A Minor Revelation

                                    by Laura Crum

            So the other day I had a revelation. Or a possible revelation. It was my birthday, actually. And my one wish for my birthday was to have my husband and son and our friend/boarder, Wally, help me clean out my barn. The barn was a total mess, crowded with twenty years accumulation of old, broken, useless horse junk. I am not a neat horse housekeeper. The idea of cleaning the barn up had become very daunting to me (there was so much old, moldy junk), but the mess bothered me every single day. So when I was asked what I wanted for my birthday, I quickly scanned through the notions of outings, meals, presents…etc and came up with the one thing that really resonated for me. I wanted a clean barn. So that’s what we did.

            I am sure glad I had help, because I never would have made it through the process alone. You would not believe how many rats and mice were hiding in the rotten old bits of tack and the feed bags I forgot to throw out. Not to mention the rusting, broken feeders…etc. There were plenty of black widow spiders, too. But my intrepid helpers were not afraid, and all the junk got cleaned up and hauled away.

            My barn is just a pole barn—it was built to store feed and shelter a vehicle—there is a shed in the back that I can turn into a box stall when I need one. All useful tack resides in the horse trailer, because this barn is no place for tack—everything gets dusty in the summer and moldy in the winter. My goal was to get the junk removed and to be able to park the truck inside once more. And this goal was accomplished—as you see below.

           

            The barn cleaning was very satisfying to me, but it didn’t produce the revelation. I already knew that a reasonably tidy barn would feel very good. No, the revelation happened afterward. Because after the barn was nice and tidy (by my admittedly not-very-high standards, anyway), I sat down in my chair in the barnyard, in the shade of an oak tree, and just contemplated things for an hour.

            I had already fed the horses lunch and they were puttering around, as horses do. We’d been down there all day working, but not paying much attention to them, so they were resigned to the notion that I wasn’t going to get them out. Thus they ignored me, sitting there quietly in my chair, and I just watched them doing their own things.

            This was, when I came to think about it, unusual. My horses tend to notice the moment I approach the barnyard and come to their gates, nickering plaintively. “Me, get me.” The message is plain.

            Usually when I go down there I am either feeding, or I get a horse out to turn him loose to graze, or brush him, or ride him. At times, in fact, I avoid going near the barn because I don’t have time (or inclination) to interact with the horses and I feel guilty ignoring their pleas to be got out. So sitting quietly in my chair watching them while they appeared unaware of me—I think they had pretty much forgotten I was even there—was kind of a novelty.

            I keep my horses in big corrals (they average 40 feet by 150 feet)—one horse to a corral. They have pasture sheds they can go in and out of at their choosing—there is room for them to run and buck and play—and they do. Every horse has at least one horse that he can touch and play with through the fence—and they all can see each other. I feed them three times a day—a mixed grass/alfalfa—which gives them something to pick at most of the time. And here’s the thing. I often wonder if they are happy.

I think we horse owners have all wondered if our horses are happy. I used to think my horses would be happiest turned out in a big pasture—and then for almost twenty years I did keep horses this way, and I spent a lot of time with them. To my surprise they often looked just as bored as horses in corrals. They grazed when they wanted, yes, but this worked out to be about three main sessions a day, just the way I feed my horses in their corrals. The rest of the time they stood around idly swishing at flies and looking, well, bored.

            But on this day, watching my horses stand companionably with their buddies, switching their tails, one hind leg cocked, I saw it differently. Because here I sat in my chair, idly doing nothing, and I’m sure that if anyone was there to see me (which there wasn’t) I might have looked bored. But I wasn’t. I was absolutely content. And thus it finally dawned on me that maybe my horses were perfectly content, too.

            Horses sleep on average only two hours a day. So perhaps these long hours of idling, pleasantly relaxed, are what they need, what they crave. Maybe the boredom I’d projected onto them had been only a manifestation of my own restless spirit. I somehow thought they needed to be grazing, or running around, or interacting with each other, or they didn’t “look happy.” But maybe I was wrong about that.

            If I was happy, sitting quietly in my chair, doing nothing, maybe they were happy, too. Maybe horse happiness doesn’t look like what I supposed. Maybe a full belly, water to drink, space to move around and run if you want, soft ground to lie on and roll on, and other horses for company is really enough. My horses like attention, and so they lobby for me to get them out when they see me. But in this moment, when they weren’t thinking about me, they looked pretty darn content.

            So I’m chewing on this awhile. I’m sure that some of you have contemplated this subject as well…wondering if your horse seemed happy. Any thoughts?

Teach Him His Job

by Laura Crum


As most of you know, I’ve been gone for a month, so my horses have had a vacation. Yesterday my son and I took Henry and Sunny up to the roping arena to help gather the cattle and give our two horses an easy day of riding. Both of our boys were good, if a little lazy—seems like they were still in vacation mode.

My other “task” while at the arena was to watch my friend Wally rope on his young horse, Smoky. I’ve written about Smoky before and how hard Wally has tried to bring this horse along to be a confident, able, happy horse. At this point Wally is pretty proud of six year old Smoky, and has just started competing on him at small ropings. And he wanted me to watch him rope on the horse and see how well Smoky was doing.

So I watched. And Smoky did great. Perfectly calm and quiet in the box, ran hard, made the corner well (Smoky is a heel horse), covered the steer excellently. His stops were a little rough, but you know, nobody’s perfect. Most of all, Smoky seemed confident and happy, and this reminded me of a subject which I thought I’d discuss on the blog.

When Wally got Smoky back from the horse trainer this past spring, the rather laconic trainer waxed lyrical on what a nice horse Smoky was and how well he liked him. He’s ready to go, the trainer said. Just teach him his job.

And this statement reminded me of a discussion (via email) that I had several years ago with Janet Huntington of Mugwump Chronicles. We were discussing what caused horses to “burn out” and grow to hate what they did and how this could be avoided. I had a theory, which I proposed to Janet, and she mentioned it briefly in one of her blog posts. Since then I’ve thought a lot about this subject and come to the conclusion that I was partly right and partly wrong in what I said then, and I thought I’d put my ideas out there and hope that you all would comment and add your insights.

So here’s my theory. Horses burn out and get sour when they don’t understand the point of what they are doing. A happy horse needs to throw in with the work he is asked to do, and in order to do this, a horse needs to understand his job.

I still believe the above theory. However, I went on (once upon a time) to expound on the events horses could understand and those they couldn’t. I can attest to the fact that rope horses get the point. They know whether they have caught the steer or not. A good rope horse will often dance anxiously off when the rider misses, rather than the calm, proud way that they walk when the steer is successfully captured. Cutting horses know if they held the cow. Jumping horses know if they jumped the fence. Race horses know if they won the race. Working cowhorses know if they turned the cow. Trail horses know if they got you from A to B and successfully through the obstacles in between. Horses understand these jobs, and (often), since they understand them, are willing to throw in with them, are even willing to work quite hard at them and are still happy with their lot. Of course, any abusive, unkind rider can change this dynamic in a hurry, but given a reasonable owner/rider, often horses are happy to do these jobs.

Then I went on to list the jobs I thought horses didn’t comprehend very well—the events where I frequently saw cross, unhappy, burned out horses. I still think there is some truth in my perception, but since I have been involved with Equestrian Ink I have corresponded with some people whose horses did truly enjoy these disciplines, and this has caused me to rethink my ideas. So, I am going to list off the events I once thought that horses don’t easily comprehend, admitting right off the bat that some of you have horses that do comprehend and enjoy these events. If you would, I’d like you to explain why your horses enjoy these disciplines and how you think your horse views his work.

So, OK, it was my perception that reining horses (and cowhorses in the reining portion of their work), pleasure horses both English and Western (and all walk, trot canter, execute figures type horseshow events—equitation, hunter under saddle…etc), dressage, halter horses, and barrel racing horses had no way to get the point of what was being asked of them and frequently grew very cross and sour from endlessly being asked to do this thing better and better for no reason that they could see.

At the time of the original email discussion, Janet pointed out that some cowhorses seemed to enjoy the dry work portion of the event and took pride in executing the figures. I didn’t argue, since she knew much more about this than I did. Since then I have heard Francesca, who writes for this blog, talk about how Kwintus likes to show off his skill at certain dressage movements and lopinon4 talk about how her horse CJ likes to execute what I think (correct me if I’m wrong) are western pleasure exercises. I have heard barrel racers describe their horse’s skill and pride. And it occurs to me that maybe sometimes horses do grasp these activities better than I thought.

So that’s my topic. Do you agree that a lot of what makes a happy horse is that horse understanding and throwing in with his job? And have you, like me, seen a lot more frustrated horses in some activities than others? What events do you think horses comprehend more easily?

My Sunny horse, for instance, loves trail riding and hates arena work. He is lazy and reluctant in the arena, once he has the edge off. He makes it plain that executing pointless circles and figures totally bores him. On the trail he walks eagerly, ears up, cooperative and steady, eager to see new country. He plainly gets the point of covering country and equally plainly cannot see the point of going round and round in a pen. Since I happen to agree with him, we get along well. The previous owner tried to use him for dressage and (I think) found him quite frustrating in this respect. So, there’s one example. I’m interested to hear what you think.