Five Things I’ve Learned
(I’m writing this specifically for the Blog Carnival, and Bridlepath is saying this is a “five things” meme. I don’t know if that means the “Five Things You Don’t Know About Me” meme that was going around for a while or if I can pick any five things I want. I hesitate to ask, because what if I don’t like the answer? And I did the first option already on this blog. I think I’ll go with the latter interpretation.)
So—Five Things I Learned (many in retrospect):
- Sometimes, in lessons, I begrudged the fact that Super Saint and I would jump a line two or three times and be done, while the other girls would continue jumping and working. At the time, I thought I was being “punished” (in some non-logical way) for buying an older horse. Later, I realized my trainer was keeping my inexperience from punishing Super Saint by drilling and drilling over exercises he could do with his eyes closed. And by preventing us from over-working in any individual lesson, she helped me keep Super Saint going strong for years—in the long run, I learned more from him than I would have if we had drilled every exercise to perfection.
- I sometimes envied the girls on their green bean horses, because they seemed to have it all—they were riding, they were training, they had years and years and years to go with their horse. Much later, I heard a rider lament that she wished, just once, she could ride a made horse into the ring—and I realized that for all I envied my barn mates’ young, strong, go-go-go horses, there were probably times they envied the experience Super Saint brought to our relationship. And just like I didn’t necessarily realize the tradeoffs they made, they probably didn’t realize the tradeoffs I was making. I started to appreciate the greenies and school masters for what they were—instead of agonizing over what they weren’t.
- Less is more. When we first learn a movement, we might exaggerate the aids in order to make it very, very clear what they are. The movements might be awkward, and I know my body certainly wasn’t always convinced it could move in the way I was being told to move it. But as my understanding of different movements improve, I realize how much easier they are when I don’t exaggerate the aids. As I learn to ask questions of the horse more subtly, he responds with more nuance. We talk, instead of shouting.
- I don’t have to be doing X by Y date. I don’t need my lessons to end on a big bang—it’s enough that they end with a feeling that this is how it could be, because next lesson, we will work more on how to get it to that “could be” point. And even when we aren’t working on something “new,” to have old concepts gel in new ways is itself an accomplishment.
- I am responsible for my own knowledge and progress. Even the best trainer can only do so much to teach a student—if I do not find a way to make sure I truly understand the concepts we’re going over in lessons, at some point it’s all going to fall apart. I can bring the lesson back to this blog to work out what I think I’ve understood, so later I can check/refine/correct my understanding, or I can mumble in the car like a mad woman while I sort out everything that was said and done, but somehow I have to process the lesson and find a way to make all my trainer’s suggestions and corrections mine. I can do mental homework between lessons, so our lesson time can be spent more on putting together the physical aspects of the movements. Ultimately, I learn faster and better than when I show up, ride, and forget about it for the next seven days.
Barbaro
I hate racing. Love TBs, but hate racing. It makes me cringe and leaves me feeling ill, and I just can’t watch it. I admire the legends who succeed at it in a general sort of way, the way I admire any athlete who is at the top of their game. But I’m not emotionally invested in them. So I may be the only horse person who will say this, but Barbaro the Racing Legend doesn’t captivate me. You won’t find me bidding $300 for a Breyer model of him anytime soon.
However. However.
I have followed the story of his recovery—not because he was a great race horse, but because… because of Super Saint, really.
The year before I bought Super Saint, he had a horrible accident at a show. I wasn’t there, but I heard it was heart-rending to see him immediately after. I had sort-of imagined the scene, but seeing the pictures of Barbaro was, in a way, like “seeing” Super Saint’s injury. Not that their injuries were the same, by any means—but that the situation was similar. I think many people in the area expected Super Saint would be euthanized.
Super Saint’s owners made the decision Barbaro’s owners did: give the horse a chance, every chance they could. We were in the same barn, and I spent the next year watching Super Saint and his recovery. We were all affected by it, even if we weren’t directly involved in his care or (obviously) any of the decisions.
I appreciated Super Saint while I owned him, but watching Barbaro this past year has brought home to me how close I came to not having that chance.
And as a result of all this, what drew me to Barbaro had nothing to do with his status as a legendary racehorse, although I acknowledge his story would never have been what it was without that status (how’s that for a conundrum?)—the powerful part of the story, for me, was that relationship between vet, owner, and horse. I think most horse owners have been through this at some point, to some degree—if not personally, at least on the edges of someone else’s experience. At the very least, most of us have at least given it serious thought:
What would you do to save your horse? What should you do? And when is it too much, so that the best choice you can make is to give the horse a peaceful ending?
Behind all the fame, and hype, and publicity, and money, Barbaro’s story was one we all worry we’ll face. In some cases, already have faced.
I followed his recovery not because I thought he was a great race horse who “deserved” to survive more than any other horse, but because here were owners trying their hardest to save their horse. That’s a story I’m emotionally invested in.
I am happy there are others who will celebrate Barbaro for his accomplishments as a race horse—I think he deserves that. And I know I’m not the only one thinking of his owners. But I can’t help but see Barbaro’s recovery without thinking of Super Saint—of how lucky I was his owners gave him a chance, and how doubly lucky that he recovered, and, eventually, the decision I had to make for him.
It’s a bittersweet mix of emotions that has very little to do with a race track and quite a bit to do with the simple joy and risk of owning a horse. Any horse.
Bonding
When I first bought the Super Saint, I was fifteen and thrilled to have my own horse. I’d stand outside his stall with a goofy grin on my face and wonder when this bonding thing was going to happen. He, meanwhile, was thrilled to have fresh hay and water and stood inside the stall, probably wondering when I was going to go away and let him eat in peace.
Sometimes you get that instantaneous bond–the one complete with two souls running towards each other in a field of flowers, an extravagant sound track, and a pyrotechnics display to shame all of Broadway. The Project Pony and I were like that.
But Super Saint and I? Not a penny whistle tweeting on a street corner. Not a single sparkler.
It took us months to “get” each other; I couldn’t even tell you when we did bond. But somewhere, in all the miles of hand walking and riding and general hang-out time, we started to figure each other out. We defined a partnership, and he was one of those horses who insisted his rider work as hard as he did. I learned, in turn, that if he was not working as hard as me, there was nothing unfair about asking him to pull his own weight.
Our next show season was much better–not that relationships are measured by ribbons, but that our increased partnership was obvious in our rounds. We also went from doing pretty well in dressage to doing very well.
Our relationship didn’t really hit home for me, however, until the day he dumped me in the dirt.
It was the last show of the year, and several year-end championships were on the line. The judge–who knew this horse well from previous years/owners–thought Super Saint was the bee’s knees. I, already nervous about the championships, was in a near-panic that the judge would think I wasn’t good enough for this horse. The entire weekend was a disaster–I blew every class.
On the last day, we were warming up for a small medal class and I misjudged the distance. Super Saint trusted me anyway, and we both crashed down after the fence. Once we were both checked out and it was clear we were both unhurt, we were cleaned up, jumped one fence, and headed into the ring.
I don’t, to be honest, remember the round. Or the flat portion of the class. When it came time to do the test, we were in second-to-last place. I was still shaken up about our fall, and as I rode towards the first fence of the test, I froze.
Super Saint was indeed a saint, but not that much of one–if I was going to check out and not ride, he wasn’t going to jump. Especially after the fall, I think. He stopped. I didn’t.
I wasn’t hurt, and when I stood up on the other side of the fence, it was to see him standing there looking at me. His bridle was half pulled off, his saddle was askew, and he huffed at me as if to say, “Well? What did you expect?”
I wanted to disappear. The judge was probably banging his head against the desk in frustration that this horse should be owned by me. My trainer was going to kill me for not riding to that fence. And my horse…
And my horse just stood there waiting for me, ears pricked forward.
As we looked at each other, I realized that if I got on him and asked him to jump again, he’d do it: IF I started doing my share of the work load. He’d made his point, and he was waiting to see if I’d gotten it.
I fixed his saddle and bridle, checked to make sure his legs weren’t cut, and remounted to return to line. I’d rather have been swallowed by a hole, of course, but there wasn’t a convenient one to fall into. The judge commended me for being so concerned about the Saint (instead of myself, I suppose), and the rest of the class finished. To my utter surprise, my trainer didn’t yell at me–instead, she said how proud she was of me–not for falling off, but for being so quick and quiet about returning to the lineup so the class could continue. We both knew I’d have much rather run crying from the ring.
I learned a lot of lessons that day, obviously, but right now the one I remember most is what I learned in those few seconds while my horse and I stared at each other across the fence.
He was waiting for me. He hadn’t gone high-tailing around the ring, and he didn’t even wander off to the in gate, where my trainer and his old owner were watching the class.
I can joke about him being the Anti-One-Person Horse, but the fact is I had just let him down, badly, twice, and he was standing there waiting for me. Waiting for me to get a clue, but still–waiting. For me.
Who needs fireworks after a look like that?
The Anti-One Person Horse
Some people have horses that go better for them than any other rider. Their horses nicker when they walk into the barn. If they leave on vacation, when they come home their horses bounce around in a tizzy-fit because they are so excited to have their owner back.
I went on vacation. When I returned, the Super Saint yawned at me.
I don’t mean to imply the Super Saint and I didn’t have any sort of bond or special connection. In fact, we had a deep and meaningful relationship built on intense conversations. They went something like this:
Me: Let’s do a shoulder-in.
Super Saint: You want me to counter-canter?
Me: No, let’s shoulder-in.
Super Saint: Oh, leg yield!
Me: Ah, no. Try again?
Super Saint: Are you sure you wouldn’t rather play rodeo queen?
Me: Actually, you know, I’d sort of like to do a shoulder-in, if that’s all right with you.
Super Saint: Oh. Right. Shoulder-in. That’s that thing where I spin around on my haunches as fast as I can, right?
And so on. Eventually we would do a shoulder-in, but not until he had exhausted all means of misunderstanding my aids. It was in part his natural tendency to play schoolmaster: he’d do anything you’d ask him to, if you asked him exactly right. But it was a game with him, too. My instructor swears he winked at her once or twice before offering up his “alternative” interpretations of the requested movement.
I didn’t believe her until the day I watched a novice rider take him around a course at a schooling show.
If he were a one-person horse, we could all assume that when I schooled him he would be perfect, and, while he might take the novice rider around the course, he wouldn’t sparkle for her the way he did for me.
The reality, however, is that I schooled the Super Saint to discuss lead changes. You have to understand: he didn’t particularly like to do lead changes. Well, that’s not true. Put him in a dressage ring and he liked to do a lead change before every canter-trot transition, just to prove he could. But he didn’t particularly like to do lead changes outside the dressage ring.
So we talked for a bit, and then the novice rider jumped on to warm up, and it was pretty clear that she wasn’t going to get any lead changes in the ring. But it was a novice show, and the idea was for her to have a fun day showing. Into the ring they went.
Down the first line, with Super Saint loping along at his own speed and finding the distances for the rider. Around the corner, with Super Saint slowing to a crawl because the rider completely dropped her leg–but because he was the Super Saint, he didn’t break from the canter. He just, you know, conserved his energy. I’ve seen Western Pleasure mounts trot faster than he was cantering, come to think of it.
And up the diagonal, while I watched on the rail and prayed he’d magically pick up the correct lead over the fence. Or at least keep a balanced counter-canter through the corner so the novice rider could have a confident ride.
Of course he landed on the wrong lead. Of course he did.
Then he looked at me on the rail. And he winked at me.
And did a flying lead change.
Awwww. Wasn’t that sweet? Taking care of his novice rider like that. Perfect show horse. Auto changes. Gotta love him.
Want to know how many lead changes he didn’t offer me during the Open Show that started the next day?
He was the Super Saint, and I loved him, but geeze. What in the world do you call a horse who behaves perfectly for everyone but you?