Presented by Lee Davis:
Courage
COURAGE – The ability to do something that frightens someone; bravery/ The ability to control your fear in a dangerous or difficult situation.
The reason I headed up this, well “blog” with that meaning, if you like, is that recently, I have had to call on more courage than I have to in a while, I have been re-starting a young green horse that had been overcooked, with an arena base training regime, that was well beyond his years, and mentally way more than what he could cope with. Then add in to the mix, people blindly using the same thinking that created the problem in the first place, to try and fix it herd that somewhere before? This resulted in the horse displaying extreme behavior that was only getting worse instead of getting better.
The horse had been started quite well,(Kindergarten) albeit with a few pieces of the curriculum missing, and then, rather than spend a good deal of time being allowed to grow up, and work out life as a ridden horse, basically get some miles and life experiences under his girth (Grades 1,2 3 etc), he and his well-meaning owner were pushed into a dressage regime (Grade 7,8,9 etc) basically ignoring the lower grades. This got to a point where the constant training, excessive contact, was only exercising his body, but his brain was screaming out for relaxation, confidence and variety, as well as a lot less pressure, both physical and mental. This is something tight reins, mindless circles, strict dressage training and arena work can very rarely offer.
Do not get me wrong these things are quite necessary in the horse’s development, given they are done in the right sequence and with the horse’s welfare, mental and physical, front of mind.
I quite often use the analogy of school grades we use to progress children through their education, as it sets out quite clearly a pathway for development. Something Ray Hunt has mentioned many times in his writings. Missing or skipping grades for the sake of fast tracking the horse’s development, only leads the rider, to discover later down the track, the need to have what has been skipped, or overlooked revisited. In a good deal of cases much more time needs to be spent, than originally would be, dealing with the habits and hard wired thinking with the horse needing to be re-wired. Often the ingrained habits formed from the lack of correct sequence, can be quite difficult or challenging to try and modify, which brings me back to the heading of this blog” Courage”. I had read in a book of Tom Dorrance’s some time ago, of him helping a troubled horse by bringing them back from their place of trouble, rather than start again and work upwards from there, in this little fellas case, most of his behavior was typical green horse, but at the slightest hint of transition into canter, it was explosive fast “Ferrari fast” and not having much luck with trying to develop and modify his behavior working up, I decided to bring up the courage to work back. Now under the instruction of one of my mentors, I am sure they would have had me do it differently, but when you are on your own, you have to “think “, draw on, and trust our skill, knowledge and decisions, it was the road I had chosen, and above all, I was doing it FOR the horse, not TO him. Needless to say, the outcome was good and I have sent the little fella home to grow and soak on what we have accomplished and will resume his training and help him be the, Respectful, Reliable, Responsive, horse I know he can be.
If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. I can certainly say I have been changed by this horse, I’m always looking for learning opportunities for myself when working with horses, and this has certainly been one of them.
“In the end, I believe it’s all about achieving internal balance in both ourselves and our horses, and when it comes to working with horses, it is achieving that internal balance that turns worry into confidence, nervousness into trust, and the seemingly impossible into possible” ……….Mark Rashid
Post script, The horse came back into his ridden work well, I worked through some more trust and feel issues with him, he progressed well, he was sold on after his training and is doing very well with his new owner, they attended a clinic I held recently, to see him happy in his job was a great comfort.
