"In the process, she discovered that horses are intensely emotional, intuitive, intelligent beings. They are true reflections of our deepest souls."
Many, many moons ago, a fellow trainer gave me a book to read, The Tao of Equs: A Woman's Journey of Healing and Transformation Through the Way of the Horse. There was one particular chapter she wanted me to read and think about.
"Don't read the first 100 pages, it will poison you against the very valid passage I think you'd like," she warned.
Of course I read it from the beginning. She was right. I almost doubted her sanity. For those of you not familiar with this particular book, the woman goes through a spiritual awakening while walking with her horse for a year or something.
The part that still sticks with me today, is not of course the part she wanted me to read, it comes from that first hundred pages. This woman's journey didn't begin until she sold her first horse and bought another. The first horse would go crazy if tied, to the point of violence. The woman refused to let the trainers she encountered work the horse because they were cruel. Instead, she sold the horse and then began walking her spiritual path with a more appropriate partner.
I always had great success training horses to stand tied. Even the bad ones. It didn't take beating, or chains, or cattle prods. I couldn't help but wonder how the horse's journey of healing and transformation went. You know, the one who was sent down the road with her vice compounded many times over.
Anyway, let's fast forward many years, to just last week. My Reiki Master was doing whatever the heck it is she does to my back. My nerves were jumping, things were popping and realigning, my PD was humming and she was barely touching me. I don't understand how it works, but it does.
"I want to buy a foal," she said.
"Really, a foal?"
"You stopped breathing, remember, it's all in the exhale," she said. "I want a white one. So keep your eye out for me."
I stayed quiet, but my mind started jumping. I knew she had owned a horse before. I had half-listened to tales of a crazy old gelding she had saved from being put down. She had "listened to his heart and tamed him," and he lived with her until he died. If I remembered right, she had never ridden him. Age, lameness, crazy, something, something, something.
It's the kind of story I smile and nod at, but keep as firm a grip on my opinion and eye rolls as possible. There is a type of horse person in the world that approaches horses as a magical, mystical, spiritual experience. I don't really have a problem with it. If this is what floats your boat, fine, it's another horse off the truck to Mexico.
"I might have to wait a while, I have to find a place to keep him."
Good thing, I thought, maybe she'll let go of the idea and get a white kitten or something.
"I'd keep him where my sister keeps her horse, but the barn owner, Lucy is such a bitch," she added.
"She is so mean."
"That really surprises me," I said. "Lucy was a client of mine years back, and our biggest struggle was getting her to step up and be tough when she needed to. She was a good rider though."
Step up was an understatement. Lucy was so afraid of making a mistake, making a horse sore, doing something the horse didn't like, she was almost frozen in place. She had been better when we parted ways, but not cured. Her personal horses were gentle and easy going, and she had progressed enough to be safe, but that was about it.
"She is so mean to my sister," my Reiki master continued, "One day we took her horse out to graze. He gets stubborn sometimes, and he wouldn't pick his head up from the grass. I was behind him waving my arms but he wouldn't move. He was mad because the other horses had been biting him. I think he wanted them to see him eating the grass.
"Lucy came up and said, 'You need to whip that horse and get him moving.' My sister told her, ,I'll never hit my horse, ever!' Then that bitch said, 'If you don't do something, somebody is going to get hurt someday. Can you believe it? She threatened her!"
Her fingertips dug deep into my vertebrae. Her indignation was totally upsetting my spiritual energy.
"I don't think she was threatening anyone," I said. "She was warning your sister that a rude horse can become dangerous."
"He isn't rude, he's just a little difficult. We can walk him all over the trails."
It suddenly clicked. When she said walking, she meant leading. I knew the horse and I knew the sister. The horse was a Tennessee Walker, well-bred and expensive. He came from a training facility that specialized in gentle, broke-to- death trail horses. Within a month he was rearing, refusing to leave the barn, yanking through his bitless bridle and grazing at will. He wasn't above threatening with a tail snap, a raised hind foot and a snaky head.
At first, Lucy had her kids ride him, he was fine for them. Gentle, mannerly, great on the trail, but he had the sister's number. She petted him a lot. Led him around, cried in his mane, and complained about having been ripped off. A lot.
Lucy suggested a few lessons with me, which she rejected, because she had seen me, I was mean to my horses. She knew in his heart, her horse was a good boy, he was trying to tell her something was wrong.
The last I saw of her she was leading him down a trail, going on a "hike."
This woman was still leading her horse, nine years later, and was the horse expert/mentor for my Reiki master.
Lucy is not a bitch. After nine years of this nonsense I think she might be a little on edge. Don't get me wrong. If a horse owner wants to commune spiritually with their horse while they meander side by side through the woods, that's okay, whatever.
What is not okay is refusing to learn from the knowledgeable people around you. It is not okay to allow your horse to become an angry brat because you don't understand how horses think. It endangers you, your horse and the people who have to handle the horse.
There is an arrogance to this kind of thinking that just blows me away. To presume your inner voices, or your balance with the Mother, or the alignment of the planets is enough to bear the responsibility of owning a horse is beyond me.
There is a lack of respect, for the people who have dedicated years to learning about horses and for the horses themselves. To consider your personal interpretation of bad and good, kindness and cruelty, or natural and unnatural behavior the right path to take, without having any knowledge based in fact or experience is stupidity at best, and blind ignorance at it's worst.
I am not keeping an eye out for a white foal. Normally, I just shut this kind of horse person down and walk away. Instead, because I like my Reiki master, and think she might hear me if I approach this right, I am going to take her out for coffee and we'll have a little bit of conversation.
Who knows? Maybe, just maybe I could get her to the point where she could adopt a twenty or thirty year old one of these...
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...and we could keep another one off the truck.
