Sad Ruin
Last week before school started back up I went and visited Judy, my old employer. I spent three and a half years working for her in exercising, grooming, and training her horses. She is a great, wonderful lady and is like a third grandmother, but she does have some peculiar ideas about horses and drove me a bit nuts from time to time (some of you might remember this). Anyway, I started this little Arab mare, Nicki, under saddle when I first started working with her and spent three years with the mare. It was never quite a perfect connection like I have with Kash, but she was asbolustely awesome. I was intensely proud of how she went. She'd pick up walk-trot-canter immediately when asked without complain and she stopped on a dime with simply "whoa" and was generally just pleasant to be around. Before I left she was able to do the half-pass in the trot and was starting to do it pretty well in the canter. She had what I called a "mare day" every month or so, not wanting to do what was asked, but the sight of a riding crop brought her back into compliance. Her only real fault was that she was a bit of a ninny.
So I dropped by to visit Judy and see how she and the horses were doing. She's started actually riding, which is amazing as I had only seen her ride about a half dozen times while I worked there. She's also going out on trail with them, which is good. I rode Thunder a little, as always he didn't really want to move out. I finally got a canter out of him, the same, slow-as-a-slug lope that western pleasure trainers drool over and I am thoroughly exhasperated by.
I asked Judy if she'd mind if I rode Nick and she said sure. I threw a halter on her and climbed on bareback. This was the mare that I could ride bareback with just a halter without worry, not even needing to loop the line around for a make-shift rein, just working off of the leg and the feel of the rein opening and closing on one side of her neck. When I climbed on her ears pinned a little and she even thought about biting my toe. I furrowed my brow and was a bit concerned.
For a while Nicki did have a habit of wanting to reach around and bite the rider's foot, but she had an experience where the stirrup slipped onto her jaw, she went down, got up, I managed to get off and we dismantled the fender in order to get the stirrup off, but she never even thought about it again, which is why it was such a surprise to see her turn her head aggressively towards my toe.
I asked her to walk forward and her ears pinned and her body went rigid, but she moved forward. I walked her around the round pen (it's massive, almost 70' across) and asked her to trot, same thing, ears pinned, rigid, agry. I asked for the canter and her ears went so flat I couldn't see them anymore. She was still somewhat responsive, but not the fluid responsiveness that I remembered. I asked her to stop and she was still responsive to just "woah," but I didn't feel safe just with the halter. I asked for her bridle and I received one that had a solid mouthpiece and shanks on it. I have to admit my first response was "she doesn't need this!" and I was slightly horrified, though all I asked was why she had it. The girl, Kelly, who's been working there since I left in '06 said Nick had started running through the bit and not listening. She stated that it began with a girl they were teaching riding to and she hung on Nick's face all the time, making the mare resentful. Kelly said the girl only rode her a couple times and it'd been six months since it all started.
Needless to say it made me horribly despressed to find Nicki, the wonderful, responsive, Nicki, so angry. Had I been alone I would have let myself cry. I kept reassuring the mare in a soothing voice and keeping my seat as quiet as possible, just letting her move and be a horse and only putting the lightest touch on her mouth. By the end of the ride she was a bit less angry, but seeing her initially was just startling. What a contrast from the horse I knew before. It saddened me to see her so angry and so ruined. I wanted to load her up and drag her home and work her through it, get rid of that horrible anger that ate into her body and left her rigid and pained.
Feeling her in the canter with her back stiff and hunched as if she were ready to buck was heart-rending. Not a nice, rounded back of a willing horse, but broncy, angry, and resisting, grudgingly giving in because she knew it was what she was supposed to do.
It's sad. Sad, sad, sad to have such a wonderful little mare who had so much potential. She could have been a great lesson horse, truly, or exceptional in an arena, possibly even Dressage as well, or just a fantastic horse all-around (I do admit she was a bit of a ninny, but it was really her only fault). It angers and saddens me and just leaves me horribly depressed. You can have the best intentions in the world, but still ruin a horse. Poor, poor, Nicki.
And a bit of a tangent, back to the bit. I think that the girl with who hung on her probably started it, certainly, but you'd think that six months later one might have been able to work through it. If your horse is running through the bit, it's due to a lack of communication. Something has broken down somewhere. You don't just grab a shank and shove it in their mouth. Truly, that is just poor horsemanship. Egads, this is the mare that I rode in a regular nylon halter with reins snapped on for nearly a year because she had a sarcoid on her face that the bridle rubbed on. I even jumped her in it. So I gnash my teeth and rave because I KNOW this horse and I know that bit has no place in her mouth. There's really nothing I can do. She's not my horse and I'm no longer the one training or exercising her. But it's sad. Infuriating and sad.
I had three years in that horse. Three good years where she went wonderfully, beautifully and it's ruined. Spoiled. I was so proud of her, wonderfully proud. Considering she was the first horse I ever started under saddle she was fantastic, and part of it was her concentration and personality. I hate seeing her so angry. It tears me up.
cross-posted on backyardhorse.
So I dropped by to visit Judy and see how she and the horses were doing. She's started actually riding, which is amazing as I had only seen her ride about a half dozen times while I worked there. She's also going out on trail with them, which is good. I rode Thunder a little, as always he didn't really want to move out. I finally got a canter out of him, the same, slow-as-a-slug lope that western pleasure trainers drool over and I am thoroughly exhasperated by.
I asked Judy if she'd mind if I rode Nick and she said sure. I threw a halter on her and climbed on bareback. This was the mare that I could ride bareback with just a halter without worry, not even needing to loop the line around for a make-shift rein, just working off of the leg and the feel of the rein opening and closing on one side of her neck. When I climbed on her ears pinned a little and she even thought about biting my toe. I furrowed my brow and was a bit concerned.
For a while Nicki did have a habit of wanting to reach around and bite the rider's foot, but she had an experience where the stirrup slipped onto her jaw, she went down, got up, I managed to get off and we dismantled the fender in order to get the stirrup off, but she never even thought about it again, which is why it was such a surprise to see her turn her head aggressively towards my toe.
I asked her to walk forward and her ears pinned and her body went rigid, but she moved forward. I walked her around the round pen (it's massive, almost 70' across) and asked her to trot, same thing, ears pinned, rigid, agry. I asked for the canter and her ears went so flat I couldn't see them anymore. She was still somewhat responsive, but not the fluid responsiveness that I remembered. I asked her to stop and she was still responsive to just "woah," but I didn't feel safe just with the halter. I asked for her bridle and I received one that had a solid mouthpiece and shanks on it. I have to admit my first response was "she doesn't need this!" and I was slightly horrified, though all I asked was why she had it. The girl, Kelly, who's been working there since I left in '06 said Nick had started running through the bit and not listening. She stated that it began with a girl they were teaching riding to and she hung on Nick's face all the time, making the mare resentful. Kelly said the girl only rode her a couple times and it'd been six months since it all started.
Needless to say it made me horribly despressed to find Nicki, the wonderful, responsive, Nicki, so angry. Had I been alone I would have let myself cry. I kept reassuring the mare in a soothing voice and keeping my seat as quiet as possible, just letting her move and be a horse and only putting the lightest touch on her mouth. By the end of the ride she was a bit less angry, but seeing her initially was just startling. What a contrast from the horse I knew before. It saddened me to see her so angry and so ruined. I wanted to load her up and drag her home and work her through it, get rid of that horrible anger that ate into her body and left her rigid and pained.
Feeling her in the canter with her back stiff and hunched as if she were ready to buck was heart-rending. Not a nice, rounded back of a willing horse, but broncy, angry, and resisting, grudgingly giving in because she knew it was what she was supposed to do.
It's sad. Sad, sad, sad to have such a wonderful little mare who had so much potential. She could have been a great lesson horse, truly, or exceptional in an arena, possibly even Dressage as well, or just a fantastic horse all-around (I do admit she was a bit of a ninny, but it was really her only fault). It angers and saddens me and just leaves me horribly depressed. You can have the best intentions in the world, but still ruin a horse. Poor, poor, Nicki.
And a bit of a tangent, back to the bit. I think that the girl with who hung on her probably started it, certainly, but you'd think that six months later one might have been able to work through it. If your horse is running through the bit, it's due to a lack of communication. Something has broken down somewhere. You don't just grab a shank and shove it in their mouth. Truly, that is just poor horsemanship. Egads, this is the mare that I rode in a regular nylon halter with reins snapped on for nearly a year because she had a sarcoid on her face that the bridle rubbed on. I even jumped her in it. So I gnash my teeth and rave because I KNOW this horse and I know that bit has no place in her mouth. There's really nothing I can do. She's not my horse and I'm no longer the one training or exercising her. But it's sad. Infuriating and sad.
I had three years in that horse. Three good years where she went wonderfully, beautifully and it's ruined. Spoiled. I was so proud of her, wonderfully proud. Considering she was the first horse I ever started under saddle she was fantastic, and part of it was her concentration and personality. I hate seeing her so angry. It tears me up.
cross-posted on backyardhorse.