Legends of a Fall...

An incident occurred this weekend which illustrates my comment about horses not having, what we consider, a great deal of intelligence. I was off the farm with my "Posse" (OK, the group of gals I instruct and whose horses I train on a regular basis) in South Jersey at a lovely new facility. Our objective: to attend a "Showmanship" and "Horsemanship" clinic to improve my students knowledge and expertise in these two events. "Showmanship" entails working with the horse on the ground in front of a Judge who is evaluating your ability to show the horse off to his best advantage. In pursuit of this, you must present the stationary horse in a precise way then walk and run (trot) with the horse in a pattern prescribed by the Judge. "Horsemanship" involves you riding the horse with the same general set of expectations except there is very little "stationary" work and the pattern is performed at a walk, trot and canter (a three beat gait similar to a gallop, just slower).

We were about 2/3rds of the way through the clinic. The day was cold and windy, the horses and riders were cold and had been sitting around for several hours. They were all standing in line facing the middle of the arena, side by side, listening to the person giving the clinic. One horse blew his nose when, in the blink of an eye, all Hell broke loose! Every horse in line, upon hearing the usually innocuous noise of one of their bretheren snorting, leaped forward at the same instant as if the starting bell of a race had gone off. Horses jumped forward, sideways and straight up in the air. Unfortunately, the horse that went straight up belonged, and was ridden by, one of my gals. And when he went up, he kept going. And going. My gal had pulled back hard as the horse lept forward, catching her horse by suprise and scaring him more then he already was. Flight or fight kicked in and since he couldn't go forward, or sideways or backwards (where the perceived threat was) he went up. Feeling the hard pull on his mouth, he fought upward to get away from both the pressure in his mouth and the monster behind him. His rider started to loose balance backwards, which caused him to loose balance backwards and the worse riding scenario occured......the horse went over backwards.

Horses can kill themselves when this happens. Fractured skull, broken back or broken leg, any of these can lead to the demise of a horse. So when a horse rears up and goes over for anything less dramatic then an actual mountain lion on his back....it shows he's not very bright. Most horses (all the rest of them for example) would just stop or move another foot or two forward, then stop. Perhaps spin around to look for the "danger". NOT flip over.

People are killed every year by this type of riding accident. Death usually occurs from a severe traumatic crush injury of the chest as the horse flips over on top of the rider. Horses ,when rearing, can reach a height of between 10 feet for a shorter horse to as much as 16 feet for a large horse. This is a large horse and when he is fully extended and rearing as high as he can go, he's at about the 14 foot mark. It's high, really high. Some horses flip straight over, going up so fast that as they reach the maximum height of the rear, their hind legs kick out from under them and they land flat on their back. My gal's horse reached maximum height then collapsed his hind legs, softening the fall somewhat and rolling down onto his side and not his back. Fortunately, the gal rolled one way and the horse rolled the other. That's not to say she wasn't hurt. She was able to sit up almost immediately though as she did, the color drained from her face and she became stark white. Upon reflection, that part of the incident was a bit interesting. There have been many things I've watched in my life, not all of them pleasant, but I had never actually seen the color flow away and out of someone's face as I looked on. Odd.
While I am a Paramedic, in New Jersey I am fairly powerless without a truck full of equipment and a partner (so sayeth New Jersey Law!) so I was very grateful when two nurses came over (how lucky we were that they were there, both riding in the clinic!) and cleared her C-spine and checked the rest of her body for other injuries. She was sore in many places, mostly her behind, but relatively unscathed from her brush with death. The clinic continued about 10 minutes after we settled my gal on the sidelines with ice on her behind and I mounted her horse to wait out the rest of the lecture.

You might think I was insensitive to get on this horse who had obviously suffered a traumatic event of his own. But we must look to the future and establish to this horse that rearing up and falling down are not answers to fear or problems. If allowed to go on his merry way, the next time he gets frightened and feels trapped, he may do the same thing for even less provocation. Startled+rearing&falling=no more work. Really bad equation! There were things I took into heavy consideration before I got on him. This horse did not hurt himself when he went down. When he got up, he was not distressed. He was not shifting about nervously or trying to get away. From previous experience with this horse, I know he can be a bully and look for ways out of work. So for this horse, it was essential to get on him and put him back to work so he knew that this behavior would not get him a break or a vacation. For him, the rest of the day was fine, without any incident. He won't be suffering any long-term effects of the day.

His rider....that will be another story. I worry that months of uncertainty, self doubt and low confidence levels will follow this accident. This is the kind of occurance that rocks you; a step too close to the edge for comfort. As years have accumulated behind me, I have become more and more aware of my own mortality. In my life, I have occasionally been reckless. I have held positions that have been both physically and mentally dangerous. In living this life, I have learned to cope with fear and learned from the mistakes I've walked away from and those I haven't. Cautiousness now prevails where bravado used to jump in with both feet. Not to say I'm never a bit brash. Somethings will still hit that old adrenaline button and I'll do something silly or stupid that when I look back I say "Whew, THAT could have been bad". But we learn from our experiences and when we're lucky, those experiences guide our hands even when our heads are not thinking totally clearly. The lifetime I've had so far has prepared me somewhat for the unexpected, the fearful, the painful and the tragic. Getting in a car accident for the first time at 40 is not the same as getting into one for the first time at 17. In mid-life, we are less resiliant both mentally and physically. In our 20's, we rebound. In our 50's, we regress. We have learned we are mortal...that we are closer to the final chapter then the first. And we don't want to hasten things! So we hesitate, evaluate, assess, and plan more thoroughly then we did when we were younger.
How will this experience effect my gal? We'll have to wait and see. But it will be my job to keep it from eating her up and restore the confidence she has lost.

Some beginning thoughts....

Today I embark on yet another way to spend time I don't have and pontificate on subjects some people already have strong opinions on. It's mostly about the horses, yet without all the accompanying tangents and pitstops, there would be no horses. Horses in this day and age cannot stand alone. With them come the trappings of daily life...drive to the feed store to get grain. Drive to the hay man to get hay. Have the Veterinarian drive to our farm to give vaccines and tend to sick horses. There was a time that we used horses to go get things. Now we use everything, including the internet, to get things for our horses.

My jobs are to make horses and their people better. The majority of people I run into think horses are big, if somewhat dim-witted, children. Talk to them in a calm voice and explain to them what you want and all things will be as they should be. The horse will listen, he will understand and you will both go walking into the sunset together in perfect harmony.
Unlike the dim-witted child (please refer to Bill Cosby discussing children and chocolate cake) horses will hurt you. They may not mean to do so, but in their 2 track mind, there is fight or flight when something scares them. Try calmly explaining to a horse that the Fire Truck with the lights and siren on heading towards him is going to a fire to help people and the driver surely will not run him over. By the time you get the first two words out (Now Pokey..) he will have left hoofprints on your chest and be in the next County. I understand that Fire Trucks ARE scary! But Pokey will sometimes have the same reaction upon seeing a plastic food bag heading his way on an errant breeze. Let there be no mistake....horses are not the rocket scientists of the animal kingdom! Really now...how much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a blade of grass?
While horses are not cognitive geniuses, they do offer us unique insight and wisdom which we are sometimes sorely lacking. With luck, I'll impart some of these (along with some ideas of my own).