Horse Information - Aussie Horsemen

A few years back I was doing a couple of clinics in England, one of which wasat a livery yard where all the clinic participants either kept their horses, or leased oneof the horses owned by the yard itself. One of these horses was a little bay mare calledWillow.

Being a livery horse, Willow had been leased out by many people over the years. She wasbeing ridden in the clinic by a particular lady who often leased her and who was justgetting started on the QS programme with her. I had heard much about this little horse inpast months, much like I had many other horses. It seems that if a horse has ‘problems’ theowners are pretty quick to try to fill me in on all the dreadful things the horse has doneas some kind of forewarning about them. When people tell me horse tales like this I listenpolitely, however I always tell the owner that I’ll let the horse tell me their own storywhen I meet them and I try not to form any preconceived idea about the horse. So often, inall honesty, its not the horse who has problems, it’s the owner who lacks the skill andcommunication to work successfully with the horse.

So, I had heard of Willow previously but had put the tales about her out of my mind and wasprepared to meet her and the others at the yard with an open mind and a clean slate.Consequently all thoughts of her had slipped my mind.

After initial ‘get to know you’ and with the clinic underway, I sent everyone out to warm upwith their horses and show me where they were up to and what they were doing. I noticedpretty quickly that there was one lady and a little bay mare whom everyone gave a wide berthand who seemed to be spending more time arguing with each other than getting anythingconstructive done. The little mare had her ears planted firmly back on her head and was veryconscious of any other horse approaching her space and would swing her head and forehandaggressively toward anyone who approached her. The students weren’t doing anythingparticularly difficult or taxing at this time, however, whenever the little mare's handlerwould ask her to do something like yield her hindquarter or back up (they were still doingground-work at this stage) I noticed that she would use quite ‘big’ body energy and a veryfirm stance. The little mare, whom I learnt was Willow, would pull her ears back and crankher tail and, nine times out of ten, she’d rear up and flail with her front legs as if tostrike. Attempts at hindquarter yields would result in her kicking out at her handler ortrying to bite her.

I watched all this for a few minutes to see how the handler would work through it and if shecould sort it out, however after a time it appeared that things were not changing and thepattern continued. I could see that the lady was getting more than a little frustrated andalso that she was quite fearful of the horse. Not surprisingly too, as it really was only amatter of time before she got hurt.

After the group had all had a bit of a play, I called them all in and we discussed howthings went. When I got to the lady with Willow, she was quick to point out to me that thiswas the usually kind of pattern of behaviour people got from Willow. The rest of the classjoined in and soon it became clear that Willow had a reputation as being nasty, cranky,mean, vicious and dangerous. The lady who was handling her was obviously quite intimidatedby her and everyone else thought how brave she was for working with her at all.

It was really interesting to me to hear all this, as it was obviously the way that everyonefelt about Willow so she’d been branded difficult and dangerous. Because of this, everyonewho touched her expected her to behave this way, so they all treated her like a dangerousand nasty horse. This made their body energy around her defensive and on the ready to tellher off. It also made them almost tough toward her and certainly no one wanted to actuallyhang out with her or try to make any kind of connection with her or offer any softness. Now…these weren’t bad people. This was a dangerous horse so they were just treating her theexact same way 90% of people would have treated her … with caution and a bit of fear.Apparently she also kicked out at other horses too when she was ridden in a group so shewasn’t real popular.

After listening to what everyone had to say, I asked them if they’d mind me sharing mythoughts on this little mare. They all readily agreed so I went to her and introduced myselfby offering my hand for her to sniff. I gave her a gentle but firm-ish rub on the head andneck and ignored her when she pulled back her ears. Using soft and light phases I asked herto back up a step, yield her forequarter and to yield her hindquarter … all of which she didsoftly and politely albeit with ears back a little. When I finished, I asked her to sniff myhand again which she did, this time with ears forward and her attention on me and a lovelysoft expression on her face. All I wanted to do was to get a hand on the horse to get a feelfor her as I knew she would be very tight and tense, which she was. This poor little horsewas just plain scared. She was very claustrophobic and intimidated by other horses andpeople being in her space. No one had ever asked permission to be in her space, or tried tohelp her over come her fears … they’d just seen her irritable response to others around herand treated her as a cranky horse without looking for the reasons why she was cranky. So,she got more cranky and defensive which then meant her handlers got more defensive and thewhole situation spiraled down from there.

Now, the horse was so tight and tense you could’ve bounced bullets off her hide. She livedbehind this shield of defensiveness that no one could get through, because they’d all triedto do it by being stronger and more firm with her, instead of offering her softness orbuilding her confidence and winning her trust.

I pointed out how fearful she was and that her defensiveness was her way of protectingherself, not her just being nasty or having a go at anyone. I also pointed out that if shewas really mean and meant trouble she would have caused more injury to her handler and hadmore follow through. Many times she had the chance to take her out, but she didn’t. Insteadshe offered lots of warnings but rarely actually made contact. A nice little horse indeed!

The group was amazed! They’d never considered that she was actually fearful … they all justassumed she was nasty. To see her backing up and yielding her fore and hindquarters solightly and softly was incredible to them, as they were used to her rearing up or strikingout. All it took was understanding and an offer of softness and the chance to respond tolight phases instead of hard ones.

I asked her handler if she was prepared to try to view her differently … as a very scaredlittle girl instead of a mean and nasty one. Her handler said she’d try which was very braveof her as she had had some scary times with Willow before. I forewarned her that Willowwould still get scared and try some of her other tricks for a while, but that she just hadto ignore them and work through them instead of backing off.

During the course of the day, Willow’s handler worked on building the little mare’sconfidence. She did a great job of ignoring the rearing and striking (I made sure she was ata safe distance!) and made sure she offered Willow the chance to respond to light phases,she softened her body energy and was quick to reward even the smallest of tries. After alittle while, Willow started to relax. Her ears softened a little and she put less ‘oomph’into her antics. Her ears started to come forward and you could see her curiosity start tobuild as the connection between the two of them began to form. Willow’s handler was reallymaking an effort to communicate to Willow instead of just bossing her around and telling herwhat to do. By that afternoon you could physically see Willow’s body begin to relax and hertaught skin soften. And then an interesting thing happened. Because Willow had been so tightfor so long, a lot of stress had been stored in her body. As she began to relax the stresswas released and as we stood there chatting about our day before we finished up, Willowstarted to sweat. A horse who works hard will sweat, but one who is genuinely terrifiedwon’t (same as us), so now that she was beginning to relax, all of a sudden the stress wasreleased and the sweat came out … and it was a very cool day! Along with the sweat camelittle lumps like hives all over her body as the tension was released through her skin.

We finished up and her handler walked Willow until she’d cooled off, then gaveher a light hose and bedded her down for the night. That night as we sat around the dinnertable, we all talked about the incredible changes in Willow that day … needless to sayeveryone was amazed at how differently she responded when she was approached and treated inanother way. The transformation was nothing short of miraculous to them. Everyone was quiteemotional as to how this poor little scared horse had been labeled and treated as a mean andnasty horse. They all felt bad for having had those thoughts about her, as no one had reallyliked her very much. Now they were seeing the truth about her and their feelings hadcompletely changed. They were feeling sorry for her and wanted to help her to over come herfears. And all I had done was caused them to change their paradigm of how they saw Willowwhich then of course changed how they treated her.

The next day things continued to improve for Willow and her handler. She was still a nervoushorse, but now her handler was more sympathetic to her needs and was able to help her.Because they were making a connection, Willow was more willing to trust her handler and soallow her to help her build her confidence. That afternoon they were even able to trotaround happily in a group for the first time without her trying to kick the other horses. Ittruly was a wonderful transformation to see this lovely little horse’s true personalitybegin to shine.

Overall it was a very happy outcome for this sweet little horse who was just suffering froma case of mistaken identity.

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