Tally - Thick Skulls

It took a couple of days to get a hold of my client, Tim. Right when I became officially nervous and was in the middle of leaving yet another message telling him just that, he finally picked up.

"Hi Janet," he said. He sounded tired.

"Jeez, Tim, are you OK?"

"Yeah, I cracked a few ribs and have a concussion, but I'm better."

"What happened? Nobody at the barn saw anything, they just tell me your saddle slipped."

"It did."

"Were you on her?"

"Just about, I was swinging my leg over when she jumped and I came off into the fence. The saddle rolled under her belly and she started bucking. Janet, it was terrible, she must have bucked for twenty minutes before the saddle finally came off."

"Wait, I'm confused. Walk me through this."

I wasn't actually confused, I was pissed, but I didn't know where to start  or who exactly I needed to be angry with. It sure wasn't going to be Tally. We were still following some pretty stringent guide lines with her. Tim wasn't supposed to ride alone, or at least without telling somebody he was heading out. I was sure Tally hadn't bucked for twenty minutes, in the messed up time warp of a newly concussed rider, minutes could become hours or seconds. Still, why hadn't anybody seen this? The arena was easily visible from the main barn. Tim was always supposed to mount and dismount in the middle of the arena, where there was plenty of clear landing space in case of an incident. This wasn't a suggestion, it was an iron clad rule. The middle of the arena was where I always began and ended my rides, especially on young, nervous or bolty horses. Tally was all of those things and more, so how had he ended up smashed into a fence?

For the most part, I try hard to not whack somebody when they're down. Tim was hurt and shaken up and didn't need me laying blame. At one point in my life I decided to eliminate any sentence beginning with "You should..." Personally, my back gets up the second I hear that one, and I figured other people felt about the same. Those two words imply so many negative things, the biggest being the person saying them is assuming he or she can know what's best for another person. Life has taught me I don't now what's best for anybody. I can only offer my own experience and how it shaped me, other than that it's best to shut the hella up.

So I did just that and waited for Tim to tell his story.

"I took Tally down to the arena," Tim said, "when I got on the saddle slipped."

"Did you try to step off?"

"I had my foot too far in the stirrup, so I leaned over the saddle to try to shift it back in place. The whole thing started to slide the other way and Tally bolted. When she got to the fence my head was almost hitting the ground, my legs were in the air and I couldn't get kicked loose from my stirrups."

From the quiver in his voice I knew he was till freaked , and I couldn't blame him. The image of the saddle slipping under Tally with Tim clinging to it was making me queasy.

"I guess I was lucky," he said, "Tally spun away from the fence and that made me finally came off. I hit the fence with my head and ended up with a doozy of a concussion."

"Jeez Tim, I am so sorry. You get this wasn't Tally's fault, right?"

"Yeah, I understand. I don't get why my saddle keeps slipping."

"Wait a minute, 'keeps slipping?'"

Now we were getting somewhere. Part of getting Tim ready to have a horse of his own had been for him to saddle as many horses he could find until he had a handle on how tight he needed a cinch, where a saddle should fit, how it should fit and so on. His stable ran lessons on horses of all shapes and sizes and he was a shy, friendly guy in a barn filled with women and kids, so he had lots of opportunity to practice.

Tally was a mutton withered, round backed little horse, with so much muscle she could lift, not only her saddle, but a rider too, a good couple inches off her back when she stepped under herself. A roll back was an awesome experience on her. She was a bitch to keep a saddle on.

It wasn't impossible though, with a 1" neoprene backed pad and a good wool cinch, it was possible to keep a saddle in place on her all day without mishap. A secure breast collar and snug back cinch kept everything in place.I had carefully explained why and how she needed to be saddled, warned Tim up one side and down the other of the dire consequences from not checking and rechecking his saddle and watched him saddle and re-saddle her hundreds of times. Okay, maybe just a hundred, but still...had this really happened more than once?

"Well, I didn't want to tell you, but this is the second time it happened."

"You've rolled the saddle on her twice?"

"Yes."

"Since you've brought her there?"

"Just the day I got hurt and the day before."

"So you rolled the saddle two days in a row?"

"Yes."

Right here is when a riding instructor and or trainer finds herself  at a crossroads. With a new client you really need to keep your mind clear and calm, even though every fiber in your being wants to go off on a crazy tirade. If you let 'er rip, well, the client will either become scared or mad, his brain will shut off and either he'll become too nervous to work things through, or get pissed and start laying blame. Ignorance is forgivable and trainable, and anger on the trainers part will turn it all to stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I am very much to the point with my long term clients and students, just ask Kathy. With Tim however, I really needed to get to the bottom of this, and letting him know how I was feeling wasn't going to get me anywhere.

"Did you tighten your cinch in stages?" I asked.

"Of course I did," Tim answered, with just the right touch of indignation. I was on the scent and the trail was warming up.

"When you mounted, was there any slide in the saddle?"

"Well, yeah, more than I planned on."

"Did you have just the toe of your boot in the stirrup so you could step back off?"

"Well, no, I thought I was just pulling on her too hard and if I got on her correctly it wouldn't shift, so I was making sure my foot was solid in the stirrup so I would have a solid step-off."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where did this information come from?"

I didn't recognize the lingo and those words had never come out of my mouth.

"From that book you gave me to read."

When I had a new, adult rider, I always gave them three books to read, Ray Hunt's, Think Harmony with Horses, Bill Dorrance's, True Horsemanship Through Feel and Sally Swift's Centered Riding. There was more reading later on in the game, but those were the cornerstones of what we were going to build.

It tuned out, my beloved Sally was the culprit. Tim explained he had read he needed to slip two fingers between the horse and the girth for a proper fit. How he came up with the rest of it, I'll never know.

"Did you realize that was pretty different than how I had taught you to saddle Tally?" My voice was calm, but I could feel the heat rising off my face. He couldn't see me, which was probably a good thing.

"Yeah, I did notice that," now he was getting defensive.

"If you had called I would have explained things to you."

"I didn't want to bother you," he replied. "I did ask Bonnie though.She told me to do what the book said."

I couldn't help it, I sighed so loud he heard me. Bonnie  ran the riding program at his barn and was the wife of the barn owner. Sweet and hardworking, she was one of those funny combinations you run into in the horse world, half filled with wisdom and half filled with ignorant crap. I had watched her successfully repair a mama goat's torn udder with staples, but she didn't like the students to ever do more than a trot, because it wasn't "safe."

Her daughters were barrel racers and the stars of the barn. The eldest like to keep her horse jigging by poking him in a continuous rhythm with her spurs and holding him tight between the reins of her mechanical hackamore, because it made the patient, gentle soul seem hot.The youngest kept buying different horses because she was afraid of them all, but it was never her, they were, "mean and stupid." All of them had a great seat and could spot a colic coming on hours before it was visible. They were an interesting group, but not one I would send Tim to for input on Tally.

"So after the first time the saddle rolled, did you think to go back to what I had shown you?"

"I was afraid the tight cinch was hurting her."

Now, I knew Sally hadn't told him this either, but I let it lie, besides I was on the hunt. "Has Tally ever been sore-backed or rubbed raw?"

"No."

"How is she now?"

"Her legs are pretty banged up and she won't let me saddle her. She freaks if she even sees the pad coming. I've been soaking her knee for twenty minutes every day."

"Her knee?"

"It's swollen."

I breathed deep. "Why don't we meet tomorrow and I'll get her saddled, then we can look at her legs."

"Bonnie told me to stay off her at least a month."

"All righty then. How about this. Do me a favor and think our conversation though, from front to back, then give me a call when you are ready to get going again."

I set the phone down as quiet as I could, released my gasping, snorting, inner Buddha and let myself briefly enjoy the image of him talking into the phone -- at least for a couple of minutes-- before he realized I was gone.