My Horse is a Better Teacher Than Me

Yes, it's true. Cherry is a far better riding instructor than I can ever be. Ain't that always the way with the best school horses? Your trainer can yell at you to do something 100 times, but it doesn't click until the horse does something that makes you go "oh, I see!"

Well, that's the case with Cherry. She's the best lesson horse I've ever known, though I might be a bit biased. I don't know how she does it, but she knows what the student needs to learn and she'll make them do it.

The most awesome part about her is that that she'll adjust her behavior (and misbehavior) to suit the skill level of her rider. When I ride her, she's usually full of piss and vinegar. When I put small, timid children on her, she's the picture of a lazy old plug who trots slower than most horses walk.

I distinctly remember watching her carry a 5 year old rider in the leadline class in one of the riding school's local schooling shows. Her eyes were half closed the entire time and she plodded around docilely after the rider's novice father. In the same show, the teenager who leased her rode in several WTC flat classes and a couple over fences classes. They won Hunter Over Fences and Cherry could not have looked more perky and happy to do her job.

When *I* jump her, gone is the cute Hunter pony and the would-be 17 hh hell-on-wheels show jumper comes out to play. That sure is fun. I take that as a compliment, though.

I actually got the BF to ride the other day, which was awesome. The extent of Cherry's misbehavior involved all of coming off the rail every now and then to see if he'd steer her back. That was it. Oooooh, what a rebellious pony!

Today in a lesson, my student needed to learn the importance of contact, especially at working at speed. The kid gets a nice, working contact, then gets scared of it and lets the reins slide out of her hands. Well, needless to say, that's not very effectatious for slowing or stopping her horse. We did some lead changes at the canter, and each time she let her reins get too long, Cherry almost got away from her. When she kept the contact, Cherry was perfectly under control. Amazing how that works! Me yelling at her all day would NEVER have gotten that point across.

I just love that about Cherry. She won't do anything to you that she doesn't think you can handle. I taught one of my students to ride (from complete novice to jumping small fences) on Cherry. One day, I decided to introduce controlling speed within a gait. We worked on slowing down and speeding up the trot. Before this lesson, Cherry had dutifully performed the "lesson horse trot". Today, however, Cherry busted out the ground-covering Arab trot. My student was surprised. "Welcome to Cherry's REAL trot!" I told her. She was a little unnerved, but I assured her, "She wouldn't be doing it if she didn't think you could handle it." And I wasn't lying.

She won't do something if she doesn't think you can handle it, and she's smart enough to figure out what her rider needs to work on. If you need to learn steering, she'll wander off the rail occasionally. If you need to learn about half-halts, she'll try and speed on you. If you need to work on balancing your horse, she'll run around crooked with a shoulder popped out.

Just another reason I love my horse.

Poleys Rule!

I just want to say how much I LOVE my Aussie saddle! I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that poleys are the most awesome saddle invention ever, after the girth and stirrups.

Poley are those things sticking out of the saddle just below the pommel. I've also heard them called thigh blocks.

Their function is very simple. They hold you in the saddle. If your horse trips, spooks, or stops suddenly you don't go anywhere. It's awesome!

It's like riding in a super-deep dressage saddle, with the added bonus that unless you topple directly off the side, you're not going to fall out.

Case in point. It's no big secret that I'm out of shape and I don't have the velcro butt I used to. Crossing a small creek the other day, Cherry decided that (after going into the water) that she just didn't want to be there and lept out onto the opposite bank, where she abruptly came to a stop. In an English saddle, this would have been quite unseating and if I was bareback I would probably have fallen off. In the Aussie saddle, however, I didn't even lose a stirrup. My thighs were snug against the poleys and my leg and seat weren't going anywhere.

Another time, we were cooling out, just ambling along on a loose rein, when some killer quail suddenly advanced from the bushes in attack formation. I was just sitting on Cherry, not really riding, when the quail attacked us. (And by attacked, I mean rustled in the bushes a bit before calmly walking out of them.) Cherry, sure the quails' mission was to slaughter and devour us, jumped sideways, spun, and got about 3 steps away before I'd come to my senses enough to tell her to knock it off. Again, if I'd been riding bareback, I would either ended up hanging off Cherry's neck or laying on the ground as an offering to appease the evil quail. In the Aussie saddle with the awesome poleys, even though I was totally disengaged and not paying attention (bad idea, I know), I kept my seat.

I love my bareback pad, but when "exciting" things happen, the Aussie saddle is the tack item of choice.

Tack Stuffz

I need to cut down on the amount of tack I own. Seriously, I have far too much crap for ONE FREAKING HORSE. Just in my tack locker, I have 3 halters, 6 bridles, 2 saddles, 2 bareback pads, and 5 saddle pads. This doesn't even include the tack I have in my tack trunk and trailer.

For one horse.

Yeah, I need to downsize. Big time.

I only use 1 halter, 2 bridles, 1 saddle, 1 bareback pad, and 3 saddle pads. The rest of it just sits there, waiting for that once in a blue moon day I feel like pulling it out and putting it on my horse. Now, if I had a barnfull of equines, I could justify the insane amount of tack I possess, but I don't.

The stuff that isn't in my locker is mostly old stuff or stuff that didn't work out and I couldn't return. Obviously, the manky things will just be tossed, but there's plenty of decent, usable stuff that's just taking up space.

One of these days, hopefully soon, I'll be motivated to empty out my repositories of tack, clean it all up, take pictures, and post it for sale on the internet. I'm still at the "I really should do that....... but not right this second" stage.

Though I see motivation around the corner. I've got my eye on a pair of fancy-shmancy stirrup irons that flex to relieve knee and ankle stress. As I have crap knees, I'm really looking to replace my cheap, single jointed stirrup irons. They just don't have enough give. However, fancy-shmancy stirrup irons cost a lot of money. If I sell off some extra tack, I'll have money. Money to buy new stirrup irons........

We Fell in a Hole!

Today Cherry and I took a nice walk down the grassy side of the road with my friend and her green mare. This is the closest we've come to an actual trail ride in 3 years. Sad, I know, but that's how life goes.

The first obstacle in our way was the creek. Well, I say creek, but it's really more of a muddy, grassy drainage ditch. I got Cherry to walk across the creek on the way out, where she promptly sank past her hocks in murky sludge. She did this weird bounding hop to get out, and I remembered to duck to the side and didn't get smashed in the face when she made the leap out of the water. My friend dismounted and jumped the creek with her mare, which was really cute, by the way.

We tool along the grassy shoulder for awhile, just walking and seeing where the road will take us. The ground is a little wet, but it's nice and soft. We walked through a marshy spot with no problems, got to the end of the shoulder and turned around.

Suddenly, the marshy ground gave way and Cherry's (I think) left hind sunk flank deep! Her front end went up, she scrambled a moment, and we went down. Thankfully I rolled off before she hit the ground, and only my right foot was trapped underneath her.

I remember looking up and seeing her body continue to rotate towards me, and I thought, "Don't roll on me! You're big and heavy!" She didn't, and was able to scramble back to her feet. My friend caught her reins even though she wasn't going anywhere, and I got up, a little shaken, to look her over.

Aside from needing to readjust the saddle, Cherry was fine. A little shaken, maybe, but fine. I know I was a bit shaky as I rebuckled the girth. My friend was thrilled at how well her greenie handled the incident. She didn't panic at all, and appeared to be unfazed by my horse suddenly going up and going down.

I climbed back on and we headed back to the barn. Cherry was a little jazzed up, but she settled down quickly. I've always loved that about Cherry, she's so damn sensible. She doesn't lose her head and freak out in scary situations. This trait is probably why I'm alive today. We've done much more, um, exciting things out on the trail and she's gotten us safely though tighter spots than that.

Crossing back over the creek, I knew there was no way in hell she was getting in the water this time. Since my jumping skills are rusty and I was not quite relaxed yet, I opted to lead her over the creek. Just as I suspected, she cleared the creek with a huge jump. It was really cool looking, actually. I crossed first, and then asked her to follow. I wasn't directly in front of her, just off to the side a little, but I could see nearly head-on as she gathered herself and jumped across. I was momentarily in awe of the power she has when she chooses to use it. I love it, it's like rediscovering why horses are so awesome all over again.

All in all, it was quite a surreal experience. When I fall, I'm used to it hurting. This fall didn't hurt at all. The ground was so soft and we fell rather slowly, so the fall was the easiest one I've ever had. It's strange when something doesn't happen when you're expecting it to. Nothing hurt, nobody was injured, and Cherry seemed to get over it before I did. Not that I wanted to be hurt, it was just weird that I wasn't.

Again, let me say: I love my horse! This is why I didn't sell her ass 10 years ago, and I'm so glad I didn't. She got in a pickle, didn't panic, and everyone came out unscathed.

Saddle Pads

Now I'm looking at expensive saddle pads! Wheee!!!!!!

I'm looking into getting a new saddle pad for my bareback pad. The one I have now is serviceable and works just fine, but it's made for a regular saddle. I want something with spine clearance, so I'm looking at pads designed for treeless saddles.

There are both WAY too many choices and WAY too few. Nearly all treeless saddle pads are more than $200, sometimes closer to $300. Also, ALL of them are made with some kind of foam inserts. I totally understand the concept of making a channel over the horse's spine to replace the gullet of a treed saddle, but I'm not so sure about all this high-tech, new-fangled foam.


The pad almost universally recommended for unstructured treeless saddles (which my bareback pad practically is) is the Skito pad.

These are custom made and can be fitted with several personalized options. For my weight range, they recommend the 3/4" foam with 3/4" laminated inserts. Apparently these are the best pads for creating a gullet in an unstructured saddle.

Pros: Popular with endurance riders, and generally anything they love is a high-performance, functional product. You don't fuck around with useless tack on 50 and 100 mile endurance rides. Most websites that sell treeless saddles recommend using a Skito pad, and there must be something to them if EVERYONE recommends using them. I've lurked on several online distance riding forums and blogs, and the love of Skito is wide-spread. Appealing to my frivolous side, the covers come in brilliant teal, which is always a bonus!

Cons: I'm not so sure the foam is as majikal as the Skito company claims it is. I've also read reports that the foam "flattens" and loses it's squish in a relatively short amount of time and should be replaced on a yearly basis. Some people have said that the pads were unstable and they had to constantly readjust their saddles during a ride. I'm not interested in a pad that I have to replace the damn inserts in every year. For that kind of money it better last a lot longer than that!

To tell the truth, I'm not entirely sold on the whole foam saddle pad business. It seems to me that the foam would compress over time and lose it's shock absorbing qualities. Also, it seems that over a long, hot ride, the foam would further compact and end up being useless at the end of the day. No thank you to that!

All the other pads marketed for treeless saddles contain so type of foam insert. The foam differs between companies, but essentially the concept is the same. Foam inserts within a shell. Some pads have synthetic "drying" or "heat dissipating" materials that seem suspiciously like neoprene, a material I have not had good luck with.

I want something that will provide weight distribution, shock absorption, and padding for my horse's back, and I want it to last. Does that even exist? According to the folks over at 5-Star, it does, and it's call pure wool felt.

This is a very interesting article that my gut tells me is spot on. Especially after using my wool felt Aussie saddle pad, I believe that it truly is the best material for wicking moisture and dissipating heat. We've been using it for centuries for a reason.

http://www.5starequineproducts.com/SaddlePadsArticle.html


In my online saddle pad quest, I stumbled across a very interesting version of the 5-Star wool felt saddle pad. This style is made for gaited horses and features a nice, long vent over the spine.

It's contoured to the horse's back, and according to everyone who owns them, these pads are the shit. High quality, hard wearing, and long lasting. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for!

I don't know if the spine cut-out would be enough to give adequate spine clearance with my bareback pad, though. I'd hate to spend the money on it and find out it's not what I wanted. The nice thing about this pad is that it would have good re-sale or re-use value. A treeless saddle pad would be limited in use to my bareback pad, while the 5-Star pad could be used with a western saddle as well.

Right now I'm saving money for tack, so I've got awhile to deliberate. Why are the things I want always so expensive?

Reaching

Today was a light day for me and Cherry. My student canceled her lesson today, so I decided to ride instead. No sense in wasting a perfectly good Sunday. I don't own a horse just to look at her!

So I bundled up and took myself out to the foggy barn. It was cool and calm, no wind blowing. That was rather nice, actually. The barn was peaceful and still, and the fog has a way of creating a tranquil silence over the land. Maybe that's just me idealizing foggy mornings in the Bay Area, but I like the fog all the same.

Cherry was filthy from rolling in the mud, and it took awhile to get her clean enough to tack up. I threw the NR pad on her, and on a whim I put the rhythm beads around her neck. The cheerful jingle bells would be nice in the stillness of the fog.

I hopped on and we headed down to the large field. It's my favorite place to warm up. About 5 acres, there's no need to make sharp turns or small circles, which helps Cherry's aging joints. It's decently flat with no large holes, but the recent wet weather has made it too slippery to work in.

We moved to the dressage court to actually work. Well, we call it a dressage court, but it's really more of a flat, groomed field. It too was rather slippery, but I figured we'd just head into the arena later.

I didn't have much of a plan in mind for today's ride. A little jogging, maybe, perhaps a lap or two of cantering. When I took up contact though, Cherry started to fidget. Grrr, I hate it when she does that! So I decided we'd school a bit at the walk, moving off leg and reaching into the bridle.

Cherry is an intelligent horse and gets bored easily. When she starts to fuss, you have to do something that occupies her brain. Continuing along the rail just makes her worse. I've found that arbitrary patterns work best if heading out on a trail ride isn't an option. This is what I did today.

I asked for random circles, changes of rein, and figure eights. Sometimes I'd lose interest halfway through a circle and we'd head off in the opposite direction. Slowly, Cherry calmed down and was attentive to my directions. I asked her to lower her head and move into the contact.

Once she was paying attention, I started asking for some backing and lateral work. Starting with simply halting and backing up and moving on to sidepassing and leg yields. Cherry, now fully engaged, was now starting to drop her head and really reach down into the contact. Hurray!

After every lateral movement, she'd reach down to her knees. It was not the impatient, naughty yanking on the reins that she sometimes does, but a true reaching into the bridle accompanied by lifting of the back and stepping under with the hind legs. Ah, bliss! All those dressage lessons were not taken in vain!

I kept up with the gentle circling, backing up, and sidepassing for a couple more minutes, with Cherry giving me nice loooooong stretches into the bridle. Then, I decided that we should end on a good note, and the next time she really dropped her head and stretched out her topline, I slowly let my reins out. I didn't want to drop her, but I wanted to release while she was doing what I wanted. On a long rein she stretched her nose all the way to the ground for a few strides, then moved out in a beautiful free walk. It was a good ride.

We don't often do this, usually out of laziness or impatience on both our parts. I really should do it more often, it's a wonderful exercise. We have to be in the right mood, though. If one of us is feeling frusterated or impatient, it doesn't work and we end up fighting.

I ended the day with letting her roll in the arena and doing cookie stretches. I'm not sure what's going on, but Cherry's back seems to be loosening up. She NEVER used to roll all the way over, now I've watched her do it half a dozen times over the last few weeks. I'm thinking this is a good thing, and hopefully a sign that all the bareback riding we've been doing recently is not harming her back (despire hysterical online claims to the contrary).

I'm not entirely sure if the cookie stretches are helping her back or not. We'll see what the chiro (aka the Witch Doctor) has to say the next time he makes the horse rounds. Last fall Cherry was not out anywhere, which was exciting to learn. Hopefully she's stayed that way. Regardless of effectiveness, Cherry LOVES cookie stretches. Any activity that involves food is a-okay with her.

Animal Communicators

Do true animal communicators really exist? Who really knows for sure, but I'll tell you what I think.

Let me state, first off, that I am a skeptic. I enjoy logic, proof, and objective facts. However, there are some things in this world (many things, really) that we cannot yet explain. Unfortunately, humanity tends to dismiss what we don't understand as either not possible, stupid, or something to be feared and shunned. I believe animal communication falls under all three dismissive categories.

I believe that 99% of people who claim to be animal communicators are money-grubbing frauds who prey upon the desperate and weak minded. They are highly skilled at cold reading and interpreting body language, and hence are highly convincing without possessing any other special skill. Their goal is to make money for themselves, which is hardly noble. The louder someone is about their talent, the less of it they probably have.

However, I believe there are a select few who CAN truly "talk" to animals. They are rare, and don't tend to broadcast their abilities far and wide. I have heard numerous stories, both first and second hand, of readings done that were amazingly accurate with very little information provided. Just a name, recent photo, and that's it. No other form of interaction, and as some were done over the phone, no opportunity to read body language either. How does one explain that? In essence, we can't, and therefore we dismiss it.

We have been taught from childhood that we cannot talk to animals. It's just impossible, so don't even try. Well, I don't think that's true. I think that most people have the ability, we've just shut it off. We have to relearn through training those instincts that we've forgotten. Obviously, I'm not talking about having a pleasant chat with woodland critters a la Disney movie. I'm talking about know what the animal is feeling and roughly what they're thinking just by being near them.

I think that animals likely share their thoughts freely with those who can "contact" them. As a rule, animals are not deceptive and have nothing to hide. They do not feel shame, guilt, or fear the reactions of their peers. Unless they feel threatened, I see little reason for them NOT to open up to a suitably skilled human. I think this is why it works in the first place, animals are far more receptive than people are.

Here's how I think true animal communication works. I think horses and other animals "speak" in images, and that their thoughts are more complex than most people give them credit for. Dr. Temple Grandin introduced me to this concept, and after reading her stuff I'm inclined to agree. It makes sense, doesn't it? We have a spoken language and think in words, animals have a physical (visual) language and think in images.

If (and this is a big if) the animal communicator can "get into" the horse's thoughts, I think she'd find a series of images and the feelings associated with those images. Then she translates these images and feelings into words we can understand. They say a picture is worth 1000 words, and I think this is where the communicator gets "paragraphs" of information. The horse didn't tell them all that, they saw it and now must convey the meaning to us in words.

For example, from a thread on FiSH: The communicator said the horse liked the Aussie saddle. The horse owner said the saddle wasn't an Aussie, it just looked like one. The saddle was in fact a treeless hybrid. However, the horse wouldn't know the difference or terminology; he wouldn't say "treeless". He would have a mental image of the saddle, and the animal communicator would be going off her own experience to identify the item of tack. The horse owner said the saddle looked like an Aussie, and if you'd just been shown a picture of it you might be deceived. If the communicator was shown a mental picture of the saddle, she might make the same mistake.

There's another reason I believe animal communicators exist: I'm one of them. It's not a finely tuned sense, but it's definitely there. I get flashes of insight into an animal's emotional state just by looking at them. It's not a conclusion I arrive at logically, it's just a feeling. I call it a gut instinct to avoid looking like a crazy person.

For example, my friend got a horse in for training. Horse was very ill-mannered, rude, and belligerent. My friend's initial assessment was "He's being a bastard". I watched her work him, and I immediately thought, "He's scared and confused. He doesn't know what's being asked of him." Sure enough, through a logical process of deduction and questioning his owner, my friend determined that he'd never really been broke. Just like Cherry, he'd been backed and ridden in the mountains, but never taught to obey cues or even what those cues were. She re-started him from scratch and his attitude (though he was still rather belligerent) improved as did his training.

I don't know how I knew what was going on with that horse. I'd certainly never met him nor his owner before, and from all outward appearances, he looked like a rank asshole. Well, he was a bit of an asshole horse, that wasn't the problem. He didn't know what his rider's cues meant, and this lack of knowledge scared him. He acted out by bucking, biting, and taking off, but the root of the problem was his lack of training. He was scared and confused, and I felt that. Maybe my experience with Cherry led me to that conclusion, but there was no thought process, the feeling just came to me.

The same sort of thing happened with my cat. My bf likes to pick up the kitty, and she doesn't like to be picked up. That's obvious. However, she was really freaking out on him when he'd go to put her down. Biting, flailing, vocalizing, the picture of an angry cat. It had been going on for a little while, and then one day I looked over at him and without even thinking said, "She's scared you're going to drop her. Support her body with both hands and put her down slowly." Previously we'd thought she was just fighting to get down even faster when she flipped out. But for some reason, when I saw her with her little fangs buried in his sleeve, she looked at me, I knew she was afraid. She wanted to get down, but she wanted to feel secure and be put down slowly. Now, he's much more careful to support her body, and he puts her down gently. Kitty is much happier and the freak-outs are much less frequent.

Similar things have happened over the years. It doesn't happen all the time, and doesn't happen with every animal, but I get "vibes" from them on a pretty regular basis. Those are just the incidents that stick out in my mind. I am certainly not on the level of communing with an animal at will or extracting particular information from them. It seems that if they reach out, I can pick up on it, but I can't initiate contact. Yet. ;)

At some point, when I can afford it, I'd love to get my animals "read". I flatter myself that I know my animals well, and it would be interesting to compare what the communicator tells me to my own knowledge. Actually, I don't think my cat would have much to say. She's a simple, rather mentally retarded creature (I get that vibe from her) who does not have complex thoughts. Cherry, on the other hand, would probably be a hoot and have much to say. Her brain is quite active, she has very strong opinions, and no issues with expressing those opinions.


So, do YOU believe that true animal communicators exist? I do, but they are few and far between.