The festival is over. We made our numbers amid wretched economic conditions and oppressive weather. Just three days after closing the park is nearly empty and the animals are reclaiming their places all over the site. Skunks come out to play after dark, chipmunks streak across the fairways all day long, and we keep a sharp lookout for unexpected arrivals because this is when people begin to dump unwanted pets at the foot of our long driveway.
Show seasons compress like a sponge clenched tight in a fist. With closing day, the grip relaxes and the sponge begins to open. Those of us who move our lives here for the summer look up, look around. Exhausted, we prepare to move on.
I felt that sense of compression strongly this year. It squeezed my decisions and reactions into odd, jerky moments, but often I was aware of little more than just the process of change happening within me. Sometimes I noticed my struggle over Dar. It felt like an event that was happening to me, but I had no time to really be present in it. It erupted from time to time, is all. But there was a process that culminated in my realizing there was no longer a real reason to look back. Somehow, I saw that Dar had moved from hope to memory; I was already looking somewhere else when I saw that I had left him behind. Looking at someone else.
Dar bucked E off today during his session. It came out of nowhere, not buried in a spook, not part of a leap into flight, not telegraphed with a pinched, swishing tail. He just bucked her off, from what looked like a place of total disrespect. "Get off me! I don't want you on me. Get off!"
She wasn't hurt in the fall, though her helmet is done.
This was her fifth or sixth ride on him. The only new thing was the dressage whip she carried, and I saw no sign at all that he cared about it. He's at that point in his training where he needs to learn to be more immediately responsive to her cues, not continue to be the sluggish turkey who arrives at the trot well after she's asked for it.
She didn't let go of Dar through the fall. She collected herself, led him out of the grass arena and back to the mounting block. In a few seconds she was back on him. A 15-minute ride proceeded with little incident, but he was irritated and she had to keep the reins high to keep him from ducking his head. Lots of bends and turns wore him out and stopped him from humping his back, and she dismounted only when she felt he was completely responsive.
I write this journal to capture and hold things that are important to me; in this instance, the horses. It's not a journal about my life except when I filter how I see myself through my involvement with them. In the scheme of things, though, Dar could not have picked a better moment to pull this move. My heart closed on him instantly, and hard, because I was already shocky in the wake of too many absurd, hurtful and frustrating events that have occurred during the previous week. I might never write about them, but they set me back to such a raw, fearful place that Dar's stunt today seemed the least of it. In an act of self-preservation, I dismissed him from my future.
"This is Dar," E said. "He's an asshole."
It wasn't until now, hours later, that I asked H.G., "What happens to a horse like Dar without a person like me?" I was thinking then of Dar afterward, as he stood silent and still in the cross ties while I untacked him. I have too many years of involvement with animals to not recognize anthropomorphising in myself and others; I know how easy it is to project my own hopes and fears onto the seemingly expressive face of an animal. Nevertheless, I could see that Dar was sober, mopey and down. He was tired, and the look on his face seemed to ask "Why is everybody mad at me?"
If Dar is all the difficult things he appears to be -- studdy, dominant, a bucker -- then what is the right future for him? If he is all the wonderful things he appears to be -- a lover of people, curious, unflappable -- does it matter? Where does a horse like Dar end up if someone like me gives him up? Where is such a horse meant to end up? I love him, from my gut. It's a solid, strong, simple love I feel for him, sprung from a strange understanding of what it must be like to be him. I can't possibly know that, I know, but something in me gets him.
I wrote this quickly to keep myself from shaping it into anything more or less than what it was. It's all I can do right now.
Dar accepted my gentle French-link snaffle bit and soon forgot about it as our groundwork continued. Weather permitting, we've been teaching him to move away from pressure on his sides, laying the proper foundation for leg aids. Though he had been ridden in his former life, it was always from the face, never from the seat or leg.
As always, we work to keep Dar present and attentive. As always, we work on Whoa, since that is where his daydreaming is most apparent. I've come to think of him as a cargo barge: it takes those ships miles to come to a stop. The call to port comes from the captain's bridge, winds its way down to the engine room, and then the brakes are applied. Dar always seems a bit surprised when he arrives at halt.
All of this has gone well. I've been so captivated by seeing my young horse beginning school, so thrilled to see his learning take hold, so relieved to see it working that I've written about it from that positive place. I've completely overlooked the difficult work that it can be and how that can be intimidating to someone who has never seen it.
Dar came to me with a poor, poor attitude. Early work with him last fall saw him responding resentfully, with pinned ears and a sullen demeanor. He turned to bucking as a way to threaten and escape at the same time. Balking or rushing were his preferred methods of evasion. His attitude created a question in the back of my mind, one that I kept wrapped at all times in a soft puff of hope. An unhappy, negative-minded horse bucking under pinned ears at the end of a longe line will make an impression on someone who is not completely confident. Someone like me.
I've written about Dar's remarkable return to good health and goal weight. I've written about working to bond with him, even as Scout demanded so much of my attention while she recovered from surgery. Since early March, I've been writing about how Dar's training is going, and I think it looks like it has been easy. And it has been easy. Only, I realized yesterday that I've said very little about how Dar's attitude is changing. Training a horse means training everything. Stand in cross ties. Lower your head. Come through gates quietly. Whoa. Pick up your feet. Don't think about biting. Stay in your own space. Change your attitude.
Change your attitude. Yesterday, Dar was ready to learn about steering. It was hard work for him. He made great progress. He made more progress than I did. I need to work on being quicker on releasing when he responds to the rein aid. I had a chance to take some pictures while E was working with him. In them, Dar faces his attitude as much as he faces the new task being asked of him. He is winning that battle.
School of work, school of life. After training, we turned Dar out with Scout. His second testosterone test came back negative. Time to introduce him to Red Death.
