Finally, I am writing about the thing that I have been trying to write about for a long time.  I have no idea why it has taken me this long to write any of this.  I guess I felt that an explanation was needed, a history of how I arrived at this end.  Maybe it's just because so many horse people around me are of the opposite feeling about how to train horses that the tendency to defend my views becomes more important than the facts. 

In reality it's very simple;  I am tired of being something I'm not.  I am not overly assertive, aggressive or hard.  I don't like the "do this now" school of horse training.  I have expressed my respect for Clinton Anderson, but in reality his method of training is more like a battle.  Actually it's more like boot camp for horses.  The things he says to them (which I can't remember offhand but he said things like "he's a monster" or something similar) are always negative.  He is always having to protect himself because the horse might do something to harm him.  I finally wondered - why?  Horses can hurt you, it's true, however since I changed my training methods I have only had cooperation and have never felt safer. 

Horses are flighty and young horses spook and are afraid of things, for sure.  In my world this is where the danger lies.  If you are working with your horse in a positive way, in a way that they enjoy, the danger of them coming after you or striking out is very low.  They have begun to understand what I am asking for.  They have started to ask for training time, not to avoid it.  They get upset when I don't work with them.  We have fun!  I am trying to get them to "play", to spend time together with me that is purely time just to "be".       Some of you will scoff right here and sign off.  I dare you to keep reading.  I dare you to reconsider how you look at your horses and how you train them. 

So many people want a relationship with their horses, not the least because many horse owners are women and women crave connection.  I think men also crave a connection but they don't talk about it.  Then there are men like Nuno Oliveira.  For everyone who follows a western style clinician, for everyone who believes that dressage must be done with a tight rein (or a tight contact), for everyone who is constantly fighting with their horse to accomplish things, please look up Nuno Oliveira.  There are others, but the way he rides is such a pleasure to watch it will move you.  If you belong to Giddyupflix.com you can rent several DVDs about him that show him riding.  Sadly, he has passed away as has his son, Joao who was also very good. 

These videos inspire me and show that the ultimate is possible - riding a horse as an art form.  Not as a submissive, obedient soldier who acts without brilliance but a horse that dances with it's own joy.  The horses he rides float effortlessly, dancing in piaffe and passage with true action.  They pick their feet up in rhythm and grace.  They make the last  Olympic competitors look dull and mechanical.  I'm sure that there are other horse people out there that have noticed the lack of true grace in those "German" trained dressage horses.  It's not pretty to watch because it's too labored.

I recently watched the DVD "Nuno Oliveira - 20 Years Later".  I have watched it several times now and have taken notes.  I have also just read Galloping to Freedom" by Magali Delgado and Frederic Pignon which advocates "empowered horsemanship".  I feel as if I have finally come home to the training I've always wanted to do.  The kind of training that brings pleasure to the horse and the rider.  The kind of training that allows the horse to be all he can be. 

I took copious notes, and combined with clicker training I have tried to implement the things I've learned.  It's difficult to find one's way without a teacher so I improvise.  I hope to find someone to teach me this kind of riding...there are a few of them out there, I know, just not in Colorado.   In any case, my goal is to ride in lightness, Le Legerte, as they call it.  Phillipe Karl and several other Europeans teach this, and someone back east.  It is the "French school of lightness" and it stems from Baucher, the shunned Master.  His name is like a bad word among the German method proponents.  When I first read about him and tried to find a teacher, a local woman urged me to come to her barn to discuss things.  She was rude, abrasive and a horrible teacher.  Needless to say she completely disagreed with me.  That only made me want to learn it more.

Now I feel my way, using the horses as my teachers.  I have started over with Angel and Snickers, using as light of a cue as I can to get a response.  The aids should get lighter and lighter Oliveira says, and that makes sense.  If you find that your cues are getting stronger and stronger, then there is a problem! 

So, here is what has happened so far.  Angel has reacted very well and I am able to use very little rein to get her to stop, back and bend.  I have also begun to pay attention to my leg cues, to be as soft as I can and get a response and to use them less each time.  And it works!  She responds to so much less than I ever realized!  It feels so much easier, effortless.  I feel like a Master (I know very well I am not, but to give you an idea of the response from her). 

Snickers, however, has been fed up with me for a long time, I now realize.  He hates the bit (he was in a hackamore as was Angel when we got him).  There have been some problems with bridling him and he has been very difficult to bridle when there's a bit.  It takes him awhile to allow it in his mouth.  Twice I have ridden him "the new way", and twice it has been a bit frustrating.  I am being patient, however.  It's only fair that he expresses himself now that he is allowed.  He hates turning left, and if you so much as pull the rein to the left, lightly or not, he pulls hard right.  Using a very light touch and the clicker I think I have made headway.  I need to convince him that I won't pull hard on him anymore.  In the past when I ride him I spend the first 15 minutes fighting with him, trying to get him to go straight and respond to the bit.  I have to pull very hard and be very insistent. 

Until he develops trust in me we will keep going in circles to the right for awhile.  I can't say that I blame him, though.  I have tried many methods on him, including the "Clinton" methods.  He didn't respond - at all.  He is very smart and craves a relationship where he is seen in all his intelligence and glory.   I understand that now and I see him acting in a very different way already.  I have a lot of hope and I am willing to be patient.

I also worked with Tequila.  I have worked all five of my horses with the clicker for about 8 weeks solid, doing nothing but ground work with the clicker.  They really enjoyed this and began to show me a new side of themselves.  Tequila has always been kind of rebellious and strong.  She is the kind of horse that the average western trainer would say needed lots of correction.  She is a bad girl, they think.  But she also has a soft side - she likes to give hugs, she likes attention.  She likes being touched in the right way...  she get irritated when she isn't handled with confidence.  When being saddled she moves away just as you reach for the girth.  She is hard to mount because she gets nervous and again moves away.  Riding her was, to put it honestly, a pain in the butt.  Once on she would trot very fast and not listen to the bit at all.  Trainers say that these things disappear when you start riding them.  But they really didn't.

So I started over with the clicker.  The more we worked on the ground the calmer she got . She still has days where she is apparently "PMS-ing" and is kind of nasty.  But the other day I got her out, groomed her, got her relaxed and put on the saddle with very little trouble.  I mounted her with only a little trouble.  I rode her in the pen, not in the pasture, and this seemed to calm her.  I could get on and let her run as much as she wanted without putting any pressure on the reins. She began to walk much sooner than usual.  I used only the lightest pressure that would get a response, and she responded.  She was relaxed, she listened and she was calm.  I loved every minute!

All I can say is that I feel safer, my horses are so much happier and the response is wonderful.  It works and it gets me closer to the goal of riding in lightness.  The next challenge is to get Angel to carry herself...

If you read this far, thank you!  If you still don't believe what I'm telling you, think about it, try it, and do some research.

As I get older I find that sometimes the drive to ride and train...falls off a bit.  Especially if I havent' been able to ride or work with them for awhile I feel guilty, which then has the weird effect of taking away my impetus to ride.  It should have the opposite effect, shouldn't it? 

In the past month, though, inspiration hit me in spades.  Here is the strange part: I have been trying to tell my husband, Doug, for weeks that I have lost my drive and feel like I haven't accomplished anything in my riding, and since we live in a godforsaken rural area there are no dressage instructors, etc., etc.  Finally I got him to listen and I voiced all my angst. The horses are sorely in need of training and regular riding.  I am out of work, so time is no longer a problem, I only have the weather to get in the way yet I had trouble getting out there and really going at it. 

Then, after I voiced my feelings, three things happened that changed everything.   First I started giving riding lessons to an 11 year old girl that visits my neighbor's house.  They bought a horse for her, a very sweet old ex-jumper named Charlie.  Charlie has wandered over to our house for visits on occasion so I got to know him well.  In any case, this little girl is horse crazy and brimming with all that lovely courage that comes with riding.  She fell off when he stopped suddenly and hopped right back on, no fear at all.  She rode him every morning and then I would come over and give her a lesson.  She reminded me that I am so lucky to have my own horses and that it is a privilege to ride every day.  She brought out the 11-year old horse crazy girl in me.  After she left I went out and rode every day.

Then I read about a woman in the May issue of Oprah magazine.  There was a piece on women who were old for their activities and one of them was this fabulous 60 year old barrel racer from Hawaii.  In the photo she is standing on the back of her horse with her long grey hair in braids and she's smiling big.  She got into riding at 45 or there about and said that she just "rode, rode, rode" her horse all the time.  She competes for fun, for something to do. 

After reading that I scolded myself for being too caught up in my age and my (lack of )  accomplishments.  It's more important to DO IT than anything else.  With riding the process is what counts, as it is with training.  Doing it every day is the most important thing, and the improvements will happen. 

The third inspiration was even more wonderful and unusual.  I will save the full story for later, but I found out there is an FEI level rider only an hour away named Anita Williams.  I am going to meet her on Monday!  She's going to allow me to be a working student. 

This week, before the rain started, I rode and rode and rode.  And Angel lost weight...for the first time in 3 years!  And she also learned her canter leads, at 11 years old! 



Angel this week - note the crest on her neck is now a slight bump.  We are working on muscles for the hind end...



Taken about a year ago - here you can see how cresty she was!  She also wants you to know
 that she is "large boned"and being covered in white fur is NOT slimming in the least!

I took lessons from another student who was a German national but learned the French method of dressage while living in Africa.  It all sounds very exotic, but she was reasonably priced and actually taught me a lot of things that no one else has.  I still use many of her techniques to collect a horse and to get them to listen to me better.  After a year she graduated and went back to Germany, leaving Bella and I without a teacher.  While I could ride fairly confidently, Bella was still very green and I knew we needed more lessons. 

I found a woman who seemed great at first, but in hind sight I think the fact that I owned a barely trained mustang put her off.  She was supposed to ride her for me several times but would make excuses and not ride her.  She was used to warmbloods and thoroughbreds, not a little mustang.  There was something else about her that was not quite right and we just never had a great relationship.  While the other instructor had made Bella and I feel very calm and confident, this new instructor did not.

As I mentioned before, the lack of groundwork would eventually cause problems and it was during this time that I realized that although I could ride her, I had no real control over my horse.  The worst incident happened while riding in the arena one day.  The arena sat right by the main road and Bella's pen was on the other side of it.  As we rode next to the road, a hay stacker (a kind of tractor/vehicle that can deliver and entire stack of hay) was coming towards us.  Bella immediately became frightened and took off at full gallop.  I proudly stayed on, figuring that she would stop running at the gate to her pen.  I did try to pull on the reins but her fear overcame any control I might have.  She ignored me.  I hung on, and when we got to the gate, I relaxed and...she did a 180.  I came off into the gate post at full speed, smashing my helmet and giving myself a concussion.  It even tore off my shirt! 

Bella came back and looked at me with this expression of "Wow, what are you doing on the ground?"  It didn't seem to occur to her that I could fall off (see my blog "Psychic phenomena - Bella speaks for more about what happened afterwards).  It took me weeks to recover and more time to feel comfortable riding her again.  The accident made me realize that the dressage instructors I'd hired really didn't seem to know how to handle a green horse.  After doing some research on my own, I decided to do some groundwork with Bella and to stop the dressage lessons.

Before I got very far, though, I would have to move Bella to a new place. She was boarded at the house of a coworker of mine, who eventually decided not to have boarders.  Since she had simply hopped in to the trailer at the prison, I didn't anticipate any problems trailering her to the new boarding place.  I lined up a trailer and on the prescribed day, attempted to load her.  She wouldn't go in. 

If you are a horse person, trainer, whatever, let me tell you before you ask...Yes, we tried THAT! Over the years I have tried every single method of trailer loading a horse!  But this is a story of how I learned things, and so I will stick with the chronological order.  At this point in the story, I didn't know much about groundwork and training.  I had failed to build a lot of trust, although it seemed like I had trust with Bella, it didn't go very deep. 

That first day we tried  many different methods, such as "get momentum", where you get the horse trotting and you run at the trailer...We tried "butt rope", where you hold a rope across her butt (she flipped over backwards and ran off), we tried "blindfold" (only works if they trust you completely, and she didn't, and wouldn't get in the trailer), we also tried "ramp" (the assumption being that she didn't want to step up or off).  Didn't matter, she wouldn't get in.  I spent the next few weeks working with her and the trailer.  We backed it up to the pen and put her food in it.  She happily went into the trailer and ate the hay but if I showed up, she would back out at lightening speed.  I got her feeling comfortable enough to put in one foot and this gave me a lot of hope.  Then, two feet!  She put in TWO FEET!  We are half-way there!  And that's where we stayed...half-way in, half-way out.  At this point, I truly believe that if I had known what I was doing I could have gotten her over her fear and she would be trailering fine today. 

 

                        Bella, as this photo PROVES was at least once inside a trailer!

This was when she was brought from Canyon City.

Finally, I had to move her and made the decision to walk her over to the new barn.  It was about 5 miles away, not too far.  So we headed out early one Sunday morning so there wouldn't be much traffic.  My husband pulled the trailer ahead of us and flagged cars down to tell them to proceed slowly.  She was excited and hard to handle, but we arrived just fine.  The entire episode, though, only brought home the fact that she was not trained very well at all. 

At the new barn things I would learn more about horses than I ever imagined.