All Ears

Some comments left in response to bridleless riding videos on YouTube reminded me that too many people are ignorant of horse body language, specifically their eloquent ears.

Too many people still think pricked ears are desirable. For example, I was at a Saddlebred auction many years ago at the invitation of a would-be owner who pointed to a mare in the ring and said, "What spirit! Look at that noble expression!" To me, the mare's forward ears indicated tension, even terror. Her ears were snapped forward as if she saw in front of her a lion in full crouch. A horse with both ears pricked ears ain't thinking about its rider.

When I'm working in a ring or enclosed area, I want ALL my horse's attention on me. In the field or on the trail, I still want part of my horse's attention. My old Arab stallion used to delight me on the trails because he'd always have one ear forward and one ear back. Watching--or rather listening--where he was going while still being attentive to the rider was one of his invaluable traits.

But, alas, if too many people like snapped forward, worried ears, too few appreciate the position showing relaxed attentiveness, utter submission. I heard a neophyte complain that the Lipizzaner stallions were disappointing because, while they were obviously well trained, their ears were "all floppy."

The only thing that's more dear to me than attentive swept back ears are floppy ears. I remember seeing one of the Spanish dressage team's Andalusians come down the centerline at the end of a test. This passage was probably the best I've ever seen, and the horse was so relaxed his ears were flopping in rhythm. The goal of dressage is for a calm horse to mimic the movements of an excited horse, and I don't think I'll ever see a better example than those ears swinging freely with each powerful stride.

Of course, sometimes glorious submission gets horses into real trouble with ignorant people. Many years ago I had the use of a wonderful Arab gelding as a school horse. The owner had him for sale, and I was around when a potential buyer came out. The would-be buyer asked to bridle the horse herself, which I thought boded well for her savvy. However, it was soon obvious she was unfamiliar with a snaffle bridle. Seeing her fumbling with the bridle, the gelding kindly lowered his head, swept back his ears, and opened his mouth. As he stood their trustingly, she dropped the bridle and punched him square in the nose. Simultaneously, the owner and I yelled, "What did you do THAT for!!" Self-righteously, she said, "He was going to BITE me."

An equine saint, the gelding was forgiving. I picked the bridle off the ground, slipped my index finger under the crownpiece, and dangled the bridle in front of him. He reached down and took the bit by himself. With one finger, I slipped the crown over his sweetly reversed ears.

If I'd had horse ears, mine would have been pinned flat against my head as I stared at the poor ignorant girl who punched one of the kindest horses the planet has ever seen.

I love horse ears and all they tell us.

More on Early Horse Domestication

Science Daily has several more articles on archaeological discoveries in the Ponto-Caspian region, steppe country now including some of Russia, as well as the countries of Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Romania. The area is unsurprising considering the strength of horse culture in this area over the centuries.

But "Archaeologists Find Earliest Known Domestic Horses: Harnessed and Milked" pushes the history of the domesticated horse back quite a bit:

The researchers have traced the origins of horse domestication back to the Botai Culture of Kazakhstan circa 5,500 years ago. This is about 1,000 years earlier than thought and about 2,000 years earlier than domestic horses are known to have been in Europe.

I did giggle in horror a bit when I saw the illustration of an animal that looks like a Przewalski horse with a leather loop in its mouth. The current incarnations of these creatures are about as intractable as any wild animal can get. My neighbor, a former zoo worker and fine horsewoman, said the stallions are especially fierce. I wonder if the people of the steppes actually did breed domesticated horses starting with this stock:



I wonder if they've gotten DNA to support the domestication of these creatures. I'm just skimming the articles, and I'm no archaelogist, but I wonder if other varieties of equids were lurking around. Right now though, the only support I have for this from "Mystery Of Horse Domestication Solved?," another Science Daily article:

Based on ancient DNA spanning the time between the Late Pleistocene and the Middle Ages, targeting nuclear genes responsible for coat colorations allows to shed light on the timing and place of horse domestication. Furthermore the study demonstrates how rapid the number of colorations increased as one result of the domestication. As well, it shows very clearly that the huge variability of coloration in domestic horses which can be observed today is a result of selective breeding by ancient farmers.

Of course, people have reverse engineered horses to reconstruct the ancient Przewalski and get back their consistent coloration.

If ancient horsemen started with this little equid, I'm in awe of them. The Kazakhs are still amongst the toughest horsemen in the world, but I wonder how many would-be horsemen died and how many generations of equids were eaten before one person stayed on and the equid agreed to be ridden.

A bit more on the Przewalski here.

Razz--Not Quite a Rescue, but Close

In May of 2005 I agreed to go along with a friend who wanted to see a purebred Arab gelding that needed a "good home." One guess who ended up with a new horse.

The horse was living with an old mare in an enclosure that included automobile carcasses and hogwire--some up, some down, some with sharp points. The owners were caring people who'd received him as a gift when he was a yearling. They'd even laid out over two thousand dollars to repair him when he'd punctured a knee in 2004, but caring doesn't make people horsemen. Luckily, they recognized they were not up to dealing with Razz. In fact, they said he was almost impossible to catch, or lead, or even hold onto.

I found that out right away. It took the owner quite a while just to snap a lead onto Razz's outgrown halter, and when I took the lead rope he jerked free so fast I ended up face down in deep, fluffy manure. Most people would have said, "Crazy Arab" and left. But his eyes told me he was basically kind and intelligent and willing to learn.

His registration papers backed up that. Razz, registered as Sunsaba, was in fact line-bred to *Witez with a bit of Bay Abi thrown in as well--good working stock.

So, a few days later, Razz, then six, arrived at my place totally untrained and completely without manners. Luckily, he proved to be a quick learner.



Within a month, the horse that wouldn't let anyone lead him much less pick up his feet was much more amenable to working with people.



By August, he was already on his third month under saddle.



And Lion had found a playmate that also liked to run--summer, winter, whenever.





Razz's still not a beginner's horse, but he's more than kind and he tries to be tolerant. In fact, he'll stand like a statue to be mounted, but once up, his rider needs a quiet seat or he'll still become tense and confused.



Here's one of my favorite photos of Razz. By June of 2008, a couple of my teenage students were developing those nice quiet seats. When Erica dismounted, she said, "That was actually fun." I already knew that from Razz's attentive ear position. We're seeing relaxed trust more and more often from him now.



In fact, the horse that used to be nearly impossible to catch is now nearly impossible to get rid of. Here's one last shot of him "helping" my husband clean stock tanks:

My ReRun Thoroughbred

I like the idea of rescue organizations, but I'm also a conformation and pedigree snob, so I gravitated to ReRun. They rehome Thoroughbreds. More accurately, they rehome horses that were, in their past lives, Thoroughbreds. To prevent these horses from returning to racing, ReRun returns the registration papers to the Jockey Club for cancellation.

Since I wasn't looking for a breeding animal, the lack of actual papers wasn't important to me at all. Finding a well-bred, well-conformed, good-tempered horse was. And ReRun happily supplies pedigrees, race records, and detailed info about the animals they have.

Of course, being picky, I did a lot of looking.

I looked for months. Then I finally saw a photo of the gelding Life Goes On. Seeing smooth elegance and angles indicating great athleticism, I called and tried to adopt him from ReRun KY on the basis of this one photo:



Of course by the time I phoned, he'd already been adopted. I thought, well, someone in TN just got a good looking horse. Over the next few months, I looked at horses on the ReRun site without seeing another horse that grabbed me. So around six months later, I called to ask the person running the KY chapter to chat, and she asked me if I was still interested in the gelding I'd liked months ago. She said the husband of the woman who'd adopted him had fallen ill and she was returning him. I jumped at the chance to get him.

When the horse returned to ReRun, I got a call telling me he was severely underweight and most likely riddled with worms. Understandably livid, the ReRun person told me that the horse never would have passed his six month mandatory ReRun vet inspection and would have had to have been returned sick husband or no sick husband.

I wanted the horse anyway, but I was braced for a walking hat rack. Here he is right off the truck from KY:



Many wormings and much food later, Life Goes On, now known as Lion, once again looked like the horse I'd fallen in love with. Six months after he arrived, I sent this in as his first vet inspection photograph:



I love this horse. Not only do I find him exquisitely beautiful, I find him delightful in movement and character. While he LOVES to run, he's gentle enough under saddle to use as a lounge horse for children. I knew that the woman who lovingly raced him for five years took him home between meets and hacked him around her farm. I didn't know she obviously had more than a slight knowledge of dressage. When my neighbor got up on him, she discovered he was already quite adept at some low level movements. Here he is in leg yield:



Even his idiosyncrasies intrigue me. At play, he runs and runs and runs, and typically he squeaks when he's about to make the leap to hyperspace. I already knew this about him the first time I decided to try a canter on my trails. Most OTTBs run hot, so I cued with more than a bit of trepidation. When I heard him squeak, I looked at the expanse of trail in front of me and thought, I'm too OLD for hyperspace. Without much hope, I put my shoulders back and sat deeper. To my great relief and surprise, Lion settled into an easy, wafting canter. A horse that wafts--what more can anyone want?

Of course, he does have his standards. Trying to touching his right ear is still a problem. I've gotten used to taking his bridle apart to get it on him. Or, more usually, we just ride him in a halter.

But, if he has an excellent opinion of himself, he earned it. A horse with 42 starts--9 wins, 7 places, 4 shows--has a right to some standards of his own.

I still spend way too much time staring at his pedigree.

According to my research, Lion's by the same sire as Anne Moss's fabulous Helium, the gelding she rode sidesaddle to a USDF Silver medal. There's an article on Anne and Helium here. When I read that Helium squeaks, I smiled.

And, oh yes, my little avatar of a bay horse under About Me on the left of this page? Yup, that's Lion wafting.

Memories--Colter in His Prime 1977

Colter's sire was National Top Ten in Park in the class won by *Bask. So people assumed Colter would be a Park Horse too. He had the movement, but his temperament was more Western Pleasure or maybe even Lead Line. He would have been glad to move out had people taken the time to explain what they wanted, but instead he more likely got the fire extinguisher treatment--certainly one way to get a horse to show "presence." When I got him, he had a broken rib from going over backward in a bitting rig and scars up both sides of his mouth, probably from the same experience.

When I got him, if was also terribly obvious he'd been mechanically collected with a curb bit for seven or more years. He was, in other words, stiffer than the average board.

As he rode my stallion during this March 1977 clinic, I also remember Dominique saying, "The old man is a little stiff, yes?" Indeed he was. But despite his stiffness and tension, Colter was still one of the most gentle and kind horses I've ever met.



I still clearly remember this moment. Dominique was relaxing, swinging his legs and saying, "Ah, another crazy Arab stallion!" Meanwhile, Colter was just quietly watching the other stallion then working in the ring.



By mid-summer, Colter wasn't nearly as stiff, and, instead of leaning into the full double of a park horse, he was yielding to a simple snaffle.



Of course, I'm really not big on using any sort of bridle if I'm riding for fun.

Memories--The Horse of a Lifetime

In the mid-1970s, a friend asked me to look at an Arabian stallion she was considering for her mare. I looked, told her I liked him, and thought nothing more of it until the phone rang many months later. The stallion's owner had leased him out, moved out of state, and was extremely worried--with good reason. I checked on him and found him about three hundred pounds underweight. When I reported this, she offered me time payments on a price that was a fraction of what she'd paid for him.

He sired a Reserve National Champion, several Class A Arabian regional winners along with Anglo-Arabians, colored part-breds, and many other nice horses.

More than that though, he was a fine friend for the eighteen years that I owned him. I just wish I had a photo of him with the Brownie troop. When they came to the farm to earn their Horse Lover's Badges, I selected the one horse I trusted to be perfectly mannered with a giggly, wiggly bunch of elementary school girls--my breeding stallion. I still smile when I remember him standing head down in the middle of his pen with a brush-wielding girl on each leg and still more on his head, neck, and tail. It was his idea of heaven. Mine too.



COLTER (Res. Nat. Ch. Afari X Rieza)
Foaled March 1965--Died January 1, 1995

Memories--The Mare Who Taught Me

Lemon and me in 1974



I found this little mare in 1971 at the military stable at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. She'd been for sale for a year without any takers. She wouldn't longe, but she would buck, bolt, refuse jumps, and generally behave badly.

On the advice of others, I asked the guru of Fort Leavenworth his opinion of her. Master Sgt. Roland R. Richmond (ret.), former head farrier for the US Cavalry, said, "Not a mean bone in her body." When I then asked him if he'd shoe her for me, he said, "Too old to get killed by a horse" and walked off.

Young and intrigued, I bought her and renamed her Twist of Lemon. She quickly taught me that intelligent, generous horses become calm, eager learners when rewarded for good behavior. She also taught me that punishments and attempts at "control" typically backfire. Together, we both learned a lot, although I learned more from her than she ever learned from me.

Six months after I bought her, Sgt. Rich walked by and said, "Shoe your mare. Two p.m., Friday." I've never had a higher honor in my life.

Update: 4 August 2015

I should have added that before Sgt. Rich started he said, "Been watching. We'll do it your way." That meant that no punishment was involved. Not even any yelling. When she cooperated, she got verbal praise and rubbing and then Sgt. Rich and I would have a cup of coffee before he continued.

We went through three pots of coffee and he didn't finish until six p.m., but by then Lemon had figured out what we wanted. Sgt. Rich charged me eight dollars, and Lemon, the terror other farriers had thrown and hogtied, earned the last slot of the day, the one a tired farrier saved for a horse with perfect manners.