Horse Speak 101

It is an amazing thing to carry on a conversation with a horse. It is particularly amazing when you are in tune with that horse, when you don't just hear them speak, but really feel what the horse is saying.

I would like to think I had such a conversation when I last rode my gf's horse, Emma. I didn't just hear what she was saying. I didn't just look at her ears and go, "Wow, they're forward. She must be happy! " or "Her ears are back and she's resisting. That must mean I should push her harder!" No. I actually listened. I heard what she was saying through the lunge line. I spoke to her and asked her questions with my body. I found out what she's been doing these past months while she's been unreachable due to distance. I heard what had happened to her body and how she had been comprimised. I felt her instinctual wariness of a stranger, but also her extroverted desire to be friends and work together toward a common goal. For the first time in what seems like forever, I took a deep breath and listened.

Now, I know this might sound a little ridiculous. You're probably thinking to yourself, "What a wacko! Horses can't talk!" But let me tell you, horses can communicate just as easily, perhaps even more easily, than you and I can with words.

I'm still learning how to listen. I haven't gotten it down pat yet. Sophie often confuses the hell out of me, but I think that has to do with me not looking in the right places for the answers. Instead of saying to myself, "What am I doing to make her resist me? What can I do to make it easier? How can I form a partnership with this horse and get her to relax and stretch?" I should have been asking, "What else could be going on here? Could she be in pain?" Sophie is a little hard for me to understand, but I think the signals are clear, I just have to think a little more broadly and a little less like the narrow-minded human that I am.

Emma, though. Well, there's a different story altogether. I have never met a more sensitive horse. And when I say sensitive, I don't mean hot-sensitive. I don't mean sensitive like a Thoroughbred that just has a lot of energy who hasn't been shown how to use it in a positive way. I mean sensitive like I caress the lunge line or rein, and she leaps to comply. I mean sensitive like the tiniest shift in position or weight can send her half-passing across the arena.

Okay, maybe not that extreme. Obviously I would be stupid to be asking a horse to half-pass at age four when they're not fully developed and are just learning the basics of stretch and supple. Still, she did surprise me when the first thing she did upon arrival at the new barn was passage around her field for 15 minutes straight. And when I say passage, I mean literally dancing around the field with such grace and suspension that all you could do was watch moonily and sigh. I must say it didn't hurt my ego at all to see a horse that I had bred so effortlessly completing a coveted movement in the dressage world. Which just goes to show that dressage, at it's best, is simply harnessing the horse's natural movements with as little interference from the rider as possible.

Anyway, now I've gone and gotten off topic. Back to the conversation between me and Emma.

Working with Emma is the closest I will ever come to dancing. It is so free, so beautiful, so effortless that when I'm working with her, I'm torn between tearing up and laughing at how amazing it is. Once again, you might think I'm crazy for saying such wild things, but I think I've ridden enough horses (top level hunters, Grand Prix jumpers, upper level dressage horses, talented young horses etc.) in my life to know when one is special.

This one is special.

Yes, she may have her conformational flaws. Her back might be the teeniest bit too long, her right hip might be twisted the itsy bitsiest bit to give her trouble at the canter to the right, but honestly... Emma? She's a keeper.

I feel bad, looking back upon that day over the weekend when I rode her for the first time in a month and I worked her so hard, but the gf demanded, and I delivered, and the whole experience rests somewhere up there right along with epiphanies and moments of nirvana. Everything just worked.

Sadly, her time at what will be referred to as "the other barn" did have an effect on her musculature. What once was a perfectly free and balanced horse now sports a bit of an underneck from going with her head cranked up in the air and her energy going out the nose, and she has hind legs that swing out from behind her instead of propelling her forward from up underneath her. I felt that the moment I put her on the lunge to get out her kicks and giggles and see if she would stretch. I worked with this horse in the very beginning before "the other barn" trainer had a chance to ruin her, and I knew something was wrong the instant I gently asked her to bend and she resisted. It wasn't an obvious resistance. I doubt anyone watching would have caught it. It was just the lightest pressure against my hands that told me that her newly developed underneck wouldn't let her stretch and breathe.

So I worked through it. I allowed her to bend so that the underneck wouldn't get in her way and she could open up her body. It worked. Just like a padlock being unlocked, it clicked and down went the nose and up went the (very weak) back.

Unfortunately, time was pressed, and O (the gf) was desperate to ride, so after that moment, I went ahead and got on her. Instantly I knew something was up. Instead of her back filling up my seat, there was a sunken cavity. Now, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want someone sitting on my back while I'm doing the "cat" part of the "cat and cow" exercise and my back is arched. Even worse, I wouldn't want someone bouncing up and down on my bent spine and digging their seatbones into my back!

Well, she didn't either. When I asked her to move forward at the walk, I got repeated swishes of the tail and an occasional flick of the hind hoof. I looked to O with concern and stopped what I was doing. Still, in accordance with O's demands, the ride had to go on, so I did the best I could to stay off her and get her to lift up her back and stretch out and down her neck. She complied. No more tail-swishing or discomfort.

Happy, happy horse. Happy, happy rider.

From then on, it was like riding magic. It was what riding should be. Should always be. It was riding a live, energetic wire contained between my legs and captured with my hands. The energy did not escape out the nose or through the hind end, it stayed within my grasp, and it was a tangible thing, a living essence. It was alive.

I may be a prospective writer, but even my [somewhat pathetic] pen falls short when describing that feeling. There is nothing else like it. Never in my life, except perhaps during brief moments of epiphany with my old trainer, Arlyn, have I felt anything like that. Never have I had a horse so willing to perform, so sensitive to touch and command. It's the way it's supposed to be. There's no yelling with heels or reins, no screaming with the thudding of the seat, it's all whispers and coos and caresses.

Now, Emma and especially I have a looong way to go, but it was a pleasant start and an even more pleasant and gratifying ride. I hope one day I can ride all my horses with a new level of communication. Sophie is the major project at the moment. I would be happy if I could even be able to communicate with her without feeling the need to yell or have her yell back at me. But I guess the only thing I can do is improve her nutrition, do what I can to change how I communicate, and give it time. Lots of time and lots of patience and not quite so much screaming (figuratively, of course).

Well, I guess that's all for today. My gf can tell you about the rest of that somewhat interesting day on her blog, Three Mares and Me. ; ) I'm off to do a quiz for Economics, that other 101 class. It's time to leave thoughts of the stable behind and return to droll concepts like supply and demand. Although, I think I might rest first. Day 4 of battle with the cold and sinus virus isn't going so well. Everything sounds muffled and I'm snorting and wheezing when I breathe. They had a test of the emergency siren system a little earlier and it sounded like an alien was living inside my head. Ugh.

Until next time, space cadets.