In the summer, I like to keep a few pots of herbs and vegetables on our south-facing porch. The growing season is short where we live, and between the weather and the deer who like the same herbs and vegetables I do, growing food in pots means the odds that I’ll be able to enjoy the herbs and vegetables go up. 

When we’re home, I check on the tomato plant at different times of the day. I make sure the morning sun reaches it first, and give it water. In the afternoon, I smell the tangy leaves and think of my Nana, who grew tomatoes the respectable way: in the dirt, in a good old-fashioned southern garden. In the evening, I water it again and admire how some tomatoes have grown in size and others are in various stages of going from green to red. 

The leaves feel scratchy. The stalks refuse to be contained in their bamboo supports. I don’t know much about gardening, but I’ve discovered that tomatoes are a most unruly plant. I’m sure there are other unruly food sources out there, but the potted tomato plant on our summer porch is my only frame of reference. 

During my care of the tomatoes, I’ve often thought that a fear of returning to being with horses is unruly, too. Fear likes to visit unannounced and horses don’t conform to our rules. They are, for all their domestic ways, quite wild. They can seem unruly to us, but what they are doing is following their own true nature. 

It occurs to me that we allow our fear to be like that tomato plant. Despite constant tending, or maybe because of it, it grows wild and unruly even when we try to contain it. Fear is being true to its nature as well. 

All of our emotions have a job to do. They serve a purpose—positive or negative—whether we like it or not. Though there have been times I wished I were more like Spock from Star Trek, when I think of the times I’ve felt any intense emotion, I realize that as unruly as those emotions are, they come and go. Nothing is permanent, even if it feels like it is. I often remember what Pema Chödrön says: “You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.”

The sun rises and sets and each new day is different. My tomato plant thrives and ripens and then withers as the days grow shorter and colder. I mourn this, the fall into the darker spaces of winter. I am sorry to see the flowers go from green and colorful to brown and brittle. Sad to put all the cheery pots away until the next spring. As often as I’ve thought about the seasons and the cycles of life that we all participate in, it doesn’t lessen my grief to see the flowers’ colors drain away. But it does do wonders for my learning the constant lesson of acceptance of the passage of time, and the cyclical nature of life. 

Our fear and anxiety around horses thrive in the sunlight of obsession. The more we focus on the fear, the bigger it seems to be. It’s like doing shadow animals in the light of a candle; the shadows our hands cast are much bigger than our actual hands. 

Our fear doesn’t need tending or befriending, but our confidence does. 

After any kind of accident with a horse, fear feels vast and insurmountable. After my accident with Bree, I naturally attached that fear to everything that was involved with it: the horse, the soft line of a black mane, the dirt, the saddle, the state of Florida. I wanted nothing to do with any of it. I hoped that shunning my fear in a cold blast of emotional winter would cause it to wither and die. 

But it didn’t. For all my ardent wishes that I wouldn’t be afraid around horses, for all my wanting to “move forward,” or “get over it,” nothing changed until I owned the fear, and then figured out ways to tend to my confidence. 

Just like my little tomato plant, I put my confidence somewhere safe. I protected it and counted every fruit as it burst into life. I made sure the soil was nourished and kept moist. I was mindful to avoid setting it out in conditions that might cause it to be knocked over. 

What did this mean on a practical level? I decided to only put myself in the proximity of our own herd or horses I was familiar with. I chose practices that had a noticeable effect on my state of mind (numero uno is putting attention on my breath) and that I could do anywhere. I started a brain-supplement regimen and a way of eating to help my brain heal. 

Whatever you want to do, there are creative ways you can do that thing. It may not look like anything else anyone else is doing, but so what? It’s your life, and your peace of mind that’s important. When it comes down to it, the fruit of ripened confidence is about the most delicious thing there is. 

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As I was brushing our horses yesterday, I noticed that despite the rivulet of sweat running down my back, their short summer coats were falling out. In the shade of a day edging toward 90 degrees, while I was in a t-shirt and cropped jeans, our herd is preparing for snowmageddon.

The ability of horses to be ahead of us in so many ways is astonishing. Their timing goes beyond instinctual to almost psychic. Their innate talent at moving quickly before we know anything is happening is a quality I envy. And their desire to get along, no matter the circumstances is a constant reminder that despite what life throws me, I can try and get along too.

My husband always says horsemanship would be easy if it wasn’t for gravity and timing. The older I get and the longer the years that I live with horses, the more that statement gives me a bittersweet laugh.

Gravity, well, because. If you’re reading this and you’ve ridden for any amount of time (by “time” I mean minutes as well as years) you know that coming off a horse is a when proposition, not an if. I stopped counting the number of times I’ve come off horses after I hit the double digits.

Timing. The word “feel” is often paired with timing because in our horse-centric world it seems one cannot exist without the other.

I doubt that horses stand under a shade tree and contemplate how to improve on their timing and feel. Horses are the embodied definition of those two horsemanship holy grails; they already are what we strive to improve in ourselves.

When we think about improving our timing, about improving our relationship, about improving anything we think is lacking about ourselves—and isn’t that list woefully long— there’s a lot of thinking that goes on. And on. I’ll admit to years (ok, fine: decades) of thinking about horses and how much I wanted to be better at being with them. I’ll admit to reading mountains of books about horses because I thought that the more that I knew about them, the better my timing and feel would be. 

That was like preparing for three-day eventing at the Olympics by watching YouTube.

Thinking, as you probably guessed it, is the number one reason our timing is often behind. As riders, we are taught that in order to ride well we must think a lot. But horses are sensorimotor creatures, which means they feel and they move. That’s their job description, that is how they came into this world; one look at their brains will tell you that they are wired for movement and using their senses to discern if/when/how fast they need to go.

One look at a human brain and you’ll see that we are, indeed, wired for thinking. Here’s something exciting though-we all have the capacity to develop the timing and the feel that informs it.

When a dressage instructor of many years ago told me in subtle ways that I couldn’t ride, in a fit of pique I chose to quit the lessons. I had been having my doubts already, so it wasn’t a far leap. Turns out, my timing on this issue was great; two weeks later my horse came up three-legged lame and I spent the next three years figuring out how to help him be sound and comfortable.

Timing is getting out of the way a millisecond before a kick could’ve landed in your face. Not that this has happened to me.

Timing is also knowing when to give a horse a break from a concentrated lesson.

It is knowing when to give yourself a break if you feel you’re just not getting it.

We are told that timing and feel cannot be taught.

Except wait – we all use feel and timing hundreds of times during our day. It’s how we can eat breakfast without spilling it down the front of our shirt. It’s how we drive and don’t get into accidents on a daily basis. It’s how we throw a ball for our dog or cook a meal for ourselves or hold a baby without dropping them.

By the time most of us reach adulthood, there are thousands of tiny skills we have mastered that once seemed like big skills. Walking, speaking, running, eating. We forget how at one time we were all toddling, drooling, gibberish speaking wide-eyed love nuggets who spent every day marveling at the wonder of everything.

As horse people, we grew up and discovered we were, in fact, part horse. That wonder at life then got transferred to these creatures of the wind and plains. At first, we toddled about them, unsure of where we fit in relation to them, thrown off balance by the swing of their barrel beneath us and the lift of each elegant leg.   

Our hearts got thrown off course by their breath and their eyes that seemed to see right through us.

So when someone says “Ya gotta have feel! Ya gotta have timing!”  I smile to myself because we already do.

All we gotta have is the awareness of how to best apply it to working with horses. This means the more time we put ourselves in the context of our horse, the better attuned we will be to using our inborn talent of timing and feel. 

Granted, they aren’t cars or a smooth sidewalk to run down. They are unlike anything else in our lives that we handle or are in a relationship with. You may be able to force things on horses, but most of us know and seek out the kind of relationship that cultivates space for mutual consent. It’s where the beauty is.

If we can have a little bit of confidence in our own innate abilities, and a little bit of a quieter mind, chances are we are going to get along with our horse just fine. Chances are those skills are inside of us the whole time, waiting to be grasped. 

Thorny was an old cowboy my parents knew, and the first person who introduced me to horses. I was still in diapers, holding on to the lead rope of a gray speckled pony that wasn’t much taller than I was. I can still see the ghost of a smile on that toddler’s face.

Thorny seemed like he had a million horses. On another visit, not long after I was out of diapers, my parents remember putting me up on a big red horse, where I sat smiling and clutching his copper mane until they had to lift me down. That’s when the screaming started. Other kids cried when they were lifted up on the horse’s back.

This was a portent of things to come. That day with the pony I met magic that walks the earth on four hooves; it was my version of getting a letter to Hogwarts.  For years I did what many other “horse crazy” kids would do;  pretend my bike was a horse or gallop around our backyard neighing. Collecting Breyer models and making up pedigrees for them (and voices). Feeding grass to horses through a fence and trying not to get caught.

Really, who could have designed a more perfect animal? They smell good when they sweat, they smell good when they breathe, when their hooves strike the earth in three time it’s an invitation to heaven. They are fuzzy and soft and when they look at you with those eyes! When their ears flick back to catch your voice! A nicker makes my heart burst.

I’m living with and teaching about the mystery that is the horse.   While I still enjoy riding, I am discovering that the gifts that horses offer us go beyond sitting on their backs. In my own evolution with horses, there are many things that have captured my interest and many horses who have given themselves so that I might, for a little while, enter their world. So that I might, for a moment, feel the twin freedom of speeding across the ground while being free from gravity.

I’m no longer that little girl in diapers. This year I hit a milestone birthday and though I’ve not usually been one to count years or label myself by them, I’ve also noticed that growing older is challenging. Our bodies change (I now revel in cold weather and dread the heat), grief finds us more frequently, we listen as our doctor tells us about the invasive health screenings we must endure. Health insurance goes up and our energy goes down.

But along with all of that, I also notice the frost on a horse’s whiskers in the winter. How on a chilly morning the wind catches the mist of their breath. How standing beside them allows me to calm down and experience a grounded sense of peace. The sound of horses chewing hay. Watching their muzzles gather hay into their mouths (I often wonder if horses saw elephants, would they have nose envy?). How their whuffing breath on my hands or face feels like the best self-care of all.

Is this obsession? If so, it’s one I’ll gladly claim. Is it the growing knowledge that my time is limited? Definitely.

All the times I’ve struggled, all the horrible things I’ve said to myself about my horsemanship, all the questions, agonizing, and striving and bringing horses into my life and letting them go again: all of it! And yet I can stand beside a horse and become mesmerized when the light shines through their manes. They’re deep oceans encased in soft coats. Whether I am riding or not, the feeling of being in a glorious nickering, neighing freefall around a horse has become downright mystical.

It all started with a dappled pony. Inside somewhere is that girl who still sneaks grass to horses through a fence. Though I don’t know how or when my journey will end, I do know I will always love and be thankful for horses.

It was a warm and sunny morning as I chatted with Jaycee about what she would like to work on with her horse Scamp.

“I’ve been making him move his feet because everyone I’ve worked with says he needs to move his feet more. But he’s always spooky,” Jaycee said.

I thought about this for a moment and then replied, “When you say ‘make him move his feet,’ what do you mean?”

“Well, this is what I do.” She picked up the end of her lead rope, spun it quickly at Scamp’s nose, and stepped aside as he took off to the end of the line and then bounced around in a circle before settling into a stiff lope.

“Ok,” I said. “When you say that it’s important for a horse to move, you’re right. But if we just focus on his feet, and not how we are asking him to move or the quality of his movement, we are missing a big part of the picture.”

Jaycee nodded and pulled on the line so Scamp would stop. He planted his feet in the dirt, raised his head and snorted.

I continued explaining. “Moving the feet can be a tricky way to think of this. If we only focus on the feet, and not how the horse is feeling inside his own skin, we may miss helping him reach the point of relaxation.”

“I think we can adjust a couple of things here. Let’s present moving on a circle more softly, and let’s also watch for his breathing to become regular and his movement to relax.”

I showed her how to step out of Scamp’s way while breathing deeply, and using the end of her rope farther away from his body. We started with a slow twirl. Scamp looked at the rope then burst into a fast trot.

“That was better! Now Jaycee, I’d like you to keep breathing and relax your body a little.”

Scamp trotted a couple more laps before he too took a breath and slowed to a walk.

“Let’s change how we ask him to stop, Jaycee. I’d like you to stop your feet as you exhale. If Scamp isn’t able to stop with that we can use the lead rope to ask.”

Scamp walked half a circle before drifting to a halt. He shook his head and neck, exhaled and stood quietly.

“Wow,” said Jaycee. “That was really different. He’s starting to relax.”

I nodded and said “Yes. That is the inside of the horse releasing tension. My hunch is that once we turn the volume down for both of you, he will be able to not only move his feet, but you can help him feel more relaxed inside.”

“Move their feet,” is a phrase that is ingrained into the fabric of horse culture.

On the one hand, it’s great that so many people have learned this phrase. On the other, it can lead to tunnel vision (or should I say hoof vision?) about what it is we are trying to accomplish with our horse.

We can sometimes get so caught up in “moving the feet” that we forget that doing so is an end result to an internal process. When the horse feels pressure or tension and they need to move, that energy reaches the feet last. We can use that energy, however, to get back to the inside of the horse in a way that will help them calm down.

We aren’t moving the feet to punish the horse or wear him out. We are allowing the horse to do what horses are designed to do – move. It’s a whole body, inside and out process that is expressed through the feet, not by them.

Moving the feet isn’t a part of “making the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy” either, since horses don’t know what the wrong or right thing is anyway. What horses seek is what brings them comfort and ease. Their tolerant natures seek quiet places. Sometimes they need to move a lot to find that quiet place. But if we focus only on moving their feet without regard for the rest of them, I have a hunch that movement can feel punishing instead of relieving.

By the end of our time together, Jaycee and Scamp were able to work together quietly. Scamp could walk, trot and lope on a relaxed circle. He was breathing better, his body was loose and he had stopped being hyperalert.

In the end, it wasn’t the feet that needed our attention. It was the horse himself.

Life–and horses, for that matter– both have an uncanny knack of knowing just when you need a little insight and humility.

We recently posted a photo on our online Classroom page on Facebook. In the photo, one of our horses was standing hobbled. We posted this in response to requests from several of our Classroom members who were looking for help teaching their own horses this skill.  We made a three-part video series carefully explaining how to teach a horse to be ok with hobbles.

We thought this photo was just a photo. However, for others, it was an example of cruelty and abuse. It was a source of disappointment that we would advocate their use. How could we?! How dare we?!

Mark and I both have worked on ranches where hobbling is just another job a ranch horse does, like standing tied or moving cattle. Neither one of us had used this as a way to punish or scare horses, and I personally have not seen a hobbled horse hurt itself. But it quickly became apparent that for other people who didn’t share that background, it was an example of us abusing our horse. The other interesting thing is that the comments we received from angry people were about the photo, not because they watched the video series.

A few folks felt that by hobbling a horse we are taking away their ability to flee. That it may also induce learned helplessness. That we are setting them up for both mental and physical injury. To be fair, all these things can certainly happen if you don’t prepare your horse properly.  Hobbling isn’t a skill for a horse with limited life experience and training. It’s not a way to force them to stand still. And it’s certainly not a substitute for teaching them how to stand tied. When done properly, hobbling becomes an extension of their education.

However, what interests me isn’t the hobbling debate. What does interest me are the insights into human behavior. As many of us know, who we are in life has a direct impact on how we are with horses. Through those two days of seeing unbridled anger at our post, several things occurred to me.

At some point in time, we all run up against our own beliefs and prejudices. If we aren’t careful, this gets translated into our horse work as a certain rigidity (my horse HAS to do the thing, right NOW in this EXACT way). If we aren’t careful, the view of our lives and the world can get pretty narrow. And small. Small isn’t where life thrives, I believe. Small is where we dig ourselves in because we feel threatened. Life–and horses–lives big and open and out there.

Some of the most aggressive people I’ve run across also profess to be kind to animals. They probably spend hours learning about horses or dogs, or cats, or any other pet that they have. They put a tremendous amount of effort into trying to understand their pet and caring for them. When it comes to relating to other people, though, there is very little effort to understand or get along.

The interesting thing is, if some of these kind animal people find a post on social media that is at odds with what they believe, they will attack first and not ask questions later.  I guess this is to force someone else to change what they think, or at the very least make the other person feel like a very horrible human.

I get it. As a person who is deeply introverted and has worked with the public, I often struggle with people.  I’ve found some to be rude, self-serving and cruel. I’ve been forced to do things that were traumatic (as have many young men and women) and have spent most of my life not only being wary of people, but avoiding them. For most of my life, I’ve often said that I get along better with animals than people.

I realized when I started teaching that getting along with and being kind to animals is easy. Getting along and being kind to people is where my personal challenge lies. Kindness, or any positive quality we wish to have, is robust and full-bodied and inclusive. One might say unhobbled.

How can we call ourselves tolerant if we only apply it toward certain people (or certain breeds of horses, or certain riding techniques and/or disciplines)? How can we be patient if we only practice when it suits us?

After reading over the comments in the hobbling post, I can now see how the people who are against hobbling feel they are correct. I can also see how we can be more considerate about what we place on social media and keep in mind the broadness of our audience and their own life and horse experiences.

Though I strongly believe that we are all more alike than we are different, the one trait I don’t care to share is close-mindedness. It isn’t helpful in our horsemanship, or our life.

In order to be the kind of teacher and human I want to be I still have many skills to learn. Some of the skills I work on daily are traits that my introverted hermit heart sometimes wished I didn’t have to learn. Some days I want to (and do) sit on our couch with my cat and a good book and let the world go on its way.

Right now I’m grateful for the angry outbursts from people because it brought me to these realizations that are personally valuable.  An experience like this, though fleeting, helps me get closer to who I want to be. Like working with horses, I’m not striving to be perfect, but just a little better than I was before.

I was in my mid-twenties when I started training horses (and assumed I knew more than I actually did).  I brought Jack, a young gelding, home. I’d given him a couple of weeks to settle in with my older gelding Caleb before riding him in the arena next to our house.

I caught him, groomed and tacked him up, and saddled him, making sure that the saddle fit. He was on his toes a little bit and moving around, but since I was a newly-hatched trainer, I thought I could “train” that out of him. Once I was riding, I decided it was time to see what his canter was about. I sat up straight, made sure the reins were relaxed and kicked his sides-gently, I thought-with both heels while making a kissing noise as loudly as I could.

He left the ground in a fine imitation of a rocket and then raced around the arena as though he’d eaten high octane fuel for breakfast. It became very clear very quickly that my arena was too small to contain a frightened galloping horse. I was so surprised I forgot to do anything for a few strides before I gathered up the reins and put some pressure on them to slow him down.

No response.

I started talking to him and relaxed the reins while trying to move with him at his frantic gallop. I noticed that despite all the flurry of his legs, he wasn’t actually going that fast.

Once we came down to a wide-eyed and hard breathing walk, I thought about what I’d just done. I had cued him for a canter with the same strength of cues that I had been using with my much more relaxed and experienced gelding.

This was my first lesson in how to NOT ride one horse like I’d ridden all horses.

I didn’t want to end our time together on that experience, so after a few rounds of a walk, I took a deep breath, relaxed and brought my calves closer to his sides by millimeters. I was smart enough at that point to not make any sounds as I did this. He leaped into a canter again, but this time he was less frantic and I could ask him to slow down with the reins. We did this a couple more times before stopping for the day.

This memory always conjures up two things for me; laughter because of my bravado and cluelessness, and the potent lesson that stays with me: an assumption is not the same as knowledge.

I made an assumption about Jack that I’d fostered while riding Caleb: horses need very big cues to know what we want. In the textbook definition of the word, I didn’t know I was operating on this assumption, so instead of paying attention to the horse I had under me I let my assumptions take control of the ride.

This is oh so rarely a good idea.

“In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” Tom Bodett

Looking back, if I had taken the time to be quieter – by dropping my agenda for a horse I didn’t know, by slowing down while grooming and saddling- I would have seen how nervous he was. I would have seen that perhaps we could work on riding skills another day. I would have felt that he wasn’t breathing. I could have helped him start to settle into his new home, instead of scaring the spots off him.

Learning to take things slowly is often the result of lessons learned the hard way. And learning these lessons may involve repeating them until we figure out exactly what is going on. The hard way sometimes has to get harder before we find out what it is we need to learn.

The other thing about assumptions is that it’s easy to keep them alive if we don’t examine what they are. It’s also easy to mistake assumptions for knowledge because assumptions are hidden and secret things. Horses are great at unmasking our assumptions and causing us to broaden our knowledge. This lesson that Jack taught me was the revelation of an assumption (all horses need big cues) and the beginning of setting me on the long road to gain knowledge-both about Jack as an individual and horses as a species.

These days, whenever we get a new horse, we focus on finding out where the horse is comfortable and start there. Sometimes we can saddle up and ride and work. Sometimes it’s haltering and grooming and leading for a day or two. Wherever we start, where ever we are in the country and whatever horse we are working with, our goal doesn’t change; get to know the horse and help him feel confident about us and the job at hand.

Jack taught me not only to drop my assumptions about what I thought I knew, but he was also the horse who first taught me, over the course of our many years together, that a relationship built by knowledge, trust, and understanding will always go farther than assumptions and training.

When I was in my late twenties, I became fascinated by the art of Dressage. Honestly? I am still fascinated. Back then, however, the trouble was that I wasn’t a very talented technical rider. And I was on an unconventional horse for dressage; a 16’2 Appendix Quarter horse who excelled more at trails and jumping. His hindquarters were higher than his very prominent withers, and he had tiny feet and one clubbed foot that made it spectacularly difficult to collect and round as my instructor wanted me to shape him.

This shaping took the form of adding more and more pressure to the bit, pulling against the pressure he was exerting on it, and then the addition of a crop and spurs because he lacked impulsion.

At first, I truly enjoyed what dressage offered. But it wasn’t too long before things got serious. Things got complex. And the simple joys of riding a horse were lost to the technicalities that I was being taught.

If I had to count how many times I’ve thought about this particular method, and how many times the  “I wish I knew then what I know now” syndrome has appeared, I couldn’t come up with a number. Thousands?

All horses are the recipients of our knowledge at any given point. And besides these dressage lessons, my horse lived a good horse life – out in a large paddock with other horses, nutritional support, regular massages and lots of hay. This is probably what gave him the tolerance to get through those weekly 45 minute lessons.

I finally ended up emotionally storming away from Dressage when the number of requests my instructor gave me outnumbered my ability to execute them.

Looking back, I can see how this endeavor triggered all kinds of old baggage from my childhood; I was always picked last to be on a team in sports, and I regularly sprained and even broke bones. I was never an agile or physically talented kid, and so when the time came that those kind of activities were optional, I chose instead to go to the library or read a book.

To this day, I still happily make the same choices.

Also to this day, however, I am grateful to have learned simpler ways to ask horses.  Less punitive ways that instead of assuming the horse is stupid and needs endless repetition, assumes that horses are incredibly intelligent and intuitive and we can focus on those aspects when we are with them.

By now, my husband and I have spent countless hours held by numerous years traveling the world helping people with horses. And in that span of time, one lesson stands out above all the others.

The answers lie in simplicity. 

Why use a leg, a crop, outside rein, inside sit bone, flare your left nostril and sing “Do Re Mi,” (that last part is the vestiges of my frustration from all those years ago) when you can inhale and think about changing the rhythm of your gait from a four beat (walk) to a two beat (trot)? Now we get a response from the horse that is more relaxed.

“To quote a dictum of Simon, what a horse does under compulsion he does blindly, and his performance is no more beautiful than would be that of a ballet-dancer taught by whip and goad.” 
― Xenophon, The Art of Horsemanship

Complexity makes us feel good about ourselves. And to be fair, our brains are really good at complexity. The downside, however, is that there is a very narrow line between complexity that is productive and complexity that ties us in knots.

In our work with horses, we have seen time and again how they prefer simplicity. While our brain excels at complexity, the horse brain and body is made for movement. The fantastic thing about horses is that they can also sense internal movement. Call it intention, call it micro-movement, call it hocus pocus, but whenever we lead a request with our intention and focus, horses will hear it and do their best to answer.

We can ask ourselves to first breathe, then let go of tension and have a clear picture in our mind of what we would like to do. Oddly enough (but not really),  horses respond not only more quickly,  but also with more ease. 

The fact that we are amazed by simplicity perhaps tells us just how long and how often we make things more complex than they need to be. While there are indeed parts of life that feel like endless hoops to jump through and are filled with emotional complexity, a lot of life is also quite simple.

Breathe deeply. Notice what is going on now. And breathe more deeply again. 

I think we learn and go through life much like a pendulum; we swing all the way to one side and then we swing the opposite way before realizing that the middle is where balance and skill lie.

When we begin learning about horses, we are at the apex of knowing nothing. The only time we are taught to release is when asking a horse to stop and he does, or after he turns. 

Many of us know when we are teaching horses any new skill, we must provide a release of pressure to show them they got it right.  I had been doing this to some small degree from the time I began riding as a child. Shortly after I began training horses, I encountered a way to be more conscious about it at clinic given by a well-known horseman. 

When I started systematically applying the release, it worked really well. It wasn’t too long before I came to the realization that if a little release was good, more was better. This included completely letting go of my reins if the horse I was working with did whatever it was I was asking. I would stop all work immediately if they hit on the right answer. You name it, I released it. The pendulum had swung opposite of where I began when I learned to ride; instead of infrequent releases, I now released for everything. 

For a couple of decades, I continued to practice and refine my skill of releasing. I was always searching for that middle space where the release was not too far one way or another, but right in the middle. I learned that horses are sensitive beyond our wildest imaginings, that big releases were (most of the time) not necessary and indeed could create an unintended message.

But it wasn’t until we spent some time recently with Dr. Steve Peters (neuropsychologist, horseman, and co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship) that he mentioned in passing that the horse must experience both release and relief for optimal learning.

If I were a horse, I would’ve pricked my ears forward and thrown my mane in the wind.

It turns out, that the more time a horse is given to process a new skill, the more time there is for the nervous system as a whole to move into a state of relief. The chemicals that were present during the pressure of learning or doing something new dissipate, and the feel-good chemicals, specifically Dopamine, get released. Simply put, the greater the relief (the more Dopamine), the greater the learning.

How do we achieve this hallowed state? By giving our horses time. 

Time is exactly what I had to give my little Arab mare, Bree. She had come to us as a very green seven year old, whose majority of riding experiences had been people hopping on and making her run.  On our first working day together, I had saddled her up with no intention of riding. I did, however, put my foot in the stirrup and prepare to get on.

She responded by, ever so slightly, rocking back on her hindquarters, not-so-slightly pinning her ears, and then trying to leave the ground like a rocket.

“Huh,” I thought. “That was informative.”

For the rest of that day, and the following weeks as we taught clinics, I would randomly put my foot in the stirrup on either side and prepare to get on. Because we were doing this work while I was teaching, sometimes we could practice a lot and sometimes not once during a whole hour.

I was surprised when each day she showed less anxiety and a need to run. Every day there was a monumental improvement. I thought, “Well, she’s an Arab and they are noted for their smarts.” I thought, “Well, the magnesium oxide we have her on is helping her to stay calmer.” I thought “Horses are amazing and brilliant.”

Now, all of these are true. And every thought I had about the “why” she was settling so quickly after five years of being inadvertently taught to run when the rider’s foot hit the stirrup, was only part of the picture.

It’s been almost ten years since Bree taught me all she did, but when Dr. Peters spoke about horses needing a release and relief, she was the first horse who popped into my mind.

Because during those weeks when she and I could only work together sporadically on this one skill, the circumstances had conspired to give her a lot of time.

By being given a lot of time, she was allowed to settle from a chronically stressed state to a more relaxed state, which allowed her learning to be more firmly cemented. Because horses learn best when pressure is low and not ongoing, she could integrate the information and start to have confidence in our interactions. 

I often think of Bree and how far we got together, how close we became. After the initial weeks of struggle, she turned out to be a horse I could do anything with; working cattle, trail riding, teaching lessons with, switching from riding in a bit to a bosal, and all around trusting. She’s a little mare with a very big heart. 

Horses seek comfort. Horses seek a quiet way of feeling and being and going. Despite our perception that we don’t have any time and our busy lives are too full, we could stop and consider that it is within all of our power (as riders and horse owners) to give the horse one of the most important things they need to feel confident and peaceful with us. 

Time.

When Rusty arrived, his eyes were as hard as his muscles.  He had rain rot from withers to tail and large old white scars on his back where someone had ridden in a saddle that didn’t fit. I chalked up his disinterest in his new surroundings to the long trailer ride from Texas.

A few days passed before he recovered and made it clear that it wasn’t the trailer ride. He had zero interest in all things people. He was adamant about how he meant to be handled, which was not at all. 

He was difficult to catch, he didn’t stand still for grooming, and he was not going to have his feet worked on. He was disruptive in the herd; Rusty operated on a kick first, ask questions later philosophy. Oddly enough, he was quiet and reliable under saddle, which was exactly what we needed. We found him to be a safe horse for actors to ride, for our then upcoming movie, “Out of the Wild.”

During the filming of the movie four months later, he proved to be trustworthy and levelheaded. With time growing shorter to get the footage we needed, he chose to do several spur-of-the-moment jobs for us that we hadn’t prepared him for. For some reason, Rusty decided to work with us, when for months all he wanted was people as far away as possible. Preferably outer space. 

We couldn’t look a horse like that in the eye and sell him. So he stayed with us.

It’s been four years since the movie, and Rusty is a changed horse. The rain rot is long gone. He’s soft and sweet with eyes like a clear mountain pond. He’s easy to clinic with; he stands tied quietly, drinks and sleeps well, and doesn’t threaten other horses if they get too close. He doesn’t worry if another horse is nervous. He’s become a quiet leader in the herd. 

Those saddle scars have never softened or gone away, despite numerous treatments and consistent grooming.  His stifles are a little creaky, and his right hip bone is sheared off; the result of an old injury which was probably hitting the metal enclosure fast and hard when he was a roping horse.

As time runs on like the river it is,  we gather information and glean insights, much like the list above. This is the Rusty we know today.

Most horse owners are an enthusiastic bunch; since a sizeable chunk of our income goes toward our horse way of life, we focus on what is important. We know what our horses like and don’t like, where their strengths and weaknesses are, where we can excel and where we need work. We know when they are sore, or tired, or feeling great. I’m sure they know this (and much more) about us as well.

It’s part of being human that we sort that information and adapt to fit our conclusions about any given horse in any given situation. Getting more skilled and informed as a horse person comes with a good news/bad news scenario: the more you learn, the more you see. And sometimes, the more you don’t want to see. 

This past summer, Rusty let me know everything I’ve learned about him over the years had changed. 

It was the end of our clinic day and everyone had left the arena. Rusty and I’d been trotting but I asked him into his canter to find out how he felt.

We transitioned into an easy lope and after a lap, I thought “Ok buddy, it’s hot out and you’re getting to be an old man so let’s go ahead and stop.” I exhaled and touched the reins lightly, which usually is enough to help him slow down.

Nothing. Instead, he lengthened his lope, making the wind rush past my smiling face.

We cantered for three more rounds, then came down to a walk. And I laughed. “Old Man” indeed.

That day he showed me how having a story about him had shortchanged what he could actually do. He reminded me that just when we think we know something, we are in store for a surprise. We are shown a facet we weren’t expecting to see because we relied on our cruise control story to give us information, instead of being more present and open to seeing new things.

Stories are a form of insulation; if we think we know something or have all the information about anything, we don’t have to put much thought into how we are interacting or any effort into being aware. Stories and expectations are best buddies. Assumptions might be holding hands right along with them. 

 It’s a curious occurrence that with the whole kaleidoscope of life passing around us on any given day, that out of the bazillions of things to see, we choose the comfort zone of our story. I get comfort zones (you could say comfort zones and ruts are buddies too). You get in a groove, in a rhythm, and you can spend years dancing to the same beat.

There is a great chasm between having knowledge and creating a story. Knowledge stands on its own and can be shared among many. A story is singular, insular and needs knowledge to prop up its flimsy walls.

What I know about Rusty is knowledge – where he needs support physically and how reliable he is mentally. My thinking of him as an “old man?” That’s the story.

It’s a potent lesson for me every time I’m snapped out of my own rutted thinking: that by listening to what I thought was a familiar situation, I can actually learn and see new things. Seeing new things is what keeps horsemanship, and life, full of surprises.