Mort Stories

"You want me to what?"
"Ride Mort in this ring snaffle," Mike Craig stood holding the bit and bridle in his hand.
My new instructor was young, friendly and confident. I was also sure he was planning to sacrifice me to the "Good Horsemen" gods as his first step in turning my horse and me into something usable.
"I can't control him as it is." I protested.
"That's right, so what's the difference?"
"You mean the difference between getting killed and living through the next ride? I'd say a big one."
I had grown into quite a smart-ass in my teen age years, as the nuns at Benet Hill could attest. I figured I was blowing any chance of this guy wanting to help me, but he was spelling out my doom, so what the hell.
"He runs off in everything you ride him in, so why not put him in something that won't make him bleed?"
He had me there. I loved my horse. More than anything in the world. It broke my heart every time I tore open the tender scar tissue under his chin, or added to the ever-growing lump that traveled across his nose.
"You have pretty much gotten your stop figured out," Mike went on, "you don't pull on him then do you?"
"No, I don't."
"The reason he has such a good stop on him is because he understands it. He's really willing once he knows what you want, don't you think?"
There was the crux of the matter.
Mike had showed me how to stop my horse with a mere touch on his neck. He taught me a simple three step process.
Step one: Focus on the strides my horse takes as he lopes. Get into the rhythm of the lope, paying attention to when my seat is rising out of the saddle, and when my seat is sliding down into the well of the saddle. He would have me call out "Now, now, now" with every rising stride.
Step two: On a rising stride say "Whoa" (instead of now) then push with my rein hand on the base of my horse's neck at the next stride.
Step three: Pull that bad boy into the stop.
What was important was that each cue was only given once. The Whoa came as I was in the air, which told him the stop was coming, the hand cue came as I slid down into the saddle, which is also when Mort would have both hind legs forward and underneath him, making it easy for him to stop, and the pull made it all happen.
Within one lesson he was parking it into a solid hard stop off just the "Whoa" and the hand. That was all the cue he needed and I didn't have to pull back. As my our timing improved so did our stops. Mort could slide. It was incredible.
Now Mike wanted this next terrifying step. Just a snaffle on my scarred, anxious, chronic run away horse.
He stood patiently and waited as I chewed on it. This young man had opened a door I didn't believe possible for me and my horse. Plus Mike was hot, which to a 15 year old girl is a deal breaker. I guessed it was time to step through it.
"OK, ring snaffle it is."
Mike gave me the bit to use until I could buy my own. He also let me try out a running martingale.
We spent the rest of that lesson focusing on left rein, right rein, push that hip, push this shoulder, anything that might unlock my bolty, rigid horse.
I left that day with my snaffle, my new resolve and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Remember, less is more."
Mike's parting words rung in my ears.
I supported my horse with my baby-sitting money. I was lucky if I could pay for a lesson a month. Now that I had to save for yet another bit and a martingale I didn't know when my next lesson with Mike would be.
But I took his "less is more" theory to heart.
I started riding Mort bareback. With just the snaffle. I was going to figure out that damn left right thing if it killed me. I'm lucky it didn't.
Mort loved the snaffle. He quickly realized he didn't have to pay attention to me in any way. I was no more than an irritating gnat. A little buzz in his ear. We were off to the races. Buzz buzz.
I stayed at my barn for days. I soon found that without a saddle I had no leverage. I couldn't force him to do anything. I could, however, coax him into a gentle, sweeping turn. He would guide in an acre size circle. I could point him somewhere, release and he would head in the new direction straight and true.
I found that with a series of gentle tugs and releases he would kind of, sort of, steer in smaller increments. If I got the least aggressive he would grab that bit, snarl at me with his nastiest growliest grunt and we'd be flying totally out of control. But now I could stop him. Every time I got scared I could touch his neck and Mort would lay some track. He would stand and air up. I would rethink the latest mistake I had made and we would try again.
I learned that a tired Mort was a thinking Mort. So I reached into my eternal training manual, Walter Farley's Black Stallion series, and decided to "breeze" him in the mornings before school. (C'mon, you guys all know you used old Walt's training tips) I would trot him over to a big wide drainage ditch that ran a quarter mile between Maizeland and Constitution Blvd. It was about 10 feet deep and 100 yards wide, level and filled with sand. Meant to be used for flood control, it was a perfect place to run my horse.
And run we did. We would pick our way down the steep trail into the ditch and Mort would snort and blow, playful instead of anxious. When he hit the sand he would fly. I grabbed a handful of mane and relaxed into him as the morning wind blasted my cheeks raw. I felt his muscles thrum as he blew through the sand and as I leaned into him he would go faster and faster. We were mustangs. We were tornadoes. We were free.
We would go full out until we came to the cement bridge at Constitution. I would carefully steer him around and we would head back towards home. Mort would only tolerate a touch through the turns for the first mile. By the second he would be slowing. For the rest of our run I would play with steering him. We would float to the left, then the right. I would play with a tug and release, or a steady pull. What worked better? How did it feel? What created tension, or instant responses, good or bad? I was really thinking about my hands. What worked and what didn't.
As I walked him home I would continue to play. Go left a few steps, go right. Turn a circle and go forward, turn again and release. It was fascinating. My horse was becoming soft in the bridle. A term I didn't even know.
In the afternoon we would hit the trail, still bareback. Mort would extend trot through the trails in Palmer Park all day. If we loped, or I tried to get him to walk he would take off. I still couldn't get him to rate even a little.
I started my own version of the one, two, three cues. I would check him once with my reins. If he ignored me or sped up, which he always did, I would bump him pretty good to the left and right with my hands. When he ignored that I would grab my left or right rein and hoist him into the nearest emergency road block I could find.
I would run him up a mountainside until he couldn't go any farther. Or ram him into the thickest scrub oak patch I could find. There was a field in Palmer Park we called Yucca Flats. Guess why? I would whack him through that field over and over, jumping and dodging yucca every step of the way until he SLOWED THE HELL DOWN.
I'll be damned if it didn't start to work.
I'd pick up my reins and ask him to slow, he'd tense up and start looking to see where I was going to park him and if it looked rough enough, Mort would actually slow down by the time I bumped his mouth.
I was no longer along for the ride, I was training.