My niece and her son came to visit last summer. She and I have a pretty strained relationship
but we try to make it work on account of the kids. Her family is all very into Scouting and one day, out of the blue she told me that Jason
needed some kind of horsemanship certification, and she naturally assumed I’d be thrilled to help with that. Five
years or so ago, before we fell out she’d gone through a horsey phase, wanting
to learn to drive, and I could teach her
theory til the cows came home, but I could not get her to gear herself down
enough not to drive any live horse crazy. So, she kind of bull-dozed over my
protestations that it’d been many years since I’d done any kind of formal
teaching and besides, to my knowledge Willow had never even met a little person and had certainly had never been used for any sort of
demonstration. I agreed to give it the
old college try, contingent upon Willow remaining happy and untroubled.
I know I didn’t get any sleep that night, but next morning I
collected Jason, and we went to the barn and I caught up Willow. He’s the absolute sweetest-natured horse, but
he views all strange humans with initial distrust, thanks to his early saddle
seat training. A couple of peppermints
convinced him that Jason was at least potentially a friend, and we began with
haltering and unhaltering. At first
Jason’s movements and gestures were a
little too abrupt for Willow’s taste, but he picked up on Willow raising his
head away and leaning back from him and quickly figured out how to be slow,
gentle, and calm. Willow heaved a big
sigh, licked and chewed and from then on was much more relaxed. We worked through tieing safely including proper length of rope to
have between horse and post---or in this case tree--- as well as safety knots,
and I followed that with a grooming demonstration and Jason’s repetition and
Willow was perfect. He stood like a
champ while Jason curried and brushed and then stood three-legged some more while the
boy picked endlessly at his hooves. It’s
always hard to realize just how much
force is required to get the dirt out of a foot when I guess you’re mentally
picturing digging a hoof pick into your
own.
Next, I led Willow and Jason walked along side as we moseyed
to my lunging area for basic leading. I
watched Willow like a hawk for signs of nervousness because even with me he’ll
occasionally perceive some quick danger and pull back. He always comes right back to me, with an
almost embarrassed look, but I didn’t want his feet anywhere near my tennis-shoe clad nephew’s
toes. To my slight amazement Jason
listened closely and followed pretty exactly all my instructions. They circled to the left, working on “whoa”,
and “walk on”, then back to the right, before I turned them loose to make a
circuit of the pasture. Again, Willow was
a star, ambling along beside Jason like an old dude string horse. Jason’s
grin was so big I almost needed sunglasses.
He’s small for his age and I guess he gets picked on some, and I could
see it did him good to be able to control and be in harmony with such a big
creature.
The moment of truth had arrived. I’d reserved the right to pull the plug (so to
speak) on this project at any time if the child or horse were uncomfortable,
but both were relaxed and happy, and Willow appeared to be enjoying this new
experience as much as Jason. I tacked
Willow up, explaining all the while, then untacked him and walked the boy
through putting all the gear back on. I put
on my helmet and prepared to demonstrate mounting, mouth going a mile a minute
in my effort not to leave anything out. I parked Willow by the mounting block, thanking my
stars that we’d worked so much on standing still, after Mark Rashid showed me
how to better communicate my expectations along those lines. Holding onto the reins and pommel with my
left hand and the cantle with my right as I emphasized how important safety is
in this, I put my left foot in the stirrup and stood up in it, allowing the
iron to take my weight. Imagine my
surprise and horror as the saddle and I slid inevitably down Willow’s side, and
I was deposited on my back under his belly, as he bent his head and looked at
me inquiringly. I could just see the
wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out what new idea this was
supposed to be, and what the correct reaction was. Yes folks, I’d been so caught up in my effort
to cover everything that I’d forgotten to tighten the girth. I was mortified. But I couldn’t help being quietly thrilled at
Willow’s (non)reaction to my stupidity. I
don’t think the kid actually realized what a catastrophe my “fall” could have
been, although I tried to make it clear, not sparing myself in the telling of
what a gigantic mistake forgetting to tighten the girth actually was. After that, actually having Jason mount and
walk around quietly practicing turning, stopping and walking off as I kept hold
of the lead rope was pretty anticlimactic.
By this time, we’d had Willow out
for over two hours and I figured we’d accomplished plenty for one day. Jason untacked him with my help, brushed and
patted him and I turned him loose for a well-earned roll. I don’t know if he ever did learn to trot,
but I was satisfied that he’d had a decent basicintroduction to horsemanship and
I was absolutely thrilled with my little green horse, who proved that often
they just need a chance to step up to the plate and act like a grown horse who
knows what he’s doing.
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