Looking Past the Ears

by Laura Crum

Between weather and busyness, we haven’t been riding a lot for the last month. Maybe twice a week at best. The occasional trail ride or beach ride, mostly short rides in our riding ring. The picture above was taken when we rode to the Lookout over a month ago (the view past Sunny’s ears is of Monterey Bay).Yesterday we went up to my uncle’s place to help gather the roping cattle for the first practice roping this spring. That was a blast. But overall, we haven’t been doing much. At times I feel almost guilty, as if I “ought” to be doing more with the horses. I turn them out most days to graze, and the horses seem perfectly happy. I enjoy our short relaxing rides when I get them, and both Sunny and Henry behave well and move out freely. But some sort of Puritan work ethic makes me feel bad about not doing more, or I hear about what someone else is doing with their horse and I am envious (that’s the bad thing about these horse blogs—you can always read about someone who is doing much more with their horses than you are doing with yours). I really know better than this—but I still fall into these traps. And then I got a reminder of what its really all about.

Last week we had a little boy over to visit who had never been to our place before. He’s part of my kid’s homeschool group, and a very sweet, smart, interesting child. I’ll call him Sam. Anyway, as I usually do, I offered Sam a chance to ride a horse (with his mother’s permission). Sam had never ridden a horse before and was very excited.

I have a simple protocol for this. Kids are only allowed to ride Henry, my son’s bombproof gelding. And they must wear a helmet. We all go down to the barn and I catch and saddle Henry, explaining to the kid how to “be” around a horse. No running, no shouting, don’t approach the horse from behind, listen to me and do what I tell you at all times…etc. Henry is actually proof against most anything, but I want to teach the right behavior. My kid models brushing the horse and our visitor gets to brush him, too.

Then I put my son on Henry and he rides his horse up to the riding ring and demonstrates a little walk, trot, lope. The visiting kid stays with me and I point out just what my child is doing to control Henry. If the kid seems keen, and Sam was, I put the visitor up behind my son on Henry (if they’re small enough) and let them walk around like that so they can get used to the feeling of being on a horse without thinking about anything else. And then I ask them if they want to ride by themselves.

Sam was very eager to do this. I legged him up on Henry, helped him put his feet in the stirrups (which have tapaderos—very important), and showed him how to hold the reins. I explained how to steer Henry, how to get the horse to move. I told Sam to hang on by the horn, not by the reins or his heels—under all circumstances. Sam’s face was bright, eager and attentive. And off we went—with me at the end of the long, slack leadrope, walking along beside him.

This is how I give kids their first ride. Henry has done it many times and knows what I am up to. He knows he’s supposed to obey the kid on his back—that I’m just there for backup. And this is important, because though Henry is safe, he is not above walking over to a patch of grass and putting his head down—which is way more than any first time kid rider can cope with. So I make sure this doesn’t happen.

Anyway, I’m following Sam along and I look up to see how he’s doing. And you never saw such a lit up face. He was positively incandescent with delight. “Do you like it?” I asked.

“This is so much fun! Its so cool just to be here on his back, looking past his ears. Its great!”

Well, I grinned and we went on, but his words stuck with me. Because I feel the same way. To this day, even when I’m so busy that I hardly have time to ride, when I do climb on my horse just to walk him around the ring or go for a brief trail ride, I have that exact emotion. This is so much fun. Just being on the horse’s back, looking past his ears at the world ahead. Feeling him carrying me along. Even if I do nothing but walk around my riding ring for ten minutes. I just love it. I hope I always feel this way.

And I realized (yet again), that its time to let go of comparing myself to others and worrying about what I “ought” to do, and simply take pleasure in the joy that horses bring me. If puttering around my riding ring on Sunny’s back looking at the roses on a spring day contents me, that’s great. Same for gathering the roping cattle and going on a short trail ride with my son. Not very exciting stuff by some standards, maybe, but if it brings me joy then its good for me. I need to remember this (!)

So today, in honor of Sam’s words, here are some recent photos showing the view from Sunny’s back, looking past his ears.

On a spring trail ride, along a rather overgrown trail.

Looking across the big meadow—gathering cattle at my uncle’s place.

On the beach, looking at my son on Henry and our friend, Wally, on Twister.

At the Lookout last fall. My kid is resisting having his picture taken.

Looking down at Sunny.

How about you guys? Do you love those “ear views”, too? And do you, like me, get sucked into guilt and envy in your “horse life” more often than you would like?

Taking a Break

By Laura Crum


I mentioned in a post awhile ago about “finding balance” that I have a really hard time feeling Ok about not riding four or five days a week. Today I want to explain why I feel this way, and ask if any of you struggle with this “guilt issue”. I know that for me, it can really take the pleasure out of having horses and I am always working on finding the right balance in my life and not obsessing on riding. So, how did I get to be this way?

Well, I was raised to be a bit of a zealot about riding my horses regularly. My tough old team roper uncle, who was my first and main teacher, felt that you should ride your competition horses (and practice horses for that matter) virtually every day to keep them legged up. The horse trainers I worked for in my twenties espoused a similar ethic (though they didn’t always practice it). During the ten years Gunner was my main mount it was a rare day that I didn’t ride that poor horse. I bought him as a coming three year old and retired him at fourteen, due to various arthritic issues. I firmly believe those issues were caused by early and fairly intense training, and just an awful lot of miles.

By the time I was riding Flanigan and Plumber, my ideas had changed. My team roping partner was a more relaxed guy, and though he liked to ride and did ride regularly, if the weather was bad, and/or there was some other reason, he was perfectly happy to let a horse stand for a few weeks and then go roping on him. And lo and behold, nothing bad happened. The horse wasn’t too fresh; the horse didn’t get hurt. The horse didn’t even lose that much condition. This went on for years.

I learned something. You don’t have to ride a broke horse into the ground all the time to keep him going. It’s a fallacy.

I began riding my horses when I felt like riding. Sometimes that would be four or five days a week. Sometimes it would be once a week. The horses did fine. Plumber and Flanigan both stayed sound and competitive until they were twenty—far longer than Gunner had done.

Now, I grant you this won’t work on every horse. I’m not arguing that point. But on our fairly easy going mature QH team roping horses, it actually worked better than riding every day. The horses felt better, seemed happier, had less lameness and overall just did better.

I should add into this equation that I keep our horses in large (100 by 100 on average) corrals where they can run around and play if they feel like it, so they are not stuck standing in a stall or small pen when we don’t ride.

So, anyway, hey, sounds great, right? I’m riding when I want to, the horses are happy, no problem.

Well, there is one slight problem. I was raised by my zealot uncle (in the horse biz, anyway). I’m a Catholic school girl. The problem, in a nutshell, is guilt. I feel guilty if I don’t ride five days a week. At some deep level I still believe I’m “supposed” to. That the horses need this.

Fast forward to the present. I spend my riding time trail riding and riding with my son. Our mature easy going horses do just fine whether I ride them once a week or five times a week. They’re reasonably fit and I never demand too much of them. A long trail ride is a three hour ride. If they start to puff, we rest and let them air up. They are never ridden to the point of being really tired.

So wouldn’t you think I could let go of my guilt issue and just enjoy these horses?

Well, sometimes I can. And sometimes I get sucked right back into my old way of thinking. This fall we rode a lot. The weather was good—my son and I went riding three or four days a week. Week before last we rode six times. And then the weather got cold and wet. Suddenly I’m back to riding one day a week if I’m lucky. And I start to feel guilty.

Oh, and lets not forget the mud. I live in a part of California where we get a lot of pleasant weather all year round. It virtually never snows—it doesn’t get real hot or real cold. But in the winter we get these long rainy spells. And during these rainy spells the horse corrals get muddy. Even big corrals get muddy in heavily used areas. And I look at my horses, squelching through the mud and feel guilty. Never mind that none of these particular horses have ever had one mud related problem in their lives (if any of them had a tendency to develop abcesses, I’d be more concerned). But there is nothing like muddy corrals to ratchet up the guilt factor.

It took a conversation with a friend, another recovering “ride em every day” horseman, to show me what I was doing to myself. Between work and such, she is lucky to ride one day a week sometimes, just like me. Her corrals are muddy, too. And, as she pointed out to me, her horses are thriving. They are both sounder than they were when she rode more often. She reminded me of what I already knew, but had forgotten. Its Ok to take a break. Its Ok to ride when you can. Its Ok not to push too hard. Both our horses and ourselves benefit.

Now I’m taking a break, while the rain rattles on my tin roof. My horses are dozing in their sheds, taking a break, also. And we’ll all enjoy a trail ride on the next sunny (non-muddy) day—guilt-free. Or that’s my goal, anyway.

Anyone else have this issue? How do you cope with it? Any suggestions?