The Not-So Perfect Horse

For a while now, I’ve been singing the praises of my perfect horse. I’m sure my friends and family (and perhaps my dear readers) were getting a little weary of my adolescent-like adoration for Jude, but I couldn’t help myself. He made me proud at every turn: our classical dressage training sessions have produced wonder-filled moments as we refined his gaits and learned new moves; his casual rides were quiet and relaxing; and his ability to become a docile school horse every time I plopped a neophyte on his back caused one friend to utter “Jan, you have an awesome horse.” I remember so plainly looking at this friend and answering “Yeah, he’s just about perfect!”

Well yesterday Jude reminded me that “just about” were the operative words.

This reminder happened at a local equestrian park, which is a 40-minute trailer ride from home. It was a perfect day to head out to Franklin Grove. The weather was beautiful . . . mid 70s, light breeze, low humidity. I knew heading out that Jude had not been all that great on trails, but I had high hopes that this was our year, after all, mentally, he had matured so much since our last trail ride.

We are lucky to have a lot of places to go trail riding here in Northern Illinois, and even luckier to have a jewel like Franklin Grove. There is a nice water crossing at Franklin Creek . . . the water is never too deep, the approaches aren’t too muddy, and the bottom is sandy with pebbles. In addition, the trails are varied. There are wide prairie paths with native grasses all around; there are sandy, not too narrow woodland paths; there are steep, narrow wooded trails that make me think of how it must have been during the settler era; and on all the paths, regardless of type, there are plenty of hills, both steep and gentle. Despite the various terrain available for our ride, I reminded my daughter that I wanted to stick to the wider, gently rolling paths so I could get a feel for how Jude was going to handle the trails this year . . . he did have a trail riding history of prancing, head tossing, and trying to canter down hills.

Shortly after we arrived at the parking area, we picked up with a couple of young riders who wanted to go out with us. Being the cautious type that I have become, I wondered if this was a good idea . . . after all, I’ve turned into an old lady who has a set idea on the type of ride she wants, and these kids were, well they were kids and if they were anything like me as a kid, their idea of a casual ride would be very different from mine. When I saw that the young lady wore little flat tennis shoes adorned with spurs, I should have politely demurred and followed my original plan. But I didn’t.

The spur wearing, tennis shoe clad young lady immediately took the lead and off we went on one of the narrowest, winding paths in the park. I knew where we were heading, yet I didn’t protest. Jude started rather poorly, jumping over the erosion control timbers as we climbed a rather steep hill. He didn’t like it, but waded through the mud (and on this deep woods path, there were plenty of muddy spots). He tried hard to navigate the narrow turns between trees while I was aware that I needed to duck under hanging branches regularly…we were a tall profile amongst the 14-hand horses in our group. Over all, though, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t my choice of paths but Jude did okay. When he did get a little prancy and the path was wide enough, we practiced shoulder-in to keep him thinking. As we reached an extraordinarily steep area that was made worse by mud, the leader did have the wits about her to suggest we turn around and find a better path. At long last, we found the wide prairie paths. After a bit, I suggested we trot, and I encouraged Jude to find his big, working trot. We were having fun. When the leaders pulled up to discuss directional choices, I was taken off guard when the young man’s horse took a quick step back and kicked at us. We were lucky he only got the heel of my boot…it could have been much worse. Perhaps I allowed us to get too close to a strange horse (but one we had been riding in close proximity with for nearly an hour). I accepted the kid’s profuse apologies, and we continued on. Jude did well and after another 15 minutes or so and a little road riding, we were back at the parking area.

The careful rider in me was glad to be back at the trailer….The ride wasn’t perfect, but compared to our last few trail rides, it wasn’t half bad. But, I was the oddball in the group. When everyone wanted to go back out, I didn’t speak up and offer to hang out at the trailer and wait. I wanted to, but instead, I kept my mouth shut and headed back towards the creek. As soon as we crossed the water to get back to the trails, Jude began to protest in earnest. He pranced; he tossed his head, he came behind the bit. Earlier in the ride I had to manage him here and there, now I had to manage him at every step. This was not a relaxing ride. Then came the next kick…this time the boy’s horse kicked Spirit, my daughter’s Appaloosa. The young man was embarrassed and apologized, once again, profusely. Then he abruptly announced that he was taking his horse home and turned and galloped off full speed. Now Jude was really worked up.

After another 10 or 15 minutes of high maintenance riding, I told my daughter that I had had enough. We parted company with the young lady who had ridden with us and headed back towards the parking area. Jude fought me the whole way . . . he wanted to run . . . I said walk . . . he wanted to toss his head . . . I said no . . . he wanted to prance . . . I said shoulder-in. It seemed like a long, long ride back and by the time we got to the trailer, I was so tired of the misbehavior that I had become the pissy one. We untacked, sponged off the horses, and prepared to load. I was so irritated that I forgot about my awesome “perfect horse” and could only gripe about what a lousy trail horse he was. It took a few hours to realize that while I had a right to be disappointed in the results of our ride, I should have been more irritated with myself. I allowed myself to go on just the sort of trail ride that I wanted to avoid so early in the season. I had said all winter that I wanted to slowly work on Jude’s trail experience, building on terrain types and length of time out.

When I compare my trail training plan to my directed dressage training, I see many similarities. My trainer has always advanced us in small steps. We work on exercises that will enhance the progression of training. If we falter, we take a step back before going forward. I think the same holds true for teaching a wary horse to relax on a trail ride. We have to learn in small steps and resist the tendency to just dive in.

I have to say, that in the end, I learned some valuable lessons on our trail ride. This evening, I chose to have a working ride, followed by a short jaunt down our road, which he tolerated rather well. When I came in, I smiled as I remembered that while Jude is not the perfect horse, he is pretty darn close. He thrives on our dressage training, as do I, and he has been the best equine partner I could ever hope for. As for the next trail ride, I have a plan and I’m going to stick to it.

The Disease

“It’s a disease!” claimed my husband (a decidedly non-horse person) at the end of one of those discussions . . . the kind husbands and wives must occasionally have. His words hit home, and all I could answer was “Well, if it is, then I’m infected.” But of course, that wasn’t the end of it. The exchange bothered me and made me wonder if I was, indeed, the victim of some terrible illness, and so I decided to examine the issue. The results were interesting.

A disease often shows symptoms long before it is full blown, and I must admit that I have exhibited symptoms for years. The earliest was seen nearly 50 years ago when I spent a summer or two pretending to be a horse. When other kids ran, I galloped . . . envisioning myself as Trigger, with a flowing white mane and tail, helping the Lone Ranger to catch up with the bad guys. When my friends jogged along casually, I cantered, as only a biped can, with one leg leading and the other shuffling behind in what I thought resembled a horse, but what was surely more reminiscent of a severely injured human. I was also known to neigh and paw on occasions.

Another indicator of impeding disease was my penchant for Westerns. My mom usually dropped my sister and me off at the theatre for the Saturday matinee. My favorites: Audie Murphy starring in a cowboy movie. Now I didn’t love cowboys that much, but I loved the horses they rode. During this time, there was an indication that perhaps I could overcome this lurking ilness. While many children of my generation still played cowboys and Indians, a natural choice for someone with developing horse disease, my friends and I played World War II. I was considered the luckiest kid on the block because my dad allowed me to play with his fully disabled war souvenir, a German machine gun. I suppose that if someone nurtured that war games inclination, I might have avoided horse disease. But there would have been risk for another disease. As luck would have it, my husband has that infection. Gun disease is an illness that makes him drool over fancy rifles and suppress all urges to walk away from a great deal if it involves anything firearms related. He really doesn’t have much room to complain.

But despite the possibility of gun disease as exhibited by playing war in the back yards of our neighborhood, I was still drawn to everything horse. An avid reader even as a child, I sought out books about horses every time I went to the library. I read every Black Stallion book our library stocked. One summer, I started the Black Stallion Fan Club, which really meant sitting at the picnic table with my friends and talking about horses. We ended that summer with a fan club trail ride at a local stable. I also fervently saved my pennies so that my dad would take me on more trail rides.

When the teenage years came along, it looked as if I might have fought off that dreaded infection. I suddenly wanted to be cool . . . to be a hippie . . . to hang around with boys. Yet I remained silently prone to horse disease. I was drawn to pet any horse I came near. I always wanted to go on trail rides when on vacation. As a young adult, and an avid skydiver, I continued to like horses, and I continued go on trail rides when on vacation. The sure sign that horse disease still lurked in the background was my insistence on buying and boarding a horse for my eldest daughter when she became symptomatic. Yet, I managed to suppress illness until my late forties.

I am convinced now that it is a disease because like so many other diseases, I succumbed when my immune system was weakened. There I was, an adult with grown and near grown children, looking for something meaningful and fun to do for myself. I had extra income. I lived in the country on an old farm site. I still watched cowboy movies because I liked the horses. And then one day, horse just lit up in my brain. That’s when it hit me, full blown. I bought a nice little mare and started trail riding. I took lessons to help me be a better rider (which has since turned into “training”). Horse disease tends to overshadow all that I do. It influences my choices, my friends, my time. Even when the indicators suggest that I should move on, I can’t. Stiff and sore in the mornings . . . who cares . . . I still want to ride my horse. Money is a little tight . . . well, I still have to buy hay and grain . . . cut back somewhere else. Have the urge to write . . . write a blog about horses! But please, whatever you do, don’t call the doctor. I revel in my chronic condition. And I don’t want to be cured.

Warm At Last

Warm at last, warm at last, thank God Almighty, it’s warm at last. Okay, you’ll have to excuse my exuberance, but it was a long, cold, wet winter in Illinois—hardly the kind of weather to encourage riding (even for the most die-hard equestrian). Winter started early and hung on well into April. The previous winter was pretty lousy too, but I can’t remember another winter that so consistently restricted my riding to a handful of days each month. It’s no wonder that I’m celebrating the return of warm weather. Of course, riding is the icing on your hay when you have horses on your property, and so regardless of weather, when you care for horses, you go to the barn at least twice a day.

Like so many of my friends, I like the icing and so I headed out through the snow to saddle up, or trekked through the mud to halter my horse, or even bundled up against freezing temperatures, all for that wonderful fix. Sometimes, the ride was so perfect that the adversity was quickly forgotten. At other times, the ride was good, but not great. Occasionally, my horse protested or I was stiff and uncoordinated and the ride was far less than perfect, but it was a ride. Of course, the five or more-rides-a-week schedule was gone with the last of the fall leaves, and some weeks I felt lucky if I rode once. And then, there was that dreadful spell from late December into early February when going to the barn often meant working in the middle of a snowstorm. Riding? That was just a memory, even with my own indoor a few steps away from the barn. In the dead of winter, it’s hard to be an equestrian in northern Illinois.

But at long last, Illinois weather has moderated. There is still more rain than normal, and the wind is always a factor, but the temperature has become tolerable, if not nearly perfect. Over the last few days, I’ve ridden outside under puffy white clouds with light and variable winds, and marvelous seventy degree temperatures—by my standards, the perfect day. My horse is happy to work outside, and seems even happier to work more regularly.

Over the weekend, I hauled to my trainer’s place. Everyone was riding outside…the indoor was just a dark, deserted waste land. It was pure joy to be pushed past my comfort zone (my trainer’s favorite thing to do). And as I found my way to a new comfort zone, I also found that Zen place with Jude. And all of this happened while I was warm and riding in short sleeves. Illinois can have some pretty nice weather, after all.

The Older Horsewoman

No matter how often I look in the mirror, I am still shocked to see the signs of aging. Dang! In my heart, I am still in the prime of life . . . slim, fit, unlimited energy. But then the mind (and too often, the body) reminds me that I am quickly approaching 60 . . . 2 ½ years to go at this writing. To comfort myself, I look around at others in my age group and recognize that I am much more active than many of my age mates. But despite that small comfort, I know I’m on the back half of middle-age.

So what does one do when faced with this time of life? Well for me, I just keep doing what I’m doing. Sometimes I’m slower than I want to be, and sometimes there are things I choose to pass on. When it comes to my horse life, I just keep riding. When I travel to my trainer’s place, I watch the kids and the young adults riding hard, jumping courses, and I know that if I’d started riding as a younger person, I would have loved the high speed, exhilarating side of horsemanship. But I started riding rather late in life and so dressage is more my speed….it is exacting and requires a lot of discipline, but it is not a fast sport, relatively speaking.

In truth, I wanted to be a horsewoman as far back as I can remember. As a girl, I read every horse book I could get my hands on. I started a back yard Black Stallion fan club, even writing to the author, Walter Farley. I was thrilled when I received an envelope full of Black Stallion Fan Club buttons and a letter from Farley. I also had a father who loved horses, and he would take me to a local stable a few times every summer where we would go on an hour-long trail ride through a wooded parcel in the middle of corn country. I would inevitably beg him to buy me a horse and couldn’t understand why we couldn’t keep one in our backyard (in the middle of a subdivision).

If events happened differently during my young adulthood, I might have become a horsewoman then, but they didn’t. Instead, I discovered skydiving, and so I wiled away my youth falling fast through the sky. I don’t regret that at all. I was a member of an unbelievably fun group of like-minded people. We all had the time of our lives and participated in a different kind of exhilarating, high-speed sport (one that is still reserved for the very few…after all most sane people would never jump out of a perfectly good airplane).

I had an opportunity to become a horsewoman in my early thirties when my oldest daughter was bitten by the horse bug. I understood just how much she wanted a horse, and so I made it happen for her. I often thought about taking some lessons on her horse, but the call of the sky was still too strong. I just didn’t have the time to spare because there was always an airplane that needed to be jumped out of. But then, in my mid-forties, the horse bug bit me again and I’ve been infected ever since.

There are a few bonuses to being a horsewoman at my age. I have more disposable income, and I have more time. I also have the great privilege of training with a talented, dedicated young woman who, despite my age, pushes me past my comfort zone on a regular basis. She has made me jump regardless of my little protests, and she has required me to drop my stirrups to trot and canter. Because she stuck with me even as I struggled more than most to improve, I have become a much more competent rider than I ever thought I could be. My plan is to keep riding as long as I can. My horse is only 8 years old, and I anticipate that by the time he is ready to retire from the arena, I will be too . . . but I’m thinking that time is at least 12-14 years down the road. And who knows how long I’ll be able to meander slowly down the trail on the back of a quiet horse. So when I see that older face staring back at me in the mirror, I remind myself that she has a long way to go (and that way will be on horseback).

Horse Nerd

I am such a horse nerd. This morning, after checking my email and my Facebook, I decided, once again, to do a little research to see if I could find some history about my horse. . . and BINGO! I finally found something. I found a photo and bio of Jude’s sire, Gallant, on the webpage for the Lazy K Ranch in Chowchilla California, the city where Jude was born. It turns out that Jude’s grandsire, Gallant Move, was an APHA Supreme Champion. Supreme Champion!! This award is extremely hard to earn, and Gallant Move was the 39th paint horse to earn the title. Woohoo! I feel like I just discovered that I’m related to royalty. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything about his dam. But I’m sure she was special too. And she was an appendix, which helps explain his wonderful, dressage-aptitude athleticism.

So why do I care about his beginnings? Well, as previously disclosed, I’m a horse nerd. But horse nerdness aside, I find beginnings fascinating. Whether it’s the origins of words or expressions, or the origins of my horse, I like to learn about it. When I first bought Jude, I looked at his papers and noted that he was born in Northern California, was sold to someone in Bakersfield, CA. (a long trailer ride for a 7-month old colt), sold into Iowa a few months later, resold in Iowa (imagine a young horse on a trailer ride from southern California to western Iowa). His registered name was Nick’s Last Call….I imagined that he might have been called Nicky.

That was all I knew for a while. But as fate would have it, my daughter and I bought a pony from the sale barn where Jude’s penultimate owner bought him. The previous owner only mentioned that barn once, but I remembered it. And when I was there, I wasn’t shy about asking the old lady of the barn if she remembered my horse…and she did. She told me that her buyer had purchased him at an auction in Iowa and that she called the previous owner to find some history on him… She told me she gave the notes to Jaime, the man who bought the horse from her (and he had passed those notes on to me when I bought Jude) and so I knew a few more things about his previous life. She also told me they had called him Amigo while he was at her barn.

Okay, I now knew he was bought at an Iowa auction in the spring of 2006….and it didn’t take me long to find the old sale bill online…and low and behold, I now had photos of Jude being ridden western by a blonde-haired lady. The info on the bill explained that the owner was selling Jude because she wanted a western pleasure prospect (it must have been obvious by then that Jude was a dressage horse, despite his loud paint markings). It was there that I discovered that she called him Dewey! Dewey, Amigo, perhaps Nicky….I’m so glad that his last owner renamed him Jude.

The last place Jude lived before he moved to my modest barn was a grand equestrian center near Barrington, Illinois. Jaime, Jude’s previous owner kept him perfectly groomed, so perfect that Jude’s coat was slick from regular applications of Show Sheen. His obsession with grooming and his outward affection toward Jude made it obvious that he loved his horse, but a back injury kept him out of the saddle and a traveling career kept him from the barn for extended periods. And so, after only 6 months, Jude was sold once again.

So now there are only a few gaps to fill. Due to my recent discovery, I have learned that Jude lived outside on a big ranch for the first 7 months of his life. The Lazy K website states that all their foals are raised outdoors….and I have seen beautiful photos of large herds of mares with foals at their side, running through water (which explains Jude’s complete lack of concern whenever we encounter water). Now, all I want to know is why the Bakersfield owner sold him off to Iowa as a yearling, and why that first Iowa owner turned around and sold him again. But I’m thankful that somehow, via Chowchilla, California, he came to me, because in Jude, I have found the horse of a lifetime. And in me, Jude has found his forever home. Yep, I’m truly a horse nerd.

Husbands and Horses

Husbands and horses. Hmmm, it does have a nice ring to it. Perhaps it’s the alliteration, or maybe it’s just because they tend to dominate my life. Whatever it is, the parallels can be alarming. The trains of thought seem to go off in the same direction. I am always thinking about him. Is he healthy? Why did he do that? Was it something I did? Where did that behavior come from? Another mess? I just cleaned this place up! I could be thinking about either one of them.

From the looks of it, these two parts of my life seem to be closely intertwined; yet if the truth be known, my husband would like to be as far away from horses as possible. Certainly his horse allergy might account for some of this distance fetish, but it doesn’t account for all of it. He admittedly just doesn’t get the horse thing. He can’t understand how riding in an arena for an hour can be therapeutic or educational or even fun. He can sort of understand the trail rides, but not really since an ATV does the same thing without the whole horse thing going on. Then there is that manure/hay smell that drives him crazy…and not the good crazy. The short of it: When I say horse, he tunes out or freaks out. His eyes glaze over or his “how much money did you spend?” radar goes off. Husbands and horses don’t always work well together.

There are times when I realize that I’m playing a fine balancing act. Do I hang out at the barn or with my husband? Do I get all dolled up and fix him a fine dinner, or do I throw on those breeches and boots and head for the barn? My husband would suggest that the horse wins 9 times out of 10. I’m not so sure about those numbers, but I do admit that I suffer some tunnel vision problems when it comes to horses.

I know from my many barn friends that I am not alone. It seems that so many of us horsewomen must endure our husband’s total lack of interest in that other part of our lives. At times, we must work to assure our husbands that there is no reason to be jealous of a horse. To be fair, we are probably guilty of the same thing. Did I mention that last time he invited me to go fishing? I turned him down because I had to clean the barn.

So it seems I have two lives, one with a husband and one with a horse. They both provide me with great joys and, well, occasional disappointments. But I can’t live without either of them. Or can I? Hmmmm.

DISCLAIMER: I know that there are some wonderful horsemen out there who love to share their horselife with their wives. I also acknowledge that there are some extremely supportive horse husbands who gladly send their wives to the barn, pay the board, buy the tack, go to the horse show and so on. Ladies, if you have one of these men, cherish him because he is, indeed, a rare bird.

The Down and Dirty of Owning Horses

This morning it is raining, and so I have respite from my semi-annual stint of spreading manure. Manure happens when you have a horse . . . and it happens and happens and happens until you have a huge pile which must be spread around. For the last two days, I have loaded my tiny spreader, headed to the field across the street, and dispersed a whole lot of #*$%^. As gross as it may seem, I find I enjoy the process. I'm outside enjoying the weather, sitting in my John Deere gator while thinking about lots of things, and paying some dues for all the pleasure I get from having my own horse.

Of course, I have a few scars from the process. My hands are a bit beat up from dings and scratches caused by digging out a clogged spreader (using a pitchfork, mind you) and from making emergency adjustments on the spreader chain. And I have that pitch and roll feeling one gets after a day in a rolling boat, except my pitch and roll is from bumping along through a unplowed, harvested cornfield in my gator for hours on end.

Despite the banged up hands, at the end of day one, I took some time to get on my horse, Jude, so I would remember why I love horses. We had a wonderful ride. We started by walking casually down our grass airstrip, just enjoying the warmest day yet this spring. When we were warmed up, we trotted large figure eights, working on softness and suppleness. Once Jude was in the frame, we cantered . . . first circles, then long straight lines, up and down the property line. When we finished, and I had dismounted, both Jude and I took that deep, long breath of satisfaction. He asked me to rub his head, and I obliged. We are well matched. He trusts me, respects me, and is my partner. And I trust and respect him.

I'll spread that manure every spring and fall because it is part of the deal, and as such, I'll find the good in it....cleanliness, of course; satisfaction in a job well done, yes; and contentment because the horse life is a good life.