Each time you scroll by a sale ad, it must depict the ‘perfect horse.’ The ad will tout all of the virtues of this horse, starting with the most basic skills: loads, ties, stands for the vet and farrier, easy to clip and to bathe, sound, no vices, cooperative in turnout with other horses… but all of that stuff you just gloss over. It’s a formality, a prerequisite. Of course every horse can do those things, right? Wrong.
Now having the privilege of taming and training my very own ‘feral horse’ I am here to tell you that this dream horse you’re looking at online doesn’t “just do” those things. Someone taught that horse all of those skills with painstaking repetition and thoughtful preparation and the patience of someone who has never owned a watch or a calendar.
I’m not saying little Lucy isn’t wonderful and she’s definitely as easy as they come. BUT, it has taken me nearly 11 months just to install these prerequisites of “How to Horse” with the help of a lot of YouTube, countless books, and endless phone calls to people who have bravely and successfully completed the baby thing before me. (A lot of people are in this category, but mostly it’s been Nina Catanzarite, shout out to her!)
Some things were quite straightforward and Lucy more or less learned ‘by the book’ with me following the plans that the experts recommended. My mantra was always ‘one step at a time’ and the only hard thing about that process was learning how to laugh it off when people would inquire, “well have you done this yet, have you done that yet, when are you going to ride her?!” I learned with sweet ol’ Beau that it’s a heck of a lot easier and faster to do something right the first time, than if you have to go back and undo your hasty mistakes. Within weeks, Lucy had learned how to lead, tie, and stand and I was just thrilled.
Our next major goal was trailer loading, which also went more or less according to plan, albeit very slowly and methodically. It did not take long to figure out that Lucy was very sensitive, very timid, but also very smart. Her being a quick study could easily work against me if I accidentally taught her to expect a bad experience, or if she learned that her fear was justified. We started out with the most basic task: put your little hoof onto a tarp. Now onto a piece of plywood. Now walk the whole way across it. Now walk across it with two barrels on either side. Now the barrels get more narrow and touch you, keep walking across it. Now back through. Now stand on it. These little steps were done one tiny bit a time, never more than one step in a day. She was always cautious and always skeptical, but as long as I only asked for a little more, then a little more, she obliged and grew more confident. Eventually we started feeding her dinner on the trailer ramp. Then in the trailer. Then we put the butt bar up and gave her some snacks. We walked on and off, on and off. We did one test lap around the block. We hauled her to a nearby farm with a friend. Then farther away and without a friend. (Shout out to Katey Simons for all of her help with this!) Months later, and she’s a trailer loading pro.
But this blog isn’t about the times that her training went according to plan. It’s about the things it took her six months to get over (clippers) or nine months to get over (fly spray) or my latest major victory: bathing. That was a hard one, and I’m lucky we conquered the other two super intense activities first, or… well, let’s just leave it at that.
Lucy is a dressage horse (or she will be) so it’s a good thing that she’s sensitive to the lightest touch on her body. But it can completely overwhelm her into a panic. My saving grace is that she has learned how to love being groomed and being massaged. After slow, patient sessions, she learned to relax into the rhythm of each touch and stand quietly. I used gentle massage techniques to help relax her during our first sessions with a girth and it was only with the help of a soft brush that I was able to acclimate her to the sound and sensation of fly spray and clippers. But the hose, oh my goodness, the hose!! It took two solid months for me to convince her the hose was not a predator. During those two months, I just quietly groomed and tacked her up in the wash stall and didn’t even look at the hose. We then graduated to grooming and tacking up in the wash stall while I held the hose and didn’t do anything with it while everyone laughed at me. Then I started grooming her while I gently sprayed the hose, but didn’t dare touch her with a drop of water. I will never forget how joyful it felt to finally spray her little foot on the ‘mist’ setting only. It took how many months, but finally I was able to spray my filly’s left front foot with the hose!
After that monumental breakthrough, things progressed much more quickly. Day by day, she allowed me to touch more and more of her body with the water. This (fortunately) coincided with a nasty heat wave so not only did I absolutely need to hose her off, she began to find the water much more tolerable. Within a week, she was able to stand quietly while I simultaneously brushed her to soothe her with the familiar feeling of grooming while also spraying her ever so gently with the hose. (To date, we have only mastered the mist setting, but I have my eyes on the prize, aka, shower setting. And someday, bubbles too).
So why am I telling this incredibly silly story of bathing my three year old? To remind myself how impossibly impossible this was just a few months ago and that there will be more impossibilities in the future with this horse. And to have a little chuckle about those perfect horse for sale ads. Lucy now stands stands quietly in crossties, loads like a champ, is adored by her vet and farrier, and soon, will be a pro at bubble baths. But how is she under saddle? I guess we’ll find out!
Photo courtesy Kate Rebecca Photography