Horse Information - Aussie Horsemen

I’d like to share with you a story about a little stallion called Marlin. Well ... that’snot actually his name ... we called him that because when he first came to us, Shane put arope on him and he leapt around on the end of that rope like those huge fish you see on TVleaping out of the sea. He had not had a lot of handling and we soon found out just howlittle he’d had and what his experiences had been.

He was brought to us by a fellow we know ... an older man who has been a very successfulhorseman and cutting competitor in his day, but who now does little training due toarthritis and various other old injuries playing up. This little horse was 2yo and had spentall his days so far with a herd in the bush, only finally being caught after being roundedup by motor bike and run through a crush and onto the back of a truck. He was sent to a‘top’ trainer who had not had a lot of success with him. His method of trying to quiet himdown was to teach him a lesson by dropping him to the ground with ropes, completely coveringhim with a tarp and leaving him. Of course, this just made Marlin even more fearful andskeptical about people.

His next stop was with our friend who understandably had trouble handling him on the ground,plus his hands were riddled with arthritis and he just couldn’t hold onto the rope whenMarlin went to town.

So, our friend dropped into our place and asked Shane if we could come and take a look athim.

Now ... this little horse was very well bred and still entire, although fortunately hehadn’t yet figured it out yet. Thank goodness! He had so much reaction and fear we were veryglad that his testosterone hadn’t yet kicked in to make him aggressive as he could easilyhave been. Instead he was scared and timid.

So ... off we went to our friends place to check this little colt out. He was avery pretty little Quarterhorse; gray and around 14 ½ hh. Other than his colour, the firstthing we noticed was just how reactionary he was. He was very quick to react to theslightest stimulus by shying, scooting sideways and running off. As he had been in the bushall his life, he also had a huge flight distance. This is one area where I think that manypeople who get themselves wild horses or brumbies, get themselves into trouble as they don’trealise just how claustrophobic these little horses are going to feel. Even just being in ayard can be mentally very difficult for them. Many of them handle pressure less well asother horses as their escape routes and therefore their options have been taken away as soonas they are put into a yard ... and at first this can really raise their fear and reactionlevels many fold.

This was pretty soon apparent with little Marlin. Our friend had him on a 40 x 20m arenawith a 5’ post rail fence ... so a fairly safe sort of area you’d think! Well ... Marlindidn’t feel too safe and as soon as Shane entered his space he tried to run away and as hecouldn’t very well flee, he thought he’d try the option of climbing the fence instead! So... Shane had to get him caught, without putting too much pressure on him ... and bypressure I mean just ‘looking’ at the little horse from 60’ feet away was too much for himat this point.

So, Shane set about just trying to establish some rapport with him at first, moving himaround a little in the arena, from quite a long way away, as Marlin was way tooclaustrophobic to be approached yet; asking him for some transitions and direction changesjust with his body position and using his ranch rope tapped on his leg from time to time.

A few times Marlin felt just too scared if Shane had his body energy too high at any pointor got out of position and he headed straight for the fence and tried to climb out. It wouldhave been really easy for Shane to put too much pressure on and have Marlin try to jump outof the arena ... which wouldn’t have bee a pretty sight!

After about 45 minutes of working through the *catching procedure, Shane was able toapproach Marlin and rub him all over with the ranch rope and then to put the rope around hisneck. Marlin was still very scared, however he was starting to think that perhaps Shanewasn‘t so bad and the trust was slowly building. Still along way to go.

He then worked him a little more with the rope around his neck ... again transitions,direction changes and now with some **‘no yield’ in motion ... Marlin was way too touchy totry anything at the halt much ... his instincts were telling him to move, so Shane allowedhim that option ... and yielding to pressure forward, backward, sideways etc.

After about an hour and a half, he had him leading around with the halter so now the nextstep came ... getting him home! We only lived a few kilometers away and there was no way thehorse was going on a float just yet, so Shane had decided to walk him home. I remember veryclearly watching from our front verandah as the two of them came up the road. Shane kept himbusy, trotting most of the way to keep the flow going and to keep Marlin’s mind too busy toshy at things along the way. He wanted to keep his attention on him by being a leader andjust getting on with it. This worked most of the time, but every so often Marlin would get ascare and up he’d go again ... flapping around in the air, twisting his head and neck, all 4feet off the ground just like his name sake. In fact I’m sure it was that trip home thatfirst invoked his name and it stuck!

Marlin stayed with us for about 3 weeks in total. Normally Shane has horses hereonly for a week and in that time he has them doing incredible things with confidence andtrust ... and so willing. Little Marlin took 3 times longer than any other horse Shane hadworked with, as his instincts to flee were so strong that the slightest thing could set himoff ... a rope touching his leg, a hand in a sensitive spot (like his ribs or head ... boywas he touchy around the ears!) and a 100 other invisible things that made sense to Marlinto run away from. He was so touchy around the hindquarter and flank that Shane developed anew rope technique just for him. Generally during training Shane will ask the horse to‘wear’ a girth rope and a flank rope, just so they get used to a bit of pressure around themiddle before they have a saddle and girth on. Anything at all touching Marlin around theback end ... pretty much from the girth back ... would send him into orbit, twisting andwrithing in fear. In order for horses to be safe to ride, they need to be loose, soft andconfident in the hindquarter, so they can disengage and stay laterally soft. Marlin was farfrom loose in the hindquarter! So ... a bit of desensitizing was called for. Shane put arope around his back foot at first and got him to where he was comfortable with the feel ofthat. He then put the rope higher up his leg to what Shane called his G’String! position sothat Marlin could learn, just by wearing it there (in other words it just rests there withno pressure) that he was okay, it wouldn’t hurt him and he would in fact live! It takes alot of skill and timing to be able to handle a rope around a horse’s sensitive areas andoffer release at just the right moment. Shane has it and it really helped this little horseout. He took a lot of convincing from Shane that he was going to be okay and that he couldrelax, he was safe ... Mother Nature sure had a strong hold over him.

Shane worked him on the long rope for a few days until Marlin could handle things more inhis personal space. His first response was to kick out and those feet were lightning fast... you couldn’t even see them coming ... but fortunately Shane had built enough rapportthat Marlin gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn’t follow through. His personal spaceat the beginning was about 100m around which made it interesting in the 40m arena! Shanereally had to have excellent timing and release to help Marlin feel safe and unthreatened.Eventually Shane had him happily and confidently doing all his yields up close and withcontact. At last, progress was being made.

The next step was to get him started under saddle, so the whole thing began again but thistime with Shane wanting to be on his back. He now needed to accept things above and over himas well so Shane worked more on his personal space in these areas and increased the ‘noyield’ to include rubbing himself all over Marlin’s body ... over his back, neck, rump anddown his quarters. Marlin was suspicious but Shane did it gradually and boldly so he couldeventually accept it. He worked on building Marlin’s confidence in going forward and inhaving things touching his body around the back, belly and flank and in having someone inhis personal space.

When Shane hopped on bareback for the first time, Marlin was still on the touchy side andprone to shying or what we call scooting ... dropping his whole body down about 2 feet andshooting sideways ... always fun and thrilling when it happens! The day that Shane did Marlins first ride, he had a crowd of about 20 people watching (theyjust seem to turn up when he’s colt starting!) and he had a brand new bareback pad onMarlin. Shane was trotting around doing some rein positions and next thing Marlin got afright and scooted sideways flat out for about 20 metres. As we all held our breath, Shanereached for the rein (he was riding with just the one of course!) and without missing abeat, piped up “These bareback pads, made of all natural materials, are terrific for givingyou extra stick when you need it when riding your horse”. As Shane finished, Marlin relaxedand stopped, we all cheered and Shane gave us that big grin! Whew!!! And off they went againtrotting merrily around the arena.

As I mentioned before, Shane ended up spending around 3 weeks with Marlinwhich even to this day is the longest time he’s ever had to spend with a horse for haltertraining and starting under saddle. Marlin went from being so afraid of people and havingsuch a huge flight distance that he tried to climb out of the arena if you just looked athim the wrong way, to being confident, calm and trusting with Shane riding him, and happilygoing out on trail rides, moving cows around doing beautiful lead changes and transitions.Shane said he was just magnificent to ride.

Finally the day came when Shane took him home. He quietly saddled Marlin up, hopped on anddown the drive they went. As I watched them gently loping along the road together, lookingthe picture of calm, confidence and pleasure, my mind cast back to just 3 weeks before andthe scared little horse that we named Marlin. What a beautiful transformation!

*see the QS Halter Training and Catching DVD for details
** see QS Lesson Pack 1 for details

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