Trees and the Forest

When the Obama Christmas tree was delivered by horse to the White House, it struck me as a pleasant but contrived photo-op because the delivery was made by a carriage company, and they haul people, not trees, although obviously they are willing to make exceptions.

On the other hand, when Prince Charles received his tree, the message was far more motivational. The story "Horse Power Delivers Charles's Christmas Tree" says,

Charles has been a supporter of the working horse industry for a number of years and met Ella [the Percheron mare pulling the cart] a few years ago when he visited Cornwall to learn about the work of Mr Joiner, [the driver] who is a professional logger and woodland manager.

There are logging horses working the in the US as well. So, while I liked the horse delivery to the White House, I would have liked it better had the horses actually represented the non-luxury, non-decorative working horses still functioning today in the US.

Oh well. At least there were horses.

Becoming a Centaur

In competitive, individualistic America this headline from Chakra might surprise more than a few people: "Buddhist Monk Horse Rider Wins Gold at Asian Games" It shouldn't. Buddhism, as I understand it, is about becoming one with the universe. In many ways, so is riding.

The linkages to dressage riding and strains of Buddhism are strong. My favorite American and European dressage authorities all stress the connection between horse and rider, ribbons and trophies are rarely the goal. Although this is the first time I've read about Buddhism in connection with jumping, I've found similar expressions of the need for connection in works by some of the best authorities on jumping. In fact, I think I first read about show results being at best secondary to horse-rider team performance in Riding and Jumping by William Steinkraus, a book I need to reread.

A happy effect of globalization is that more than a handful of American riders and trainers now use meditation and martial arts training to advance their riding skills. Here, for example, is a line from American dressage master Paul Belasik's Exploring Dressage Technique: "All the best riders have tried to exalt the horse, to ride it carefully, as a reverent thank you for the gift of travel--real travel towards enlightenment."

One such brief moment of enlightenment was caught on tape appears in the 1963 Disney movie The Miracle of the White Stallions. Watch for the pirouettes in the performance before Patton. Alois Podhajsky, doubling for actor Robert Taylor who portrayed him in the movie, said those pirouettes were what every horseman hopes to experience a few times, a moment of effortless oneness, a glimpse of nirvana.

I've had a few moments like that just jogging down a trail or riding twenty meter circles. Suddenly there was no horse, no rider; there was just inner peace. My horse had to have felt it too or the moments would never have happened.

I've long held that learning to ride a horse is about introspection, calmness, empathy, and erasure of the self. In the article, Buddhist monk Kenki Sato said his "special life path" was to "become one" with his horse. I suspect my fascination with the partnership started when, as a small child, I saw depictions of centaurs. Whatever our inspiration, for some of us, working with horses is a never-ending path, a pursuit of happiness and self-discovery, perhaps even enlightenment and bliss. It's a good path.

Fabulous Losses

Horse racing isn't all about horses; it's all about the finish line.  In some cases, however, the finish line hardly tells the full story.  Two losing efforts stand out in my mind as examples.  In the 1976 Jockey Club Gold Cup, Seattle Slew showed me he was indeed one of the best race horses of all time and in last weekend's Breeders' Cup Classic, Zenyatta crossed the finish line a few inches short and left me wondering how much speed and stamina she actually had.

Both Slew and Zenyatta were clearly running faster than the winners when the finish line ended the race; they both simply ran out of race distance.  However, these two races were vastly different.

In the 1978 race, Exceller's camp had used a legal tactic to bring down Slew; they entered a "rabbit," a horse with great early speed but not capable of going the mile and a half distance to quicken the pace and burn out competitive horses like Slew and Affirmed, the other Triple Crown Winner entered in the race.  The plan worked.  Hall of Fame distance horse Exceller won, but not by much. 

Despite having gone most of the race in blistering fractions, Slew dug deep and battled back to the surprise of most knowledgeable watchers, me included.  Passed by the great Exceller, Slew didn't fold.  Switching his tail in exhaustion, Slew drew on what horse people call "heart," and dug in for a final drive that, like Zenyatta's, carried him in front of his rival just a few strides too late.   

These two losses, however, were vastly different.  While Slew was set up and responded with Spartan determination and effort, Zenyatta lost simply because of racing luck and her heart-stopping racing style.  Running from behind is not an easy style.  Statistically, racing from the front or near the front produces far more winning efforts. 

Mike Smith nobly took responsibility for her loss, but what happened is intrinsic in the late run style.  Here, unfortunately for Zenyatta and her fans, the field split into two groups, carrying her way too far back for a stretch run.  Considering her utterly dismal first quarter and the circumstances that put her something like twenty lengths back, her second place finish was in itself astonishing.  For me though, the major difference between these two losses was that it didn't look like Zenyatta was running all that hard.  

This stretch photo shows Zenyatta wearing her usual, relaxed, floppy-eared expression as she was gaining on Blame.  On the other hand, Blame was the one that had dug in.  He was the one with the switching tail.  He was the one with his ears pinned in determination.  He was the one showing what horsemen call "grit."  The mare was eating up ground, suggesting that Smith was not exaggerating when he said he a lot of horse left.  This photo shows that.  She looks like a horse doing her usual job of running down the front horse in the last few hundred yards.  Nothing special.

Unfortunately, races are absolutes.  Style counts for nothing--except maybe in the hearts of horsemen who like horses more than horse racing.

Here are links to both these races:

1978 Jockey Club Gold Cup

2010 Breeders' Cup Classic

Horse Talk

Today's offering from A Word a Day (wordsmith.org) closed, as it does every day, with a quotation.  AWAD's Thought for the Day usually intrigues me as much, if not more than their vocabulary word, but this one sent me to post here, because it goes to the heart of horse training:

Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don't understand us. -Malcolm De Chazal, writer and painter (1902-1981)

I have no idea who De Chazal was, but he identified a central problem I've had to deal with when working with people. Horses observe humans quite well.  In fact, as any good trainer can tell you, horses, are adept at reading people.    Horses, like most other animals, respond to human body language and to the pitch and rhythm of the human voice.  Lowering the voice soothes, raising the voice energizes, and rising the pitch can terrify.

I've lost count of the times when students have blamed their horses for "running away" when the horse was just following orders.   They'd lean forward or inadvertently cue, and when the horse responded, they'd begin repeating the word "Whoa!" with every repetition higher-pitched and more frantic. 

Once the event ended and the rider's heartrate returned to normal, I'd yet again explain that, yes, they were saying "Whoa!", but their voices were high and tight, in some cases even squealing and shrieking.  Worse yet, they inevitably became tense throughout their bodies as well.  The horse perceived--rightly--that the human perceived danger.  Not having any way to understand that the poor human perceived the horse itself as the danger, the horse fled, increasing its speed even more as the human indicated even greater danger. 

Horses understand us just fine.  Few of us understand them at all.

Hand Holding

One of the first things I teach my students is the proper way to hold a lead or a lunge line.  Over the years I've noted that the safe and functional folding of the line back and forth across the palm has become less and less common in horse circles. In fact, one of my students came back from a large show where she had happily worked as ground crew and told me that a number of people came up to her and asked why she held her lunge line "funny."

I don't know if her explanations impressed those who asked, but, unfortunately, I now have a news story to point to that should: "UF Student's Hand Severed after Horse Gets Spooked."

Actually, a number of safety violations occurred in this incident. A more detailed version of this story added that the student who wrapped the lead around her wrist was sitting inside a vehicle and holding the horse through a rolled down window. When I read she was inside a car, I hyperventilated, but, for now, I'll just address the problem with the lead wrapped around a wrist.

The across-the-palm method of holding a lead or lunge is--or was--common knowledge.  I learned it from an old US Cavalry officer, but the importance of a safe hold shows up in a good many well known books.  For example, The Complete Riding and Driving System, Book Six: Lunging explains WHY a safe hold is important:

If the lunge is gathered incorrectly, one cannot pay out the lunge quickly or smoothly enough when the horse is moving off. A lunge which is gathered untidily is dangerous and can, if there is an emergency, cost the trainer his hand, or give the horse too hard a jerk in the mouth. The loops should lie nearly on top of one another so that they can slide freely when the hand is opened slightly. (33)

This comment in The Official Instruction Handbook of the German National Equestrian Federation repeats almost word for word what I heard from the old cavalry officer some forty years ago.  Only the cavalry officer clarified HOW to fold the loops.  Not folding the loops correctly creates the problem.

Some otherwise excellent books teach people how to lose their hands.  For example, page 21 of Sheila Inderwick's 1977 Lungeing the Horse and Rider shows how a person should position of the hand during lunging:

While the hand hold is lovely, the looping itself here is NOT safe.  First, the lunge line itself has a loop end.  It's as if the manufacturers wanted to tempt people to slip the loop up around the wrist.  Of course, this loop most likely comes from the driving handhold loop tradition.  In any event, on a lunge line, it's merely a temptation. I try to get people to buy lines without end loops.  The lunge lines with circular stoppers at the end are my favorites.  More seriously though, the looping shown goes AROUND the hand, not across the palm.  Were a horse to take off, the lunge person could most likely let go, but this line could tighten around the hand. Do you want to take this chance?

The across the palm method leaves the lunger or leader with two sets of loops sticking out from either side of the hand. There's nothing wrapped around the hand at all. Opening the fingers can release one loop at a time. Opening the whole hand allows the line to fall away cleanly.

Flipping through my book collection, from beginner manuals to advanced works, I found quite a few commentaries on this safer method of holding a lead or line.  This one appears on page 135 of Susan E. Harris's The United States Pony Club Manual of Horsemanship:  Basics for Beginners/D Level.

I'm not sure why horse safety has diminished of late, perhaps it's because most horse people today consider them pets, more like big dogs than the easily panicked prey animals they are. Unfortunately, around horses, what you don't know can cost you a hand or a life. Be safe, cross your palm.

Colts and Stallions

Right now, a little stallion is padlocked in one of my stallion pens. The padlock is because his owner hasn't paid his board, not because he's a problem. He's totally atypical, kinder than most geldings, but for typical stallions padlocks are not necessarily a bad idea.

Too many people today don't even realize most stallions are physically aggressive--open mouth, teeth showing aggressive. More than a few are downright vicious. The good ones are the best horses around, but even those require special handling so that it's clear to them that humans rank higher than they do.

Mannering stallions is an art. In all horse-training, timing is vital, but in working with stallions, it can be the difference between life and death. Timing comes only from being aware of stallion behavior, recognizing it, and correcting aggression instantly. Stallions must know that nothing unauthorized will be tolerated. Once they get away with a little, the typical stallion immediately tries to get away with a lot.

For example, here's a story from today's Bloodhorse online "Eurton Recovering After Savaging Episode." It's not every day one sees the word "savaging" anymore. In fact, I hadn't heard it for years although it's the accepted horseman's term for being attacked by a horse. Here's what prompted that usage:

"We were behind the gate at the time and the rider got off the horse because he was acting up," Eurton began. "The horse then reared up and got away from his handlers. They got him to turn back behind the gate and he came right toward me and my pony.

"I turned the pony and the horse grabbed me in the back, picked me up and threw me down to the ground. I landed on my head, but fortunately I was wearing my helmet so I wasn't injured that way. But I have a huge hematoma on my back and a big bruise on my right knee."

The article does not mention the horse's sex, but I'm willing to bet big money--and I'm not a person who bets--the offending horse was a colt. What happened is extreme, but not atypical, colt behavior. Unless this colt has blazing speed, I'm sure this incident will prompt a visit by a vet. As a gelding, this horse probably still won't have an ideal temperament, but castration should temper his aggression greatly.

While extreme, this savaging is still typical stallion behavior. Many years ago, I bred a lovely TB to my Arab stallion and got a most impressive colt. My vet suggested keeping him as a stallion. I was dubious, and, as the colt began showing aggression I had to impress upon him that I, not he, was herd leader. He was fine with me, but I saw problems coming. The colt was smart enough to know that most people weren't me. That is, he was aggressive with anyone other than me. Nevertheless, my vet continued to recommend keeping him entire. Then, one day, my vet walked into his pen and the colt charged him. My vet dove through the rails of the pen to safety and said, "OK, let's geld the [expletive deleted]." I walked in and the colt respectfully let me put on his halter and lead him out to his fate as a high quality gelding.

Trainer Lynn Baber relates similar experiences with stallions. Click here.

Like Baber, I've pretty much come to the conclusion few women--or men for that matter--should be handling stallions, pretty much for the same reasons Baber gives. Most people, alas, lack the necessary knowledge, experience, command authority, and timing.

With stallions, knowing just how much pressure to put on the horse is also a major issue. A beaten stallion is likely to become even more dangerous than he was before the beating started. A well-disciplined stallion is often more charming than a good gelding. Knowing when and how to discipline to get the latter result is the mark of a true horse(wo)man

I especially liked Baber's recollection of backing up the unruly colt in a halter class. Backing up is one of the best disciplinary tactics to use on an unruly horse, whether mare, gelding, or stallion. Most horses dislike the movement, but it's not something that causes pain. Better yet, it's quite easy for a person on the ground to teach even a youngster to back up.

Backing away from a person on the ground is one of the first moves I teach a horse. I ask for only a couple of steps at first, but asking them to relinquish space at my command tells them I'm boss hoss, and they had better yield to a subtle cue or the cues will become ever more emphatic. If, for example, a subtle jiggle on the lead or light pressure to the chest with a fingertip sends a horse backwards without resistance--or at least with serene resignation, the horse is offering a major sign of respect.

Training a stallion requires both offering the horse a higher level of respect and in return demanding from the horse a higher level respect. Depending on the trainer's skills and the horse's underlying temperament, this can be an anything from an exhilarating thrill to a chain saw massacre nightmare. Finding out which can be, shall we say, a challenging experience.

How Great the Disconnect?

Loss of terminology can tell one much about a society.  All the college instructors I know complain about not being able to make historical or literary or even religious references that most students will get.  This applies to horseman's terms too, but a number of my compatriots are unaware of their lack in this regard. 

How far have most of us come from the days when even non-horsemen at least knew common horseman's terms?  A long way.  Lately, I've noticed an increase in the use of the odd phrase "reign in" where the author was looking for another way to say "restrain."

Today I opened my email titled "Edge 319: Emanuel Derman: Breaking the Cycle; Dawkins, Church, Taleb et al on Venter" and found this in the introduction to the Derman interview:

Watching that interrogation of the bankers at the Senate hearings, I had the feeling that this is the way karma works in the universe. Everybody is going to do something not quite right as they act out their destiny mechanically, doing what they unthinkingly believe they have to do. The Wall Street people are going to reflexively overshoot and be too greedy. The Senate people are going to reflexively grandstand and be too uninformed and try to reign them in. There isn't going to be an elegant solution to any of this.

Edge aka edge.org is one of the most intellectually sophisticated sites around, so this small gaffe surprised me. Gaps appear in everyone's knowledge, but this area is one that widens by the day.

During the last week of the semester, I said something about horses to a fellow instructor, who, in response, asked if horses were solitary animals or liked company.

Gee! Knowledge does not have a free rein these days. It's curbed and checked and almost hamstrung. Haw!!