse…well, it won’t happen. Like people, horses have personalities, and just as you won’t teach a closed, reserved introvert to be open and an extrovert, you will not teach an inherently spooky horse to be bombproof—no matter if you’re the best trainer in the world.

You can train that spooky horse to have a “good” spook, if you’re a decent trainer. That is, he spooks, but he stays controlable. He trusts you; you remain in charge. For most halfway experienced riders, this is perfectly acceptable. But you won’t train that horse not to spook at all, or turn him into the sort of bombproof trail horse that I have in Henry and Sunny. The kind of horse you buy for your seven year old son.

I’ve ridden many spooky, reactive horses in my life and I’ve trained more than a few of them. I speak from personal experience here. If you want a “bombproof” horse, you need to choose one who does not have a sensitive, reactive personality. Whether the horse is unbroken or a made horse, that rule stays the same.

Let me give you an example. Right now, in my barn, I have a horse named Plumber, who has been featured many times in my mystery series starring equine vet Gail McCarthy. I bought Plumber as an unbroken three year old and trained him myself. He is twenty-one this spring. He has been a very successful team roping horse, winning numerous saddles and lots of money. He’s also been ridden on many trail and beach rides. Nobody has ever come off of Plumber. He is 100% gentle and reliable. When I began to train him, I spent exactly three days working with him in the round pen and accustoming him to the saddle. Then I began riding him. He never gave me any trouble. He is always cooperative and willing to do what’s he asked to do. He is very well broke (if I say so myself). I can let any halfway experienced rider ride him—no problem. He is also a sensitive, reactive horse.

Plumber is one of the most trusting horses I ever trained—and all the horses I trained and kept for myself are very trusting. I treat them kindly and fairly—they know they have to mind and respect me, but they feel very safe with me. Plumber has no real “fear issues”—he’s never been abused. But he is inherently a sensitive, reactive horse. And despite how much he trusts me, he still spooks.

To this day, any little thing can cause Plumber to look at it askance. He doesn’t spook “big”, but he spooks and dances when he sees something “scary”, which can be a weird stump, or the wind in the branches. These spooks are not the least bit threatening, and Plumber will stay under control at all times. I feel perfectly safe on Plumber. For two years, from when my kid was three until he was five, I rode everywhere on Plumber with my little child in front of me. That’s how safe I felt. I knew Plumber would not lose me. I knew I could ride him through anything, and as long as I stayed on, my kid, safely held by me, would stay on, too. That’s how gentle Plumber is. But he is still a sensitive, reactive horse and he spooks at little things.

When the time came that I bought my son his own trail horse (bombproof Henry) and we began to take rides outside, I discovered that I could not do this safely riding Plumber. Plumber would spook at a rustle in the bushes and startle even steady Henry. Henry would give a mini-spook, but still...I could not give my son a solid lead across the street or creek, because Plumber was busy dancing and looking hard at scary objects. Yes, Plumber went where I told him, but he remained looky. Not only did he not give Henry a steady lead, but I needed to be able to ignore my own horse and keep my focus entirely on my son, and Plumber didn’t really work for this. I knew enough to know that I could not change who Plumber was, so I bought steady, bombproof Sunny to give my kid a reliable lead to follow on the trails. It has worked really well.

Mind you, Sunny is not bombproof because somebody did a good job desensitizing him. Its his nature. Same for Henry.

Of course, Sunny and Henry could easily have been mishandled and become dead-sided, stubborn, recalcitrant plugs. Whoever trained them did a good job. But he/she did not create these horses’ bombproof personalities through training or any sort of “desensitizing”. They simply taught the horses to be good, obedient rope horses/trail horses, kept their basic trust/respect intact, and allowed the horses’ inherently bombproof natures to shine.

If said trainer had trained Plumber, Plumber would be just what he is—a gentle, willing horse who is sensitive enough to be a little spooky. Though I was perfectly comfortable riding with my little three year old on Plumber, I won’t let my now nine-year-old and quite competent child ride Plumber solo. Why? Because I know Plumber is capable of spooking and suprising my kid, and if Plumber felt someone coming off, he would not stop, as bombproof Henry would, he would skitter away from the scary falling thing. A recipe for disaster. I am not foolish enough to think that any amount of training will change Plumber’s basic nature. Just as others report (not that I do this—I don’t), you can desensitize a horse all you want to to scary objects and still when you meet the exact same object unexpectedly out on the trail, the horse spooks at it.

And again, Plumber is a sensitive horse. A too harsh cue from an inexperienced rider causes Plumber to become anxious and fret. A rider who tenses up makes Plumber tense. Thus, I don’t put beginners or little children on him. Any rider experienced enough to stay relaxed and give appropriate cues can ride Plumber with no trouble. But beginners and little kids do sometimes pull harder than they meant to, and when the horse jigs in response, they get nervous and tense. In general, its best not to mount such people on a sensitive horse.

So…if someone wants a bombproof trail horse and they have a sensitive, reactive horse, they should probably get a different horse. Or learn to ride the sensitive horse, knowing that it will always be sensitive. It will probably always spook. Spooking is not such a big deal for a competent rider, if the horse trusts you and remains under control, rather than trying to bolt. However, if a horse that spooks is scary for the rider, who is afraid that he/she might come off, a sensitive, reactive horse is not a good choice. It all depends on the comfort level of the rider. I felt so safe on reactive little Plumber that I rode with my toddler in front of me (and never had one problem).

Conversely, if you have a laid back, relaxed, somewhat insensitive horse, you are probably not gonna win the cutting futurity. Henry, for instance, was a very good rope horse in his day, but he was always basically a lazy horse, who needed to be ridden with spurs if you wanted him to try. That’s his nature. Right now our big issue with Henry is teaching my son to be forceful enough, in an appropriate way, to get Henry to lope and stay in the lope until told to stop. Do I mind this? No, I don’t. It’s the trade off for Henry being bombproof.

In general, bombproof horses are lazy horses who don’t react a whole lot if you give em a good hard poke in the ribs. They can take a whack with the end of the lead rope and remain unfazed. This does not mean that you can’t train them to be well broke, obedient horses—you can. But you can’t turn them into sensitive, reactive horses. Most good riders would prefer a more sensitive type of horse and would pass on a horse like Henry or Sunny, considering the horse too “dull”.

In general, sensitive horses react a whole lot if you give them that same good hard poke in the ribs. And Plumber, for instance, you cannot whack with the lead rope at all—he comes unglued he is so upset. I can (and did) train Plumber to be a very gentle, reliable horse. I don’t believe anyone could train him to be a bombproof horse for a beginner.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I don’t think any trainer should encourage a beginner (or anyone else) to suppose they can train the spook out of an inherently sensitive, spooky horse. There’s a limit to what training can achieve. It won’t change a horse’s basic nature. You need to choose the right horse to fit the job you want to do. If people realized this, they’d be a lot better off. That’s my take on it, anyway. What do you think? Anybody have a different theory?