The Aftersmoke

I came to smoking late and I probably won't stop early. I don't think smokers exhale as deeply as they inhale, at least I don't. You get duped by seeing the air you are releasing. But if you bear down and exhale again, you'll see a little more smoke, the stuff that was just hanging around in there. You should get it out.

That's what happened to me today, when I learned that the jousters had given Dar away. It's as if all of me clenched for a second, bore down on my heart. There he was again, lingering in front of me like smoke. Now the path I sometimes still crazy-dream is gone. Will I never forget him?

Horse as Self Portrait - Dar

(Note to self: you are still prone to magical thinking about him, despite having got past the worst of having to give him back.)

Dar, the horse I probably should never be.

I was in love with Dar. Not at first. At first, I just thought he was everything that Scout wasn't. A young gelding still finding himself, not too much bad training to undo, not hot or spooky. Kind of a bonehead compared to her snap-judgment mind. A slow, heavy mover compared to her stiff, steppy speediness. In him I saw an exciting potential to begin again. If there can be such a thing as a "rebound" horse, then he was that for me, I guess. Of course, I say that now, as though it were a wise insight. It isn't. It's what I say to justify giving him back, to help my heart keep on shrugging him off.

I believe I idealize what we had in common. I think I projected more onto him than any other horse I've had in my life. It's almost funny to me now, since I was so certain I wasn't choosing him from an emotional place, not after Scout. What I actually did might have been worse. I chose him from a place of longing.

Dar had a lot of inner anger. He often expressed it through a sullen attitude. Unfortunately, the same can be true of me. Still, he was very curious about the world around him, just like me. We could both satisfy our curiosity to the point of being pushy and intrusive, barging our way into whatever we wanted to investigate. Sometimes curiosity is little more than a way to measure the lay of the land if one is fearful. That's true for me, but not him. He was not fearful.

Dar had a big physicality, lacking in grace. He was oaf-like, but could occasionally produce an energy that made him thrilling to watch. I also lack physical grace, except maybe in my hands. I can have a mind energy, though, that friends have told me can be thrilling to watch.

Soon after I got Dar, I realized that he carried a hard attitude deep within himself. He reminded me of how I was during a time in my life when I struggled to stop being bitter. It took me years to escape from that place; it was a fight I had to wage with myself. I thought I could help Dar do the same thing. It's that old thing of fixing another thing to fix yourself, dangerous, alluring, and almost always doomed to fail. I thought "fixing" Dar would finally put my strength in my own hands, bring it out of the private place where I keep it. I thought we would be strong together, that one day I'd be able to say, I won this horse away from his inner demons and now he has carried me away from mine.

Next installment: Saxony

Fact Into Fable

H.G. and I own a shop at the festival where I work. The other week, artists were invited to paint their impressions of the fair, and our store happened to catch the eye of one of them. He painted an image of our shop that matched one we had always imagined between ourselves, deep in our shared interior space. A shop that never was, in a place that never existed, but the very one we could remember years from now, when our lifetime of common experience finally brought us both to the moment wherein looking back upon our history would bring us assurance that our future would continue.

And so I find it with Dar. The mark he made on me is deep; I have to accept its permanency. Giving him up can't change that, because I can't give back our brief history, can't give back my love for him. He mattered to me. Things that matter are the only kind that change us.

Like this painter, maybe now I can only contain Dar in story, where wondering and wishing is just a subplot adding color and mood to the central arc, whatever that is. Not to romanticize it, but to hold the essential hope of it, the little victories of it, as though it once was, never mind that it isn't.

Things will be better when I learn to apply what he touched in me.

Second Round (Ebbing)

A long, dumb day at work, one that began for me at 5:00 a.m., ended perfectly -- in a way -- when I saw Dar being ridden by Jack. In the first instant, I didn't recognize him. I was parked on Bully Boy, my golf cart, talking with a friend, when I heard a horse approaching. I turned, intending to move out of the way. That's when I saw him. What a beautiful horse, I thought. In the next instant, I saw Dar. My emotions rose, but they were contained by rationality. I was glad to see that Dar was out and about, not simply left to return to his former wild-child self in the north pasture.

"This is Dar." I said to Melissa. "He's the one that --" But I was crying after just those few words and couldn't say anything more. I did know this day would come; it would be part of the process of giving Dar back. (I can't say letting him go, not tonight.) I knew that I would be doing something somewhere at the fair and before long there would go Dar carrying someone on his back, someone not me.

I have loved Scout since the day I got her; I still do. That love came from the place of not having a horse for 20 years. You love getting the horse as much, if not more, as the horse itself. I love Dar differently, though, very differently. I'm still trying to understand it. Some of what welled up in me tonight was the sharp hurt of how much I hoped for me and that horse. I had such hopes for him. I lusted after him in a way, felt such a blunt-force love for him, a connection from the gut. It shocked me to see him with someone else, and the grief of losing him hit me once again.

None of the jousters doubt my love for him. They see it in his fine health, his changed way of moving, his new headset. Jack, relaxed on Dar's back, smiled and murmured his sympathy. He's an 18-year-old boy who believes in his ability to make Dar perfect. And maybe he's right. He made it look easy. That's part of what I saw, part of what pushed me to tears. Why couldn't it have been that for me, someone so much better suited to give Dar a good life?

Melissa put her arm around me. "Talk me out of it," I said. In the moment, she did, enough to get me through the worst of it. "Remember the bucking," she said. Not too long ago, I learned Dar's early history. It was almost accidental, revealed unwittingly during a casual conversation, but left the hairs on the back of my neck standing. Bucking has been a part of Dar since before the jousters got him, never mind me.

It will take some time for me to reconcile myself to the loss of Dar. There will be further blows and more raw emotion. I tell myself Just get through it however you can, one piece at a time. I think I'm being mature about that, not hiding from my emotions but not seeking them out, either. I'm just there, and sometimes there Dar is. But here's my fear. What if the absolutely wrong thing to do was give up on him? I just feel haunted by that possibility tonight, too tired after a long day.

It was really hard to see him.

Ebbing (I think)

But maybe haunting me a little, too. I haven't seen Dar since Friday, July 16th. Sometime late last week, he wasn't the first thought I woke up to any longer. We lost our dear old cat, Miguel, who dropped a shocking amount of weight in a matter of days.

I tune in to the animals around me like a dowsing rod bends to water it cannot see. Grampa Gelli preoccupied me, tapped my instinct. On Friday, H.G. and I drove him to the vet. There was a large tumor in his abdomen and we had to let him go.

Dar ebbed, receded. But just there, in the background, he echoes. What if, what if, a pulse beating in still wondering, still wishing, still missing him.

The Joy in His Face

I feel such sorrow.

Dar came back to the jousters today. In the end, I put his needs completely before my own.

Work kept me away from the barn for 12 days. I finally saw Dar on Tuesday evening. The solitary confinement of the past six weeks had been taking its toll on him, but I saw it bluntly, plainly, after being away for those days. He ran to the fence, calling over and over again. Not even to me, particularly, but for the diversion, a break from the boredom and confusion. It cut into me, quick and precise, the recognition of his unhappiness. Intolerable. It was intolerable to me.

Last night I gave him a bath, something which was so important to me to do. My best friend held the lead line while I scrubbed Dar. I washed his thick tail three times, shampooed his hind fetlocks back to bright white, and rinsed him until the water ran clear. I put everything I had into it and then felt a kind of peace watching him dry as he grazed in the grass arena.

It rained overnight, of course, and Dar rolled in the fresh mud this morning. I laughed when I saw him, but Jouster Steve was stunned by the changes in Dar; he could have cared less about the mud. Still, I groomed Dar before leading him to Steve's trailer.

Steve tried unsuccessfully to load Dar, then turned him over to me. I broke a carrot in half. "Come on, Dar. Let's go in there," I said. He crunched the carrot and we stepped into the trailer. Because this is my horse, that's why, I thought. It just flicked through my mind.

We drove 40 minutes to the fair. Dar called and sang out. He was keyed up, but trailered well. Then up the winding road to the pasture, slow over the ruts. I backed him out of the trailer and walked him through the gate. When I slipped his halter off, he immediately ducked to graze. "Horses, Dar. There's horses here." I pushed his rump. He lifted his head then and stepped into a trot. I could hear them coming. Skyler, Max and Sunny, three abreast, crested the hill. Dar startled and swept around them. Cutter, Kilvarro and Blaze joined in. The seven cantered the pasture in a large, swooping arc. Just the one lap and it was done. They grazed.

I stood watching Dar for 45 minutes. I felt elated because I could see the relief in him; I could feel it. One by one, the jousters joined to watch. Dar weighs 300 pounds more than he did when they last saw him; he's grown half a hand taller. His eyes are alive with energy and health. None of this was lost on them today.

I walked away feeling proud. I think I earned that. They acknowledged my horsemanship. I think I earned that too.

I went to my office and worked for a while and then drove to the bank in my borrowed pickup truck. It was when I left the bank that a horrible pit opened up in my stomach: Oh, no. What have I done? It was like a riptide; I never saw it coming. The feeling built and built and built. Tears of grief. The fierceness of my love for him. The shock of never really having ridden him.

"Dar," I had called to him just before I left the pasture. No camera could capture the joy in his face as he lifted his head to my voice, ears tipped forward, there among the herd.

One for the Road

Barn chores have been hard this week, but they have also saved me. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, outrageous heat and humidity, storms rolling in, the ripeness of the barn, all of it. That moment when you realize you just have to yield to the sweat and let it flow through your eyes and into every part of your body. Then you keep working while the crazy, happy barn swallows swoop, duck and chatter.

I was more than grateful for it. Unbelievable crap has been happening where I work, some of which has a direct impact on my life. So the motion of our small existence -- me, H.G., the cats and horses -- all seemed to stop, to just pend. Even as you sleep, wake, step out the door, move through the day, then return to sleep. The stress of waiting chews at and exhausts the mind.

I arrived at the barn each evening mentally done. Being mentally exhausted has a way of stripping me back to my foundation, and that's a good place for me to be. I can't really lie to myself when I'm there; I don't have the energy. Raw and tired, what's left? Just me, in my body. And that's all that's required for barn chores. I did them, and they were simple and corrective for me.

Two of the rails came down in the fence around the grass arena, finally separating from a rotten post, so Dar's been in a dry lot 1 all week, next to the barn. It's been hard for him. He's aware of the herd way out in the pasture, but can't get near them. He's bored and unhappy.

I went into the dry lot to spend time with him all three evenings. He nickered as soon as he saw me drive in, then watched, his head held high over the fence, until I vanished around the corner to walk into the barn. Then he pressed himself against the sliding door, waiting, listening for me. I slid back the door and asked him to back up, which he did easily, despite his excitement and relief to have a diversion from his boredom. These encounters were each interesting and moving to me. We're both unhappy right now, Dar and I, and neither of us have the energy to hide it. Me being set back and reduced to just me includes only being to interact with Dar at a basic, creature-to-creature level. And while I happen to be reduced, I feel that Dar has finally fully revealed himself. And I see it. I saw it most clearly, and cleanly, I think, on Tuesday night.

I have to write about it when the time is right.

Last night, Dar and I shared a bottle of SoBe Lifewater, Agave Lemonade. "Grey water," I call it. He drank most of it, having, proportionately, a much larger mouth. I let him carry the drained plastic bottle around for a while and took a picture with only the camera of my memory.

Sunday School In Spite of Everything 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.

Untitled

I drove to the barn tonight having no idea what I would do. I felt nothing about having a training session with Dar; I was stopped about him. I thought about not even going, but wanting to check Scout's wounds pulled me there. She's healing quickly.

I left the pasture and walked toward the grass arena. There Dar stood.

We stared at each other. "Do you even like me?" I said. "Because I don't know if I like you right now." He stared at me. Something moved me forward. If I'm going to give him back to the jousters, then I mean to give them a horse much better than the one they gave me. I felt a distant objectivity as I led him down to the barn.

I still feel that distance now, but look at him carrying a rider. Willing, trying to understand. Which is just like me.

Far, and Few Beyond

That's how my brother long ago mangled the familiar phrase "Few and far between." I laughed about it then, but today, I feel he may have had it right all along.

The last thing I wrote in this journal described simple things: how my horses were doing together, my grooming Scout and feeling close to her, and the sound of the summer train passing in the distance. It was easy to write because things felt all right. I knew I was readying myself to ride Scout, and Dar's progress in school was good. Underlying it was the quiet certainty of how important the horses are to me, so important that I won't let life turn it upside down. I've been living the priority, even as my busy season looms.

So. I went to the barn on Saturday morning prepared to noodle around with Scout before having a training session with Dar. I had a friend with me, and I love to introduce people to horses. K was coming out to meet me, too. She hoped to ride Scout herself. This is something we have talked about for weeks. K has her fears; I have mine. I happen to think her fears don't apply to a horse like Scout, so I was really looking forward to us working with Scout together.

I walked up to the grass arena. Dar lifted his head at the sound of my voice. I instantly realized that Scout was not with him. Seconds later, I saw that she was out in the big pasture with all the other horses. My mind formulated the concept that E had put Scout out because she knew we would be working with Dar. I was wrong. My cell phone rang. It was E, on her way back to the barn after errands. She told me that Dar and Scout had fought in the dry lot they share for morning feeding and she had separated them. She told me they were out to kill each other. She told me breaking them apart was hard and they were lucky not to have sustained serious injuries.

I sat there stunned for a couple of minutes, my friend sitting beside me. K arrived, and I told her the news. E was there a minute later. We all listened as she described what had happened and how hard she had worked to separate them. We all went together to examine both horses. Scout had swelling above her left knee, a scrape on the inside of her left hock, and a shallow, jagged cut across her vulva. Carefree, she stood calmly as I ran my hands over her, gazing at me. Dar had a clear hoof print embossed on the right side of his rump, a healthy patch of hair missing from the right side of his chest, and several scrapes caused by teeth raking down the right side of his neck. He showed less of the eagerness and curiosity he displays when people are with him. He didn't seem agitated to be alone in the grass arena.

I don't really remember the words, I just remember the sitting there, talking about the bad thing that had happened, the sober feeling of it, the heavy disappointment of it. The peculiar instant when I thought, I am so sick of bad things happening with my horses when I am not there to witness them. I never get to see it with my own eyes.

I really needed to see this thing happen. Because I didn't, I will never know what caused it. I will never know whether Scout was on the offensive or the defensive. The assumption defaults to Dar being the bad actor. He's the studdy, mouthy, pushy one. But what if Scout saw her chance to take him down a notch and went for it?

You think the worst. You do. I have no luck with horses. I'm not going to get there. I can't believe I have another horse that's not_____(fill in the blank.)

After that conversation ended, we decided to do the training session with Dar. As I led him out of the arena and down to the barn, Scout called after him. He answered back, but soon settled down in the cross ties. I tacked him up and returned to the arena. E began with a few minutes of in-hand work, then moved on to ground driving. I watched for signs of hostility, refusal, unwillingness or defiance in Dar. There were none. It would be easier for me if there had been. E removed the driving reins and led Dar to the mounting block. She got on him, and I led them back into the arena. I walked beside Dar, holding the lead rope loosely as E rode him in simple straight lines and wide circles. We'd done this on Thursday, her astride, me leading from the ground.

I walked with them until E told me to hand her the lead rope. She looped it over Dar's and moved him off at a walk. I followed about 15 feet to the side of them. There was my trainer riding my horse. She turned him, halted him, trotted him. He did just great.

So there was a huge fight and there was a great training session. Put them on the scales and they balance each other. They balance to zero. In two weeks, the jousters come back. I can hand him right back to them and say thanks for the tryout. I think I'm supposed to be smart enough to decide to do exactly that, but I don't know how to face it. I don't want to give him up, but I lack the knowledge to justify why I wouldn't.

Dar Discovers the Joy of Being a Horse

A little bit of perfection today. Perfect weather, sparkling clean farm, happy horses, and a wonderful barn picnic. So much hard work and support goes into the farm that there's very little time left for simple fun like this. We put kids up on little Gambler, ate good food, laughed a lot and flowed easy with the day, unhurried, unharried. Perhaps none of us enjoyed it more than Dar, though. He loves people so much.

The secret decoder ring prize goes to S, who found a new scratches spot on my boy.

Oh no, does that feel good!

Work it, work it. I must smile!

How can I stand it?

I don't know about you, but I'd love a cigarette right now.

This was my last really free day for the next four months. The fair I work for opens in July, and I won't slow down until September 7th. The horses are my priority, though, and I will be with them as much as I can through the summer, but sleep is the only thing I have to play with. I'll gladly trade that to keep moving ahead with Dar and working to decide what comes next for Scout. What a lovely day.

Millstones and Milestones

A day starts out well and then it says Not so fast. One of our Pathfinders croaked and is spending the night in a grocery store parking lot. They were great about letting us leave it there until it can be towed.

Money, and the never-enough of it, the pay-this, forget-that of it. Lately, I'm letting go of the worry of it all in favor of preserving my mental capital. I'll never get back to the days of my 20s when I shrugged off bills and paid them mostly when I felt like it, but I've come to understand things oscillate, no matter how tidy plans may be.

It wasn't enough to pull me away from Sunday School, which I had enjoyed so much only hours before.

Ground driving, second lesson. It was hot this morning, and Dar was moist here and there even before we began. It's always interesting to see how horses in training react to new variables, whether environmental or the task at hand. One thing that Dar seems to have realized is that school means school. He accepts that there is work to do and doesn't become distracted. Except, of course, for daydreaming his way into Whoa. Always working on that, now we say, "Dar. Dar. Dar. Whoa." He's not a forward horse, so his sluggish response is a little mystifying. My homework with Dar over the next two weeks is to work him on the lunge line, drilling the halt.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but Dar is my second former joust horse, and I see a couple of critical similarities between him and Scout when it comes to training. They couldn't be more different in terms of temperament and nature, but they both display anxiety about learning, a sense of worry about figuring out what is being asked of them. Scout's reaction to that is to speed up and become incredibly tense. Dar reacts by checking with the trainer, asking Like this? Is this it? It isn't? Well, what is it, then? It's easy to know when to end a lesson with him. We stop before his brain fries.

This was a good lesson. Not just about the rein aids, it was also about bending and moving toward a specific target. Dar was listening to E's voice and the long reins. He's learned the ground version of leg aids -- really, he has them down -- so in a week or two, E will be up on his back for a lead-around with me.

What will it feel like when I get to sit on him for the first time? Will I be able to tell the difference between simple nervous excitement and the fear I found with Scout?

I don't know the answer, but I so want to get up on him.

Scout, Version 2.0

The horses are being eased onto grass. Yesterday, I handled their 30-minute evening graze. The main herd went out to one of the pastures. My two went into the outdoor riding arena. I hand-walked Dar over first and quickly went back to fetch Scout, before she began freaking out at being alone in the paddock while everybody else munched eye-deep in clover and dandelions.
It's been a bewildering few days for my little Red Death. She been separated from her BFF, Keely monster (who doesn't seem terribly concerned, herself), and turned out with Dar, who seems to worry her a little bit. But it's been more bewildering for me, because I thought she would kill him.

I gave her a quick withers scratch, then led her to the arena. It seemed like a nice night for a fight. "Kick his ass," I whispered. She trotted off into the deep grass, intent on her target. Which was:

What? Her eyes are closed. You can practically hear the sigh. I got my man. I got some good eats. The sun is nice. Ahhhh... What happened to my mare, the one who drops her rump low before charging whichever unlucky horse doesn't get that she's boss? The one who took on a 16.2-hand quarter-horse gelding and gashed an ugly, deep slash across his shoulder that required some serious needlework?

Ahhhh, she said, lowering herself to the grass.

Life never felt this good. I stared at her, probably slack-jawed. She grazed near Dar, not close but near. He moved her around a little bit every now and then. She adjusted her position easily, with not so much as a flick of an ear, but still kept herself near him.

Really? Really? That's it?
Yeah. Yeah, it is. Because I'm a stelding, or a gallion, or whatever you call it, Dar said. Think she'll care if I'm shooting blanks? She's a cougar -- isn't that what you call it? And I'm jail bait.

The More They Stay the Same...

...the more they change. I got Scout in September of 2004. I was given bits and pieces of information about her, most of which proved to be inaccurate the more I came to know her. I was told she was a monster for vaccines. Not. I was told she was used on a ranch and her owner had no problem tying a rope to the saddle horn and dragging a gate behind her. No. That could never have been done with Scout. She would have lost her mind. Or maybe it did happen and she did lose her mind.

I was told she might be a little herd bound. I wish. She's a lot herd bound.

I was also told she was an alpha mare. There was no reason to doubt it, based on what I saw. Until now. I grew so used to seeing Scout in that role, I'm still stunned at how easily she surrendered it. Dar is boss. They've been on turnout together since Sunday. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I keep expecting Scout to take over. Maybe she will, but with each day that passes, it seems less likely. No blood has been drawn, no marks left by either of them. Scout pines for Keely, but otherwise there's no drama.

But Dar is boss. And that's another thing altogether.

School of Work, School of Life

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.

This Boy is a Ham Boy

I have thoughts building somewhere in back of my brain, but maybe it's nothing more than the bloat that comes from horse constipation, that irritating condition that results from having the itch but no opportunity to scratch. Yes, I was at the barn Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, but the absurd weather meant we worked with Dar only on Monday. I could have joined him for a good, stretching wallow in the rich, ooogy mud last night, but, well, who has the time?

Nevertheless, something has become clear to me. Men like my doofus. They seem to be drawn to his silly, earnest need for attention, his compact, cloddy bulk, and his demanding friendliness. And I think he likes it.

K's husband took these pictures last Sunday.

Here I am.

I am Dar.

I am very cute.

Lay it on with a trowel, buddy.

Sunday School

In pictures. It's hard to describe how I feel. A soft French-link snaffle and my old Wintec 2000 Pro.



Responsive and willing. This is not the horse who pinned his ears, waiting for opportunities to evade.


This is my horse. I'm part of who he is today.

Baby Can't Handle His Dope

I wish it were a better picture, but just 30 seconds after the needle went in, Dar's head swooped to the ground and I couldn't get the shot fast enough. Doc B gave him only a quarter dose. Poor thing. He needed his teeth done. Man, the sedation hit him quick and hard.
I never tire of learning about horses, especially my horses. Doc B told me that draft crosses are coldbloods, and coldbloods have a different metabolism than warmbloods. As such, they metabolize drugs differently and it's not uncommon for them to require less sedation.

Here began an epic work of saliva artistry as the sedation took complete hold. I love his velvet nose.
Lights on, nobody home.
I love his XL ears and his lethally cute eyelashes. If I sound drunk, it's because I can't handle a high either. And I am high. We had a training session tonight that revealed Dar's progress and I am, well, feeling elated. Somebody needs to scrape me off the ceiling, actually. What if, I'm now wondering, he turns out to be exactly the right horse for me? The stuff of the last six months so consumed my thoughts, emotions and time, I never asked that question. I maybe didn't even dare.

Reverie

Tonight E was tired, so I did the longe line work with Dar while she provided running commentary and tips. I loved it, because Dar and I were training together, working at a pace that was perfect for both of us. First, I put him through walk-halts. My daydreamy doofus needs fewer reminders now; I think he's gotten the hang of whoa. We moved on to walk-trot transitions. We're looking for quicker responses from Dar, wanting to keep him attentive, not wandering off to some greener pasture in his mind. I mixed things up, throwing in a surprise halt here and there and changing directions. Then I worked him in trot for several minutes, up and down the soft, shallow slope at the west end of the grass outdoor arena.

When Dar was examined by the vet before I got him, she told me "Ride this horse up and down hills and slopes at walk and trot for the first year. He needs to build muscle strength; he has very little right now." She was right. It worried me how his hind legs looked back then. From hip to hoof, they wobbled and undulated like thick noodles. His hooves seemed to roll on their outside edges. All that's gone now -- the consistent good care has built him up -- but now it's time to begin to shape and strengthen the muscle that he's recovered.

Trotting the slopes is hard work for Dar, but exactly what the doctor ordered. Leaning on the line would be an easy cheat, but he didn't do that tonight. He settled into a steady pace and I kept the line light in my hand. It was quiet and still, just the sound of Dar's hooves, one-two, one-two, thudding softly on the grass. Reverie, that's what they call it. I watched him trotting, watched him passing between me and the sunset each time around. For a second, I was guilty of daydreaming myself, struck by his beauty, imagining what it will be like to ride him. I snapped back into the moment when he lowered his head and blew out, releasing that wonderful snorting exhalation that means a horse has relaxed, feels safe, and is content in his work. Music to my ears.

We are training this young horse. Part of me can't even believe it.

Tension Releases in the Supple Horse

I went to the Midwest Horse Fair on Saturday, where K, E and I watched a Steffen Peters clinic together. Peters is an Olympic-winning Grand Prix dressage rider. I think clinics are always fun to watch, but for me they can flow by and leave very little practical information behind. Peters worked with two women riding lovely Oldenburgs. Both riders were good, but they were heavy with the aids, particularly the spurs. Peters addressed that issue with subtle language. He said something that I won't forget. It's a truly useful piece of advice that I can bring into every interaction I have with a horse.

Tension has nowhere to go in an un-supple horse. (Or an un-supple human being, for that matter.)

I thought about it during Monday School with Dar. He's a young horse who lacks balance and self-carriage. He also carries some baggage from what little training he received before I got him. Particularly, he gets tense, rushy and aggressively defensive when asked to canter. That's something I think is endemic to joust horses, especially those who aren't cut out for that hard profession.

I think these photos show a nice, simple progression through tension to relaxation. I don't expect suppleness from Dar yet, but I can look for the classic signs of release: tightness and leaning, then a listening ear, then giving way into the long, low, easy profile of a calm, willing horse.