Scared or Mad

Badges asked me to discuss the difference between how I knew the difference between an angry horse and a frightened horse and how I handled each.

This is a loaded question in more than one way.

I learned the difference between a frightened horse and an angry horse by having to train both kinds and having to learn to tell the difference in order to stop myself from getting killed.

When I started training I had a tendency to be tender hearted with every horse that came my way. I was a hard core advocate for the horse.

As time went on I found I had to truly understand how a horse worked in order to be their advocate. I had to quit putting my human emotions on the horse and try to put horse emotions on them instead.

I learned more about being kind to horses from the hardest horse trainers I have ever worked with.

I learned more about cruelty to horses from the softest, sweetest, weepiest woman I ever worked for.

In order to explain this I'm going to tell two stories. We can talk about this as the stories go along. One I've already started. It's the one about Tally.

I think you guys are all aware she was afraid.

The other horse was the angriest horse I ever worked with.

The most important thing to remember is both horses started out the same. They were big eyed foals who approached their first experience with a human the same way they all do. With their little ears pricked forward and their eyes wide with the excitement of it all.

It's funny. I don't even remember his name. He was a runty, 3-year-old,red, stud colt.

My boss pretty much took the job for me. She worked in the same office as Stacy, the woman who owned the colt.

"The colt is out of my favorite mare. She died last year, so he's all I have of her," Stacy's voice trembled a little.

"I haven't had the time to work with him and with my little boy I can't focus on him like I should," she continued.

The young woman had a lively 4-year-old boy and was an at-home mom on a busy alfalfa and cattle farm.

I could sympathise.

Stacy had owned and shown some pretty fancy paint reiners before she had gotten married and her horses were well bred and professionally trained.

We made arrangements to meet at her place, "I don't know if I can get him loaded," she told me.

I pulled up to her barn and sat parked in the yard until she came out of the house, her little boy was buzzing around her heels.

"He's in here," Stacy said.

We walked up to a large barn and she pulled back a big barn door.

The barn had been converted to an equipment shed. I felt the movement rather than heard him. He was back in a dark corner behind a couple of wired together heavily dented and bent panels. He was standing in about two feet of manure, it ranged from wet muck to powdery piles that sent rivulets of dust running as he paced from corner to corner.

"Hey son," I said.

The colt flew at me. His ears were flat and his teeth were bared as he snaked through the bars towards my stomach.

I stepped back and he resumed his pacing. His ears stayed flat.

"He's been like this for awhile," Stacy said, "I don't know what happened."

"Is there a reason he's a stud?" I asked.

"He's really well bred and he's all I have of my mare..."

"He's a breeding stock?" I pressed.

"Well, yeah," she told me,"but like I said, he's really well bred."

I opened the door wider and we backed the stock trailer as close to the colt as we could.

My boss and I undid the panels and used one to press him against the barn wall. Once he was smashed against the wall tight enough to keep his head still we worked a halter and my 25 foot rope on him.

He squealed and struck and bit the panel until his mouth bled.

I had the owner take the lead rope and run it through the slats inside the trailer at about the halfway point. She came out, put her son in the truck and then settled onto the end of the rope.

We eased the panel off and ran as the colt jumped free and came charging after us. He came like a freight train until he hit the end of the rope. Stacy squeaked as he sucked back and pulled her into the wall of the trailer. She was tougher than she looked though, she hung on.

My boss went around to help Stacy hold the lead rope and I got my longe whip out to work his legs.

The first time he felt the whip against his fetlocks he whirled and charged straight at me. He squealed when he hit the end of the rope. He surprised the boss and the colt's owner so much they almost lost him.

"Jeez, hold onto him!" I yelled.

"Imagine what he'd have done if you actually whipped him," my boss said.

We got reorganized and started again.

He reared and roared and kicked in the deepest rage I had ever seen in a horse.
This time they hung on and I was able to keep flicking his fetlocks until he jumped into the trailer.
I slid the gate shut and he immediately began kicking the trailer apart.

"Whew," I said and leaned against the door. He came running to the back of the trailer and tried to ram his nose between the slats.

I jumped and turned to look back at him.

He stood spraddle legged with his sides heaving. His flared nostrils were pulled back in a snarl and his eyes glittered hard like marbles.

"How long has he been in the barn?" I asked.

"Well, a while. I haven't been able to handle him since he was a yearling."

I sighed. My boss gave me a troubled, apologetic look.

I peered in at the colt. His mane was half rubbed out, the rest was a mass of mats. Dry, sparse winter hair stood up over his ribs.

He snorted and tossed his head up and down.

"Well hello there Cupcake," I said, "let's go home."