Missing the Show Season?

I've had a bit of a melancholy summer. Which is weird considering that a lot of good things have happened to my husband and me:

• We built an addition on our house, and it's beautiful.
• We both have great jobs that we love and have been fortunate enough to be doing financially well in this economy.
• My husband has renewed his relationship with his three grown children, and it's going well.

So what's wrong with me? I wish I could put a finger on it. I know part of it has to do with horses. I've been in love with horses since I was a very little girl. So life without horses isn't an option for me.

This year, I chose not to show. Am I missing the excitement and camaraderie of horse showing? Am I wandering aimlessly in my riding rather than pursuing a goal? Is that such a bad thing? All of my friends are off to horse shows, while I stay home. I rarely ride my mare, maybe once or twice a week. That's not much for me. I still take lessons, and they're going amazingly well considering how little I do ride.

All these great plans I had for my life, all the things I wanted to do but didn't do, are starting to catch up with me. Many of them have to do with horses. I always thought I'd get my dressage medals. Yet, I'm not even close to getting my Bronze, let alone silver or gold.

On top of that I miss the friendships. I met most of my dearest friends through horses. Anymore it seems as if I go to the barn, ride, and leave, without really socializing with anyone, and I'm a social person. One of the reasons I board my horse is because of the people at the barn.

So here I am, wondering where to go from here. Should I bring the horse home and buy a nice Quarter Horse for my husband and ride into the sunset? Should I attempt to make a new commitment to my riding? Do I ever really want to go through the stress of showing?

I wish someone could give me the answers, but I know that I'm the only one who can do that. I appreciate everyone's patience as I struggle to make sense of whether or not showing is in my future. It seems as if this issue has been the subject of all my posts lately.

Have any of you quit showing and found horse activities to replace it? Do any of you keep riding and taking lessons to pursue a goal unrelated to ribbons and points?

Black and White

When I say black and white many of you (being the good horsey folk you are) immediately think of Paints.

Lately, for me, black and white have begun to mean positive and negative, action and stillness, presence and absence.

I have discussed an experiment on my blog, Mugwump Chronicles, where I am working with a colt I have owned since birth.

I am trying to teach him in a way that is effective enough that I only have to teach it once.
No drilling, no repetition, once he learns it, I assume he understands it.

I am very aware that repetition will come into his life simply because he needs it to strengthen himself physically and mentally for where I want to take him.

Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm not a good enough trainer to make it to a NRCHA derby without having to show him something more than once.

But I'm sure going to try.

At this point he leads, ties, picks up his feet, loads in a trailer, gives his nose when I put pressure on him and backs a step. He's just two. So he does everything I need him to for his age.

I spend a lot of time thinking of my next step, because I always want it to be related to the last and to set me up for the next.

Sometimes it's a month or two before I think through my next step. Because there is such a gap in my handling of my little guy I have been worried it would have a negative effect on his training.

I have been surprised to find it has, if anything, enhanced it. When I walk into the horses on pasture he watches me closely. When I look back at him he drops his head and turns to the side. It doesn't matter if I skip past him for weeks at a time, this is still the friendly, welcoming response I get.

When I do go to pet him or catch him he is interested and willing to go with me. I almost think the wait in between sessions works him as much as the actual handling time. I haven't bored him. He hasn't shut me out from a lack of understanding or too much repetition. I haven't given him any bad habits from a lack of focus on my part either.

So my negative space becomes as much a tool as my positive.

It's really making me think. What I'm not doing is every bit as important as what I am.

Here's an example of my thoughts.

Most horses lean into the rider as she mounts. Not a lot, he just sets his inside foot and braces to support himself as she gets up.

No big deal, right?

When I work a horse I am very insistent he learns to curl his body away from me. He needs to keep his shoulder and rib away from me. I do this as a safety measure and as beginning lessons in foot placement. If my horse curls away correctly he also crosses his feet correctly for future turns and lateral work.

I also want my horse prepared to move away at any time out of respect for my position. I've learned through hard experience that a horse who leans or pushes on me is being rude and it will effect our whole trainer/trainee relationship unless I stop it.

So what am I teaching my horse when I let him lean into me as I mount? I'm not sure, but it has to be a confusing cross signal at best.

When I worked for the Big K he didn't put up with a lot of leaning over their back, practicing putting weight in the stirrup or repeats of stepping up and down. He would put the saddle on a young horse, let him stand tied all day for several days and then prepare them to ride.

He would let me pony a colt, lean over it, rub on it and bang on the saddle but he didn't want me hanging off it's side.

When it was time to get on I tipped the colts nose, put my foot in the stirrup, stood up and immediately balanced over the middle of the colt. Once the colt would tolerate me I stood up, hesitated and threw my leg over.

I asked him once why he did it that way and he said, "I don't want you hanging with your head over the side of a colt when he blows. Besides, they're just 'feelier' this way."

When I went out on my own I went back to my old way. Putting my weight in the stirrup and gradually working my way onto the horse.

It went easier, the youngsters were better prepared when I got on and I felt I was doing a better job.

Except I had leaning colts again. I was creating a stiffening of the inside shoulder and rib. Which I had to work out again in order to begin training.

I hate it when he's right. The colts we stood over, then rode, were balancing briefly on the outside to support us. They moved away in order to get ready for us to mount. I'm not talking feet moving, just where their weight went as we got on.

So there was a consistency in expectations. I wasn't unconciously encouraging the very behavior I work so hard to eliminate.The young horse is learning again to keep his shoulder clear of the rider. That's where K was getting his "feelier." Hey, the guy's a trainer, not a communicator.

My thought here is, if I'm not unconsciously creating a lean in my colt, by repeatedly stepping up and down, or hanging off him, my training will be much more effective, simpler and clear. And I won't have to repeat myself.

By sitting back and doing nothing until I am sure my next step only builds, doesn't confuse, I am still going to end up with a competitive colt in time for the derbies. My negative space will only give both of us time to think. I hope.

Knowing When To Quit

By Laura Crum


Some horses are born resistant. All the good training in the world won’t make them cooperative. I know this from personal experience. Last month I did a post titled “A Failure?”, that told the story of Ready, a horse I broke and trained and failed to turn into a cooperative riding horse. I later discovered that all the horses that traced back to Ready’s dam were failures as cooperative riding horses. I mentioned that I failed on a couple more of them before I figured this out. In the comments on this post, stillearning and I discussed her current horse, who she fears might be another naturally resistant horse. I thought I would write today about the way in which I discovered that the horses of this one particular lineage were virtually impossible to turn into good saddle horses, in the hopes that it might help others to make that all-important decision of knowing when to quit.

First off, I want to talk about what a truly resistant, uncooperative horse amounts to, in my book. Such horses are lazy, and will do almost anything to avoid work. Their hallmark is the tendency to do stupid, violent, dangerous things, including things that might actually hurt them, in an effort to avoid cooperating with a rider. The worst of these horses virtually seem to have a screw loose. They are so determined to avoid cooperating with a rider that their instincts for self preservation just disappear. The funny thing is that because these horses are lazy, they often appear suitable for beginners—as long as the beginners just want to walk around the pen. The lazy, resistant horse is willing to do this. He appears bomb-proof. But he isn’t. It can be a very dangerous mistake to make.

However, not all lazy horses are in this category. And some horses can be very resistant to work that they don’t like and cooperative about work that they do like, as was pointed out in the comments on my post about Ready. My trail horse, Sunny, likes trail riding and dislikes arena work. He is frequently lazy and resistant in the arena, but is a cooperative partner on the trail. He also is level headed and smart and never considers any violent manuever, in any situation, nor does he do foolish things that might get himself hurt. Sunny has a mildly resistant nature, yes, but its more amusing than a problem. I enjoy him and feel quite safe on him.

In contrast, let me tell you the story of Breeze, another horse I broke and trained who did not work out very well. When I began to work with Breeze, I had not yet realized that horses that traced back to Ready’s dam were not good choices. I had sold Ready, but had simply considered him a resistant individual; I hadn’t yet made the leap of understanding that he was genetically programmed to be so, and that this programming came from his dam.

Now Ready’s dam produced big, pretty colts who were very easy going and laid back and appeared quite cooperative as long as you handled them from the ground. Their resistant nature only became apparent when one broke them to ride. Others besides me were fooled by these colts and two people, one of them my uncle, used colts out of this mare as stallions. So in due time my uncle had a couple of three year old colts by this new stud. And one of them was Breeze.

As you might expect, Breeze was a pretty colt and easy to handle on the ground. I had no misgivings at all. I agreed to start the horse for my uncle. At this point in my life I had worked for several horse trainers. I’d started many colts, and trained my own colt, Gunner, to be a competitive cowhorse. I felt perfectly confident that I could do a good job on my uncle’s colt. No problem.

And at first there was no problem. Breeze was easy to start. I got him walk, trot, loping around with me on his back with no issues. He had a nice stop. I taught him to watch a cow. All very easy, very relaxed, no pressure. I rode him for sixty days, turned him out for the winter, and started back up with him in the spring of his four-year old year.

Breeze acted as if he’d been ridden yesterday. I got him going again just fine. At this point I was pretty happy with him and was considering buying him. The only thing stopping me was that my uncle had put a high price on him. So I kept riding him. And, as was appropriate to his stage of training, I started to put a little more pressure on him.

At the time I was riding cowhorses and cutters, not team roping, so what I taught Breeze was what I knew—how to work a cow. But now, instead of being happy if he moved when the cow moved, I was asking him to sharpen up and be quick. I had my spurs on and when the cow moved, I demanded that Breeze “fire”—jump right out with the cow. And Breeze seemed to be handling it. He got pretty handy. He showed no resistance. I was happy.

Until the day that I worked a fairly stingy cow, asked Breeze to stay with her, and the horse bogged his head between his legs and bucked me off, hard. With no warning. I was dumbfounded. I’d been riding this horse for six months now, I’d been his sole rider, and I hadn’t a clue he was capable of this. I got back on and we finished working the cow, but I wasn’t happy.

I rode Breeze for another month. He never bucked me off again, but he tried several times. However, now that I knew he had it in him, I was ready for him and stayed ahead of him. But I still wasn’t happy. I never did like to ride a horse that would bog his head and really buck.

I gave him back to my uncle and told him the story. My uncle could ride one that bucked. He said he would finish Breeze up as a rope horse. And he did. The horse bucked him off a couple of times, but a year later you could rope on him, and he was for sale.

By this time I’d taken up team roping, and was looking for a horse to be a back up for Gunner, who was getting a bit arthritic. Call me stupid, but I decided to try Breeze. I’d liked the horse so much at one time, and he appeared to be over his bucking issue. I tried him. It only took one ride.

Breeze looked good, but he felt awful. Stiff, resistant, uncooperative. He was doing the work, but you could feel throughout his body that he he was resisting it. Breeze didn’t want to be a rope horse, just like he hadn’t wanted to be a cowhorse.

At least I was smart enough to pass on the horse. My uncle sold him to a rancher who occasionally went team roping, and I saw them around for years. Breeze still looked like he was no fun to rope on; he propped the guy as often as not. One day I asked the guy how he liked the horse.

He shrugged. “He’s not much of a heel horse,” he said. “But he’s fine to gather on. And he’ll watch a cow pretty good in the corral.”

I smiled. “I taught him to watch a cow,” I said. “But not to be a rope horse,” I added hastily.

“Well,” said the guy, “he does watch a cow real well.”

I saw Breeze in this guy’s pasture for many years; as far as I know he kept the horse until he died. So I guess that’s a happy ending of sorts.

But the story goes on. Because Breeze had seven brothers and sisters. I started two more of them for my uncle. And both of them, so easy to handle on the ground, tried bucking, bolting and rearing, as forms of resistance when ridden. The second one, I recognized the pattern, and after a few rides, I took her to a guy who was a real good hand, and he put thirty days on her. Same result. After that I refused to ride these colts. My uncle sent them to various professional trainers. Same result.

Breeze is actually the only one of them that found a successful niche in the world. A roper bought the second one, worked with him for almost ten years, and after yet another bolting episode, hauled him straight to the sale. The mare that I worked with briefly ended up at the sale, too, I found out later, and got bought by a guy for a riding horse. I don’t know what happened to her. At that point I’d learned my lesson. Neither I, nor anyone else, could fix these horses. They were born resistant.

I could go on and on with stories of the dangerous, violent ways in which some of these horses behaved, but I’ll end with Ikey, a horse I see fairly often these days. Ikey is a grandson of this same mare. He is a big good looking horse. A competent roper trained him and Ikey looks like a decent rope horse when he’s having a good day. Ikey is also lazy, so lazy that this roper puts his young son on him and lets him plod around the arena and down the trail on the horse. As I mentioned before, these resistant, lazy horses often appear quite gentle if they’re not asked to exert themselves…and nothing pushes their buttons.

Unfortunately, I have seen Ikey dump this kid more than once…when something startled the horse. Ikey is capable of bucking, rearing and bolting, just like all his brethren. It renders this horse virtually useless as a rope horse (not to mention dangerous as a riding horse) because nobody knows when something will set him off. I would no more put a kid on him than I would push the kid off a cliff. But you can’t tell the guy that owns him that. He refuses to see it.

The lesson I’ve learned from all this is that some horses are born resistant. You can’t fix them. And, when buying a young horse, it pays to look at the sire and dam and all relations that became riding horses. Are they horses you would like to ride? If they aren’t, think again about your choice.

A New Diet and A New Query Letter -- Things are Cookin'!`

Hi Everybody,

I was sitting down to blog last night when I heard cries of "I want my Mommy" from down the hall. I curled up next to my three year old to comfort him and I fell asleep! Well, here it is 1:30 in the morning and my family is all happily asleep and I just woke up to do my blog and another hour or so of work. To be honest, some of my most productive writing time is at the oddest hours!

I was formally discharged yesterday from my physical therapy from my back injury (Yeah!) but it's going to be awhile until I can start riding again. It was a mild injury and full recovery is predicted, but boy is it taking its time! In the meantime I'm starting a three-time per week workout routine to strengthen my core (which should help with riding in the long term). So everybody, as you're doing your no stirrup work, you're also, I've discovered, strengthening your back against injury. (Yet another of the many advantages of riding!)

I also got on the scale at the doctor's office as part of my follow-up and (Yikes!) I've had a ten pound weight gain! Oh, my gosh! Okay, I decided to A) panic and B) pull out the diet. I'm going to meet with the nutritionist later this month but I'm starting back on the diet she set up for me in the meantime (Yes, I admit I drew some chocolate comfort during the back injury ouchy moments. Unfortunately, there were a lot of ouchy moments and therefore a lot of chocolate). Ummm, along with absolutely no exercise, about ten pounds of ouchy moments.

Well, fortunately I have this diet specifically designed for my height, age, amount of weight to lose (plus now ten more pounds). It's pretty simple to follow. It's three meals and three snacks. Snacks are things like 1/2 bagel with peanut butter with cheese or yogurt, lunches of 2 oz. tuna or chicken salad with light mayo and vegetable, sensible breakfasts and dinners. Should be do-able, right? I even get half a cup of ice cream and half a banana for bedtime snack! Consulting with a nutritionist has given me the healthiest, best weight loss plan I've ever had. I'll keep you posted on the results!

At least all this time lying around has given me lots of opportunity for writing! I posted my draft query letter before my May conference. Well, here's the newly minted final version. It's a much tighter letter, with a higher overview of the storyline. It also emphasizes successful books to which it could be compared. I heard over and over again that agents want to know where a book will be shelved in the bookstore. Here's my best effort at delivering that:

June 22, 2009

Dear __________________:

I have just completed The Grimoire, an 80,000 word contemporary fantasy that will be enjoyed by readers of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series and Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson novels. THE GRIMOIRE, the first book of The Foreseers series, is available for your review.

Gemma Morrin is a talented witch whose world is shattered when a witch from her ancestors’ coven, The Foreseers, shows up bedraggled and frightened. The Foreseers have been decimated by the wizard Cathaoir in his pursuit of a key central to the coven’s power. Gemma must use her unique ability to alter memories and perceptions to protect the key while Cathaoir engages in escalating terror attacks on her family and town in hopes of coercing her into relinquishing it. THE GRIMOIRE’s full cast of characters includes a mortal boyfriend coming to terms with Gemma’s powers, magical family, and a fun-loving but ghostly roommate.

The Foreseers organization has been designed to mirror the intelligence community. In developing the world of The Foreseers, I relied on my husband’s background teaching the Yale course titled Intelligence and Covert Operations as well as our contacts in the industry. The magical creatures integrated into the story are drawn from numerous mythologies and cultures. I created the equestrian setting for THE GRIMOIRE based on my experience showing in hunters and equitation.

The majority of my writing and editing experience has been in the medical communications field. More information regarding my background and writing is available at www.marypaine.com. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Mary Paine


Well, folks, that''s it for now. Happy Fourth of July weekend!

Cheers,
Mary

Too Many Horses

By Laura Crum


There are times when my life seems reasonably well-arranged. Yes, I have a lot of horses, but they are all in situations that are working fine. Everything is going well. I’m content.

And then there are the other times. Like last month. All of a sudden, or so it seemed, all my horses were coming home to roost. Or at least coming home to loaf around my corrals and eat hay. It was borne in upon me quite forcibly that eleven horses was too many. Not for the first time.

How the heck did I get in this position? (My husband asks me this question with great frequency.) I don’t need eleven horses. I don’t even want eleven horses. My barn and corral setup is designed to accommodate four horses. Normally I keep four horses here. Four horses that are ridden regularly. My older gelding, Plumber, my trail horse, Sunny, my son’s horse, Henry, and my one boarder, Twister, (who pays for the hay). It works well. I absolutely don’t need more horses . What is the point of the other seven?

Well, one of them is Gunner, I horse I rode for many, many years. He did everything for me. He features in my mystery series. He is one of the best horses I’ll ever be privileged to own. Gunner is 29, still pasture sound, and has been living turned out in my 60 acre pasture for the last ten years. His companion is Danny, a horse I bought and trained, who got seriously injured when he was seven. Danny has a slight limp, but is pasture sound, too. He and Gunner were having a happy time out in the big field until I got a new neighbor there. The neighbor proceeded to turn a motley herd of mares, babies, young stallions…etc into his own piece of crap field next door.

Overnight, my pasture situation went from very good to very bad. I had spent an inordinate amount of money fifteen years ago to replace the shitty barbed wire fence around my pasture with strong, tight, smooth wire fence. In twenty years of steady horse keeping in that field, only one horse has ever gotten a serious cut (and I still don’t know how she did it). However, there were never any horses on the other side of the fence, just cattle.

Suddenly every time I walked out to look at the backside of my pasture, there were bent T-posts and loose wires. I shuddered to think of the antics which caused this damage.

The horses on the other side of the fence were a mess. Needless to say this guy had not replaced the shitty barbed wire in his field. Three horses were cut so badly they could barely walk. The stallions were breeding the mares willy nilly. The mares were having foals. All totally unsupervised. Phone calls of complaint elicited no response. And my horses spent all their time hanging over the fence socializing.
I couldn’t stand it. I brought Gunner and Danny home. Now I had six horses in a four horse setup. This wasn’t good, either. Since I don’t ride Gunner and Danny, I felt they needed to be turned out somewhere where they could graze, not spend their lives standing around in corrals. I farmed them out to a friend’s pasture, where I already keep three other retirees that are too old and/or crippled to get along in my big pasture. I drive out there every day to feed Gunner and the other very old horse their Equine Senior. Gunner is doing fine. I am a basket case.

Juggling all these horses around, trying to make sure they all have a decent life, all get the care they need, all look happy, not to mention making sure I don’t go broke in the process, and have time to spend with my family, work on my books, ride the saddle horses….its making me crazy. Not to mention we’re building an extra bedroom and a bathroom this summer, with all the confusion and expense that entails. You can imagine.

Too many horses. Janet wrote about this in a previous post. Too many horses can bankrupt you. Too many horses can make you crazy. Why do we do this to ourselves?

I know the answer for my own situation. I love my horses. I won’t dump them when they get old and/or crippled. I have adopted a couple of others who were good horses—that were about to be dumped. They didn’t deserve that. And I was the person who could do something about it. Sort of like the Good Samaritin story…I rescue the ones that I happen to see in the ditch. I don’t go looking for them. But if I stumble upon them, then I think its my job to do what needs doing. And I still want to have riding horses for myself and my son. I mean, for me, that’s part of the point of having horses. I want to ride. So I bought a couple of sound, steady trail horses. Voila. Too many horses.
Sometimes I ask myself what I can do to change the situation. And I don’t have any answers.

I’m not gonna give up and abandon the pasture pets. No one else will take them off my hands and care for them. They’d have to be euthanized. And I can’t bring myself to do it. Not while they look happy. Nope. I’m gonna stay the course with them. I just hope I don’t end up bankrupt, in the loony bin, or divorced—all very possible/probable outcomes of trying to maintain too many horses.
Janet started this discussion awhile ago and I’d like to continue it. Any one have any insights to contribute on this subject? Where does a person draw the line? I am still paying the bills, and the horses all look good, seem happy, get decent care. My husband has not left me (yet). We are not in significant debt. Its all staying together. But I’m walking a fine line and I know it. Am I doing a good thing here, or a bad thing? I can’t really tell. I have no good answers. I’d welcome your thoughts.

Watch What You Name a Horse

I've been pondering all weekend about the subject of my next EI post and couldn't think of a thing. After reading Laura's last post, it occurred to me that I'd never told the story of Broker, a story very similar to Ready's.

Eleven years ago before I bought my current horse, Gailey, I had a wonderful Morgan/Quarter Horse named Moses. Well, Moe was 18 and not inclined to be good at dressage, too short-strided, too stiff, and too lazy, and now too old. I loved Moe. You could do anything with him, and I did; but his story is best saved for another time.

A very good friend of mine had bought a horse for a foreign exchange student staying at her house. The boy had ridden hunter/jumpers in Europe. The plan had been that he'd train the horse to be passed on to her daughter after he returned to Europe. Well, that didn't quite work out, and she decided to sell the horse. She offered him to me for a VERY reduced price. I checked him out. He was a big, beautiful mover and wonderful on the ground. Under saddle, he seemed a little piggy. I put my leg on him. He sucked back instead of moving forward. No big deal, I thought. He just needs some training.

I paid her and took him home. I decided to rename him, Stockbroker, and called him Broker (Mistake Number One}. If there ever was a prophetic name, that was it. A few weeks before I purchased him, I remember commenting to a friend that I'd never been injured on a horse in all of my years of riding (Mistake Number Two).

I bet you see where this is going.

The first day I rode Broker in my arena, he slugged along and refused to move. I decided to take him for a little trail ride on my trails. We didn't get more than twenty feet out of the arena gate when he quite calmly stood on his hind legs. I slid right off his butt onto the ground. Surprised and pissed. I caught him, got back on, and rode him back out on the trails. I was ready for him this time. As soon as he started to rear, I whipped into a circle then drove him forward. This continued for several minutes before I took him back to the barn and contemplated that I'd been had. My "friend" had to be aware of this behavior. The horse was obviously quite talented at rearing.

The second time I rode him was in a lesson taught by a clincian who is also a trusted friend. We lasted about five minutes. He was slugging along, again, and she told me to take the whip in one hand and give him a solid smack. He started bucking in a way that would rival any rodeo bronc. Again, he knew what he was doing. I went flying. Unfortunately, I heard a snap as I landed. I'd broken my collarbone in two places and two ribs.

Giving Broker the benefit of the doubt, since I hadn't really given him much warm-up time, I asked the working student at my trainer's barn if she'd ride him while I was laid up. She could sit a buck a lot better than me and was fearless. She lasted about ten minutes before he dumped her. She tried to ride him one more time, same result. Next came another friend, equally talented and fearless. Same result, again.

Not wanting to risk these girls getting hurt, I took the horse to a trainer with a reputation of being able to rehabilitate problem horses. She had him one month and suggested I try to sell him to a rodeo. She didn't want him anymore and considered him dangerous.

Now, my dilemma. Here I was with a horse I didn't like, and I was afraid of him. I wasn't the one who ruined him. Someone else did. Yet, I was stuck with him. I called my "friend" who sold him to me. Of course, she didn't want him back. I ended up doing something I never thought I'd do. I took him to an auction. I put a note on his stall that he was not a beginner's horse and needed an experienced rider and that he bucked and reared. I paid a girl to keep an eye on him and show him in the arena then I left. I understand some cowboy bought him for a sheriff's posse horse. I have no clue how that worked out.

Broker left a legacy that I live with to this day. I have a fear of being hurt that comes out under pressure. I don't like riding horses I don't know, and I'm often stiff and defensive when I ride. I'll never buy another horse without trying it several times in different situations.

I called my next horse, Gailey, because I wanted to make sure that her name had a positive connotation. You live and learn. And what happened to the friend? I haven't talked to her since. I understand she divorced and left the area.

_______

Oh, and by the way, I just discovered that The Gift Horse is now in print, as of this weekend. You can find it at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

A Failure?

By Laura Crum




Once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was very young and new to breaking and training horses, I bought a three-year-old unbroken colt. I had known this horse since he was born, and always admired him. My uncle, who raised Quarter Horses, had bred his mare to a fairly well known stud and Ready was the result. A big, good looking colt with a pretty head, at three years old Ready was a handsome guy, and I flat fell in love with his looks. I’d broken and trained a handful of other horses at that point (I was twenty-three), and I felt perfectly capable of doing the same with Ready. I bought him and embarked on the project.

Right off the bat, things did not go the way I was expecting. Ready wasn’t the easiest horse to handle. Though easy going on the surface, he was somewhat numb and insensitive, with a tendency to bull right through me. It was hard to get his attention. Unlike the other colts I had trained, he seemed clumsy, as if he had a hard time figuring out where his feet were. Somehow it had never occurred to me that this thick-bodied sixteen hand horse might not be the cattiest thing in the world.

I persisted. I did the groundwork. Ready could be saddled and would trot and lope around me in a round pen. I felt he was ready to ride. To my surprise, this easy going colt bucked like a recalcitrant mule the first time I climbed on him. Not hard, like a bronco, but he bogged his head and tried. He just wasn’t athletic enough to buck me off.

I got him through it. I got him broke. He was never a very cooperative horse. Sluggish, lazy, numb and clunky, he would offer to buck from time to time. And rear. And bolt. In a word, Ready was resistant.

Still, I persisted. With time, and a lot of wet saddle blankets, I made a decent horse out of him. By the time he was five, the big, very good looking Ready would lope circles, change leads, stop, back, turn around, look at a cow, let you throw a rope off of him…etc. He knew how to go outside. You could part cattle on him…if the cattle weren’t too quick. And I was heartily sick of him.

I could see that I’d made a mistake. The horse was too big, a clumsy mover, and naturally resistant. He was still superficially easy going; he was certainly lazy. If nothing too strenuous was asked of him, Ready appeared gentle enough for a beginner. But if any pressure was put on him to actually get something done, he was stiill capable of unpredictable bucking or rearing. He frustrated me. I had Burt, my good ranch horse, and I had just bought Gunner, a horse I planned to show as a cowhorse. I determined to sell Ready.

It wasn’t hard. In no time at all a team roper I knew offered me a good price for my handsome, pretty-well-broke gelding. And I sold him.

Here’s where it gets tricky. I knew the roper wanted Ready for a head horse. On paper, the horse had the right credentials. But I had done all the training on Ready, and I doubted he was athletic enough to do the job. The roper who bought him tried for awhile to rope on him, didn’t get much done, and finally sent him to a well known rope horse trainer, a guy I knew. I waited to see what would happen.

Three months later I got the call. The rope horse trainer had seen my name on the papers. “Did you train this horse?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“He’s a pretty well broke horse,” the guy said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No way in hell is he gonna make a rope horse.”

“I’m not surprised,”I said.

“I told the guy he should sell him.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’ve got a lady who wants a husband horse. This guy can’t ride at all. What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t put my husband on him,” I said (though in fact I had).

We talked some more and in the end the trainer decided he could sell Ready as a “husband horse”. I told him he could give the people my phone number. They called me to ask the occasional question; they seemed happy with the horse. They used him for trail riding. A happy ending, right?

Well, almost. Years passed. Twelve years. I learned some interesting things. Ready’s dam produced several more big, good looking colts. Others besides me liked the look of these horses. Two people, one of them my uncle, chose colts out of this mare to use as stallions. And eventually, colts by these stallions were being started and trained.

Guess what? They were big, pretty, easy going horses. But every single one of them that I was around was a failure. Under saddle they were one and all resistant and not very athletic. They would resort to bucking, rearing and bolting to get out of work. Some of them were much more violent than Ready. Turns out he was one of the better ones.

Better people than me tried to train these colts and couldn’t get much done. I was around at least thirty of them, and I can’t think of one that made a good horse. I failed myself on a couple more of them (at that point I hadn’t figured out it was a genetic issue and that all the colts that traced back to that one mare had this attitude). To this very day a friend of mine is riding a grandson of this mare and struggling with this big good looking horse’s rotten attitude. Ikey will (wait for it) buck, rear,…etc when he doesn’t feel like working. The horse is superficially gentle and lazy, just like Ready, so much so that his owner (very unwisely in my opinion) puts his young son on him. But Ikey has dumped this kid more than once when something pushes his buttons and he decides to buck or bolt. When tied, he is capable of suddenly pulling back and flipping over backwards. Even after years of very competent training this gelding is so resistant and unpredictable he’s virtually useless as a rope horse. Another failure.

End of the story? The guy that owned Ready phoned me when the horse was seventeen. He was divorced, he didn’t ride, the horse had been turned out on a friend’s ranch for years. He wanted out of him. Would I buy him (for the same price the guy paid for him, of course)?

I thought about it. Ready wasn’t worth the asking price…or even half of it. But the truth was, even if the man gave him to me, did I want him? I can only afford to retire so many. This was not a horse that I felt very inclined to retire. But still, I remembered the handsome colt I fell in love with; I was, after all, the one who trained him….. In short, I agonized over it.

In the end I said no. I was getting a divorce myself. I wasn’t sure I could keep the horses I had, horses I really loved. I truly couldn’t afford to take another horse on just then. I don’t know what happened to Ready. It still makes me sad to think he may have gone to slaughter.

So, here’s the question. How did I fail? Ready was what he was…it wasn’t his fault. Time has shown he was genetically programmed to be an unwilling riding horse, but I couldn’t have known that when I chose him. I did a pretty good job training him, for what he was. And yet, I didn’t care for him. I didn’t want to keep him and ride him. I can’t judge the man who wanted to sell him to me, but I do wonder if I should have bought the horse back. Was I obligated? I picture Ready at the slaughter plant and I just shudder. I don't sell horses any more. I can't stand it.

So, where did I fail? What should have happened differently here? Where’s the right answer? I don’t know.