Young horse school and the fat lady in the hula skirt
Working with baby equines is odd. And so very serious. And ridiculously funny.
Late spring at the stable. The blackberries, which you pluck right from the saddle as you ride along the grass path, are thinking about ripening. Maggie, in the all-girls paddock that I think of as Mares Inc. HQ, is sticking her face in her 100-gallon water trough and splashing anyone within 15 feet.
And the owner of the whole operation is running up and down the aisles distributing lunch hay while dressed in an inflatable zip-up chubby hula dancer costume.
As one does.
The test run, on the older horses.
It was dress rehearsal for what she called the “desensitization luau” for some of her young horse school pupils. How’s your work day treating you? I guarantee not like this: One moment you’re an internationally respected horse trainer in peak athletic condition and the next you’re a tourist in Hawaii who’s gone overboard — repeatedly — on the resort’s all-you-can-eat pu pu platter. And then you’re topping the ensemble with pineapple sunglasses, so the whole — message? I suppose Isaac Mizrahi would call it?— is chubby-era Elton John.
Four thoroughbred fillies in two hands. Would I try this? Yeah, in full body armor.
A desensitization luau isn’t what I had in mind when I went looking to return to horses, after a 20-year-plus absence, in the wake of a vicious assault by a stranger. I was drawn to this place for its specialty, sport horses, which are bred and trained to excel in dressage, cross country and show jumping, or all three. Sport horses typically are warmbloods, whose lines include “hot” breeds, like the thoroughbreds, Arabian and Turkish Akhal-Teke, and “cold” breeds, like the Percheron and Shire, and Irish and Belgian drafts. Warmbloods have an endearing ability to grow big, a major plus for tall riders, myself included.
My coach, though, has another, far cooler specialty, one done professionally by a scarce few people in the U.S.: training young horses. In my experience, decades ago, that meant re-casting 4- and 5-year-old off-the-track flunko thoroughbreds as hunters (think chasing foxes through the countryside) or jumpers (hurtling over obstacles in an arena). I had put a lot of mileage on thoroughbreds way back when. That’s not to say I was a great rider. Through the gift/curse of long legs, I could (mostly) stay on and keep them moving forward for the inevitable spooks. Another gift/curse, hypermobile joints, protected me from injury whenever I hit the ground. Or got dumped into a fence that we were supposed to be jumping.
“I love working with young horses,” I told my coach after my first lesson with her.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” she said.
Pffft.
In reality, I had landed in a world that I didn’t know at all. By young horses, she meant horses that had very little handling, as in: not bridled or saddled, let alone ridden; barely trailered; not sure what was scary and what wasn’t scary. The little ones who come to her are like putty, and she and her team make sure they’re molded slowly and correctly and ever so lovingly. My coach’s program is their first stop on the way to safe, happy, long, successful partnerships.
I manage to fall in love with every one of them. Johnny is dark bay with splotches of white on his side and belly, as though he stepped on a full can of ceiling paint. Maybe — love that name, Maybe — a sweet girl with a floating trot, is HUGE and still growing. Porter, who was the best-behaved and most easygoing in his class at the Devon horse show earlier this month, takes a nap every morning, often with eyes open, snoring away. When they graduate from young horse school, they’ll return to their owners and their stalls will welcome the next class.
Sound on! His barn name is Porter, so naturally he’s called Porter Potty. It’s a deeply relaxed and sure-of-himself horse that can lie in his stall and snore while the stable is buzzing with activity.
In all my years around horses, I had never thought about who had taught them, or where or why or how. You’ve heard of “breaking” horses, shorthand for breaking their spirits to get them to cooperate. Now, it’s “starting.” Kind, educated, responsible starters like my coach have no interest in destroying an animal’s soul.
So all this was new to me, and in the past 18 months I’ve learned that it takes quite a bit of skill and patience and grit and intelligence — especially intelligence — to start a horse. Then, if the program isn’t going as planned, it takes that much more experience to determine why a horse isn’t hitting its program milestones. Maybe its brain has a bit more maturing to do, and the horse gets sent to a field, with every good wish, until it’s time to try again. Or maybe it needs a different stall, closer to a companion or away from the frightening water hose — and believe me, in time with my coach it will think that water hose is its best friend. Or maybe it has a health issue, like a congenital nerve defect or vertebrae set too close together (“kissing spine”), that must be addressed first — if it can be addressed at all.
I have enormous respect and admiration for the women at my stable who do this work.
Myself? I make exactly one contribution to this effort: staying the hell out of their way. Like so:
A hot day? In the indoor arena? Yes! Available if extra hands are needed but otherwise happy to stay quiet, observe and learn.
One misstep — a wave to a friend across the arena, the indoor arena’s door being opened without warning, a canvas tote (cough mine cough) plopped carelessly atop the mounting block — can catch a green horse by surprise and undo so much hard work.
Just about anyone can glance around a room and see stuff to keep from a human toddler’s reach. Try that mindset with horses. On a multi-acre property. With the hay supplier arriving and the farrier’s truck backing up and a rider cantering in the next arena. And, lately, four women, one zipped into a costume, the rest dressed like “Gilligan’s Island” extras, if “Gilligan’s Island” had extras, asking 2-year-old horses to: wear leis; cross a small wooden bridge; pass beneath a length of grasslike fringe strung high between repurposed jump standards; disregard an opened umbrella set among two beach blankets; and endure a round of horsey-in-the-middle with an inflatable beach ball. Start to finish, 10 to 15 minutes, so as not to tire them mentally.
People, it’s a lot.
Look past the props and notice the horse standing on its own, with a rope dangling. It’s called ground tying, and it’s among the dozens of training techniques that I had never seen before coming to this stable.
Often I get weepy with joy watching the team teach. With groundwork, a horse is outfitted with a knotted rope halter, taught to respond to pressure and its release. On another day, grocery store plastic bags are tied to a long stick and waved. I could describe dozens of other exercises. Eventually, the horse proceeds to a bridle and saddle, and then the weight of a rider and so on.
I hold my breath when I have the privilege of observing those first moments under saddle. Like a baby’s first steps. Full of possibility and promise. Will you shine in competition, in the classes we call ammy owner and the big eq and the Maclay and all the rest? Will you breeze into the dressage arena, halting at center for the salute to the judge before you sweep to the markers G, then C, then H and beyond, responding to your owner’s invisible cues in an homage to ancient warriors and their mounts? Will you speed against the clock as a jumper, your mind wary of the obstacles in front of you, but your heart and soul one with your rider’s, so forward you go?
When I see horses started properly, I remember some of the weirdos of my youth. One kicked me in the head. One would trot or canter happily only to stop abruptly, and stay that way, for reasons that no one could figure out. The Arabian colt and filly that were someone’s project, only to be left weaving and cribbing in their stalls — bad habits that probably stayed with them for the rest of their lives. I had thought of those animals as hopelessly bonkers. Now: You poor, misunderstood things. Who bred you and neglected the rest of the job? Who failed you? Who wronged you?
If only they had met the fat lady in the hula skirt and pineapple sunglasses. And her crew of horse girls.