Story Of The Month
Chapter 23: SILENTLY INTO THE NIGHT
The winter had passed by like an unwelcome visitor making the warmth and bright colours of spring a tonic elixir to invigorate daily life. The horses were feeling well, I had just received a promotion and one of my closest friends whom I had met in Canada was coming to holiday. I lived in Canada a few years beforehand and made some wonderful friends that I missed very much. It was never enough to catch up every couple of years at some international symposium because you were always surrounded by work and the talk was always shoptalk. Even the evening drinks were about work. So I was really looking forward to Victor’s visit, even though I knew we would not be able to completely avoid talking about placental cell lines and IGF receptors.
With Victor’s stay and the preparation for examinations and honour theses needing to be read, there was no time for horses. Even the horse that had been sent to me for starting under saddle vegetated in the paddock for a few weeks with little more than a pat every few days. I actually didn’t mind too much. As much as the horses are important to me, it’s nice to take a break. I was feeling at times that I had been doing so much with the horses that it was starting to lose its glitter. Turning a passion into a job has its pitfalls.
A few days after life had settled down, I got the urge to take a couple of horses out for a ride. There were no theses needing to be read. There was no committee report or research paper needing to be submitted. Victor had returned home to Ontario to his wife and kids. The breeze was light and the sun was bright.
I decided to ride Chops and lead Satts up the road and across the Harkaway road towards Cardinia reservoir. Being early on a Sunday the traffic was light. The ride was particularly uneventful, but lots of fun. Even the appearance of a couple of wallabies bounding out from behind a stand of trees did not cause the horses alarm. Considering how little attention either horse had been getting lately they behaved “above and beyond” as they say.
I had already unhaltered Chops and let her go and was about to do the same with Satts, when I noticed a small lump on the side of his right nostril. I tried to feel for a thorn or insect bite, but it just seemed like a swelling inside the flap of nostril tissue. I figured an ant or small spider had bitten him.
That ride to the reservoir had given me back the bug to ride more. It was time to start breaking in the horse my friend had sent me. I knew there was no hurry and I could take my time. My friend was a nervous rider, so I wanted to be sure to take particular care to give her back a really quiet horse.
A week later I was in the round yard with the horse. I spent a couple of weeks here and there doing some groundwork and filling in the gaps that had been left in the mare. She was a sweet natured animal and I was sure she would be as close to perfect as I could expect for my friend. I just hoped my friend could be just as perfect for the mare.
Before it was time to step up on the mare I decided to introduce Satts to the process. My plan was to ride Satts and do some ground work with the mare to get her okay with having a person above her eye. At first Satts indicated he didn’t like the mare. I guess he had been out of work for too long and had forgotten his manners and his job in this affair. I let the lead rope attached to the mare drop to the ground and spent a few minutes reminding Satts how to be a workhorse. He seemed a little reluctant to let go of his thoughts about the mare. Every time I asked something of him he was late in responding because his attention was on her rather than on me. I made a mental note to get some more hours on Satts over the coming days to tune him up.
Finally Satts was in a slightly better frame of mind to continue with the mare. He was still late at times and seemed too interested in her, but I had enough of a handle on him to get the job done. The mare quickly understood that having me above her eye was nothing to worry about. She learned to accept when I swung my leg over the seat of her saddle while I remained seated on Satts. The thing that worried her most was bumping her flanks with my leg. But with Satts’ help she came through like the smart and good-natured horse she was.
When the session was over and I was unsaddling both horses I noticed that Satts had knocked his head on the mare. There was a slight trickle of blood from his nostril. Clearly it was only a small injury and he didn’t seem to pull away when I touched it. I chose to ignore it.
It was the time of year when I always had the dentist visit for my horses. It was a ritual that at the same time of year Mick would come out and attend to the four horses. It worked out perfectly for me that he was coming because I wanted him to float the mare’s teeth. I always had a dentist check the teeth of every breaker before I rode them in a bit. It was one of the few golden rules I had about horses.
Mick arrived on the Thursday evening on his way home from a day of dentistry at Caulfield where he had worked on twenty-seven horses. I knew he’d be tired and but I figured he should do the mare first while he was at his freshest. Mick was excellent at handling first-time and difficult horses. He was patient and let them try whatever antics they felt they needed to try. But when they were ready, he was ready. There was hardly any dust being kicked up or airs above the ground. This is how he was with the mare. He chose not to use the gag for her first time. Mick put his left hand in her mouth and followed her as she ran backwards into the corner of the yard. When she felt the rail pressed into her hind end, she stopped arguing and allowed him to do what was needed. I couldn’t have been more pleased with her. Even Mick made a comment about her being a very nice mare - this coming from a man who treated compliments like Ebenezer Scrooge treated Christmas.
After he finished with the mare I left him with Satts while I led my friend’s horse back to her yard. I knew he would be okay with Satts. I was about to step into another yard to halter the next horse for him when I heard Mick ask, “D’ya know he has a lump on his nose?”
“Yeah, I noticed one about three weeks ago. Is it still there? I thought it was probably an insect bite. It’s pretty small so I’m not worried about it,” I said.
“I dunno Ross. It doesn’t look so small to me. I’d keep an eye on it, “ Mick responded.
I went over and had a good look at the lump. It was probably three times the size when I last noticed it. There was no tenderness, no scab.
“Does it look like a tumour to you, Mick?”
“I couldn’t say. But it’s probably nothing. Maybe a reaction to something? Just keep tabs on it and maybe have ya vet look at it the next time he comes out,” Mick suggested.
I made a mental note to check it often.
Every few days I gave Satts a light workout. The lump didn’t appear to be changing much, which gave me peace of mind not to worry so much. A few weeks later I had arranged to go for a ride with one of my neighbours. Like me she didn’t have people to ride with her, so every few months we would make a date to ride together. We loaded the horses into the float and drove to some bushland in Gembrook. We both took sick days from work and because it was a weekday we had the trails to ourselves. It was a perfect sunny day made for enjoying a ride.
Both Satts and Megan’s horse were great. There is no riding more fun for me than to wander through the bush, enjoying the bird songs and feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. We had been riding for about ninety minutes when Megan challenged me to a race. The last one to the fallen down gum tree at the next corner had to buy cappuccinos on the way home. It was a distance of about four hundred metres. I knew Satts would fly past Megan’s Anglo Arab as if it was standing still, but I only felt a slight twinge of guilt when I said “okay.”
Of course Megan cheated and said “go” even before I had gathered up my reins. Nevertheless, I put the pedal to the metal and Satts took off like he was shot out of a cannon. I figured we would pass Megan in the first hundred metres. I was surprised how fast her little mare was going. Satts was struggling to make ground on her. By about half way we were nearly at the mares tail when she began to pull away again. I urged Satts to go faster, but nothing was happening. It felt like the tank was empty. I gave him a solid kick with my heels, but he just kept lagging. In fact, Megan was getting further ahead. As hard as I tried he got slower and slower. Finally we reached the fallen tree where Megan was waiting for us with a grin too big for her face. Her horse was puffing, but Satts felt ready for a lay down. He was sweating and puffing like he had run a Melbourne Cup race. I knew something was not quite right with him. He was breathing very hard and I suspected he might have a cold or respiratory infection.
Megan looked ready to boast.
“Okay, you win. I’ll buy you that coffee…” I said.
The grin on her face drained away.
“What’s wrong,” I asked?
“It’s Satts. Look at Satts. He’s bleeding.”
“What? What do mean he’s bleeding?”
I jumped off and saw a trail of blood from his nostril down his muzzle and dripping off his lips. I felt a moment of panic. This was more than a trickle. Hell! What was I to do?
“Megan, go back as quick as you can and get the car and float. I’ll meet you at the corner near where the dam is.”
Satts and I got to the meeting place long before Megan. I had plenty of time to imagine the worse was happening. The flow of blood had slowed to almost a stop. I washed his face with water from the dam. Maybe he just burst a few nasal capillaries like any normal nosebleed. Or maybe he had a tumour. But I guess it could be a cold or some pneumonia type infection. He was breathing normal again. I checked his gums to confirm his blood refill time was normal. And his pulse indicated he had a normal heart rate. It seems Satts was not in too bad a shape. As time passed I realized my initial reaction was an over reaction.
Megan arrived with the float in tow and we headed straight home. The coffees were long forgotten.
I decided to keep Satts in a stable overnight and brought Chops up to the adjacent stall for company, which did not impress the paddock princess very much.
During the night I lay awake running scenarios through my mind trying to solve the riddle of Satts’ bleeding. I’m a physiologist for crying our loud. I work in medical research. I should be able to solve this. But unfortunately I was not a diagnostician. I did not know about diseases and I did not know how to diagnose them.
The next morning I called my vet. He said he’d be out after lunch to see Satts. This meant phoning into work again with another sick day excuse. Satts had only eaten about half of the feed he’d been given overnight. This was particularly uncharacteristic of him. Satts had always been a good eater, even as far back as the day he first arrived breathing fire from both nostrils. I knew there was nothing wrong with the food because Chops had eaten all of hers and was even eyeing off the hay in Satts’ hay net as if to ask, “Are you going to finish that?”
The vet finally arrived around mid afternoon. He checked Satts’ vital signs and confirmed that everything appeared normal. But the lump on his nostril did appear suspicious to him. I was drilled with twenty questions about how long it had been there, if it had grown much, had I noticed other lumps? Satts was a grey horse and greys are notorious for developing melanoma tumours in all sorts of body parts including noses. He gave Satts a thorough going over for other odd lumps, particularly under his tail and around his penis and sheath. But no obvious signs of tumours were visible. I got a strong sense that the vet was not able to put all the symptoms that Satts exhibited into one story. In the end he decided to take a biopsy from the lump in Satts’ nostril and send it off for expert examination. This would give us the answer as to whether or not it was a tumour and should I be worried about it.
I waited almost a week to get a phone call from my vet. Meanwhile I returned Satts back to the paddock with his friends to enjoy the warm weather. He seemed less interested in life and I often saw him on his own just standing around or reclining on the ground. He had a growing tendency to leave food in his bucket for LJ or Chops to finish. He was not okay. I knew no matter what the biopsy result might tell me something was wrong.
I was in my office discussing some results with my research assistant when the phone call came from the vet. He said the lump was not cancerous. My worst fears melted away instantly and I almost hang up the phone without waiting to hear the rest of the report.
“So what it is Neil?” I asked.
“They sectioned the tissue and stained different sections for different markers. The only result was a positive stain for amyloid. The pathologist said the tissue lit up like a city at night for amyloid.”
“Amyloid? That’s a protein, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Neil answered.
“Well, what does it mean then?” was my next question.
“Ross, he has amyloidosis. The production of amyloid within the cell goes haywire and out of control and the cell over produces the protein. Nobody knows what causes it. The cell fills up with amyloid and enlarges. In simple terms it chokes the function of the cell.”
“What do we do about it?” I asked.
“There is no cure. He will get worse. It will eventually spread through all his vital organs and he won’t be able to survive. You tell me he has become lethargic and off his food. This indicates to me he already has developed lumps on his kidney and liver and maybe even his heart. I suspect when he bled the other day, it was coming from lumps either in his airways or his lungs. I’d like to come out and scope his airways to confirm the diagnosis. I’m sorry, but if I’m right there is nothing anyone can do. He will continue to get worse and you’ll have to consider putting him down at some point.”
I hung up the phone feeling numb. I told Jan we would finish looking at the results the next day and she left so I could take in what I had just been told. She later told me I sat motionless at my desk for over an hour. I had no idea how long it was before I left to go home. I have no memory of the drive. The only memory I have of the rest of that day is hanging over the gate looking at Satts lazily grazing. I was there until it was too dark to see anymore.
I had made a time for the vet to scope Satts the following Saturday morning. His examination confirmed there were several lumps lining Satts’ upper airways.
Now that I had a definitive diagnosis I knew I had to call my father with the news of his horse. Dad loved Satts. Every phone call I had with him in the past couple of years required a two minute summary of a week in the life of Satts. And dad never failed to tell me once again about the time Satts won a race at Canterbury or how a jockey boasted to him about what a great horse Satts was to ride or some other tale that would ensure the legend of Satts would be whispered around campfires for millennium to come.
Needless to say my father was very upset with the news of his horse’s illness. He offered to pay for any medical treatment or care needed. I think he was hoping there was a cure to be found if we just searched hard enough.
I had stopped riding Satts immediately and allowed him to live the life of a retired gentleman. Over the weeks it was obvious he was losing weight and even with the amount of food I was trying to pump into him his illness was winning the battle. The lump on his nose had drastically increased in size and I noticed some lumps had developed under the skin of his neck.
One morning I picked some not quite ripe apples from the tree behind my house. I knew the horses would enjoy a treat. I stood at the gate and called them. From the bottom of the hill there was a thunder of hoofs. LJ, Chops, Luke were cantering headed my way. Satts was trotting not too far behind. As I gave them a quarter of apple each, I heard a rasping sound coming from the big grey. He was out of breath and wheezing. I made sure he got some special attention and extra apple.
I called Neil the vet.
“Ross, I’m sorry but that wheezing sound is because the lumps of amyloid have become so enlarged that they are interfering with his ability to get enough air. He’s gasping for his breath.”
It was time for Satts to be given rest. I didn’t want to call the guy with the gun and the truck. I have never been good at losing friends. But losing Satts would be the hardest of all. Too much had happened to get where we were. We had gone from being each other’s biggest challenge to being best friends. From combatives to companions. How could I let him go?
The guy arrived with his well-used rifle. He smooched with Satts for a short time then lined him up for the shot. I saw the trust and softness in Satts’ eyes. What a long journey he had made from the savage horse known as Satan to the horse standing quietly in front of the man with the gun. With a sudden burst of noise Satts was gone. My heart cracked opened with emptiness. It was like opening a door to a room filled with your dreams but to find the room is empty.
After the man took Satts away and left the only sign that he ever existed - a congealed patch of blood on the ground - I went into the house. I pulled out the box of photos that was covered with dust under the stairs. One by one I went through each and put aside my collection of Satts pictures. I then took out an old book of blank pages and began to make a scrapbook about Satts. Tears kept dropping onto the images as I placed each one. By the time I positioned the last photo I cried my last tear. My memories of Satts had a new home where I could find them any time I wanted to smile.
The winter had passed by like an unwelcome visitor making the warmth and bright colours of spring a tonic elixir to invigorate daily life. The horses were feeling well, I had just received a promotion and one of my closest friends whom I had met in Canada was coming to holiday. I lived in Canada a few years beforehand and made some wonderful friends that I missed very much. It was never enough to catch up every couple of years at some international symposium because you were always surrounded by work and the talk was always shoptalk. Even the evening drinks were about work. So I was really looking forward to Victor’s visit, even though I knew we would not be able to completely avoid talking about placental cell lines and IGF receptors.
With Victor’s stay and the preparation for examinations and honour theses needing to be read, there was no time for horses. Even the horse that had been sent to me for starting under saddle vegetated in the paddock for a few weeks with little more than a pat every few days. I actually didn’t mind too much. As much as the horses are important to me, it’s nice to take a break. I was feeling at times that I had been doing so much with the horses that it was starting to lose its glitter. Turning a passion into a job has its pitfalls.
A few days after life had settled down, I got the urge to take a couple of horses out for a ride. There were no theses needing to be read. There was no committee report or research paper needing to be submitted. Victor had returned home to Ontario to his wife and kids. The breeze was light and the sun was bright.
I decided to ride Chops and lead Satts up the road and across the Harkaway road towards Cardinia reservoir. Being early on a Sunday the traffic was light. The ride was particularly uneventful, but lots of fun. Even the appearance of a couple of wallabies bounding out from behind a stand of trees did not cause the horses alarm. Considering how little attention either horse had been getting lately they behaved “above and beyond” as they say.
I had already unhaltered Chops and let her go and was about to do the same with Satts, when I noticed a small lump on the side of his right nostril. I tried to feel for a thorn or insect bite, but it just seemed like a swelling inside the flap of nostril tissue. I figured an ant or small spider had bitten him.
That ride to the reservoir had given me back the bug to ride more. It was time to start breaking in the horse my friend had sent me. I knew there was no hurry and I could take my time. My friend was a nervous rider, so I wanted to be sure to take particular care to give her back a really quiet horse.
A week later I was in the round yard with the horse. I spent a couple of weeks here and there doing some groundwork and filling in the gaps that had been left in the mare. She was a sweet natured animal and I was sure she would be as close to perfect as I could expect for my friend. I just hoped my friend could be just as perfect for the mare.
Before it was time to step up on the mare I decided to introduce Satts to the process. My plan was to ride Satts and do some ground work with the mare to get her okay with having a person above her eye. At first Satts indicated he didn’t like the mare. I guess he had been out of work for too long and had forgotten his manners and his job in this affair. I let the lead rope attached to the mare drop to the ground and spent a few minutes reminding Satts how to be a workhorse. He seemed a little reluctant to let go of his thoughts about the mare. Every time I asked something of him he was late in responding because his attention was on her rather than on me. I made a mental note to get some more hours on Satts over the coming days to tune him up.
Finally Satts was in a slightly better frame of mind to continue with the mare. He was still late at times and seemed too interested in her, but I had enough of a handle on him to get the job done. The mare quickly understood that having me above her eye was nothing to worry about. She learned to accept when I swung my leg over the seat of her saddle while I remained seated on Satts. The thing that worried her most was bumping her flanks with my leg. But with Satts’ help she came through like the smart and good-natured horse she was.
When the session was over and I was unsaddling both horses I noticed that Satts had knocked his head on the mare. There was a slight trickle of blood from his nostril. Clearly it was only a small injury and he didn’t seem to pull away when I touched it. I chose to ignore it.
It was the time of year when I always had the dentist visit for my horses. It was a ritual that at the same time of year Mick would come out and attend to the four horses. It worked out perfectly for me that he was coming because I wanted him to float the mare’s teeth. I always had a dentist check the teeth of every breaker before I rode them in a bit. It was one of the few golden rules I had about horses.
Mick arrived on the Thursday evening on his way home from a day of dentistry at Caulfield where he had worked on twenty-seven horses. I knew he’d be tired and but I figured he should do the mare first while he was at his freshest. Mick was excellent at handling first-time and difficult horses. He was patient and let them try whatever antics they felt they needed to try. But when they were ready, he was ready. There was hardly any dust being kicked up or airs above the ground. This is how he was with the mare. He chose not to use the gag for her first time. Mick put his left hand in her mouth and followed her as she ran backwards into the corner of the yard. When she felt the rail pressed into her hind end, she stopped arguing and allowed him to do what was needed. I couldn’t have been more pleased with her. Even Mick made a comment about her being a very nice mare - this coming from a man who treated compliments like Ebenezer Scrooge treated Christmas.
After he finished with the mare I left him with Satts while I led my friend’s horse back to her yard. I knew he would be okay with Satts. I was about to step into another yard to halter the next horse for him when I heard Mick ask, “D’ya know he has a lump on his nose?”
“Yeah, I noticed one about three weeks ago. Is it still there? I thought it was probably an insect bite. It’s pretty small so I’m not worried about it,” I said.
“I dunno Ross. It doesn’t look so small to me. I’d keep an eye on it, “ Mick responded.
I went over and had a good look at the lump. It was probably three times the size when I last noticed it. There was no tenderness, no scab.
“Does it look like a tumour to you, Mick?”
“I couldn’t say. But it’s probably nothing. Maybe a reaction to something? Just keep tabs on it and maybe have ya vet look at it the next time he comes out,” Mick suggested.
I made a mental note to check it often.
Every few days I gave Satts a light workout. The lump didn’t appear to be changing much, which gave me peace of mind not to worry so much. A few weeks later I had arranged to go for a ride with one of my neighbours. Like me she didn’t have people to ride with her, so every few months we would make a date to ride together. We loaded the horses into the float and drove to some bushland in Gembrook. We both took sick days from work and because it was a weekday we had the trails to ourselves. It was a perfect sunny day made for enjoying a ride.
Both Satts and Megan’s horse were great. There is no riding more fun for me than to wander through the bush, enjoying the bird songs and feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. We had been riding for about ninety minutes when Megan challenged me to a race. The last one to the fallen down gum tree at the next corner had to buy cappuccinos on the way home. It was a distance of about four hundred metres. I knew Satts would fly past Megan’s Anglo Arab as if it was standing still, but I only felt a slight twinge of guilt when I said “okay.”
Of course Megan cheated and said “go” even before I had gathered up my reins. Nevertheless, I put the pedal to the metal and Satts took off like he was shot out of a cannon. I figured we would pass Megan in the first hundred metres. I was surprised how fast her little mare was going. Satts was struggling to make ground on her. By about half way we were nearly at the mares tail when she began to pull away again. I urged Satts to go faster, but nothing was happening. It felt like the tank was empty. I gave him a solid kick with my heels, but he just kept lagging. In fact, Megan was getting further ahead. As hard as I tried he got slower and slower. Finally we reached the fallen tree where Megan was waiting for us with a grin too big for her face. Her horse was puffing, but Satts felt ready for a lay down. He was sweating and puffing like he had run a Melbourne Cup race. I knew something was not quite right with him. He was breathing very hard and I suspected he might have a cold or respiratory infection.
Megan looked ready to boast.
“Okay, you win. I’ll buy you that coffee…” I said.
The grin on her face drained away.
“What’s wrong,” I asked?
“It’s Satts. Look at Satts. He’s bleeding.”
“What? What do mean he’s bleeding?”
I jumped off and saw a trail of blood from his nostril down his muzzle and dripping off his lips. I felt a moment of panic. This was more than a trickle. Hell! What was I to do?
“Megan, go back as quick as you can and get the car and float. I’ll meet you at the corner near where the dam is.”
Satts and I got to the meeting place long before Megan. I had plenty of time to imagine the worse was happening. The flow of blood had slowed to almost a stop. I washed his face with water from the dam. Maybe he just burst a few nasal capillaries like any normal nosebleed. Or maybe he had a tumour. But I guess it could be a cold or some pneumonia type infection. He was breathing normal again. I checked his gums to confirm his blood refill time was normal. And his pulse indicated he had a normal heart rate. It seems Satts was not in too bad a shape. As time passed I realized my initial reaction was an over reaction.
Megan arrived with the float in tow and we headed straight home. The coffees were long forgotten.
I decided to keep Satts in a stable overnight and brought Chops up to the adjacent stall for company, which did not impress the paddock princess very much.
During the night I lay awake running scenarios through my mind trying to solve the riddle of Satts’ bleeding. I’m a physiologist for crying our loud. I work in medical research. I should be able to solve this. But unfortunately I was not a diagnostician. I did not know about diseases and I did not know how to diagnose them.
The next morning I called my vet. He said he’d be out after lunch to see Satts. This meant phoning into work again with another sick day excuse. Satts had only eaten about half of the feed he’d been given overnight. This was particularly uncharacteristic of him. Satts had always been a good eater, even as far back as the day he first arrived breathing fire from both nostrils. I knew there was nothing wrong with the food because Chops had eaten all of hers and was even eyeing off the hay in Satts’ hay net as if to ask, “Are you going to finish that?”
The vet finally arrived around mid afternoon. He checked Satts’ vital signs and confirmed that everything appeared normal. But the lump on his nostril did appear suspicious to him. I was drilled with twenty questions about how long it had been there, if it had grown much, had I noticed other lumps? Satts was a grey horse and greys are notorious for developing melanoma tumours in all sorts of body parts including noses. He gave Satts a thorough going over for other odd lumps, particularly under his tail and around his penis and sheath. But no obvious signs of tumours were visible. I got a strong sense that the vet was not able to put all the symptoms that Satts exhibited into one story. In the end he decided to take a biopsy from the lump in Satts’ nostril and send it off for expert examination. This would give us the answer as to whether or not it was a tumour and should I be worried about it.
I waited almost a week to get a phone call from my vet. Meanwhile I returned Satts back to the paddock with his friends to enjoy the warm weather. He seemed less interested in life and I often saw him on his own just standing around or reclining on the ground. He had a growing tendency to leave food in his bucket for LJ or Chops to finish. He was not okay. I knew no matter what the biopsy result might tell me something was wrong.
I was in my office discussing some results with my research assistant when the phone call came from the vet. He said the lump was not cancerous. My worst fears melted away instantly and I almost hang up the phone without waiting to hear the rest of the report.
“So what it is Neil?” I asked.
“They sectioned the tissue and stained different sections for different markers. The only result was a positive stain for amyloid. The pathologist said the tissue lit up like a city at night for amyloid.”
“Amyloid? That’s a protein, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Neil answered.
“Well, what does it mean then?” was my next question.
“Ross, he has amyloidosis. The production of amyloid within the cell goes haywire and out of control and the cell over produces the protein. Nobody knows what causes it. The cell fills up with amyloid and enlarges. In simple terms it chokes the function of the cell.”
“What do we do about it?” I asked.
“There is no cure. He will get worse. It will eventually spread through all his vital organs and he won’t be able to survive. You tell me he has become lethargic and off his food. This indicates to me he already has developed lumps on his kidney and liver and maybe even his heart. I suspect when he bled the other day, it was coming from lumps either in his airways or his lungs. I’d like to come out and scope his airways to confirm the diagnosis. I’m sorry, but if I’m right there is nothing anyone can do. He will continue to get worse and you’ll have to consider putting him down at some point.”
I hung up the phone feeling numb. I told Jan we would finish looking at the results the next day and she left so I could take in what I had just been told. She later told me I sat motionless at my desk for over an hour. I had no idea how long it was before I left to go home. I have no memory of the drive. The only memory I have of the rest of that day is hanging over the gate looking at Satts lazily grazing. I was there until it was too dark to see anymore.
I had made a time for the vet to scope Satts the following Saturday morning. His examination confirmed there were several lumps lining Satts’ upper airways.
Now that I had a definitive diagnosis I knew I had to call my father with the news of his horse. Dad loved Satts. Every phone call I had with him in the past couple of years required a two minute summary of a week in the life of Satts. And dad never failed to tell me once again about the time Satts won a race at Canterbury or how a jockey boasted to him about what a great horse Satts was to ride or some other tale that would ensure the legend of Satts would be whispered around campfires for millennium to come.
Needless to say my father was very upset with the news of his horse’s illness. He offered to pay for any medical treatment or care needed. I think he was hoping there was a cure to be found if we just searched hard enough.
I had stopped riding Satts immediately and allowed him to live the life of a retired gentleman. Over the weeks it was obvious he was losing weight and even with the amount of food I was trying to pump into him his illness was winning the battle. The lump on his nose had drastically increased in size and I noticed some lumps had developed under the skin of his neck.
One morning I picked some not quite ripe apples from the tree behind my house. I knew the horses would enjoy a treat. I stood at the gate and called them. From the bottom of the hill there was a thunder of hoofs. LJ, Chops, Luke were cantering headed my way. Satts was trotting not too far behind. As I gave them a quarter of apple each, I heard a rasping sound coming from the big grey. He was out of breath and wheezing. I made sure he got some special attention and extra apple.
I called Neil the vet.
“Ross, I’m sorry but that wheezing sound is because the lumps of amyloid have become so enlarged that they are interfering with his ability to get enough air. He’s gasping for his breath.”
It was time for Satts to be given rest. I didn’t want to call the guy with the gun and the truck. I have never been good at losing friends. But losing Satts would be the hardest of all. Too much had happened to get where we were. We had gone from being each other’s biggest challenge to being best friends. From combatives to companions. How could I let him go?
The guy arrived with his well-used rifle. He smooched with Satts for a short time then lined him up for the shot. I saw the trust and softness in Satts’ eyes. What a long journey he had made from the savage horse known as Satan to the horse standing quietly in front of the man with the gun. With a sudden burst of noise Satts was gone. My heart cracked opened with emptiness. It was like opening a door to a room filled with your dreams but to find the room is empty.
After the man took Satts away and left the only sign that he ever existed - a congealed patch of blood on the ground - I went into the house. I pulled out the box of photos that was covered with dust under the stairs. One by one I went through each and put aside my collection of Satts pictures. I then took out an old book of blank pages and began to make a scrapbook about Satts. Tears kept dropping onto the images as I placed each one. By the time I positioned the last photo I cried my last tear. My memories of Satts had a new home where I could find them any time I wanted to smile.
Previously …..
I had only moved to Victoria six months earlier. I was living on a 30 acre property owned by an absent doctor who was looking for a part time caretaker. It had a beautiful open plan house with an upstairs mezzanine. There were 2 stables and 6 paddocks, a round yard, 2 acre dam and a quiet dead end dirt road. The owner grew blueberries and wine grapes and would visit a few times a year to enjoy the country atmosphere and play farmer for short periods. My responsibilities were to mow the lawns, keep the irrigation working for the grapes and berries and provide security. There was plenty of room for my 2 horses and lots of time that I could continue my research career at the university. It was a perfect setup – no rent, easy responsibilities and all the space and facilities for riding my horses.
It was nearing bedtime for me when the phone rang. I thought about not answering it, but I had an important experiment running and it might have been one of my lab techs calling to say I was needed in the lab. It was my dad.
Dad didn’t usually call. Mostly mum did all the telephoning. Dad was not very good at small talk. He started with all the usual like “how are ya, son” and “how’s work” and “do ya need any money”. At this point is was normal for him to say “well, good talkin to ya - here’s ya mother.” But he didn’t this time.
“Son, I got a horse that isn’t doing too well. Geoff (the trainer) says he can’t race because he is too crazy. Nobody wants to handle him and they can’t get him broken in. Do ya reckon you could take him for a bit and see what ya can do with him. I’ll pay ya and take care of all the expenses. He’s a Karla Dancer foal and worth giving him some time.”
“Well dad I’m really busy at work at them moment with some big experiments that I need to get done before my application for a new NH&MRC grant is due in October. I have to have the preliminary data ready for that, so I don’t know how much time I’ll have for training a horse.”
“I’m in no hurray. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get around to him for a while, “ dad said. “But I don’t know what to do about him. He’s a Karla Dancer foal and worth putting in the time. I think he has real potential, but everyone thinks he’s nuts. I’d appreciate it if you could just check him out for me. Otherwise, I might have to put him down because nobody wants to deal with him.”
Dad said the magic words. I couldn’t stand the thought that a horse would be destroyed just because I didn’t find the time to help out.
“Okay dad. Let me check with the fellow that owns this place that it’s okay to have another horse here. I think he’ll be fine if it’s just for a while, but I had better ask anyway. Don’t worry about paying me. If I can help, I’m happy to help. Let me get Geoff’s phone number from you and I’ll call him and talk to him to get the story and make arrangements for the horse to come down from Sydney. Now let me speak to mum.”
A few days after I had cleared things with the good doctor that it was okay to have the horse for a while, I called the trainer.
“Well mate, we call him Satan and that should tell you all about him. He’s hurt a strapper when she was leading him and another when she went into his stall to check his water. He threw the breaker out of the saddle by grabbing his leg and reefing him to the ground. He can’t be put with any other horses. He’s a bastard and needs to be put down. He’s too dangerous and is going to kill somebody one day. The breaker won’t ride him anymore and nobody wants to handle him. I’ve told your dad that he is a pig and should be shot, but for no reason I can work out he’s seems fond of the horse. If you can do anything with him, good luck. But be careful ‘cause he will hurt you if you let your guard down.”
We agreed that Satan would be put on a transporter the next week heading for Melbourne. I felt butterflies in my stomach at the thought at what I had got into. If he really was this dangerous did I really want to work with this horse? What could I do when everybody else had failed? If the breaker refused to get on him, why the hell should I? Bloody hell, what was I in for?
Work had been incredibly busy with some really long nights and early mornings. My experiment had had a couple of near disasters, which had kept me up working late into the night and even into the wee hours. The stress and long hours had almost made me forget that Satan was coming to holiday, until the phone rang at 6:30 in the morning. It was the transport fellow telling me they had Satan at their Melbourne depot and would be delivering him that afternoon. We made a time that I thought I could be home by and gave them directions. I told them if I was late to just put the horse in the round yard, which was just at the top of the drive, by the house.
“Mate, ya don’t wanna be puttin this horse in a yard. He’ll either jump out or he’ll run you over tryin to catch him. Have ya gotta a stable to use until he settles in? It needs to have a top and bottom door that ya can lock.”
Shit! What type of tragic case is this horse? I told them I would be there to meet them and to keep him in the truck until I got home.
I went outside to check the stables. They had not been used for some time. I cleaned what was left of some old manure and topped up the bedding with fresh sawdust then raked it smooth. The automatic waterer was working, but the system needed to be flushed to clear out the grunge that had accumulated in the pipes. The stable could be locked with top and bottom bolts on each door, but the screws holding them looked flimsy. I went to the tool shed and managed to find 2inch screws and a hand drill. I replaced the screws and then checked the strength of the hinges. The doors were pretty heavy duty and the builder had used good, strong hinges and screws to set them with. The stables were lined with quarter inch rubber to a height of four feet up the wall. I figured this would be sufficient protection if Satan decided to use the stable walls for soccer practice. I didn’t know what sort of trouble Satan might cause, but I wanted to be ready for anything. I felt like I was preparing for war; and perhaps I was.
As soon as I walked into my office at work the phone rang. The departmental head wanted to see me about how I had been dodging teaching duties. As I was about to walk down the corridor to his office my senior technician came to tell me the control serum we had been using for the ACTH was contaminated. Halfway to the department head’s office the surgery technician told me he had double booked the surgery and we would have to postpone our experiment for a day. This was how my day continued until 4pm – one headache or complaint after another.
Jen, the research assistant knocked on my door as I was reading a student’s draft PhD thesis.
“You wanted me to tell you when it was 4 o’clock.”
“Okay, thanks Jen.”
I threw the thesis and a few papers into my brief case and headed for home with some curiosity and a bit of nervousness. I wanted to know what dad had sent me. But I was worried that Geoff was right and the horse should be put down. I certainly wasn’t going to get hurt for the sake of doing my father a favour, but I promised dad I was going to give this horse a chance. I felt every horse deserves a chance. Having been around racing people most of my life, I knew that they didn’t always do everything possible to make a horse’s life as easy as possible, with minimum stress. Maybe Satan was just misunderstood and didn’t fit well into the cookie cutter training methods of your average racehorse trainer.
When I drove my old Renault 25 up to the house the horse truck was already parked in the turning circle. When I got out of the car I could hear a horse calling from inside the horsebox. Two fellows stepped out of the truck.
“Well we got ‘im here. I dunno how we are goin to go getting ‘im out . Ya want ‘im in that stable over there?”
Yeah, that’ll do,” I said. “Do you want a hand?
“Nah, mate. Ya betta wait here. He might come out a bit quick.”
The whir of the motor on the side ramp of the truck caused Satan to begin to stomp and call even more. As the ramp lowered I could see the enlarged white eyes on an imposing steel grey head. He was beautiful.
To be continued….
He was beautiful. I had never seen such a handsome head. It was not a particularly masculine head, but elegant. It gave the appearance of being regal, as if he was above the rest of the peasants.
The transport guy and his mate slipped one chain over the muzzle and another under the chin through the rings of the halter before opening up the divider. There was clearly nervousness in the way this was done. The helper held the end of his lead rope and scooted to the bottom of the side ramp and waited for the driver to cautiously swing open the divider. When Satan saw that there was a way out of his prison he leapt one giant stride to the ground without touching the ramp. He tried to dart to freedom and the driver lost hold of the lead rope. Satan’s attempt to escape seemed to panic the second fellow who reefed with all his strength on his lead rope. The chain around the horse’s muzzle caused him to jump to a stop and the horse reared skywards in an attempt to reach a cloud while flailing his front legs.
I didn’t like what I was seeing, but I decided not to get in the middle of this mess. When Satan floated back to the ground, the driver grabbed his lead rope again and with one fellow on either side they ran him into the stable just a few metres away. I closed the door as soon as both men were on the outside. They managed to unclip the chains while Satan did his best to sink his teeth into their forearms. Finally he was released and the top door of the stable was locked.
“Don’t worry about the halter, mate. You keep it.” I sensed the driver’s offer did not come so much from generosity as from relief at having lived through the experience of delivering the “crazy horse” safely.
I thanked both men and explained an easier way back to the highway for them. As they started down the driveway I turned to walk to the stable. It was my first proper look at what clearly was going to be one of the biggest training challenges of my life.
Satan was tall, very tall. He was steel gray all over except for a little white on one pastern and a half circle of off-white under the left eye. The first impression was that he was graceful. The way he reared and landed again when coming out of the truck indicated just how athletic and balanced he was. More like a gazelle than a young horse. It is difficult to sum up his build because he had a strong body, deep barrel and powerful hindquarters, yet his leanness and the length of his limbs gave the impression of a runway model that needed a good feed.
As I watched it was obvious that adrenaline was coursing through every tissue of his body. He moved constantly, around and around the stable, flinging his head in my direction as if to tell me I could procreate with myself for all he cared. Occasionally he kicked at the rubber-lined walls in case there was any doubt about his frustration. He ignored the oats, barley and chaff in the bucket I hung on the door. He didn’t even stop to sniff the hay in the feeder on the back wall.
I went in the house to give him some alone time in the hope that he would settle. I knew dad would like to know that he arrived safely, so I picked up the phone.
“Yeah, no he arrived okay, dad,” I reported. “He’s a bit of a looker, but he is very screwed up. It might be a bigger project than you think, but I’ll let you know how I get on in a week or so.
“Do you mind if I change his name? I hate calling him Satan.”
“What did you have in mind, son,” dad asked?
“Well, knowing what a huge fan you are of South Sydney, I thought maybe calling him Satts after Johnny Sattler would appeal to you.”
Dad used to play first grade for South Sydney Rugby League club in the ‘30s and had been to every reunion since the war. He loved the mighty Rabittos. Dad always said that Johnny Sattler was the best full back he had ever seen and had met Sattler a few times at club functions.
“Oh yeah. I like that. Satts it is,” dad was pleased.
The next morning I got up particularly early to check on Satts. He didn’t call much through the night, but I could hear him kicking the walls several times. I hoped he hadn’t done any damage to himself or the stable.
I saw he was still pacing the stable and that somehow he managed to get the feed bucket off the door and onto the floor where he had obviously given it a good pummelling. When he saw me approach he scooted to the farthest back corner. I opened the top door. He watched cautiously with his body turned slightly away. I could tell he was getting ready to flee somewhere. A wave of sadness crashed over me when it dawned on me how afraid this poor little fellow felt. But that didn’t last long.
I opened the bottom door of the stable and stepped in. In one leap there was the flash of 450kg of horseflesh lunging towards me. I jumped back and out the door. Just as I managed to bolt the bottom door Satts’ teeth grabbed my left forearm. He bit down and I screamed in pain. My right arm came swinging across and punched him in the nose with all I had. The surprise of it made him release my arm for a moment and I made my escape. I was in terrible pain and so was Satts – except I was the only one bleeding.
I went into the house to clean my wound and see how much damage had been done. My shirt sleeve was ripped enough to expose the laceration. A bit of warm water and Detol was enough to swab the wound of any dirt or bugs. Then I used a crepe bandage as a wrap to ensure it stayed clean. Just as I was thinking about how much worse the pain was becoming I heard a crash and banging. Bugger! I left the top door of the stable open. I saw through the window that Satts had clambered over the door and was half hanging out of the stable.
I ran outside and when he saw me, he scurried backwards and fell on his hind. At first I thought he had caste himself against the back wall, but he thrashed enough to get a foothold on the floor and lift himself. I closed the top door and made sure it was bolted
What the hell was I doing with this horse? It was beginning to feel like a mistake to have accepted to help dad with his horse. If this is what it was like now, what was it going to be like when I began the training? I knew I couldn’t back out at this stage, but I also guessed that just about everything I knew about training horses was about to be tested to the maximum.
However, all that was for the days ahead. My immediate problem was how to feed the horse and clean his stable without having to explain it all to an intensive care nurse. I decided to just throw Satts some fresh hay over the door. If he was hungry enough, he would eat it and if he wasn’t, he would stomp and pee on it. I had to get to work and figure out a plan for dealing with Satts before evening.
Next: The training begins.
My arm ached all day from Satts’ love bite. I managed to find some paracetamol in the medicine cabinet at work, which took the edge off the throbbing for a while. Whenever somebody asked me about the bandage on my forearm I made a joke about a new girlfriend and shackles. That seemed to stop any further questions even if it started some rumours.
Over the next few days I spent more and more time hanging out at the stable with Satts. At first he would back into the farthest corner at the first sign of my approach. But each day he seemed less bothered. By the fifth day and after several hours of approach and retreat, he was quite accepting when I walked up to his stable door. I didn’t have to creep or be overly cautious. Yet, there were limits. I still could not be any closer than a metre or two without the horse feeling threatened. Nevertheless, I felt this was great progress.
Satts’ fear of me was a major obstacle. It was getting in the way of everything I wanted to do. I couldn’t catch him. I couldn’t clean his stable. I couldn’t begin to work with him. I couldn’t even touch him. Until he made a change and tried to let me into his life, I was going to get nowhere.
A solution as to how I was going to get a handle on him without being attacked again seemed elusive and I spent a few sleepless nights with the problem churning over in my head. Then one night a spark of an idea came to me. During my time working overseas I became interested in falconry. I learned about hawks and falcons. When I lived in Canada I owned a Harris Hawk. It lived in my back yard and I flew her a couple of times a week. My friends let me fly Goshawks, Peregrines and even a Golden Eagle. On one occasion I trekked for three weeks into the Arctic Circle with some friends to do a survey of Gyr Falcons that the Canadian government had commissioned. I loved the birds and it was a great blow to me to discover on my return to Australia that the government had made falconry illegal while I was away. Nevertheless, my experience with these amazing birds was the inspiration for the idea that gave me the break through with Satts that I desperately needed.
Birds of prey are by nature very timid and wary of strangers. It is not natural for them to perch on a person’s arm and be carried around. In nature they would not fly to a person. These things have to be taught. It begins by restricting their food. Birds have small stomachs and large appetites. They require lots of food, but prefer it in small amounts. By offering a hungry bird a titbit of food that is placed closer and closer to the handler, the bird’s hunger overrides their natural fear and approaches the human. Within two to five days a bird can be trained to jump from its perch to the arm of a handler in order to be rewarded with a morsel. If the person never betrays the bird’s trust, they soon learn to be quite comfortable with people and see the human as a necessary ally in their survival.
It struck me that a way into the world of Satts might be to restrict his diet to only small amounts of food at a time and place the food where he would have to attempt to allow me closer each time.
I began by leaving the top door of the stable open while I was nearby. But when I went out, it was closed and locked. As much as Satts didn’t trust me, I didn’t trust him. The door feeder was hung on his stable door, but with the feed on the outside rather than the inside. This meant that if he intended to eat he would have to hang his head over the stable door. It concerned me a little to do this because he still wore the halter that the truck guys left and I didn’t want him to catch it on the metal hangers of the feed bucket. But I figured that if I was around I could keep a close eye on things.
At first Satts didn’t trust the door feeder. But after a couple of days of going hungry he finally gave into temptation and took some nibbles. This seemed to give him a lot of confidence. Every time I went to the stable I put a handful of chaff and grain in the feeder and more and more his confidence grew to the point where he was almost enthusiastic to see me bring the feed. Within a few days he was glad to see me and would come over to the feeder when he heard the squeak of the feed room door opening. I didn’t seem to bother him to see me standing less than a metre away while he ate. But I figured it was important to keep him hungry for a while. I wanted his hunger to be a strong enough motivation to help break down his fear and timidity.
However, despite the progress Satts was a long way from being okay with me. He still didn’t let me touch him and whenever he approached he would pin his ears and toss his head. I sensed he was telling me that he was coming over, but that I had better not mess with him.
Satts had been with me about nine days and I had not been able to clean his stable. It stank and he was constantly standing in wet muck. I didn’t think I could wait any longer to do some housework. But Satts was not yet safe enough for me to go into his stable to clean it and he was not ready to catch and lead into the stable next door. What to do?
The next day I took an early mark from work. I had plenty to do.
My first project was to gather about twelve of the four metre gates that were lying against the barn wall. I used them to make a laneway. The laneway formed a semi circle from the door of one stable to the door of the next. The idea was that Satts would travel from his stable, along the laneway which would lead him to the stable next door – all without it being necessary to handle him. It kept us both safe.
Satts watched on cautiously, but with curiosity. At one point he hung his head over the door and attempted to sniff me while I was lashing a couple of gates together. He leaned out as far as his neck would stretch while I pretended not to notice. His nose got within a metre and I felt like doing a little celebration jig - but I resisted.
When the laneway was finally completed and checked for sturdiness I opened the door of his stable and walked about ten metres away. It took about twenty minutes before he ventured out the door. Very cautiously Satts took the first few steps into the laneway. When he was about half way through he rushed into the next stable as if a banshee was chasing him. I casually walked over and closed the door behind him. The walk between stables became a daily ritual and in the short term at least it enabled me to keep him in a clean stable without getting my head kicked in.
Although I felt pretty pleased with myself that I had managed to solve a few of the logistical problems that came with having such a difficult horse under my care, I was yet to really make inroads into the training. Management of Satts’ needs was all I had achieved. Nothing had been solved. I knew I wasn’t going to make headway with transforming him into a safe riding horse until I solved the problem of catching him. That’s where the real training had to begin.
I came up with several plans on how to catch him. My first thought was to try to clip a lead rope onto his halter as he reached over the stable door to eat from the feeder. This was sound except I could see two problems. The first was that he might jump forward and over the door. Secondly, if I missed it would probably take days before he would trust letting me that close again. I would almost be at square one again. No, I needed a better plan.
I figured the best place to catch him would be the round yard. It was large enough to allow him to move as much as he wanted. It also meant that we could keep enough space between us for both of us to feel safe. It was solid construction with a 1.8 metre (6ft) high fence. He would not be able to either go through or over the fence. I needed a rope long enough that he could run anywhere he liked and I would still have hold of him on the end of the rope. My 18m lariat was perfect.
Satts was locked in a stable while I rearranged the gates I had used to build the laneway. Instead of the laneway leading from one stable to the next, I re-directed it to lead to the gate of the round yard only about 20m away. My idea was to throw a loop on Satts as he walked to the end of the laneway and was just about to take a step into the round yard. Timing was everything so I had to be ready.
When I decided everything was ready I opened up a good size loop with my lariat and then opened up the stable door. Satts obviously figured it was time to move to the adjacent stable where his usual portion of chaff and grain would be waiting. He strolled out the door and after a couple of steps realized something was different. I could see the thought to turn back pass across his face, but I had positioned myself behind his hip outside the laneway as a precaution against him trying to return to the stable. He scooted forward and I rushed to keep up with him. Soon he was near the round yard gate and I knew I had to chance my luck to throw the loop around his neck. Satts baulked at the gate, which I thought might just give me a chance even though I did not have the perfect set up. I threw my loop anyway, but it landed short and hit Satts over the wither. However, it was enough to scare him to leap into the round yard. I ran to the yard gate to close it shut. At the same I tried to coil my rope. I blew my chance to get a rope on him, but I had to ready in case another opportunity came my way.
Satts was now in the round yard. His tail was up, his head was up and his nostrils were blowing like a flamethrower. The dozen or so horses in the paddocks ran to see what the commotion was about. Every horse on the property was calling, but none more than Satts.
I stopped for a moment to gather my thoughts. Satts was in the round yard. He was safe and couldn’t go anywhere. I needed to re-group to work out what to do next. I turned to walk to the house and put the kettle on. It would do us both good to have some time to allow our adrenal glands to recover.
From the kitchen table I could watch the activity in the round yard. I sipped my tea, listened to the calling, watched the antics and waited. Satts never stopped moving. He raced around; kicking at the sideboard and throwing his head is a semi circular motion. This went on for about forty-five minutes. Finally he slowed to a walk. His tail had relaxed and his neck hung low sniffing the ground and the fencing. I left him alone for another thirty minutes before venturing out.
The instant Satts saw me he started to run again with his tail in the air. I walked over to the yard and climbed to the top rail of the fence where I sat watching. I rested my lariat and a fresh mug of tea on a post as I sat on my perch. Satts paced at the far end of the round yard. Back and forth he paced opposite me like a prisoner on death row – which I guess he might have felt like. Occasionally he would glance at me with a look of disdain, but he never really looked at me. He knew I was there, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Finally, my tea was all drunk and I stepped down off the fence into the yard. I tried to stay vigilant in case it was necessary to leap back up the fence at any moment. It was hard to tell who was more nervous - Satts or me. I slowly walked around the track to my right. Satts quickly went to red alert and started to canter to the left. He got about two-thirds around the yard when he realized I was in front of him. He whirled around to go the opposite direction, but within a second we were face to face again. Satts appeared to misunderstand the basic geometry of a circle. Whichever direction he was going to travel, he would run into me within a few strides.
While Satts was trying to figure how I managed to be behind him one moment and in front the next, I let out another loop from my lariat. I knew I would only get one or maybe two chances to catch Satts before he totally lost the plot and tried to come at me. Because I am right handed and had only partially mastered the overhead and side arm throws, I had to catch him while he was travelling to the left. This would mean the loop would land from behind his head - perfect. I figured that I should time my throw just as he turns the other way to go to the left. That way he would be travelling his slowest and an easier catch.
Once I sorted my out my plan in my head, I waited until he was travelling to the right towards me. I was lucky because by this stage he had slowed to a trot. As soon as I saw him begin to set himself up to change direction to the left I made my move. I raised my loop above my hand and made one circular motion. At the same time I took two large strides towards the centre of the yard. As Satts completed his turn to the left the loop of my rope came flying from the heavens. Satts was into his first stride to the left when the loop floated effortlessly around his neck. It was a textbook execution. I doubt I could have done it twice.
But I didn’t have time to congratulate myself or glow in my personal glory. When Satts felt the rope touch him he flew into fifth gear. He was going so fast he was scrambling up the walls of the yard. I did everything I could to not put any feel on the rope. I just wanted him to carry the rope while he sorted out he was not going to die. At one point Satts lost his footing and fell to his side. I gathered the rope to ensure he did not become entangled in it. It took no time before he was on his feet and running again. It was blind panic and I doubt he even knew where or from what he was running.
After a few minutes his stifles and the inside of his hind legs were white with foam. Rivers of sweat were running down his sides and legs. I suspect this was as much due to stress as exercise. I waited and waited for Satts to show signs of feeling better or at the very least of getting tired. But the panic went on as if there was no end to it. I began to fear he might drop dead of exhaustion or anxiety or both. It was time to intervene.
I reached down the rope with my left hand and yanked backwards with all I had. Satts’ hind end spun out and he whirled around to find himself facing me. The shock of what just happened left him frozen. I let the rope go slack and we both just stood there looking at each other. After about a minute I made one step to my right while still facing him. He took off running to my left, but I coiled up the slack in the rope and spun him around again as he felt the loop tighten around his neck. Again we stood facing each other. Several moments passed before I took a few more steps to the right. Satts made a half hearted try to leave the other direction, but when he felt the rope tighten he turned back to stare at me once more. I knew then that he was a smart horse and despite all his fears he was going to be a fast learner.
For just about any other horse I would have stopped at this moment and put him away for the night. But Satts was different. I needed to make a start with leading him otherwise the next session would not be any easier.
It was interesting to me that for a horse that had been handled and even an attempt made at breaking him in, Satts was about the most terrified and reactive horse I had ever met. He was worse than horses I had handled that were caught from the wild. It cemented in mind something that Walt once said to me, “no handling is better than poor handling.” Satts was just the horse Walt would have had in mind when he recited those words – “if ya can’t do a half decent job, ya betta off doin nothin.”
Now that I had Satts looking at me with both eyes, I took one step closer to him. The lariat remained slack but not so much that I wouldn’t be able to tighten it by reaching just a few inches down the rope. It was important that I did not try to make him stand still. If he needed to escape from a Ross attack then I had to give him some room to move. Most horses are made more afraid when they are not able to move their feet because their flight instinct is their first line of survival. So letting Satts move, but directing how far and what direction he can move was going to help alleviate his fear of imminent death while at the same time open the door to the idea that I am now becoming an important influence in his life and I’m not going away even if he does try to flee.
As I stepped forward, Satts remained frozen but he raised his head and widened his nostrils. His alert level had gone from amber to pink. I moved to my right and it took about three of my steps before he turned one of his steps in a half-hearted attempt to remain lined up with me. I continued to walk around him, but he didn’t follow. Instead his gaze was drawn towards the paddock where my horse LJ was calling. I realized he had checked out and wasn’t even going to try to follow me around the arc either with his focus or his feet. My left hand reached down the lariat about thirty centimetres and I pulled back with about half force. It wasn’t enough to throw him off balance, but Satts swung around to me like it had. Again we stood there staring at each other. After a few moments he seemed less anxious. His breathing was almost normal and his head lowered to almost wither level. I began to wonder if he had had this experience before.
I took another couple of steps to my right, but as I did I also moved in a little closer towards Satts’ hindquarters. Satts didn’t wait for the pull of the lariat. While still keeping slack in the rope he turned to face me again. This time he was a little surprised to find that we were only about two metres apart. I repeated the process and walked another couple of steps. Satts did not hesitate. As soon I began to walk, so did he. I got such a kick out of that I nearly rushed to rub on him. Now there was only a metre separating us. I felt it was time to put a hand on him.
I walked only one step to the right and as he came around I stopped and reached out my hand. He leaned back against the feel of the lariat around his neck, which caused a mini panic. He started to rush backwards, but I walked with him. When his hind end reached the fence he stopped and so did I. He tried to turn to my left, but I used the lariat to keep him facing me and then relaxed the rope. Again I reached out my hand and allowed him to sniff the back of it.
I can’t tell you why I did what I did next, except to say it felt like the right thing at the time. As Satts was exploring the aroma of my hand, I reached for his neck and started stroking. He immediately began tossing his head like he was trying to throw off something. He stepped backwards and hit the fence. He then turned to my left and walked backwards along the fence. I did my best to keep up with him and kept stroking him, while using the lariat to try to slow his feet a little. We must have gone about a third of the way around the yard before he stopped moving. I took my hand away and took a step back from him. We looked at each other as if neither of us knew how this was going to end – in tears perhaps?
I approached him and started to reach for his neck again. He lurched forward and tried to escape. I held the lariat firm and he spun around. Once again we were staring at each other. I waited a few moments before walking up to him again. He was okay until I reached out with my hand. He attempted to flee the scene once more, but the feel on the lariat was enough kept his front feet from acting as anything more than a pivot point for his hind feet to walk around. He began to turn around and around as if doing turns on the forehand and I keep walking towards him and reaching for his neck and shoulder. After about ten revolutions, Satts stopped moving and allowed me to stroke his side. That’s when I learned that the bite I got when he first arrived was not a one off problem. Biting was going to become a major issue in the future. He lunged his head around at me and managed to get is teeth around my thigh. I was too late and too slow and it hurt. Now was not the right time to do anything about it. I tried to do my best impression that it was nothing more than a mosquito bite. I kept rubbing Satts, but had my elbow ready for his next attack. It came a few seconds later. As his head swung my way my elbow poked out from my body and at about the halfway point they collided. He got the shock of his life, but tried it again. Once more he was meet with the pointy end of my elbow. But this one must have hurt because he banged himself with so much force that he bled from his left nostril. After that he chose to retreat for the time being. But the look on his face told me that he was working on plan B and that I would be wise to sleep with one eye open tonight.
I stopped stroking his neck and stepped back a couple paces. Then I approached him again. The thought to leave passed across his face, but Satts’ feet remained grounded. I rubbed his neck, shoulder and sides. The rivers of sweat had dried to a salt crust since I first managed to throw a loop around his neck. His body was quite sticky to touch. As I approached his rear his tailed clamped as if it was a door being slammed shut. I stroked his rump casually, but didn’t linger and went back towards his head. I then tried to run the flat of my hand over Satts’ jowl, which did not seem to bother him. It was only when I tried to curl my fingers across the bridge of his nose did he indicate his discomfort by flipping his nose a couple of times. Again, I got in a couple of strokes and went back to the side with my hand. I kept this up for about ten minutes and as each second passed Satts seem to relax more. Then I got lucky. I discovered an itchy spot at the base of the neck. Gradually I worked by fingers more and more into the newly discovered pleasure spot. I was soon able to be quite rough and the more I dug the more Satts seem to enjoy it.
I figured it was time to try to the right side of the horse. I passed around in front of his nose. When he suddenly saw me from his right eye he got a start and stumbled to his left. I kept a feel on the lariat, which seem to steady his worry. As soon as I felt the moment was right I casually went about stroking his neck. My immediate agenda was to reassure him by getting my fingers to massage the base of his neck. At first he was too worried to allow himself to enjoy the experience. His neck was hard enough to chisel a headstone from. Clearly, Satts’ right side was going to be a bigger challenge than the left side.
I went to work rubbing him all over and as the minutes passed so did his anxiety. I even managed to pat his shoulder a few times without the light slap sending him into orbit.
My next challenge was to work on touching his head and ears. He was still wearing the headstall that the truck driver left on. Before finishing for the night (it was starting to get dim in the round yard) I wanted to be able take his halter on and off. Satts was a tall horse and I knew that if he tried he could raise his head high enough to make his ears out of reach. So I started by teaching him to lower his head on request.
The lariat and coils were in my left hand and with my right hand I hooked my middle finger around the ring where a lead rope would normally be attached. With a little pressure on the halter I waited and waited. Nothing. I could see Satts was getting that sleepy, far away look. He was shutting down and shutting me out. I put the coils of the lariat between my knees and with my left hand I started to stroke his face while exerting down pressure on the halter. He woke up with a fright and stumbled backwards about three steps. No problem, I said to myself. Let’s start again. This time I used my hand under his chin to not only ask his head to come down, but to rock his head a little left and right. The swaying of his head helped break the resistance of his poll and when I stroked the bridge of his nose, I felt a little give. Instantly, but not abruptly, I eased off and rubbed his itchy spot. I repeated this perhaps twenty five times before he could bring his head down to wither level without me feeling like I had just had a workout. Satts was proving to be a very smart horse and I started to feel a little less like it was a hopeless project.
When I was able to get him to lower his head fairly easily, I went to rub his left eye. He liked that. I passed my hand over his right eye and he pushed his head into my hand like he wanted a good scrubbing. Back and forth I went over his eyes and down to his muzzle, around his chin and back to his eyes. Satts thought this was fun. I then raised my hand to pass across his left ear from front to back. It was quick, but not quick enough that he did not notice. He suddenly raised his head in alarm and I immediately started to scratch the base of his neck. At the same I used the halter to get him to lower his head. I still had the lariat between my knees, but I was ready to make a grab for it at an instant notice.
Working away at his itchy spot seemed to distract him from his worries. Again, I busied myself slowly towards his left ear - over his eye and then over his ear – there was no rushing and there was no creeping. My hand passed over him like we did this every day. He flinched and threw his head again, but it was a fraction of the reaction of before. Again and then again - each time better than the last. Now his head would lower by just the touch of his halter.
I knew before I could get too excited I had to repeat the process on his right side. Bu it took half as long to get twice as good. I was starting to become more and more impressed with how clever this crazy horse that somebody labelled Satan was proving to be.
There were only two projects that should be addressed by the end of the session, but I was losing daylight and wouldn’t have time to start both. I hadn’t yet got Satts to accept having the headstall removed and put back on, but I chose to leave that for another time. My priority was to be able to walk away from Satts and then approach him again without him trying to flee. Making a start on this project would make our next session a lot easier.
I picked up the lariat in my right hand and turned to walk away a couple of strides. I let out a couple of coils in order to keep the slack in the rope. About two metres from Satts I turned and looked at him. He was looking back at me. I casually walked up to him being prepared at any time to take a hold of the rope. He immediately raised his neck and looked away as if he was trying to see what was on the other side of the horizon. When I touched him he shuddered, but did not move. I rubbed softly from top to bottom. He knew I was there, but he refused to look at me because his worry had built a wall between us. I put my hand over the bridge of his nose and asked him to tilt his head in my direction. When he gave up leaning against my hand just a fraction of a little bit, I scratched the base of his neck.
Next time, I turned and walked two-thirds of the distance of the round yard. When I turned around I saw he had followed me with his eyes. But my first step towards him caused Satts to look out yonder into the failing light again. I kept my approach steady until I saw him minutely stretch his neck downwards. It was a sign he was thinking about leaving. I stopped and waited. The seconds were the slowest on record, but to my excitement he settled his weight back on all four legs and flexed his neck around to look at me. I continued towards him and felt like loving the hair off him – I was so excited by the “try” he had shown. I gently stroked his neck, chest, face, and flank. I finished with a good ol’ scratch under his neck.
Again, I turned my back on him and walked casually towards the opposite fence. I felt something was different. When I turned to face Satts, he was looking at me with his whole body lined up. He had even taken half a step in an effort to follow me. I knew that if I can help him feel just a bit better, he would be able to traverse the chasm that was preventing him from walking with me.
When I walked up to Satts he didn’t turn away, but looked over the top of me as if something important was happening behind me. It was too hard for him to handle being approached and still feel okay. There remained that wall of self-protection between us, but he had made such amazing progress that I was not in the least disappointed.
After the appropriate amount of rubbing and stroking, I lowered his head and slipped the loop of the lariat over his head being extra careful not to let the rope touch his ears at this stage. I picked up a feed bucket and let him follow me out the gate, along the laneway and into his stable.
Today, I had seen a horse that had blocked out the world and offer no “try”, make a change. I knew there was hope. I wish my dad could have seen his amazing horse. He would have been so proud.
After I fed Satts and went inside the house, I remembered my leg was aching. I looked at my jeans and saw they were blood stained. The next day I could hardly walk and my left thigh looked like a colour chart from a paint store. I hoped this was going to be the last time I would be hurt by this horse.
The next day was a long day at work. I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to have a chance at building on the progress I had made with Satts the previous evening.
My thigh where Satts had bitten me had swelled considerably and it was painful and difficult to wear trousers – especially sitting down. I never thought I would envy Scotsmen and their kilts. Hardly anybody at work mentioned my gimp because by this stage most just assumed that I had been playing with horses again – so what’s new?
I spent the day working on a presentation to the Fetal Endocrine group meeting in San Diego next month, gave two lectures to post graduate students, attended a meeting of the honours committee and interviewed eight people for a research position. I didn’t get home until about 8:30pm.
I moved Satts via the laneway into the adjacent stable so he had a clean stall for the night. I fed the dogs and chickens and collected the daily quota of eggs, which I scrambled for my dinner. Eventually the cats showed up after a big day of snoozing on their hay bales. After they were fed and locked inside I finally went to bed.
At the first crack of light I went out to continue my project with Satts. I didn’t know what he’d be like after our last session, but I went out to the stable in hopeful mode. It was a pretty brisk morning and I found him curled up, leaning against the back wall of his stall. There was a slight plume of vapour from every breath. When I approached the door of his stable he looked casually at me, but stayed nestled among his bedding. He looked so comfortable and relaxed that I got a wild hare of an idea to try something risky.
I slid the bolt of the door across and swung the door about halfway. Satts became a little more alert, but didn’t move. Once I stepped inside the stable and bolted the door behind me, he got up on his front legs and lurched himself to a standing position. His action reminded me how powerful and graceful he was. His movement was effortless.
I knew I should not be creeping when I approached him, but my self-preservation kept reminding me what he was capable of doing to me. I did my best to conceal my nervousness as I walked calmly towards his shoulder. I think if he had not been against the wall he would have jumped away much sooner. But as it was he allowed me to get within about a metre. I saw him getting prepared to wheel away from me, but I was too late to stop myself before it happened. I was mad at myself for not planting my feet earlier. As it turned out he did the whole thing pretty calmly. It was more to avoid me rather than flee from me. Satts turned his forehand away like a turn on the hindquarters and stopped in the other back corner. He looked at me to see if I was following. I waited for less than a minute to make sure he had parked himself and was not teetering on the edge of moving again.
I walked slowly, but as casually as I could to his shoulder. This time I saw him thinking about escaping and I stopped in time. The wait seemed endless, but eventually he looked at me again with both eyes and relaxed his neck. I took another step, then another. With each step I waited for him to look at me and relax before taking the next one. When I finally touched him he froze and his body felt like granite. But I remembered his itch at the base of his neck. Within seconds of rubbing this new found magic spot he started to crane his neck and curl his lips. I then used my other hand to stroke his neck and shoulders. It may have taken only a minute before I felt I was now stroking a demanding cat rather than a nervous horse.
To Satts’ surprise I stopped scratching and walked backwards about three steps. He watched me carefully without moving. When I approached him a second time he was initially worried, but melted into my hand much quicker once I began scratching the base of his neck. I repeated this exercise again and again and by the fifth time he began to follow me when I walked away. It took about ten minutes for him to learn to follow me around the stable and another ten minutes for him to stand while I stroked all along his body to his belly and eventually his tail. Another fifteen minutes were needed for him to accept the same level of attention on his opposite side. Satts had made a huge turn around in his ability to accept a person approach and touch him. But there were two problems that showed up during this process. Firstly, Satts felt troubled when I crossed from one side to the other. And secondly, when I stroked his side where the girth might fit be pinned his ears and tried to bite me. But I had learned to be vigilant about Satts and his fondness of using his teeth as a weapon, so I was able to block him every time. Nevertheless, this was going to be a problem.
I left the training at that for the morning because I had a 9am meeting with the university registrar. I fed Satts and the other horses, ate breakfast, showered and took off for work.
The next day was Saturday and I had no plans, except to work on the talk for my San Diego trip the following month. I had a late start in the morning and didn’t get around to putting some time in with Satts until immediately after lunch.
When I went out to the stable I hung a halter and 2 lead ropes on the door. Satts acknowledge my appearance with a nicker, but stayed in his corner. I entered the stable and secured it behind me. Just like the last session, I casually but calmly walked towards his left shoulder. It almost seemed like he was going to be okay to let me touch him, but just as my hand brushed his skin he jumped violently and spun around to the opposite corner. No problem, I thought. I started again. He seemed better if I approached from his right side. This time I was able to touch his right shoulder with just a modicum of tension in his body. But this dissolved much quicker than the previous day once I begun working my fingers into the base of his neck.
I repeated the exercise of walking away and returning and pretty soon Satts was following me around his stall. He followed me over to the stable door where I took one of the lead ropes I had left hanging there. I rubbed his shoulder and neck and face with my free hand until he showed no concern. Then while I continued to rub him all over I used my other hand to clip the lead rope to the ring on the halter he had been wearing since he arrived. I don’t think Satts even noticed he had been caught.
I asked him to lead around the stall from the lead rope and he was surprisingly obliging. I didn’t put much pressure on the rope, only a light feel and waited. There was plenty of time to work on improving his response to the feel of the lead and right now my priority was to teach him to soften when I haltered him. This was not the time to go into battle to teach him to smarten up on the lead rope. I was just beginning to make inroads into his trust and confidence and introducing conflict could unravel things pretty quickly.
I picked up the rope halter and lead that was hanging over the door and began stroking his neck and shoulders with it. I passed it along his body and back towards his head. It took no time before I was able to rub his face with the halter and rope. When the time seemed right I used my right hand to start stroking his neck and body with the halter on the right side while I stood on his left. Satts’ body went rigid at the feel of something touching him on the opposite side to where I was standing. Nevertheless, I kept up my gentle stroking and patting. Eventually he relaxed and I was able to repeat the procedure from the other side.
As I rubbed his neck and face I used a gentle downward feel of the lead rope to ask him to lower his head. There was an awful feeling of resistance as he pushed back against the pressure. I began to slightly sway the pressure on his head left and right while maintaining the downward pressure. Within a few seconds there was a perceptible give in his neck. I released the pressure and scratched the base of his neck again. I tried once more to convince him to lower his head. This time he threw his head even higher and ran backwards. Satts stopped when he hit the back wall. I re-applied the pressure and waited and waited – all the time slowly rhythmically tipping his head left and right - and then I felt a give again. I gave him a moment to think about that and started again. It took only about five minutes for him to yield his head down with minimal amount of feel on the lead rope.
I gathered the rope halter and lead and organized them over my arm ready to put them on Satts. With my left hand I lowered his head and tilted it slightly towards me. My right arm reached over his neck while my left hand reached up under his neck with the halter. I grabbed the loose end of the halter with my right hand and brought it over to his left side, across the top of his neck. Satts started to stare off into the distance with a glazed look. I realized this was familiar to him and familiarity had bred contempt. He was shutting down. I needed to interrupt his mental vacancy by doing something to move him. I stepped back used the rope halter around his neck to draw him towards me. It was like pulling on an elephant stuck knee deep in mud. I gently pulled again, but got nothing. Okay, things needed to change. I took a large breath, leaned back and abruptly yanked him with all my weight towards me. He stumbled across and threw his head back. He now stood twenty-two hands tall with nostrils breathing fire in rapid bursts and looking down directly at me as if he was going to eat me. I was half expecting him to bellow “fee-fi-fo-fum.” My hands got to work immediately stroking him gently and asking him to lower his head once again. I walked him around the stall while rubbing his neck, face and body.
The vacant stare was now gone, so I reached over the top of his neck to grab the end of the halter once again. I asked to lead to the left from the feel of the rope halter around his neck. There was some resistance, but there was also enough give to know he was mentally tuned into what was happening. With my left hand I raised the noseband to slide over his nose. This was no problem at all. Satts knew all about being haltered. I was sure he didn’t feel good about it, but he understood it.
I took the halter off and put it on several times. Sometimes I sensed him going into that Satts world inside his head where the grass was green and plentiful and the herd gathered around him to hear his tales of glory and heroic deeds and where humans never trespassed. I made determined efforts to interrupt his daydreaming whenever possible. I knew that it was not going to make much difference to our relationship today, but I was not training him for how I wanted him to be today. I was working for how I wanted him to be tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the day after that.
I took off the web halter he had been wearing ever since he arrived and lead him around the stable in the rope halter. Then I removed the rope halter and walked to the opposite side of the stall. After a few moments I approached him again and fitted the halter. Satts was a legend.
I pushed open he stable door and walked Satts out to the grassy area. This was his first fresh grass in weeks. At first he looked around. My dogs, Bix and Milly stood nearby with tails acting as wind generators. Satts looked at them and made a step towards them with his ears flat, but I interrupted him in mid stride with firm bump on the lead rope. He jumped back startled. I petted him and he soon relaxed. Finally he noticed the grass and put his head down to graze the long strands. He seemed content to fit as much as he could into his mouth before chewing. Satts grabbed each mouthful and ripped it viciously from the ground, as if he was angry at the soil for not giving it more easily.
I called the dogs to me and had them sit by me as Satts feasted. He was going to have to get used to the dogs and keep his manners with them, so continued exposure to Bix and Milly was now going to be a big part of his life. After about ten minutes I lead Satts into the clean stable and played catch and release a few more times.
The session finished with me feeling pretty good about what had been achieved. In a few days, Satts had changed from a reactivate horse that was a danger to himself and anybody near to a horse that was developing solid tries to do his best to get along. I reminded myself to call dad after dinner and boast about his horse – he’d like that.
I was really busy at work for the next several days. As well as the usual responsibilities of running a busy research lab and preparing for an overseas conference, I had forgotten I had agreed to be an examiner for a PhD thesis. It had been sitting on my desk under a pile of “to do” documents for about 8 weeks. It wasn’t until I got a reminder from the PhD committee in Oxford that I felt the panic of letting down a poor student in the UK who was getting more stressed by the day. I had always resented examiners who didn’t take their responsibilities as seriously as the student’s and here I was turning into one of them. This led to many late nights in the library until 1 or 2 am pouring over every word, table, graph and diagram of the thesis and pulling out reference material as well as running statistical analysis. To do it well is a horrible job, but I did take the responsibility of examining a thesis very seriously.
Needless to say, Satts did not get a lot of attention for about a week. Each day I would catch him, feed him, take him for a 5-minute walk, clean his stall and give him a brush. But there was no time for some serious work. Nevertheless, with each little bit of handling he became more relaxed and agreeable. There were hardly any episodes of ear pining or attempts to gnaw on my flesh. I felt he was at the stage where I could leave him to hangout in a good size yard during the day and move him to a stable at night. This appeared to work well. I think Satts appreciated having space where he could trot around or roll in the dry dirt. I reckon rolling was one of Satts’ favourite things because each night I would come home to find him with a thick layer of dust over his body and each day I would brush him clean again. Being in the yard also gave him and the other horses a chance to socialize. LJ and his band would come up to the fence, sniff noses, squeal, stomp their feet and do the usual posturing that horses do. But they would also groom each other and snooze side by side, so I figured it was working out okay.
I finally got a day where I could devote a couple of hours to working with Satts and decided to address some of the drag in his leading. In my experience people always seem to underestimate the importance of having a horse lead really well. For most people it is enough that they can lead their horse from point A to point B and the willingness of the horse and the quality in the way he leads almost never comes into their thinking. But I believe the way we catch and lead our horses is a window into the quality of our relationship. There is a huge difference to how a horse feels about us depending on whether we are going together or they just go where we pull them. One represents a horse that has to come along and other is one that wants to come along. If he has to be led with heaviness in the lead rope, a horse holds back from giving as much as he has to give. You only get a fraction of his willingness and participation and people often find out just how little their horse is giving when they try to load him onto a float or take him away from his friends. Anytime a horse lets the lead rope weigh more in the hand than the weight of the rope itself, it’s holding back from being with the person as much as it could.
Satts carried so much trouble when it came to dealing with people that his rehabilitation was to begin with his leading and groundwork. This is where I was going to get the biggest change in the way he felt in preparing him to be ridden one day.
I walked into his yard with a rope halter over my arm while I rested my flag against the fence. He looked up and watched me while I closed the gate. When I approached Satts and stroked his face he lowered his head to the height of his wither. This was a lesson he had learned well. I reached across the top of his neck with my right arm while I used my left hand to pass the tail end of the rope halter under his neck and pick it up in my right hand. Now that I had the free end of the halter around his neck I tied it securely.
The horses in the adjacent paddock wandered over to have a ‘sticky-beak’. As I stroked Satts’ neck and scratched the spot on his chest that caused him to melt into a big marsh mellow, the others lined up one by one watching. The scene reminded me of photos I had seen from the 1950s when people would crowd outside the windows of electrical stores to watch the miracle of television.
I fed out the lead rope to almost the end and reached over to grab my flag from the fence. I didn’t know Satts’ eyes could grow so big. In fact, everything about him grew much bigger. He now stood 22 hands, eyes and nostrils suddenly dilated to twice their normal size and air blew in sharp bursts from his nostrils at twice the speed of sound. If I didn’t have his attention before, I certainly had it now.
I guess I should describe a flag for those who don’t know what they are. The flag is an extension of your arm like a whip or the tail end of a lead rope. At the time, I used a 2-metre long lightweight fishing rod. I removed the reel and line guides so it was just like a fibreglass stick. I then attached about a dozen strips of plastic. I made these out of plastic bags from the supermarket that I cut into narrow strips and then attached the strips to the tip of the rod with duct tape. When I was finished it looked like a stick with feathers at one end. As you can probably imagine some horses find flags quite confronting the first time or two; and Satts was no exception.
I tried to touch Satts on the face with the flag, but before the plastic got within a whisper of him he was charging around the yard. I kept a firm hold on the lead rope and tried my best to touch his rump with the flag. He was cantering around me on a 4-metre circle, while trying desperately to turn it into a 100-metre circle – but my rope was pretty effective at keeping him within reach even though it was taking all my strength. Finally I managed to touch his croup and hold the flag there as he ran around me. It took about 3 laps for him to slow down to a trot and another 6 before he walked. I took the flag off Satts and rested it on the ground and he stopped to look at me. It seemed to me he was due for another scratch for his effort. Several seconds of praise and scratching was enough to get him to lower his head and relax a little bit. I then raised the flag to touch his rump again. This time I was able to touch him just as he leapt sideways. Satts pulled me with him and I managed to keep contact with the flag. Within less than a lap of his panic to flee he stopped. Again I took the flag away and rubbed his face with my free hand. I presented the flag to him again and his body shuddered, but he did not move his feet.
I started to run the flag down his flank and over his topline. Satts did not move. I was worried he was frozen in fear and trying to pretend the flag was not happening. I took the flag away and then clucked him to walk around me. At about the half a lap stage I raised the flag once again to touch Satts on the rump. He trotted forward and then suddenly stopped. This was not what I wanted. I knew from experience that a horse can learn to stop running in response to an extreme stress, but it becomes a trick without the horse learning to feel any better about the flag. I asked Satts to keep walking by tapping his back with the flag. Initially, a fair bit of dust flew around us, but it didn’t take long before I was rubbing Satts with the flag all over his side as he walked around me. I changed sides and repeated the process on his right. The pattern was similar as before, but he came around much quicker.
However, Satts was very defensive about allowing the flag near his face. I raised it towards his muzzle. His worry caused him to exhale a jet burst of air, which caused the feathers to explode in front of his eyes. Satts leapt skywards and nearly fell over backwards. When he regained his balance, I rested the flag on the ground and rubbed his face. When he calmed down I thought I would try a different approach. Since he seemed most scared when the flag approached him perhaps he would gain some confidence if he knew he could make the flag scared of him.
I stood about 2-metres in front of Satts with the lead rope slack in my hand. I raised the flag to his head level, but at a distance that he didn’t need the feel to rear. I then walked backwards, all the time urging Satts to walk towards me with the flag in front of his face. At first he pulled back forcing me towards him instead of the other way around. This caused him even more worry, but I held firm and if he was getting close to the edge of what he could handle I created a bigger gap between the flag and Satts. After he pulled back about half a lap of the yard he stopped. I lowered the flag for a few moments and then began again. I raised the flag as before and asked for him to come towards me. This time he took a step forward and I took a step backwards. Another step and then another followed. With each step he seemed to gain confidence because he was finding the flag was moving away from him. I repeated the exercise several times. Every time I repeated the process I closed the gap between the flag and Satts. Before Satts even knew how it happened I was stroking his face and forehead with the flag as he walked towards me. It wasn’t long before he was feeling okay as I waved the flag over his body and face, down his legs and over his tail. Whether walk or trot or standing still, Satts was making friends with the flag.
You might be asking what was the point of the flag exercise. Well, now it was time to make use of the flag to train Satts to be better on the lead rope.
I gave Satts about a metre and a bit of loose lead rope while holding the flag in my left hand. I turned and walked away as if I was going somewhere important. I wasn’t abrupt but I was purposeful. By the time I was into my second stride I ran out of lead rope. Satts stood watching me leave as if he was seeing me off at the train station. I kept trying to walk even though I was no match for his stubbornness. I was like the little red engine that thought he could. Satts took a few steps forward, but he never kept up enough to put slack in the lead rope. He was going to have to learn that he was with me when we led, rather than it was okay for me to go ahead and he’d catch up sometime. Leading a horse is meant to be like a dance, but Satts was convinced it was a spectator sport. Satts had been taught that it was just fine to be dragged along and nobody had taught him it could be different. He just didn’t understand the benefits of being a partner in this dance.
Within a couple of seconds of Satts letting the slack out of the lead rope I made a half turn with my upper body to the left (ie, my shoulders did a half turn away from Satts). At the same time my left arm holding the flag came around and touched him on the ribs. He was so startled that he catapulted forward, like being shot out of a cannon, and nearly landed on me. He ran right past and I allowed him to circle around me for a few steps. When he calmed down I petted him. Again I began to walk off and again the lead rope got heavy in my hand. The flag came around again as I kept walking and made contact with Satts just behind the shoulder. He jumped forward and as he passed by me I held firm onto the rope so that he would hit the end and stop. I don’t know how many times I repeated this exercise, before Satts saw me prepare to walk away and he prepared to follow. But anytime the lead rope felt taut the flag backed up the idea that he now had a new job of keeping slack in it. This was not a monumental task for a horse with the IQ of a genius, like Satts.
Dad’s horse was developing the notion that by keeping a focus on me he could keep the lead rope soft, like cooked spaghetti. This was my goal all along and it was finally beginning to be cemented in Satts’ mind. I felt he was ready to introduce the thought that he could also maintain a position that I chose while being led. He was getting the idea to go with me, but he was not sure if he should pass me or be behind me or off to the side. Satts would feel much better if he knew what was expected and could rely on the fact that by maintaining his position life was good. Again, it’s like dancing with a partner who was trying but who didn’t know the steps.
I used the flag to reinforce in him that he was to walk beside me. At first he wanted to tail gate behind me, but by putting the flag between us he felt being beside me was a much better idea. Likewise, Satts sometimes would want to shoot past and be ahead of me. But he was quick to learn that another job he had was not to let his nose pass my nose. If he tried to go past, the flag would suddenly appear in front of him. If he weren’t keeping up with me the flag would appear behind his shoulder. And if he crowded too close and tailgated me, the flag would remind him that he would find life much easier if he stepped to the side. It took no time at all before Satts was walking when I walked and stopping when I stopped. For the most part he kept pace with my speed – whether slow or fast. He turned when I turned and trotted when I trotted. I could see the processing going on in his mind as he tried to search for the answer that would give him the least amount of trouble. It was exciting to watch the learning evolve.
As I discovered time after time, Satts was a quick student. It was obvious to me that the monster that had arrived off the truck so long ago was not a monster at all. He was the product of a lack of clarity in his life. I shuddered at the thought of his future when he returned to the racing stable at the end of his stay with me. I contemplated telling dad that he was just too dangerous and would never make a racehorse; and being the good and loving son I would offer to look after him.
I spent the next session with Satts reinforcing today’s lesson and making sure he was okay being lead from his right side as well as his left. But my mind was already on the work ahead. Next would come teaching him lateral bends, hindquarter and forehand yields and backing up on the lead. Once these lessons were started it would be time to introduce the saddle.
Needless to say, Satts did not get a lot of attention for about a week. Each day I would catch him, feed him, take him for a 5-minute walk, clean his stall and give him a brush. But there was no time for some serious work. Nevertheless, with each little bit of handling he became more relaxed and agreeable. There were hardly any episodes of ear pining or attempts to gnaw on my flesh. I felt he was at the stage where I could leave him to hangout in a good size yard during the day and move him to a stable at night. This appeared to work well. I think Satts appreciated having space where he could trot around or roll in the dry dirt. I reckon rolling was one of Satts’ favourite things because each night I would come home to find him with a thick layer of dust over his body and each day I would brush him clean again. Being in the yard also gave him and the other horses a chance to socialize. LJ and his band would come up to the fence, sniff noses, squeal, stomp their feet and do the usual posturing that horses do. But they would also groom each other and snooze side by side, so I figured it was working out okay.
I finally got a day where I could devote a couple of hours to working with Satts and decided to address some of the drag in his leading. In my experience people always seem to underestimate the importance of having a horse lead really well. For most people it is enough that they can lead their horse from point A to point B and the willingness of the horse and the quality in the way he leads almost never comes into their thinking. But I believe the way we catch and lead our horses is a window into the quality of our relationship. There is a huge difference to how a horse feels about us depending on whether we are going together or they just go where we pull them. One represents a horse that has to come along and other is one that wants to come along. If he has to be led with heaviness in the lead rope, a horse holds back from giving as much as he has to give. You only get a fraction of his willingness and participation and people often find out just how little their horse is giving when they try to load him onto a float or take him away from his friends. Anytime a horse lets the lead rope weigh more in the hand than the weight of the rope itself, it’s holding back from being with the person as much as it could.
Satts carried so much trouble when it came to dealing with people that his rehabilitation was to begin with his leading and groundwork. This is where I was going to get the biggest change in the way he felt in preparing him to be ridden one day.
I walked into his yard with a rope halter over my arm while I rested my flag against the fence. He looked up and watched me while I closed the gate. When I approached Satts and stroked his face he lowered his head to the height of his wither. This was a lesson he had learned well. I reached across the top of his neck with my right arm while I used my left hand to pass the tail end of the rope halter under his neck and pick it up in my right hand. Now that I had the free end of the halter around his neck I tied it securely.
The horses in the adjacent paddock wandered over to have a ‘sticky-beak’. As I stroked Satts’ neck and scratched the spot on his chest that caused him to melt into a big marsh mellow, the others lined up one by one watching. The scene reminded me of photos I had seen from the 1950s when people would crowd outside the windows of electrical stores to watch the miracle of television.
I fed out the lead rope to almost the end and reached over to grab my flag from the fence. I didn’t know Satts’ eyes could grow so big. In fact, everything about him grew much bigger. He now stood 22 hands, eyes and nostrils suddenly dilated to twice their normal size and air blew in sharp bursts from his nostrils at twice the speed of sound. If I didn’t have his attention before, I certainly had it now.
I guess I should describe a flag for those who don’t know what they are. The flag is an extension of your arm like a whip or the tail end of a lead rope. At the time, I used a 2-metre long lightweight fishing rod. I removed the reel and line guides so it was just like a fibreglass stick. I then attached about a dozen strips of plastic. I made these out of plastic bags from the supermarket that I cut into narrow strips and then attached the strips to the tip of the rod with duct tape. When I was finished it looked like a stick with feathers at one end. As you can probably imagine some horses find flags quite confronting the first time or two; and Satts was no exception.
I tried to touch Satts on the face with the flag, but before the plastic got within a whisper of him he was charging around the yard. I kept a firm hold on the lead rope and tried my best to touch his rump with the flag. He was cantering around me on a 4-metre circle, while trying desperately to turn it into a 100-metre circle – but my rope was pretty effective at keeping him within reach even though it was taking all my strength. Finally I managed to touch his croup and hold the flag there as he ran around me. It took about 3 laps for him to slow down to a trot and another 6 before he walked. I took the flag off Satts and rested it on the ground and he stopped to look at me. It seemed to me he was due for another scratch for his effort. Several seconds of praise and scratching was enough to get him to lower his head and relax a little bit. I then raised the flag to touch his rump again. This time I was able to touch him just as he leapt sideways. Satts pulled me with him and I managed to keep contact with the flag. Within less than a lap of his panic to flee he stopped. Again I took the flag away and rubbed his face with my free hand. I presented the flag to him again and his body shuddered, but he did not move his feet.
I started to run the flag down his flank and over his topline. Satts did not move. I was worried he was frozen in fear and trying to pretend the flag was not happening. I took the flag away and then clucked him to walk around me. At about the half a lap stage I raised the flag once again to touch Satts on the rump. He trotted forward and then suddenly stopped. This was not what I wanted. I knew from experience that a horse can learn to stop running in response to an extreme stress, but it becomes a trick without the horse learning to feel any better about the flag. I asked Satts to keep walking by tapping his back with the flag. Initially, a fair bit of dust flew around us, but it didn’t take long before I was rubbing Satts with the flag all over his side as he walked around me. I changed sides and repeated the process on his right. The pattern was similar as before, but he came around much quicker.
However, Satts was very defensive about allowing the flag near his face. I raised it towards his muzzle. His worry caused him to exhale a jet burst of air, which caused the feathers to explode in front of his eyes. Satts leapt skywards and nearly fell over backwards. When he regained his balance, I rested the flag on the ground and rubbed his face. When he calmed down I thought I would try a different approach. Since he seemed most scared when the flag approached him perhaps he would gain some confidence if he knew he could make the flag scared of him.
I stood about 2-metres in front of Satts with the lead rope slack in my hand. I raised the flag to his head level, but at a distance that he didn’t need the feel to rear. I then walked backwards, all the time urging Satts to walk towards me with the flag in front of his face. At first he pulled back forcing me towards him instead of the other way around. This caused him even more worry, but I held firm and if he was getting close to the edge of what he could handle I created a bigger gap between the flag and Satts. After he pulled back about half a lap of the yard he stopped. I lowered the flag for a few moments and then began again. I raised the flag as before and asked for him to come towards me. This time he took a step forward and I took a step backwards. Another step and then another followed. With each step he seemed to gain confidence because he was finding the flag was moving away from him. I repeated the exercise several times. Every time I repeated the process I closed the gap between the flag and Satts. Before Satts even knew how it happened I was stroking his face and forehead with the flag as he walked towards me. It wasn’t long before he was feeling okay as I waved the flag over his body and face, down his legs and over his tail. Whether walk or trot or standing still, Satts was making friends with the flag.
You might be asking what was the point of the flag exercise. Well, now it was time to make use of the flag to train Satts to be better on the lead rope.
I gave Satts about a metre and a bit of loose lead rope while holding the flag in my left hand. I turned and walked away as if I was going somewhere important. I wasn’t abrupt but I was purposeful. By the time I was into my second stride I ran out of lead rope. Satts stood watching me leave as if he was seeing me off at the train station. I kept trying to walk even though I was no match for his stubbornness. I was like the little red engine that thought he could. Satts took a few steps forward, but he never kept up enough to put slack in the lead rope. He was going to have to learn that he was with me when we led, rather than it was okay for me to go ahead and he’d catch up sometime. Leading a horse is meant to be like a dance, but Satts was convinced it was a spectator sport. Satts had been taught that it was just fine to be dragged along and nobody had taught him it could be different. He just didn’t understand the benefits of being a partner in this dance.
Within a couple of seconds of Satts letting the slack out of the lead rope I made a half turn with my upper body to the left (ie, my shoulders did a half turn away from Satts). At the same time my left arm holding the flag came around and touched him on the ribs. He was so startled that he catapulted forward, like being shot out of a cannon, and nearly landed on me. He ran right past and I allowed him to circle around me for a few steps. When he calmed down I petted him. Again I began to walk off and again the lead rope got heavy in my hand. The flag came around again as I kept walking and made contact with Satts just behind the shoulder. He jumped forward and as he passed by me I held firm onto the rope so that he would hit the end and stop. I don’t know how many times I repeated this exercise, before Satts saw me prepare to walk away and he prepared to follow. But anytime the lead rope felt taut the flag backed up the idea that he now had a new job of keeping slack in it. This was not a monumental task for a horse with the IQ of a genius, like Satts.
Dad’s horse was developing the notion that by keeping a focus on me he could keep the lead rope soft, like cooked spaghetti. This was my goal all along and it was finally beginning to be cemented in Satts’ mind. I felt he was ready to introduce the thought that he could also maintain a position that I chose while being led. He was getting the idea to go with me, but he was not sure if he should pass me or be behind me or off to the side. Satts would feel much better if he knew what was expected and could rely on the fact that by maintaining his position life was good. Again, it’s like dancing with a partner who was trying but who didn’t know the steps.
I used the flag to reinforce in him that he was to walk beside me. At first he wanted to tail gate behind me, but by putting the flag between us he felt being beside me was a much better idea. Likewise, Satts sometimes would want to shoot past and be ahead of me. But he was quick to learn that another job he had was not to let his nose pass my nose. If he tried to go past, the flag would suddenly appear in front of him. If he weren’t keeping up with me the flag would appear behind his shoulder. And if he crowded too close and tailgated me, the flag would remind him that he would find life much easier if he stepped to the side. It took no time at all before Satts was walking when I walked and stopping when I stopped. For the most part he kept pace with my speed – whether slow or fast. He turned when I turned and trotted when I trotted. I could see the processing going on in his mind as he tried to search for the answer that would give him the least amount of trouble. It was exciting to watch the learning evolve.
As I discovered time after time, Satts was a quick student. It was obvious to me that the monster that had arrived off the truck so long ago was not a monster at all. He was the product of a lack of clarity in his life. I shuddered at the thought of his future when he returned to the racing stable at the end of his stay with me. I contemplated telling dad that he was just too dangerous and would never make a racehorse; and being the good and loving son I would offer to look after him.
I spent the next session with Satts reinforcing today’s lesson and making sure he was okay being lead from his right side as well as his left. But my mind was already on the work ahead. Next would come teaching him lateral bends, hindquarter and forehand yields and backing up on the lead. Once these lessons were started it would be time to introduce the saddle.
The next several sessions were taken up with teaching Satts to respond to the lead rope with more feel and less effort on my part. One thing that most people don’t realize is that the way a horse responds to the feel of the lead rope is much the same way he will respond to the feel of the reins. It’s just that one has you sitting on his back and the other you are standing on the ground. A horse does not distinguish in his mind the difference between leaning on a lead rope and leaning on a set of reins. The same mental process that goes into one is also involved in the other. So teaching Satts how to listen and respond to the lead rope was the start of mouthing him.
I began with hindquarter yields. This entails using the lead rope to ask a horse to flex either left or right. In the process he must look in the direction he is flexed. Many horses are taught to turn their head left or right, but their eyes are pointing the opposite direction. A horse is always looking where he is thinking, so if you are asking him to bend left and he is looking left, you are okay. But if not, there is trouble brewing in how he feels about yielding to the lead rope. Once you’ve got your horse thinking in the direction he is flexed, the horse stepping his inside hind leg across and in front of his outside hind leg while his forehand is almost pivoting completes the hindquarter yield. This is an oversimplification and it is a lot harder to do correctly than it is to talk about, but I hope you get the idea. The purpose of this exercise is to teach the horse that the lead rope (and eventually the reins) can direct his hindquarters. I don’t use any driving aids to make the hindquarters move. I allow the bend of the horse to initiate the yielding of the hindquarters. I feel this is very important in a young horse. This is about a horse learning to give to the feel of the rope and not about escaping the pressure of having his hindquarters driven.
Satts’ first attempt at a hindquarter yield was pretty typical of a lot of horses. He stiffened through his body and braced his neck against my lead rope. When I wouldn’t release, he began walking backwards trying to find a way to make me let go of the lead rope. After walking about three quarters of the round yard in reverse, he gave a slight flexion and lightened his feel on the lead rope just a fraction. I released and gave him a scratch on his favourite spot. I repeated the exercise again. It probably took longer before he gave to the rope this time, but the try was a bit stronger. I had to repeat this over and over before I could pick up the rope on the left side and Satts could give to the rope softly and look left.
Now it was time to get him to move is hindquarters in response to the feel of the rope. As I shortened the lead Satts yielded and looked left, but instead of releasing I held a constant feel. In a few seconds he tried to reef the lead rope out of my hands and when that didn’t work he began to walk backwards again. I stayed with him while still trying to maintain a constant feel on the rope. While he was exploring his options there was no need to be stronger with the rope. By the time we started our third lap in reverse gear he made an effort to stumble his left hind leg to the right. It was a big moment for the young fellow. I was all over his itching spot in a heartbeat. It was a very exciting moment for me.
Describing the process to teaching Satts how to yield his hindquarters could take up the best part of a huge chapter of a book. Needless to say there were hiccups along the way, including a couple more attempts on Satts’ part to sink his teeth into my arm during his more frustrated moments. But the progress was steady. As his focus increased, his resistance diminished.
It was soon time to add forehand yields into the mix. Where hindquarter yields are designed to teach a horse that the lead rope can direct his rear end, the forehand yields do the same for his front end. Pretty soon the lead rope is able to influence his front end and his rear end independently from each other or in unison. It all depends on the feel a person sends down the length of the rope.
In the perfect forehand yield a horse looks and flexes in the direction he is being asked to yield, then shift his weight back onto his hindquarters. At the same time he raises his front a little and steps his forehand across to whichever direction the rope is directing him. The forehand steps across while the hindquarters are stationary. Once this is mastered a person can combine the movement of the forehand and hindquarter yields into one fluid motion. To the outside observer it looks like two people doing a beautiful waltz.
Because Satts was such a sensitive horse he tried an exhaustive range of options and was constantly searching for an answer that might work better for him. So it took a while for Satts to settle on one answer – the right answer. He’d try various other answers and because they offered no better solution he’d keep trying. But when he did hit the right answer he sometimes kept trying alternative responses just in case there was a better result waiting. A lot of really sensitive horses are like that. But through repetition he would eventually convince himself that the answer I was waiting for was the also the answer that worked best for him. When that happened gaining the softness to accompany the movement came really quickly. It may have taken a little while for him to decide the right response, but once he was sure of the response he was super quick to add quality to his responses. He just needed to be confident of the question and the answer. Then he stopped holding back and keeping his efforts in reserve in case he needed to save his life at a moments notice. He gave all he had.
He was wonderful horse to work with in this regard. But this facet of his personality gave me a huge responsibility because of how strongly he hung onto an answer he was sure about. That’s a great thing in a horse that has the right answer, but a horrible thing in a horse that is just as sure about the wrong answer. I believe that’s why Satts was labelled “no good” and “dog meat” by the last trainer. Satts had learned a lot of wrong answers, but he was confident those wrong answers were going to keep him safe. The treatment he had received at the racing stable only confirmed in him that attack was the best defence. It kept him alive.
Now that I had Satts leading well with his forward and backup feather light, and control of his hind and forequarters, it was time put them to work and teach him to lunge.
The purpose of lunging is not to exercise a horse. It’s to build focus and correctness in how they move. A circle is a line that is curved. When a horse is correct his thought and therefore his feet follow that curved line. But often the reality is that a horse’s thought is elsewhere with the result being that his feet are not travelling on the line. How can you tell? The first thing that is obvious is to notice where he is looking. If his eyes are looking outside the circle, he is not thinking about following the curve of the circle. The next obvious point is to notice his body. By definition a circle is a line where every point on the line is equi-distant from the centre. If you assume that the person is the centre of the circle, then the distance between the person and the horse’s shoulder should be the same as the distance between the person and the horse’s hip. If one is closer than the other, the horse is not travelling a circle correctly and the horse is crooked. This is happening because the horse’s thought is not following the line of the circle.
From this description I hope you can see how lunging can be an important tool for training a horse to allow his thought to be directed and setting him up for the correctness that maybe required as a riding horse.
For me, lunging begins with a forehand yield. I ask a horse to step his shoulders to the left or right and then lead past me on a circle. The only equipment I use is a lead rope and halter and sometimes a flag or whip. I have no time for gadgets and rollers. Side reins, Pessoa, running reins and other devices are only for making a horse do something in spite of his resistance. They do not remove the resistance because they are not capable of changing a horse’s thought.
Getting Satts to start his circle was easy because the idea of the forehand yield was already planted into his mind. He began to walk around on about 2m of lead rope. His circle wavered quite a bit and was far from ideal. But to begin with I let him just get a feel of walking around me. I stopped and changed direction. It was worse going to the right. A couple of laps went by and I changed direction again. I figured it was easier to start on his easy side before tackling the right side.
When I asked him to circle around to the left, he walked about four strides before the slack in the lead rope was gone. This was not what I was wanting. If he was taking the slack out of the rope now, he would soon be pulling the rope away from me and leaning on it. Naughty Satts! This was not softness and not correctness. He was leaving the circle through his right shoulder because his thought was causing his hindquarters to push his front end out of the circle. If I could get him to think around to the left rather than the right I figured he would leave some slack on the rope. It seemed that my options were to either to us the rope to pull him towards me, draw his attention my way or yield his hindquarters away from me in order to bring his thought to the left. In a nutshell I could either try to get him to think to the left and let that fix his feet or fix his feet and use that to bring his thought to the left. Neither choice would be wrong, if they worked. But how to know which one would work was not clear. I figured the only thing to do was to try something and if that didn’t help, try something else.
With my left hand I tightened my grip on the lead rope without shortening the line. I then stomped my feet really quickly for a second like I was trying to crush a bucket full of cockroaches. The suddenness of it caused Satts to jump and pull away, but I held the line firm and when he hit the end of the lead rope he spun his hindquarters away and looked at me. His head was high and nostrils wide, but I sure got his attention. I walked up to him and scratched his favourite spot. I felt him melt under my touch and asked him to walk out to my left once more. This time he kept a close watch on me and managed a beautiful circle for about half a lap. Then my ever-helpful side kick, LJ called out. Satts threw his head up and started trotting around the circle while trying to pull the lead rope out of my hand. I used the tail end of the rope to slap my chaps causing a crackling thwack sound that had Satts leap in the air and spin around to look at me once again. He had lost focus and I needed to suddenly make myself more important that LJ. I had to draw Satts’ thought back to me and our unfinished business of the circle. The loud sound of rope hitting leather was enough to make Satts forget about LJ for the moment. I took a few seconds to stroke and relax Satts before going on. It is not so difficult for most horses to understand that the same person can play the role of both “good cop” and “bad cop.” In the herd the same dynamic of a horse that establishes the rules and enforces the boundaries is often the same horse that can be relied upon during mutual grooming sessions.
Again, I asked for a circle to the left. As Satts walked around me I was very happy with his circle. After about three quarters of a lap when he was about to come past the gate of the arena I saw he showed an interest on the outside. It was hardly noticeable, but his hindquarters were just a little tighter than the earlier steps. I took one step to the right. This was enough to register in his mind and yielded his hindquarters away and faced up to me. This time I offered only a soft swath of my hand down his face and asked for another circle. Every time I felt I was losing his attention I interrupted him to draw his thought back to me. Sometimes, this took 3 or 4 attempts just to complete one circle and other times he could walk an almost perfect circle for 3 laps.
Over the next few days I worked on the forehand and hindquarter yields and the lunging. It took about 3 weeks before I could lunge Satts on a 15m circle at a walk, trot and canter in either direction and have him follow the line with a soft bend. When he was good enough on the short lead rope, it was time to see how well he lunged on a large circle. I didn’t own a lunging cavesson or a lunging line, so I put a loop of my 20m lariat around his neck and lunged him from that. Using a lariat is a good way to see how much of your horse’s thought you really have because without the advantage of a noseband it is really easy for a horse to take his thought elsewhere and have you and your rope dragged off too.
While I was spending time improving his groundwork and his lunging, I was also getting him ready to ride. A couple of days after I started the lunging work Satts had his first experience with a belly rope. He didn’t know it yet, but the belly rope was going to be the precursor to his first experience with a saddle.
I began with hindquarter yields. This entails using the lead rope to ask a horse to flex either left or right. In the process he must look in the direction he is flexed. Many horses are taught to turn their head left or right, but their eyes are pointing the opposite direction. A horse is always looking where he is thinking, so if you are asking him to bend left and he is looking left, you are okay. But if not, there is trouble brewing in how he feels about yielding to the lead rope. Once you’ve got your horse thinking in the direction he is flexed, the horse stepping his inside hind leg across and in front of his outside hind leg while his forehand is almost pivoting completes the hindquarter yield. This is an oversimplification and it is a lot harder to do correctly than it is to talk about, but I hope you get the idea. The purpose of this exercise is to teach the horse that the lead rope (and eventually the reins) can direct his hindquarters. I don’t use any driving aids to make the hindquarters move. I allow the bend of the horse to initiate the yielding of the hindquarters. I feel this is very important in a young horse. This is about a horse learning to give to the feel of the rope and not about escaping the pressure of having his hindquarters driven.
Satts’ first attempt at a hindquarter yield was pretty typical of a lot of horses. He stiffened through his body and braced his neck against my lead rope. When I wouldn’t release, he began walking backwards trying to find a way to make me let go of the lead rope. After walking about three quarters of the round yard in reverse, he gave a slight flexion and lightened his feel on the lead rope just a fraction. I released and gave him a scratch on his favourite spot. I repeated the exercise again. It probably took longer before he gave to the rope this time, but the try was a bit stronger. I had to repeat this over and over before I could pick up the rope on the left side and Satts could give to the rope softly and look left.
Now it was time to get him to move is hindquarters in response to the feel of the rope. As I shortened the lead Satts yielded and looked left, but instead of releasing I held a constant feel. In a few seconds he tried to reef the lead rope out of my hands and when that didn’t work he began to walk backwards again. I stayed with him while still trying to maintain a constant feel on the rope. While he was exploring his options there was no need to be stronger with the rope. By the time we started our third lap in reverse gear he made an effort to stumble his left hind leg to the right. It was a big moment for the young fellow. I was all over his itching spot in a heartbeat. It was a very exciting moment for me.
Describing the process to teaching Satts how to yield his hindquarters could take up the best part of a huge chapter of a book. Needless to say there were hiccups along the way, including a couple more attempts on Satts’ part to sink his teeth into my arm during his more frustrated moments. But the progress was steady. As his focus increased, his resistance diminished.
It was soon time to add forehand yields into the mix. Where hindquarter yields are designed to teach a horse that the lead rope can direct his rear end, the forehand yields do the same for his front end. Pretty soon the lead rope is able to influence his front end and his rear end independently from each other or in unison. It all depends on the feel a person sends down the length of the rope.
In the perfect forehand yield a horse looks and flexes in the direction he is being asked to yield, then shift his weight back onto his hindquarters. At the same time he raises his front a little and steps his forehand across to whichever direction the rope is directing him. The forehand steps across while the hindquarters are stationary. Once this is mastered a person can combine the movement of the forehand and hindquarter yields into one fluid motion. To the outside observer it looks like two people doing a beautiful waltz.
Because Satts was such a sensitive horse he tried an exhaustive range of options and was constantly searching for an answer that might work better for him. So it took a while for Satts to settle on one answer – the right answer. He’d try various other answers and because they offered no better solution he’d keep trying. But when he did hit the right answer he sometimes kept trying alternative responses just in case there was a better result waiting. A lot of really sensitive horses are like that. But through repetition he would eventually convince himself that the answer I was waiting for was the also the answer that worked best for him. When that happened gaining the softness to accompany the movement came really quickly. It may have taken a little while for him to decide the right response, but once he was sure of the response he was super quick to add quality to his responses. He just needed to be confident of the question and the answer. Then he stopped holding back and keeping his efforts in reserve in case he needed to save his life at a moments notice. He gave all he had.
He was wonderful horse to work with in this regard. But this facet of his personality gave me a huge responsibility because of how strongly he hung onto an answer he was sure about. That’s a great thing in a horse that has the right answer, but a horrible thing in a horse that is just as sure about the wrong answer. I believe that’s why Satts was labelled “no good” and “dog meat” by the last trainer. Satts had learned a lot of wrong answers, but he was confident those wrong answers were going to keep him safe. The treatment he had received at the racing stable only confirmed in him that attack was the best defence. It kept him alive.
Now that I had Satts leading well with his forward and backup feather light, and control of his hind and forequarters, it was time put them to work and teach him to lunge.
The purpose of lunging is not to exercise a horse. It’s to build focus and correctness in how they move. A circle is a line that is curved. When a horse is correct his thought and therefore his feet follow that curved line. But often the reality is that a horse’s thought is elsewhere with the result being that his feet are not travelling on the line. How can you tell? The first thing that is obvious is to notice where he is looking. If his eyes are looking outside the circle, he is not thinking about following the curve of the circle. The next obvious point is to notice his body. By definition a circle is a line where every point on the line is equi-distant from the centre. If you assume that the person is the centre of the circle, then the distance between the person and the horse’s shoulder should be the same as the distance between the person and the horse’s hip. If one is closer than the other, the horse is not travelling a circle correctly and the horse is crooked. This is happening because the horse’s thought is not following the line of the circle.
From this description I hope you can see how lunging can be an important tool for training a horse to allow his thought to be directed and setting him up for the correctness that maybe required as a riding horse.
For me, lunging begins with a forehand yield. I ask a horse to step his shoulders to the left or right and then lead past me on a circle. The only equipment I use is a lead rope and halter and sometimes a flag or whip. I have no time for gadgets and rollers. Side reins, Pessoa, running reins and other devices are only for making a horse do something in spite of his resistance. They do not remove the resistance because they are not capable of changing a horse’s thought.
Getting Satts to start his circle was easy because the idea of the forehand yield was already planted into his mind. He began to walk around on about 2m of lead rope. His circle wavered quite a bit and was far from ideal. But to begin with I let him just get a feel of walking around me. I stopped and changed direction. It was worse going to the right. A couple of laps went by and I changed direction again. I figured it was easier to start on his easy side before tackling the right side.
When I asked him to circle around to the left, he walked about four strides before the slack in the lead rope was gone. This was not what I was wanting. If he was taking the slack out of the rope now, he would soon be pulling the rope away from me and leaning on it. Naughty Satts! This was not softness and not correctness. He was leaving the circle through his right shoulder because his thought was causing his hindquarters to push his front end out of the circle. If I could get him to think around to the left rather than the right I figured he would leave some slack on the rope. It seemed that my options were to either to us the rope to pull him towards me, draw his attention my way or yield his hindquarters away from me in order to bring his thought to the left. In a nutshell I could either try to get him to think to the left and let that fix his feet or fix his feet and use that to bring his thought to the left. Neither choice would be wrong, if they worked. But how to know which one would work was not clear. I figured the only thing to do was to try something and if that didn’t help, try something else.
With my left hand I tightened my grip on the lead rope without shortening the line. I then stomped my feet really quickly for a second like I was trying to crush a bucket full of cockroaches. The suddenness of it caused Satts to jump and pull away, but I held the line firm and when he hit the end of the lead rope he spun his hindquarters away and looked at me. His head was high and nostrils wide, but I sure got his attention. I walked up to him and scratched his favourite spot. I felt him melt under my touch and asked him to walk out to my left once more. This time he kept a close watch on me and managed a beautiful circle for about half a lap. Then my ever-helpful side kick, LJ called out. Satts threw his head up and started trotting around the circle while trying to pull the lead rope out of my hand. I used the tail end of the rope to slap my chaps causing a crackling thwack sound that had Satts leap in the air and spin around to look at me once again. He had lost focus and I needed to suddenly make myself more important that LJ. I had to draw Satts’ thought back to me and our unfinished business of the circle. The loud sound of rope hitting leather was enough to make Satts forget about LJ for the moment. I took a few seconds to stroke and relax Satts before going on. It is not so difficult for most horses to understand that the same person can play the role of both “good cop” and “bad cop.” In the herd the same dynamic of a horse that establishes the rules and enforces the boundaries is often the same horse that can be relied upon during mutual grooming sessions.
Again, I asked for a circle to the left. As Satts walked around me I was very happy with his circle. After about three quarters of a lap when he was about to come past the gate of the arena I saw he showed an interest on the outside. It was hardly noticeable, but his hindquarters were just a little tighter than the earlier steps. I took one step to the right. This was enough to register in his mind and yielded his hindquarters away and faced up to me. This time I offered only a soft swath of my hand down his face and asked for another circle. Every time I felt I was losing his attention I interrupted him to draw his thought back to me. Sometimes, this took 3 or 4 attempts just to complete one circle and other times he could walk an almost perfect circle for 3 laps.
Over the next few days I worked on the forehand and hindquarter yields and the lunging. It took about 3 weeks before I could lunge Satts on a 15m circle at a walk, trot and canter in either direction and have him follow the line with a soft bend. When he was good enough on the short lead rope, it was time to see how well he lunged on a large circle. I didn’t own a lunging cavesson or a lunging line, so I put a loop of my 20m lariat around his neck and lunged him from that. Using a lariat is a good way to see how much of your horse’s thought you really have because without the advantage of a noseband it is really easy for a horse to take his thought elsewhere and have you and your rope dragged off too.
While I was spending time improving his groundwork and his lunging, I was also getting him ready to ride. A couple of days after I started the lunging work Satts had his first experience with a belly rope. He didn’t know it yet, but the belly rope was going to be the precursor to his first experience with a saddle.
Satts was a very different horse to that one that arrived off the truck from Sydney, breathing fire and ready to kill the first person that looked wrongly at him. He was now living in the paddock with the other horses. And like the other horses he had to learn to live by LJ’s rules. LJ was a very dominant gelding, but sort of a benevolent dictator. He didn’t hassle the other horses. He had his second in command, Chops to do that for him. The exception was when one or more of the mares came into season. Then LJ would kidnap the mares into a corner of the paddock and drive away any gelding that showed the slightest interest. Satts fell victim to LJ’s wrath on several occasions before he gave up the notion that he had propriety rights to any of the mares. After about a day, LJ would release his captives from the corner and calm and tranquillity would settle over the paddock once again.
Satts’ groundwork was going well. He was a now easy to catch, responsive to lead and his forehand and hindquarter yields were becoming reliably soft and accurate. I had just started teaching him to lunge and it seemed the time was right to try saddling him again.
I knew from the trainer in Sydney that the first breaker had tried getting Satts saddled, but it ended badly. The one time he put the saddle on Satts’ back he managed to get the girth buckled moments before Satts jumped. But the girth was not snug and after the first leap it rolled around the horse and lay under his belly. From there it went from bad to horrible. Satts clearly thought he was being attacked under the belly and panicked. He bawled, bucked and bashed into the round yard fence for several minutes. At one point he flipped over and landed on his neck because he stepped onto his dangling lead rope at high speed. The breaker thought he had killed the horse because Satts lay there for a few seconds. But when the breaker went to approach, Satts leapt to his feet still bawling and kicking at the saddle clinging to his belly. When exhaustion overtook Satts he stopped panicking and stood still. But the moment the breaker tried to approach him, it would set him off again. The fellow was afraid Satts might not stop until he killed himself. He decided that he and a mate would throw two ropes on Satts and sort of crosstie him between two posts of the yard. With this done Satts fell to the ground and the breaker was able to sneak close enough to unbuckle the wrecked remnants of his saddle. That was the first and last time anybody had tried to saddle Satts.
From past experience I had learned that when a horse has a bad experience with his first exposure to being saddled, it is often a difficult process to put that behind them. With horses as sensitive as Satts, sometimes they never get over it. So I decided to begin with a lot of preparation before he was saddled.
I did about ten minutes of groundwork to ensure Satts was having a good day and on his game. There was no point starting something that I knew was going to be very traumatic to him if he wasn’t in a good spot from the start. I already had butterflies and was expecting the worse, so I should at least start off okay even if I screw up and finish badly.
When I sensed Satts was as relaxed and focused as I was likely to get him, I reached across the fence of the round yard for the belly rope. The belly rope is simply an 8m length of lead rope with a 45mm diameter steel ring (like a tie up ring) spliced onto one end. The idea is to pass the tail end of the rope through the ring to form a loop. Pulling or releasing the free end of the rope can adjust the size of the loop. I also swapped my 4m lead rope on the halter for an 8m rope so that I could give Satts as much freedom as he needed to move around the yard, but still maintain contact if I wanted.
The end of the belly rope with the ring attached was passed across Satts’ back and down his right side. I reached under his belly and grabbed the ring bringing across to his left side. I made extra sure that the rope did not touch his belly. While keeping the belly rope loose I fed the other free end of the rope through the ring enough to make a loose loop around his body – just behind his wither and coming up near his elbow. I could feel Satts tense, but he didn’t move. I spent a few moments talking to him and scratching his favourite spot. At the same time I asked him to lower his head. When I finally felt him relax, I directed him to walk around me to the left.
At first Satts seemed a little tentative in his steps, but I urged him forward and kept the loop of the belly rope loose. In a bit more than a couple of laps his walk freed considerably, telling me he was getting more use to the feel of the loop around his body. Now the moment of truth had arrived! As smoothly as I could I took the slack out of the rope until the loop was now held against his stomach and sides. It was not tight, but could definitely be felt by Satts. He suddenly planted his feet and humped his back. The feel around his belly must have caused those muscles to contract and lift his back. I waited for less than ten seconds and clucked him to walk on. I clucked again and then again, but Satts was frozen on the spot. I needed him to walk. He was not going to feel better until he moved. I released the feel on the rope and clucked. He took a few hesitant steps and finally relaxed again when he realized the rope was not going to grab him.
Again, I slowly took a feel on the rope and once again the loop closed in around his belly. Satts went to stop once more. I tried to get my cluck out before he froze, but to no avail. Satts planted his feet firmly to the spot. In an effort to get him to move, I tugged slightly on the belly rope. Nothing happened. I tugged again a bit firmer, but nobody seemed to be at home. He stood there hunched up like an explosion was working its way to the surface from deep within him. I knew no progress was possible until Satts learned he could move while having the belly rope firmly around his girth area. I needed to help him try something other than an impression of a statue. Next time I tugged the rope even firmer in an effort to convince him that standing still was not the solution to making the belly rope disappear.
This time when the rope grabbed his girth, Satts shot forward like a cannonball. As quickly as I could I put slack in the rope, but he took off running. I was happy to let the fence limit the distance he could escape me so I could hold the lead rope. I waited and waited until Satts had slowed to a walk before shortening the belly rope again. As soon as he felt the rope snug against his body, Satts prepared to stop. I bumped the rope gently, which was enough to cause him to trot. This time, however, I didn’t release the belly rope. The combination of being bumped by the belly rope and the snug fit around his girth was enough to trigger a panic attack. Satts leapt like a cat in the air and roared. When his feet hit the ground he bucked, twisted and reared. Memories of being attacked by the saddle gripping his undercarriage seemed to fill the pen. He brought his hind legs under to kick at the rope gripping his belly. What was quite a sizeable 16m round yard a few seconds ago suddenly seemed too small to fit the both us. Satts was twisting and leaping to all points of the compass and I couldn’t be sure until the last second which direction to move to stay out of his way.
I did my best to maintain a hold on the belly rope, but that was not always possible. Sometimes it seemed too loose and others it was too tight. Occasionally, Satts tried to change direction, but a feel on the lead rope was enough to block him. The storm continued much longer than I had ever experienced with any horse before. Many horses would react with their first experience of the belly rope, but I couldn’t ever remember any horse whose response came close to this. The sweat was pouring down his sides after a couple of minutes and his tiredness was starting to cause a subsidence in his panic.
Eventually, the bucking turned into a canter. I figured that if the bucking had stopped it was a good moment to relax the belly rope. Satts felt the release instantly and was trotting and then walking again within a lap of the round yard. I stopped him and let him relax for comfort. We both needed a respite from the adrenaline.
After we regrouped, I directed him out on the circle again and smoothly tightened the rope against his belly. It took about two strides before Satts was bucking and kicking. But since he didn’t instantly jump forward I took that as an improvement. About five laps had passed before Satts was cantering smoothly. I released the belly rope and allowed him to trot, walk and finally stop again. After a few moments of rubbing we started again. This time it took only a couple of laps of bucking before he was going forward more relaxed. When he found the walk, I tried to keep him walking with small tugs on the belly rope just before he looked to be stopping. It didn’t take long for Satts to realize he was being asked to keep walking with the loop loose. I then tightened the belly rope once again Satts trotted and gave a couple half-hearted bucks and kicks and then just trotted albeit a little tighter than I would have liked. With a few more repetitions I was able to adjust the tightness of the belly rope and have Satts maintain his walk without objection.
The next step was to have Satts trotting around the pen while I manipulated the belly rope. At first trotting and a tight belly rope together were too much to handle for the Satts. But it didn’t take long before he showed significant improvement. When it came to repeating the exercise at a canter, Satts’ fear took over much stronger than I expected. He reacted like it was his first time with the belly rope. I wondered if I had done as good a job at the walk and the trot as I thought I had done for him to be so upset at the canter. I continued to work at it like I had done earlier and the change in the way he felt that I was looking for eventually showed through.
I knew I still had to repeat the whole process on the right side, but first Satts needed a break. I put him in a stall with fresh water and a small amount of hay while I went to the house for a cup of tea. There were two phone messages on the machine, which I decided to check to later. But then the phone rang. It was one of the honours students in my lab. She was in a panic about the final presentation of her work to the university department. It was scheduled for a few days time and she was having trouble with the statistical analysis of her results. I think Satts was less panicked about the belly rope than Adele was about her presentation. So what was supposed to be a fifteen-minute break for Satts turned into an hour and fifteen minutes!
When I finally managed to get back to the round yard with Satts, his sweat had dried into a salty crust. I began the exercise with the belly rope from the start again, but from his right side. It was almost an exact repeat of the experience of the left side, except the changes that Satts made came around much quicker. There was the same level of reactivity, but the improvements happened quicker.
Satts had had enough for the day. I was sure I would need two or three more sessions like this one before Satts was okay about the tightness around his girth. With a horse as reactive as Satts and with the bad history, it is never a mistake to double check that each stage is okay before moving to the next stage. I hoped that this exercise was going to be enough to better prepare him for giving the saddle a second chance. His previous bad experience meant it was probably never going to be possible for me to avoid causing him intense fear about the saddle. But my hope was that the belly rope would help him recover much quicker and open the door to Satts making a “try” to work it out.
I knew I was making good progress with Satts. But there was a still a long way to go before he was ready to be a riding horse. Even when Satts feels okay about wearing a saddle and being girthed there are still lots of things to check before knowing he is ready to accept a rider without too much trouble.
Satts’ groundwork was going well. He was a now easy to catch, responsive to lead and his forehand and hindquarter yields were becoming reliably soft and accurate. I had just started teaching him to lunge and it seemed the time was right to try saddling him again.
I knew from the trainer in Sydney that the first breaker had tried getting Satts saddled, but it ended badly. The one time he put the saddle on Satts’ back he managed to get the girth buckled moments before Satts jumped. But the girth was not snug and after the first leap it rolled around the horse and lay under his belly. From there it went from bad to horrible. Satts clearly thought he was being attacked under the belly and panicked. He bawled, bucked and bashed into the round yard fence for several minutes. At one point he flipped over and landed on his neck because he stepped onto his dangling lead rope at high speed. The breaker thought he had killed the horse because Satts lay there for a few seconds. But when the breaker went to approach, Satts leapt to his feet still bawling and kicking at the saddle clinging to his belly. When exhaustion overtook Satts he stopped panicking and stood still. But the moment the breaker tried to approach him, it would set him off again. The fellow was afraid Satts might not stop until he killed himself. He decided that he and a mate would throw two ropes on Satts and sort of crosstie him between two posts of the yard. With this done Satts fell to the ground and the breaker was able to sneak close enough to unbuckle the wrecked remnants of his saddle. That was the first and last time anybody had tried to saddle Satts.
From past experience I had learned that when a horse has a bad experience with his first exposure to being saddled, it is often a difficult process to put that behind them. With horses as sensitive as Satts, sometimes they never get over it. So I decided to begin with a lot of preparation before he was saddled.
I did about ten minutes of groundwork to ensure Satts was having a good day and on his game. There was no point starting something that I knew was going to be very traumatic to him if he wasn’t in a good spot from the start. I already had butterflies and was expecting the worse, so I should at least start off okay even if I screw up and finish badly.
When I sensed Satts was as relaxed and focused as I was likely to get him, I reached across the fence of the round yard for the belly rope. The belly rope is simply an 8m length of lead rope with a 45mm diameter steel ring (like a tie up ring) spliced onto one end. The idea is to pass the tail end of the rope through the ring to form a loop. Pulling or releasing the free end of the rope can adjust the size of the loop. I also swapped my 4m lead rope on the halter for an 8m rope so that I could give Satts as much freedom as he needed to move around the yard, but still maintain contact if I wanted.
The end of the belly rope with the ring attached was passed across Satts’ back and down his right side. I reached under his belly and grabbed the ring bringing across to his left side. I made extra sure that the rope did not touch his belly. While keeping the belly rope loose I fed the other free end of the rope through the ring enough to make a loose loop around his body – just behind his wither and coming up near his elbow. I could feel Satts tense, but he didn’t move. I spent a few moments talking to him and scratching his favourite spot. At the same time I asked him to lower his head. When I finally felt him relax, I directed him to walk around me to the left.
At first Satts seemed a little tentative in his steps, but I urged him forward and kept the loop of the belly rope loose. In a bit more than a couple of laps his walk freed considerably, telling me he was getting more use to the feel of the loop around his body. Now the moment of truth had arrived! As smoothly as I could I took the slack out of the rope until the loop was now held against his stomach and sides. It was not tight, but could definitely be felt by Satts. He suddenly planted his feet and humped his back. The feel around his belly must have caused those muscles to contract and lift his back. I waited for less than ten seconds and clucked him to walk on. I clucked again and then again, but Satts was frozen on the spot. I needed him to walk. He was not going to feel better until he moved. I released the feel on the rope and clucked. He took a few hesitant steps and finally relaxed again when he realized the rope was not going to grab him.
Again, I slowly took a feel on the rope and once again the loop closed in around his belly. Satts went to stop once more. I tried to get my cluck out before he froze, but to no avail. Satts planted his feet firmly to the spot. In an effort to get him to move, I tugged slightly on the belly rope. Nothing happened. I tugged again a bit firmer, but nobody seemed to be at home. He stood there hunched up like an explosion was working its way to the surface from deep within him. I knew no progress was possible until Satts learned he could move while having the belly rope firmly around his girth area. I needed to help him try something other than an impression of a statue. Next time I tugged the rope even firmer in an effort to convince him that standing still was not the solution to making the belly rope disappear.
This time when the rope grabbed his girth, Satts shot forward like a cannonball. As quickly as I could I put slack in the rope, but he took off running. I was happy to let the fence limit the distance he could escape me so I could hold the lead rope. I waited and waited until Satts had slowed to a walk before shortening the belly rope again. As soon as he felt the rope snug against his body, Satts prepared to stop. I bumped the rope gently, which was enough to cause him to trot. This time, however, I didn’t release the belly rope. The combination of being bumped by the belly rope and the snug fit around his girth was enough to trigger a panic attack. Satts leapt like a cat in the air and roared. When his feet hit the ground he bucked, twisted and reared. Memories of being attacked by the saddle gripping his undercarriage seemed to fill the pen. He brought his hind legs under to kick at the rope gripping his belly. What was quite a sizeable 16m round yard a few seconds ago suddenly seemed too small to fit the both us. Satts was twisting and leaping to all points of the compass and I couldn’t be sure until the last second which direction to move to stay out of his way.
I did my best to maintain a hold on the belly rope, but that was not always possible. Sometimes it seemed too loose and others it was too tight. Occasionally, Satts tried to change direction, but a feel on the lead rope was enough to block him. The storm continued much longer than I had ever experienced with any horse before. Many horses would react with their first experience of the belly rope, but I couldn’t ever remember any horse whose response came close to this. The sweat was pouring down his sides after a couple of minutes and his tiredness was starting to cause a subsidence in his panic.
Eventually, the bucking turned into a canter. I figured that if the bucking had stopped it was a good moment to relax the belly rope. Satts felt the release instantly and was trotting and then walking again within a lap of the round yard. I stopped him and let him relax for comfort. We both needed a respite from the adrenaline.
After we regrouped, I directed him out on the circle again and smoothly tightened the rope against his belly. It took about two strides before Satts was bucking and kicking. But since he didn’t instantly jump forward I took that as an improvement. About five laps had passed before Satts was cantering smoothly. I released the belly rope and allowed him to trot, walk and finally stop again. After a few moments of rubbing we started again. This time it took only a couple of laps of bucking before he was going forward more relaxed. When he found the walk, I tried to keep him walking with small tugs on the belly rope just before he looked to be stopping. It didn’t take long for Satts to realize he was being asked to keep walking with the loop loose. I then tightened the belly rope once again Satts trotted and gave a couple half-hearted bucks and kicks and then just trotted albeit a little tighter than I would have liked. With a few more repetitions I was able to adjust the tightness of the belly rope and have Satts maintain his walk without objection.
The next step was to have Satts trotting around the pen while I manipulated the belly rope. At first trotting and a tight belly rope together were too much to handle for the Satts. But it didn’t take long before he showed significant improvement. When it came to repeating the exercise at a canter, Satts’ fear took over much stronger than I expected. He reacted like it was his first time with the belly rope. I wondered if I had done as good a job at the walk and the trot as I thought I had done for him to be so upset at the canter. I continued to work at it like I had done earlier and the change in the way he felt that I was looking for eventually showed through.
I knew I still had to repeat the whole process on the right side, but first Satts needed a break. I put him in a stall with fresh water and a small amount of hay while I went to the house for a cup of tea. There were two phone messages on the machine, which I decided to check to later. But then the phone rang. It was one of the honours students in my lab. She was in a panic about the final presentation of her work to the university department. It was scheduled for a few days time and she was having trouble with the statistical analysis of her results. I think Satts was less panicked about the belly rope than Adele was about her presentation. So what was supposed to be a fifteen-minute break for Satts turned into an hour and fifteen minutes!
When I finally managed to get back to the round yard with Satts, his sweat had dried into a salty crust. I began the exercise with the belly rope from the start again, but from his right side. It was almost an exact repeat of the experience of the left side, except the changes that Satts made came around much quicker. There was the same level of reactivity, but the improvements happened quicker.
Satts had had enough for the day. I was sure I would need two or three more sessions like this one before Satts was okay about the tightness around his girth. With a horse as reactive as Satts and with the bad history, it is never a mistake to double check that each stage is okay before moving to the next stage. I hoped that this exercise was going to be enough to better prepare him for giving the saddle a second chance. His previous bad experience meant it was probably never going to be possible for me to avoid causing him intense fear about the saddle. But my hope was that the belly rope would help him recover much quicker and open the door to Satts making a “try” to work it out.
I knew I was making good progress with Satts. But there was a still a long way to go before he was ready to be a riding horse. Even when Satts feels okay about wearing a saddle and being girthed there are still lots of things to check before knowing he is ready to accept a rider without too much trouble.
I repeated the exercise with the belly rope each day until I Satts began to feel quite okay about the tightness around him whether at a walk, trot or canter. I had removed the lead rope and allowed him the freedom to choose the direction to travel. It took about 5 days for Satts to overcome his fear of the rope and I could now use the belly rope to ask him to walk, trot, canter and stop on command.
I have to admit that I held some hesitancy about saddling Satts. The belly rope was one thing, but if things became too hairy with the rope I could always release the pressure. This was not possible with the saddle. Once the girth was tightened the saddle wasn’t coming off until he either accepted it or killed himself. I had no idea how I would explain to dad that I murdered his horse. But I could no longer put off the saddling. The time was now or never.
I grabbed my Keiffer jumping saddle from the tack room, along with my long lead rope, flag and lariat. The belly rope was left hanging on its hook for the first time in a week. The Keiffer was the only saddle I owned and had been used for breaking in a couple of hundred horses, trekking a few thousand kilometres across the country and winning more than the occasional jumping competition. I was hoping this was not going to be its farewell appearance.
Satts was grazing among the other horses. I noticed how much he was accepted now into the herd. When I first put him with the others he was chased off by almost everybody. They seemed to sense how emotionally disturbed he was and that he would upset the workings of the herd. All the horses snubbed him for weeks. But as Satts changed and became less of an emotional basket case, he was slowly allowed into the group. He posed less of a threat to the tranquillity of the herd and was more and more accepted.
I haltered him and lead him to the round yard once again. He was getting to know this routine pretty well by now. I asked for a couple of hindquarter yields, back ups and forehand yields. He was instantly soft and focused. I directed a couple of changes of direction on the lunge. This gave me confidence that he was ready to be saddled.
I threw the lead rope over his back and turned to walk to the fence where my saddle was looking nervous – but maybe that was my imagination. Satts followed behind as if to see where I was going. When I swivelled back to him he noticed the saddle blanket in my hand. He took a sniff and I rubbed his neck and back with it. I lifted it high in the air and dropped it onto his back a few times. He moved away a little, but I just followed as I carried on dropping the saddle blanket on his back and used my lead rope to circle him around me. He stopped quite quickly. I position the blanket and walked Satts over to where the saddle was reachable. This time I swung the saddle onto his back calmly, but without hesitating. He didn’t move, but he was watchful. I removed the saddle and swung it up again – this time a little less careful. Again he drifted away, but stopped when I offered a feel on the lead rope.
I walked to the opposite side and lifted the saddle and blanket from Satts’ back. I laid them on the ground at his feet and rubbed him all over. I picked up the saddle blanket and gave it a shake to flick any sand away and casually swung it on his back. Satts was a little more bothered by this and I rubbed him and walked him around me in a tight circle. His steps became a little freer in a couple of laps, so I stopped and rubbed the itchy spot on his chest. As I reached for the saddle, ready to swing it on him I noticed he was looking out towards the other horses. I stopped in mid swing and used the lead rope to encourage him to look at me. At first he was sure that was not going to happen. But I blurted a huge raspberry and he suddenly spun his neck around to see what had happened. When he realized it was just me having another silly tantrum he relaxed and forgot about the thing that was so interesting in the paddock.
I lifted the saddle and placed it on and off Satts’ back, then went to the left side again and repeated the process. He sometimes drifted his focus away from me and I kept reminding him to check in before I lowered the saddle on each time. I figured that Satts’ attempt to mentally disconnect was his way of telling me was a little unsure about what was going on.
I walked around him, slapping and rocking the seat of the saddle from either side - gently at first and then firmer as I felt Satts relax. Then I asked him to walk around me as I did the same. So far, so good!
I bent down to reach for the girth with my left hand and brought it up under his belly while I used my right hand to steady the saddle. Slowly I let the girth touch his belly and snug it against his skin just a little. Just as slowly that I tightened the feel on the girth I then released it until the girth was hanging loose. Satts appeared a little worried, so I repeated the process until he seemed fine. Then I asked Satts to walk forward and again I slowly snugged the girth against his belly and released it. He was doing great and I felt confident to lift the girth tighter and tighter until it approximated the feel of a saddle during riding. Satts handled it like a 20-year-old kid’s pony.
Finally, I buckled the girth to a level that was just tight enough so that the saddle would not roll if he bucked. I removed the halter and lead rope and stepped away from the horse. At first Satts tried to follow me as I walked backwards away from the horse. But I swung my arms gently to discourage my stalker, but not enough to scare him. He wandered to his right towards the opposite side of the round yard. When he got to the fence he stopped and looked out towards the other horses. This was no good. I needed him to move and think about the saddle, not the herd.
I tried clucking and walking towards him, but nothing happened – he was still fixated on something. He had a distant gaze. I still had the halter and lead rope in my hand, so I slapped my chaps gently. Nothing. I slapped hard and this time there was a loud thwack noise. Suddenly the memory of his last saddling must have awakened. Satts turned and bolted. He bucked and roared. The stirrups were flapping madly like wings and bumping his sides, so he bucked harder. I knew I was safe because he just kept to the track. I decided not to interfere and just observe to allow him to figure it out because I noticed how much less intense was his response than the first experience to the belly rope. I was sure he would settle soon. And he did.
After perhaps three laps he suddenly stopped and looked at me. I gave him a few moments to rest and when he looked out towards the herd I clucked him to move on. That startled him and he offered a couple of bucks and then trotted around. I then stepped across the yard to get in front of him and asked him to change direction. He spun to his left and gave another couple of bucks as he came out of the turn – but that was the worse of it. I kept asking him for changes of direction until his turns smoothed out and the bucking and jumping ceased. When this happened we both just stood still looking at each other as if to ask what do we do now?
My next move was to take three steps to the left to see if I could draw his thought towards me in a strong enough way as to cause him to walk closer to me. Satts followed me with his gaze, but his feet seemed stuck. One of the hardest things for people to do is to wait. We are so accustomed making things happen that allowing a horse enough time to come up with his own decision is often incredibly difficult. We are always trying to do something to cause a change and doing nothing is very foreign to us. So I stood waiting anxiously wondering if I should do more to induce Satts to move his feet. It felt like we were in a staring competition. But I knew that Satts was thinking about his choices. He was looking at me, but there were tiny shifts of weight that indicated to me that he was deciding to move one way or the other. I kept telling myself to do nothing until he does something. I know it was at least thirty minutes, even though my watch said it was one and half minutes, before he did move. Satts stepped his hindquarters across in order to face me squarely. Here we were standing face to face, teetering on the edge of calmness or panic. In an effort to confirm in Satts mind that he made the right choice, I calmly walked towards him and rubbed his neck. His posture immediately melted. He turned his nose into me and sniffed around for reassurance. A few seconds of bonding in this way was enough for him to feel it was okay to follow me around the yard.
Eventually, I re-haltered him. With the lead rope in my left hand I reached for the cantle of he saddle with my right and started to rock it left and right. Satts was a little stuck in his feet, so I stopped moving the saddle and had him walk around me in a circle before beginning to shift the saddle from side to side once again. His back braced against this for about half a lap, but then he relaxed. I used my right hand to tap the seat of the saddle and eventually to slap it quite hard. I had to tighten the circle once or twice to discourage him from trotting around me, but that was all it took. Next I grabbed the stirrup iron in my right hand and slapped the leather against the saddle flap. It was not a hard slap, but enough that the sound of leather against leather caused Satts to launch himself forward. All four feet left the ground simultaneously and he landed taking off for who knows where. When he hit the end of the lead rope, Satts spun around so quickly I had to release my grip on the stirrup iron. He was now facing me again. But the bump he felt from the iron hitting his sides surprised him so much that he leapt towards me from two metres away. I know it was not Satts’ choice, but his shoulder knocked me sideways and I hit the ground bum first. The horse stood looking down at me and I briefly wondered if this was how he metaphorically looked at me every day.
After brushing the sand from my sides and seat I collected the dangling lead rope, petted Satts and then picked up the stirrup iron once again. This time I slapped the leather with about a third of the energy of the first time. Satts jumped, but not much more than a shudder. I repeated and repeated until he was acting nonchalant about the slapping of the leather on the saddle. Then I directed him to walk around me again and commenced bumping him with the stirrup leather again.
It is important to me that horses not ignore anything that happens to them. I didn’t want Satts ignoring the fact that the stirrup leather was slapping the saddle or my hand was rocking the saddle. This is desensitizing a horse and there is a big difference in my book between desensitizing a horse and having a horse feel okay about things. I want my horse to not over react to events because he feels okay about them and is not bothered, not because he tries to tune it out. So I began use the stirrup leather to teach Satts to walk or trot when I slapped the stirrup, but to make no change when I used a sharp bump to pull down the stirrup leather. In this way Satts would learn not to ignore the stirrup leather, but also learn that how I use it will have meaning in a way that does not worry him. Being the genius that he was, this did not take long.
Things were going so well, that I decided to quite for the day. I unsaddled Satts, hosed his sweat spots and let him tell his mates in the paddock all about his day.
I was really happy with the session. I was expecting a lot worse. I was thinking maybe a broken board or two in the round yard or a busted girth or a few gashes on Satts or me. But none of that happened, so it was a good session.
That evening I spoke to my father on the phone. Ever since I left home at eighteen most of dad’s phone conversations went something like,
“How are ya son?
Do ya need any money?
Here’s ya mother.”
But since Satts’ arrival, it was more like,
“How are ya son?
How’s my horse?”
Dad wanted to know if Satts was going to make it to the racetrack. He had been talking to his trainer and the trainer told him that if it was taking this long to get Satts rideable, he couldn’t be any good. Dad wanted to know why was it taking so long and was it worth it?
This was one of the few times I got pissed at my father. I asked him why was he listening to a bloke who wrecked the horse in the first place and wanted to send Satts to the doggers? I said Satts is smart and sensitive and wouldn’t tolerate the idiots he has had in his life. Satts will make a wonderful horse if he is allowed the time to work things out. But if people try to push him into a program they might as well do the horse a favour now and put him down.
Dad could tell I was mad because he was still taking advice from the same bloke that had screwed up Satts’ mind. He knew I had made more headway with the horse than anybody before and if he didn’t like it I was likely to tell him to take the horse back now. But I think what worried him most was that he knew that if that happened he would have mum to deal with after that.
So dad then told me he was happy with everything I had done and appreciated all my work. We ended the conversation with,
“Do ya need any money?
Here’s ya mother.”
I have to admit that I held some hesitancy about saddling Satts. The belly rope was one thing, but if things became too hairy with the rope I could always release the pressure. This was not possible with the saddle. Once the girth was tightened the saddle wasn’t coming off until he either accepted it or killed himself. I had no idea how I would explain to dad that I murdered his horse. But I could no longer put off the saddling. The time was now or never.
I grabbed my Keiffer jumping saddle from the tack room, along with my long lead rope, flag and lariat. The belly rope was left hanging on its hook for the first time in a week. The Keiffer was the only saddle I owned and had been used for breaking in a couple of hundred horses, trekking a few thousand kilometres across the country and winning more than the occasional jumping competition. I was hoping this was not going to be its farewell appearance.
Satts was grazing among the other horses. I noticed how much he was accepted now into the herd. When I first put him with the others he was chased off by almost everybody. They seemed to sense how emotionally disturbed he was and that he would upset the workings of the herd. All the horses snubbed him for weeks. But as Satts changed and became less of an emotional basket case, he was slowly allowed into the group. He posed less of a threat to the tranquillity of the herd and was more and more accepted.
I haltered him and lead him to the round yard once again. He was getting to know this routine pretty well by now. I asked for a couple of hindquarter yields, back ups and forehand yields. He was instantly soft and focused. I directed a couple of changes of direction on the lunge. This gave me confidence that he was ready to be saddled.
I threw the lead rope over his back and turned to walk to the fence where my saddle was looking nervous – but maybe that was my imagination. Satts followed behind as if to see where I was going. When I swivelled back to him he noticed the saddle blanket in my hand. He took a sniff and I rubbed his neck and back with it. I lifted it high in the air and dropped it onto his back a few times. He moved away a little, but I just followed as I carried on dropping the saddle blanket on his back and used my lead rope to circle him around me. He stopped quite quickly. I position the blanket and walked Satts over to where the saddle was reachable. This time I swung the saddle onto his back calmly, but without hesitating. He didn’t move, but he was watchful. I removed the saddle and swung it up again – this time a little less careful. Again he drifted away, but stopped when I offered a feel on the lead rope.
I walked to the opposite side and lifted the saddle and blanket from Satts’ back. I laid them on the ground at his feet and rubbed him all over. I picked up the saddle blanket and gave it a shake to flick any sand away and casually swung it on his back. Satts was a little more bothered by this and I rubbed him and walked him around me in a tight circle. His steps became a little freer in a couple of laps, so I stopped and rubbed the itchy spot on his chest. As I reached for the saddle, ready to swing it on him I noticed he was looking out towards the other horses. I stopped in mid swing and used the lead rope to encourage him to look at me. At first he was sure that was not going to happen. But I blurted a huge raspberry and he suddenly spun his neck around to see what had happened. When he realized it was just me having another silly tantrum he relaxed and forgot about the thing that was so interesting in the paddock.
I lifted the saddle and placed it on and off Satts’ back, then went to the left side again and repeated the process. He sometimes drifted his focus away from me and I kept reminding him to check in before I lowered the saddle on each time. I figured that Satts’ attempt to mentally disconnect was his way of telling me was a little unsure about what was going on.
I walked around him, slapping and rocking the seat of the saddle from either side - gently at first and then firmer as I felt Satts relax. Then I asked him to walk around me as I did the same. So far, so good!
I bent down to reach for the girth with my left hand and brought it up under his belly while I used my right hand to steady the saddle. Slowly I let the girth touch his belly and snug it against his skin just a little. Just as slowly that I tightened the feel on the girth I then released it until the girth was hanging loose. Satts appeared a little worried, so I repeated the process until he seemed fine. Then I asked Satts to walk forward and again I slowly snugged the girth against his belly and released it. He was doing great and I felt confident to lift the girth tighter and tighter until it approximated the feel of a saddle during riding. Satts handled it like a 20-year-old kid’s pony.
Finally, I buckled the girth to a level that was just tight enough so that the saddle would not roll if he bucked. I removed the halter and lead rope and stepped away from the horse. At first Satts tried to follow me as I walked backwards away from the horse. But I swung my arms gently to discourage my stalker, but not enough to scare him. He wandered to his right towards the opposite side of the round yard. When he got to the fence he stopped and looked out towards the other horses. This was no good. I needed him to move and think about the saddle, not the herd.
I tried clucking and walking towards him, but nothing happened – he was still fixated on something. He had a distant gaze. I still had the halter and lead rope in my hand, so I slapped my chaps gently. Nothing. I slapped hard and this time there was a loud thwack noise. Suddenly the memory of his last saddling must have awakened. Satts turned and bolted. He bucked and roared. The stirrups were flapping madly like wings and bumping his sides, so he bucked harder. I knew I was safe because he just kept to the track. I decided not to interfere and just observe to allow him to figure it out because I noticed how much less intense was his response than the first experience to the belly rope. I was sure he would settle soon. And he did.
After perhaps three laps he suddenly stopped and looked at me. I gave him a few moments to rest and when he looked out towards the herd I clucked him to move on. That startled him and he offered a couple of bucks and then trotted around. I then stepped across the yard to get in front of him and asked him to change direction. He spun to his left and gave another couple of bucks as he came out of the turn – but that was the worse of it. I kept asking him for changes of direction until his turns smoothed out and the bucking and jumping ceased. When this happened we both just stood still looking at each other as if to ask what do we do now?
My next move was to take three steps to the left to see if I could draw his thought towards me in a strong enough way as to cause him to walk closer to me. Satts followed me with his gaze, but his feet seemed stuck. One of the hardest things for people to do is to wait. We are so accustomed making things happen that allowing a horse enough time to come up with his own decision is often incredibly difficult. We are always trying to do something to cause a change and doing nothing is very foreign to us. So I stood waiting anxiously wondering if I should do more to induce Satts to move his feet. It felt like we were in a staring competition. But I knew that Satts was thinking about his choices. He was looking at me, but there were tiny shifts of weight that indicated to me that he was deciding to move one way or the other. I kept telling myself to do nothing until he does something. I know it was at least thirty minutes, even though my watch said it was one and half minutes, before he did move. Satts stepped his hindquarters across in order to face me squarely. Here we were standing face to face, teetering on the edge of calmness or panic. In an effort to confirm in Satts mind that he made the right choice, I calmly walked towards him and rubbed his neck. His posture immediately melted. He turned his nose into me and sniffed around for reassurance. A few seconds of bonding in this way was enough for him to feel it was okay to follow me around the yard.
Eventually, I re-haltered him. With the lead rope in my left hand I reached for the cantle of he saddle with my right and started to rock it left and right. Satts was a little stuck in his feet, so I stopped moving the saddle and had him walk around me in a circle before beginning to shift the saddle from side to side once again. His back braced against this for about half a lap, but then he relaxed. I used my right hand to tap the seat of the saddle and eventually to slap it quite hard. I had to tighten the circle once or twice to discourage him from trotting around me, but that was all it took. Next I grabbed the stirrup iron in my right hand and slapped the leather against the saddle flap. It was not a hard slap, but enough that the sound of leather against leather caused Satts to launch himself forward. All four feet left the ground simultaneously and he landed taking off for who knows where. When he hit the end of the lead rope, Satts spun around so quickly I had to release my grip on the stirrup iron. He was now facing me again. But the bump he felt from the iron hitting his sides surprised him so much that he leapt towards me from two metres away. I know it was not Satts’ choice, but his shoulder knocked me sideways and I hit the ground bum first. The horse stood looking down at me and I briefly wondered if this was how he metaphorically looked at me every day.
After brushing the sand from my sides and seat I collected the dangling lead rope, petted Satts and then picked up the stirrup iron once again. This time I slapped the leather with about a third of the energy of the first time. Satts jumped, but not much more than a shudder. I repeated and repeated until he was acting nonchalant about the slapping of the leather on the saddle. Then I directed him to walk around me again and commenced bumping him with the stirrup leather again.
It is important to me that horses not ignore anything that happens to them. I didn’t want Satts ignoring the fact that the stirrup leather was slapping the saddle or my hand was rocking the saddle. This is desensitizing a horse and there is a big difference in my book between desensitizing a horse and having a horse feel okay about things. I want my horse to not over react to events because he feels okay about them and is not bothered, not because he tries to tune it out. So I began use the stirrup leather to teach Satts to walk or trot when I slapped the stirrup, but to make no change when I used a sharp bump to pull down the stirrup leather. In this way Satts would learn not to ignore the stirrup leather, but also learn that how I use it will have meaning in a way that does not worry him. Being the genius that he was, this did not take long.
Things were going so well, that I decided to quite for the day. I unsaddled Satts, hosed his sweat spots and let him tell his mates in the paddock all about his day.
I was really happy with the session. I was expecting a lot worse. I was thinking maybe a broken board or two in the round yard or a busted girth or a few gashes on Satts or me. But none of that happened, so it was a good session.
That evening I spoke to my father on the phone. Ever since I left home at eighteen most of dad’s phone conversations went something like,
“How are ya son?
Do ya need any money?
Here’s ya mother.”
But since Satts’ arrival, it was more like,
“How are ya son?
How’s my horse?”
Dad wanted to know if Satts was going to make it to the racetrack. He had been talking to his trainer and the trainer told him that if it was taking this long to get Satts rideable, he couldn’t be any good. Dad wanted to know why was it taking so long and was it worth it?
This was one of the few times I got pissed at my father. I asked him why was he listening to a bloke who wrecked the horse in the first place and wanted to send Satts to the doggers? I said Satts is smart and sensitive and wouldn’t tolerate the idiots he has had in his life. Satts will make a wonderful horse if he is allowed the time to work things out. But if people try to push him into a program they might as well do the horse a favour now and put him down.
Dad could tell I was mad because he was still taking advice from the same bloke that had screwed up Satts’ mind. He knew I had made more headway with the horse than anybody before and if he didn’t like it I was likely to tell him to take the horse back now. But I think what worried him most was that he knew that if that happened he would have mum to deal with after that.
So dad then told me he was happy with everything I had done and appreciated all my work. We ended the conversation with,
“Do ya need any money?
Here’s ya mother.”
I was very busy at work with a number of experiments on the go and a few honour student theses to mark before the examiners board met in a couple of weeks. But there was good news too. My major medical grant had been approved with only a minor drop in my requested funds. It was normal to expect a cut in the grant budget. Everybody knew that you always padded out your budget with an item or two of equipment that you didn’t really need or want because every grant would get some level of funding cut. The funding authorities needed to be able to show the government they were being hard nosed with their money. It was a game played by everybody with eyes wide open. But it meant I had a guaranteed salary for another three years and I could take on another postgraduate student.
By necessity the next couple of sessions with Satts were fairly short. They were mainly targeted to reinforce the “okay-ness” of being saddled. There were some initial remnants of worry-induced bucking in each session, but this neither surprised me nor disturbed me. After saddling I grabbed the lariat once again and snugged a loop around the left stirrup iron. Satts was sent around me on a left circle and after I was certain he was not overly stressed about the saddle I gently pulled on the lariat to cause the saddle to pull Satts to the left. I think the surprise of the pull was what caused him to jump forward. But I held firmly onto the rope until he found an even rhythm again. I relaxed the lariat and waited a few strides before trying again. With each repetition Satts appeared less imposed upon by the pull of the saddle. Both the left and right sides were addressed and the changes that Satts made gave me the confidence to be sure he was ready to accept a rider stepping up in the stirrup.
However, this would have to wait for a few days. Work demanded more time at the university and less time in the round yard. I knew if I had done my job properly that there would be no detriment to Satts’ progress. In a few days time he would be mentally just where I left him. As it turned out, it was almost 3 weeks before I had enough time in daylight hours to work with Satts again.
I led him into the round yard as the other horses crowded around the paddock gate like fans at a red carpet gala. It was almost as if they heard the gossip that something was going to happen.
I saddled Satts and moved him around. I constantly interrupted him with a new job in an effort to forestall his mind wandering to the paparazzi by the gate. Mentally he was in a really good spot. I pulled and slapped the stirrup leather on either side. Then I jumped up and down beside Satts as he walked around the yard. It was time to put a foot in the stirrup.
I started on the left side because that is my strongest side and with Satts at 16.3hh tall I knew stepping up on the right side would be more difficult for me. I didn’t want my clumsiness to scare the horse. I put the lead rope in my left hand. I stood beside Satts facing forward and lay my right hand over the saddle holding onto the right side of the pommel. My left foot was lifted into the stirrup with just the toe purchased on the bar in case I needed a quick exit. The next thing was to bounce two or three times. Satts watched wearily without turning to look. He was okay. I took my left foot out of the stirrup and walked him forward a couple of steps. I always walk them a little to ensure that the reason they are still is NOT because they are frozen to the spot.
I organized Satts and myself again in the same way and bounced some more. He felt much better the second time. We strolled another couple paces and he came forward with much less resistance. I was really pleased to feel him not hold back against the lead rope this time. Again, I stood beside him with the lead rope in my left hand. I put my foot in the stirrup and at the same time I used my right hand to tap the saddle and work towards his rump. I rubbed and tapped him back and front while I bounced with one foot in the stirrup. Finally, I sprung upwards as smoothly as I could. But with such a tall horse I find it necessary to throw quite a bit of energy into my spring if I’m not going to stall and crash land half way up the horse. Satts was quite startled by the suddenness of my burst of energy and took a hurried stumble away from me. It was times like this that I thought it would be better to mount from a fence.
I managed to keep my foot in the stirrup as I landed on the ground again. As Satts moved I was able to hop around with him with the help of my grip on the pommel. In a second or two he stopped and I took my foot out of the stirrup and stroked his forehead.
We began again. However, this time he was not so surprised by my leap into the air. Satts threw his head up and braced his back, but did not move. I stayed airborne for less than a second. I walked him forward once more and rubbed his chest for a moment. He was a little more stuck to come forward this time, which told me that his level of worry had risen. Nevertheless, the second time I was able to stand for longer with my foot in the stirrup. Satts still raised his neck and still felt tight, but it was a pretty good result compared to what I know he was capable of offering. With the next effort I raised myself over the saddle and used my right hand to stroke his right side, from his neck to his flank. I was expecting a little jumpiness when I touch his flank, but I made sure he knew my hand was heading that way, which was enough to cause him not to be surprised.
Satts’ response was better than I expected and good enough that I decided to push it to the next stage. Experience had taught me that Satts was best handled in increments rather than leaps of change. But I was confident that he could be pushed just a little bit farther.
I raised myself up into the stirrup again and lay across the saddle. Again, I rubbed him all over his right side. Then with my left hand I used the lead rope to tip his nose to the left and clucked with my voice. He leant against my hand a little, but not badly. Nevertheless, he didn’t move. I released the lead rope, stroked him some more and stepped down onto the ground. I stood beside him and laid my right hand over the saddle and tapped his right shoulder while using my tongue to cluck. At first he stepped back, but I persisted with the tapping and the clucking until he walked forward. Again and again I repeated this to be sure he was understand that clucking and tapping the right shoulder with my hand meant forward movement.
Once more time I hoisted myself above the saddle and lay across it. I rubbed him all over and then tipped his nose to the left. He didn’t move. I then clucked and tapped his right shoulder to encourage some sort of movement. At first he hesitated. He didn’t know how to move while carry this enormous lug of a man. I maintained the bend in his neck and waited for him to do something. I wanted Satts to unglue his feet. I think he wanted to move in order to re-balance himself, but he dared not. I continued to wait. Finally, he felt brave enough to move his legs in an effort to regain his balance. He stumbled to the left. I slid down his side and petted on him. After walking him forward again, I stepped up and used the lead rope to turn his head to the left. He locked his feet again, but I kept the bend while tapping his shoulder and clucking until he moved. This time he took a couple of hesitant steps and stopped. While still standing in the stirrup, I relaxed the pressure and just rubbed his neck.
I tried again. It took a few moments before Satts became mobile. He was very unsure of where to put his feet as his balanced wobbled around. I was prepared to accept anything he offered as long as he moved – even a rush or a back up would get a reward. I couldn’t have been more thrilled when he walked six paces before hesitating to a stop. He turned to look at me as if to ask “is that what you wanted?” I stepped down and made a fuss of him, making sure to pay attention to his favourite scratching spot.
I walked him around the yard and stepped up again on his left side. When I asked him to walk he moved with far less hesitancy, even though he still felt unsure. He had walked about six or so steps when I felt him think about stopping. I tapped his shoulder and clucked again as I tipped him to the left and he continued on. This time I urged him forward even more by tapping his shoulder with my hand. He threw his head up and almost stopped, but when I tipped him to the left even further, he strode out with much more confidence. It was the first really free walk he had offered and it felt great. We had gone half a lap around the yard and I bent him tighter to the left to ask for a stop. Initially, he tried to reef the lead rope out of my hand, but when that didn’t work he disengaged his hindquarters and stopped still.
It was enough for one day. The next couple of sessions were repeats of the same, except I was mounting from the right side as well as the left side. At first the right side was more troublesome for Satts. He was more resistant to walk, but when he did finally walk he was more hurried about it. This was no more than an expression of his tension and was sorted easily by taking the process in smaller steps and adding a lot more quiet time.
By the time the session ended Satts was walking around the yard, with me hanging off one side or the other, as if we were on a stroll through the park.
The idea of hanging off the side of the saddle when starting a horse seems to bother some people. I have been told that it scares horses by unbalancing them. I have also been told by some folk that they find it too difficult to balance in the stirrup without pulling the saddle over, so they would rather sit in the saddle. I understand this because I have seen enough people try to lean over the saddle from one side, but struggle to stop falling off.
In my experience of starting a lot of horses, this approach works well and can be learned by anyone with enough practice. You can start by working with a quiet horse that has already been broken in. Learn the technique on some old fellow before trying it on a young break.
The technique of pulling on the stirrup with a lariat rope as a horse walked and trotted on the circle, also helps avoid the fear that standing in the stirrup will cause the horse to be unbalanced. He gets okay with the idea of being pulled from either side
The main advantage is that if a horse gets scared and tries to buck or bolt, it is really easy to slip off the side and not get hurt. It’s a way of slowly introducing the notion of carry weight on a horse’s back in stages that a horse can handle. It’s a way of not flooding a horse with the pressure of carrying a rider, but where the horse can be exposed to the idea in increments. It’s also very safe for the rider. There have been a few occasions when I have used this technique and thanked my lucky stars I didn’t throw my leg over the saddle. There are some storms brewing deep inside a few horses that you just don’t want to ride. The method I describe has kept me from being hurt a few times when I thought a horse was okay inside and I was wrong.
It was a more than a week before I could get back to Satts and ride him. The riding part turned out to be quite different to the groundwork part. Things showed up with Satts that I had never seen in other horses and I didn’t know how to handle. He pushed me beyond what I knew about horses and made me wish on several occasions that Walt and Amos were still alive to lean over the rail and guide me.
By necessity the next couple of sessions with Satts were fairly short. They were mainly targeted to reinforce the “okay-ness” of being saddled. There were some initial remnants of worry-induced bucking in each session, but this neither surprised me nor disturbed me. After saddling I grabbed the lariat once again and snugged a loop around the left stirrup iron. Satts was sent around me on a left circle and after I was certain he was not overly stressed about the saddle I gently pulled on the lariat to cause the saddle to pull Satts to the left. I think the surprise of the pull was what caused him to jump forward. But I held firmly onto the rope until he found an even rhythm again. I relaxed the lariat and waited a few strides before trying again. With each repetition Satts appeared less imposed upon by the pull of the saddle. Both the left and right sides were addressed and the changes that Satts made gave me the confidence to be sure he was ready to accept a rider stepping up in the stirrup.
However, this would have to wait for a few days. Work demanded more time at the university and less time in the round yard. I knew if I had done my job properly that there would be no detriment to Satts’ progress. In a few days time he would be mentally just where I left him. As it turned out, it was almost 3 weeks before I had enough time in daylight hours to work with Satts again.
I led him into the round yard as the other horses crowded around the paddock gate like fans at a red carpet gala. It was almost as if they heard the gossip that something was going to happen.
I saddled Satts and moved him around. I constantly interrupted him with a new job in an effort to forestall his mind wandering to the paparazzi by the gate. Mentally he was in a really good spot. I pulled and slapped the stirrup leather on either side. Then I jumped up and down beside Satts as he walked around the yard. It was time to put a foot in the stirrup.
I started on the left side because that is my strongest side and with Satts at 16.3hh tall I knew stepping up on the right side would be more difficult for me. I didn’t want my clumsiness to scare the horse. I put the lead rope in my left hand. I stood beside Satts facing forward and lay my right hand over the saddle holding onto the right side of the pommel. My left foot was lifted into the stirrup with just the toe purchased on the bar in case I needed a quick exit. The next thing was to bounce two or three times. Satts watched wearily without turning to look. He was okay. I took my left foot out of the stirrup and walked him forward a couple of steps. I always walk them a little to ensure that the reason they are still is NOT because they are frozen to the spot.
I organized Satts and myself again in the same way and bounced some more. He felt much better the second time. We strolled another couple paces and he came forward with much less resistance. I was really pleased to feel him not hold back against the lead rope this time. Again, I stood beside him with the lead rope in my left hand. I put my foot in the stirrup and at the same time I used my right hand to tap the saddle and work towards his rump. I rubbed and tapped him back and front while I bounced with one foot in the stirrup. Finally, I sprung upwards as smoothly as I could. But with such a tall horse I find it necessary to throw quite a bit of energy into my spring if I’m not going to stall and crash land half way up the horse. Satts was quite startled by the suddenness of my burst of energy and took a hurried stumble away from me. It was times like this that I thought it would be better to mount from a fence.
I managed to keep my foot in the stirrup as I landed on the ground again. As Satts moved I was able to hop around with him with the help of my grip on the pommel. In a second or two he stopped and I took my foot out of the stirrup and stroked his forehead.
We began again. However, this time he was not so surprised by my leap into the air. Satts threw his head up and braced his back, but did not move. I stayed airborne for less than a second. I walked him forward once more and rubbed his chest for a moment. He was a little more stuck to come forward this time, which told me that his level of worry had risen. Nevertheless, the second time I was able to stand for longer with my foot in the stirrup. Satts still raised his neck and still felt tight, but it was a pretty good result compared to what I know he was capable of offering. With the next effort I raised myself over the saddle and used my right hand to stroke his right side, from his neck to his flank. I was expecting a little jumpiness when I touch his flank, but I made sure he knew my hand was heading that way, which was enough to cause him not to be surprised.
Satts’ response was better than I expected and good enough that I decided to push it to the next stage. Experience had taught me that Satts was best handled in increments rather than leaps of change. But I was confident that he could be pushed just a little bit farther.
I raised myself up into the stirrup again and lay across the saddle. Again, I rubbed him all over his right side. Then with my left hand I used the lead rope to tip his nose to the left and clucked with my voice. He leant against my hand a little, but not badly. Nevertheless, he didn’t move. I released the lead rope, stroked him some more and stepped down onto the ground. I stood beside him and laid my right hand over the saddle and tapped his right shoulder while using my tongue to cluck. At first he stepped back, but I persisted with the tapping and the clucking until he walked forward. Again and again I repeated this to be sure he was understand that clucking and tapping the right shoulder with my hand meant forward movement.
Once more time I hoisted myself above the saddle and lay across it. I rubbed him all over and then tipped his nose to the left. He didn’t move. I then clucked and tapped his right shoulder to encourage some sort of movement. At first he hesitated. He didn’t know how to move while carry this enormous lug of a man. I maintained the bend in his neck and waited for him to do something. I wanted Satts to unglue his feet. I think he wanted to move in order to re-balance himself, but he dared not. I continued to wait. Finally, he felt brave enough to move his legs in an effort to regain his balance. He stumbled to the left. I slid down his side and petted on him. After walking him forward again, I stepped up and used the lead rope to turn his head to the left. He locked his feet again, but I kept the bend while tapping his shoulder and clucking until he moved. This time he took a couple of hesitant steps and stopped. While still standing in the stirrup, I relaxed the pressure and just rubbed his neck.
I tried again. It took a few moments before Satts became mobile. He was very unsure of where to put his feet as his balanced wobbled around. I was prepared to accept anything he offered as long as he moved – even a rush or a back up would get a reward. I couldn’t have been more thrilled when he walked six paces before hesitating to a stop. He turned to look at me as if to ask “is that what you wanted?” I stepped down and made a fuss of him, making sure to pay attention to his favourite scratching spot.
I walked him around the yard and stepped up again on his left side. When I asked him to walk he moved with far less hesitancy, even though he still felt unsure. He had walked about six or so steps when I felt him think about stopping. I tapped his shoulder and clucked again as I tipped him to the left and he continued on. This time I urged him forward even more by tapping his shoulder with my hand. He threw his head up and almost stopped, but when I tipped him to the left even further, he strode out with much more confidence. It was the first really free walk he had offered and it felt great. We had gone half a lap around the yard and I bent him tighter to the left to ask for a stop. Initially, he tried to reef the lead rope out of my hand, but when that didn’t work he disengaged his hindquarters and stopped still.
It was enough for one day. The next couple of sessions were repeats of the same, except I was mounting from the right side as well as the left side. At first the right side was more troublesome for Satts. He was more resistant to walk, but when he did finally walk he was more hurried about it. This was no more than an expression of his tension and was sorted easily by taking the process in smaller steps and adding a lot more quiet time.
By the time the session ended Satts was walking around the yard, with me hanging off one side or the other, as if we were on a stroll through the park.
The idea of hanging off the side of the saddle when starting a horse seems to bother some people. I have been told that it scares horses by unbalancing them. I have also been told by some folk that they find it too difficult to balance in the stirrup without pulling the saddle over, so they would rather sit in the saddle. I understand this because I have seen enough people try to lean over the saddle from one side, but struggle to stop falling off.
In my experience of starting a lot of horses, this approach works well and can be learned by anyone with enough practice. You can start by working with a quiet horse that has already been broken in. Learn the technique on some old fellow before trying it on a young break.
The technique of pulling on the stirrup with a lariat rope as a horse walked and trotted on the circle, also helps avoid the fear that standing in the stirrup will cause the horse to be unbalanced. He gets okay with the idea of being pulled from either side
The main advantage is that if a horse gets scared and tries to buck or bolt, it is really easy to slip off the side and not get hurt. It’s a way of slowly introducing the notion of carry weight on a horse’s back in stages that a horse can handle. It’s a way of not flooding a horse with the pressure of carrying a rider, but where the horse can be exposed to the idea in increments. It’s also very safe for the rider. There have been a few occasions when I have used this technique and thanked my lucky stars I didn’t throw my leg over the saddle. There are some storms brewing deep inside a few horses that you just don’t want to ride. The method I describe has kept me from being hurt a few times when I thought a horse was okay inside and I was wrong.
It was a more than a week before I could get back to Satts and ride him. The riding part turned out to be quite different to the groundwork part. Things showed up with Satts that I had never seen in other horses and I didn’t know how to handle. He pushed me beyond what I knew about horses and made me wish on several occasions that Walt and Amos were still alive to lean over the rail and guide me.
It seemed it had taken forever to get to the point where I felt Satts was now ready to start life under a rider. I have never been the sort of trainer that would jump on a horse and ride through a storm. I’ve ridden plenty of bucking, bolting and rearing episodes, but never did I expect it. When I throw a leg over a horse I always expect a minimum of trouble. I always expect things will be okay and I don’t get on a horse hoping they will be okay. Sometimes I get it wrong, but being cautious has meant I have never suffered the plethora of broken bones that I know other trainers think are just part of the job. My most serious damage has been a fractured rib courtesy of a frightened Clydesdale running over me. But mostly my war wounds have been made up of bites, bruises and crushed toes from being stood on.
But apart from my strong sense of self-preservation I also don’t wish the first ride for a horse to be so terrifying that they feel the need to buck or rear. I would like it to make perfect sense to horse when I first time step across the saddle, because of all the work we have done to get to that spot. I don’t want it to be an ‘Oh my God” moment, but more of a “that’s interesting and different – what do you want me to do now?” experience. It makes the relationship between us more open to negotiation and less stressful. It means I have a horse I can talk to about how things are going to go rather than a horse whose sense of self-preservation has taken over the situation and now the only thing to do is ride it out until he gives up the fight.
I felt I had got to that point with Satts after the many months of sporadic preparation. He was great to catch and be around. He was following the feel of the lead rope. He was maintaining his focus on the job and me. He was okay with the saddle and carrying me around as I lay over his back. He was listening to the reins and I was able to direct his forehand and his hindquarters. And most importantly, he was becoming so much more laid back when things became stressful. He handled trouble in a more controlled manner and was beginning to show signs of thinking his way through a bad spot rather than losing control. But I was about to learn that there was something I had missed.
Satts followed me into the round yard. Today he seemed especially happy to leave his buddies behind in the paddock as if there was a special treat waiting for him in the round yard. I dropped the lead rope on the ground and he stood quietly as I walked to the fence to where the saddle was waiting. He turned his head towards me a little, but turned back with a nonchalant expression once he saw the saddle was going on his back. Before riding, I did a little ground work and moved his feet at speed to make double sure he was comfortable in the trot and canter transitions. Satts had come a long way from the first time he was saddled. To his credit the early memory of the saddle slipping under his belly when he was at the racing stable seem to have dimmed sufficiently that it was no longer an issue.
I slipped the side pull over his head as he lowered his neck and bent towards me. I took a few moments on the ground to check out his response to the reins. Forehand yields and hindquarter yields were followed by a several steps backing up. Nothing was being left to chance. I was being particularly picky that every request was met with a soft response. Obedience was not enough. You can have a horse’s obedience without having his mind. Knowing how explosive Satts could be made me super cautious that Satts was feeling better than okay before I climbed into the saddle.
Satts and I were both ready. I stepped up into the stirrup and stood above him. As I hung onto the pommel and reins with my left hand, my right hand stroked along his neck and over his flank and rump. Satts raised his head when I touched his flank. He didn’t move, but his reaction told me something worth knowing. I kept stroking his flank and rump as I stood in the stirrup. Satts looked yonder to horses in the paddock and I used my left rein to interrupt his mind drifting off. When he refocused his attention back on me I went back to stroking his sides and rump. This time he was distinctly better.
I stroked his neck on the right again and quietly swung my right leg over the saddle. There was some adjustment made to my position, but I didn’t yet search for the right stirrup. After a few seconds, I swung back over the saddle and stepped down to the ground. I lead Satts forward a couple of strides and then repeated the mounting. A few seconds later, I got off Satts and directed him around me. Now I repeated the process on his right side. I mounted from the right with no problem. I got off and repeated it once more before again mounting from the left.
Getting on again seemed easier for Satts. He appeared to know what was coming and what was expected. He stood quietly and even braced his legs a little to prepare for the pull on the saddle. I hadn’t ridden such a tall horse in sometime and I took the time to admire the view across the paddocks. But it was soon time to ask him to walk. I knew he is softer on the left rein (most horses are when they are green), so I softly took hold of the left rein and drew it out towards my left knee to tip his nose to the left. At the same time I made a clucking sound. The slack had hardly come out of the rein when Satts walked a couple of steps on arc to the left. It’s really common that horses get stuck at this point and all you get is a horse that has planted his feet to the soil and leans on the rein. But Satts gave me everything I asked for. I was thrilled.
Once more I used the left rein and clucked and he again moved on a circle to the left with no pressure on the rein. After he stopped in about three strides, I asked with the right rein. He was distinctly heavier, but nevertheless he followed the feel and walked a couple of steps before stopping.
It was obvious how unsure he was about carrying a rider. His steps were tentative and wobbly, so I gave me as much encouragement as I could without insisting. I tried to get him to move just from using one rein or the other, but he was not ready yet for that. I backed up the use of the rein with some clucking and that made a difference. I had already taught him that clucking meant move, so it was a good tool to use now to support the idea of moving with a rider. I had only been riding for probably less than five minutes, when I dismounted from the right side and unsaddled. I felt as a first experience under saddle Satts had done well and shown none of the panic he had become famous for.
The next day began much the same as before. At first I encouraged Satts again to attempt to walk by using one rein and making a clucking noise. I got pretty much the same response as yesterday with Satts offering just a few steps before stalling. I felt it was time to ask for more. I used my left rein to tip his nose to the left and then I clucked just like I had done before. Satts walk to the left in a lackadaisical manner, like he was sleepwalking. But just as I felt him about to come to a stop I nudged him with my left calf. The reaction was not what I expected. Satts reached around to the left and grabbed my shin between his teeth. He pulled with more strength than I had to resist. I felt myself flying then lying sprawled out in the sand with him looking over me. I noticed the rip in my jeans and the trickle of blood long before I felt the searing pain. But the pain did come a few seconds later – damn that hurt. Satts was staring at me wide-eyed. My first thought was “Why is he mad at me? He’s not the one bleeding in pain and with a good pair of jeans wrecked.”
I raised myself onto my feet, but hardly being able to put weight on my left leg. At first I didn’t know what to do, but I soon was aware that I was too hurt to get back in the saddle. I figured the best course of action was to put Satts away, think about what just happened and regroup for next time. It was a struggle to move enough to lead Satts back to his paddock. My leg really hurt.
That night my lower leg had a bruise and swelling the size of an emu egg. It was painful to walk on it and I found hopping was the easiest way to get around. It took about five days before I was mobile enough to consider working a horse again.
Satts and I returned to the venue of our last confrontation. There was an air of gladiatorial contest about the day. I know several people who would have paid money to watch if they had known.
Once Satts was saddled and readied from the groundwork, I returned to walking beside him and bumping him with the stirrup when asking him to walk forward. There was no sign of his reaction from the previous session. He responded on both sides just like I wished.
A little more preparation with the reins and I hopped aboard even if the strain on my left leg caused me to wince a lot. I stroked Satts from front to back on both sides and then used my left rein and a cluck to encourage some forward movement. Just as I felt him slowing to a halt, I clucked louder and gently pressed my left leg against his side. In a flash his head whipped around to grab my leg once again. But I was ready. I shifted my leg forward and tugged hard with my right rein. It was enough to void his teeth, but my leg came into contact with his jowl in exactly the same spot where I was bruised. I couldn’t contain my foul language and yelled “gosh” at the top of my lungs. Well, at least I had my answer as to whether the first bite at my leg was just a one-off incident. There was definitely a problem here.
I leapt off Satts and hobbled to the house leaving him in the round yard wondering what I was doing now. When I returned after ten minutes I was suited up in my cricket pads. What a bizarre sight I must have looked. If the neighbours had been watching they would think I was crazy riding a horse with cricket pads strapped to my legs.
I strode up to Satts and climbed aboard once more. He seemed a little worried about the massive pads to his left and right, but I was simmering with too much emotion to care at this stage. I asked him to walk to the left again with the reins and used my left leg to squeeze him forward. Immediately he took a swipe at my cricket pad. He actually grabbed it between his teeth and nearly had me out of the saddle before I was able to reach down with my arm and bop him hard on the nose. Thankfully Satts released my leg instantly.
After thinking about Satts’ reaction for a few seconds, I again used my left rein to ask for a left flexion, but then applied my right leg to the girth area. Satts reefed the left rein from my hand and reached around to bite at my right leg. As he did, my toe came into contact with his muzzle and he failed to make any teeth marks in the pad. Just as he straightened his head again, I once more touched his sides with my right leg. With the determination of the white pointer shark smelling the blood of his next dinner, Satts sunk his teeth into my white pad. I jerked and tugged with both reins of the side pull until he let go.
It was clear that using my leg to touch Satts’ side was a serious issue for him. It didn’t appear to bother him if I used my hand against his side, but for some unknown reason being in the saddle and applying a gentle pressure from my legs was too much for him to handle. I figured I was not going to win anything by going into battle with this horse. History had shown that if I persisted and insisted, his behaviour could elevate into far more serious and dangerous behaviours. I needed time to think of another approach.
I dismounted and put Satts away. I know some people might think that it was wrong to finish the session without getting Satts to make a change about how he responded to a rider’s leg. Some would argue that it would be teaching a horse that if he attacks the leg with his teeth he wins and that would reinforce the behaviour.
But of course, that would only be true if Satts had a plan that biting a rider’s leg was going to teach the rider not to apply his leg. At this point, biting at my leg was an instinctual response to something that was seriously troubling him. There was no plan and thought on his part to hurt me or throw me out of the saddle. It was my leg pressure that he was trying to get rid of, not me. My leg was more like a really really annoying fly tickling his sides. He wouldn’t care about the fly or be mad at the fly. He would just want the tickling to stop.
There would be no harm in stopping the session without fixing the problem. There were going to be lots of other sessions and opportunities to help clear up Satts’ confusion on how to respond to a rider’s leg. But right now I needed to figure out how best to help him before the next ride and not go into battle with him about who was going to yield first. Nothing good comes from making a horse feel like his needs are not important to the human, so rather than bully Satts into going forward from my leg I had to invent an approach that gave him the idea that moving off a rider’s leg was a better choice for him than trying to bite at the leg.
Besides, my left leg was throbbing badly despite the protection of the pad. I needed to deal with my leg first and Satts later.
The previous session with Satts left me feeling empty. I had found a spot in Satts that was going to be a big challenge to overcome. I had never dealt with a horse that showed so much aggression about a rider’s leg. He was genuinely concerned enough about pressure from my legs that his first reaction was to attack them teeth first. I had no idea what was causing such behaviour. Had I left something in Satts that sat simmering below the surface unrecognized? Or was Satts’ action so extreme that it even surprised him?
I’m a great believer in the concept that nothing comes from nowhere. There was something inside Satts that I was missing. I had thought I had covered all the bases. Satts had proved to be a big project, which made me even more cautious than usual about crossing all the ‘t’s and dotting all the ‘i’s. But the aggressive biting of my leg caught me by surprise and I felt pretty inadequate about how to proceed. The problem preoccupied me.
My professor at work called me to his office to discuss why I kept coming to work injured. He offered some fatherly advice about spending less time with the horses and more time in the laboratory. I knew that all I had to do was agree with him and he would leave me alone no matter whether or not I did what he said. After I had gone back to my office and started changing into scrubs for the afternoon surgery, I had an epiphany. I realized I had gone about the problem the wrong way. I was trying to use my legs to encourage Satts to go forward. This was stupid considering the circumstances. I need to focus on using my legs to get Satts feeling okay about the feel of my legs against his sides. Until this was taken care of, Satts would never be able to give me the forward response I was wanting. Being worried by my legs so overwhelmed him that he could not think of a way to respond. His only reaction could be to attack the thing that was most driving him mad. Even though it seemed to me to be an over reaction, who was I to tell Satts he was wrong.
I didn’t know how I was going to address his worry and was still left in a quandary about what to do on our next ride. I figured I was left with little choice, but to address the symptoms and see if Satts would work it out. It’s not how I would normally like to solve a problem, but I didn’t seem to have many alternatives and I couldn’t see what harm it would do.
It was still a few more days before my bruising had faded and the swelling subsided enough for me to attempt another ride. Once again, I dressed with cricket pads for protection and wondered whether a bat would have been an even better idea.
Satts seemed no bothered at all about the way I was dressed. Once the preliminary groundwork had confirmed he was ready to mount, I put my foot in the stirrup and hoisted myself into the saddle. Even though I had not mastered the art of gracefully mounting with cricket pads strapped to my legs, Satts stood quietly while I fumbled my way into position.
I reached down the left rein of the sidepull and tipped Satts’ nose to the left. This time I didn’t cluck. Instead I nudged him with my left leg. It wasn’t hard or abrupt, but it was definite and clear – I left no question in his mind that my leg bumped him. Satts immediately zeroed in on my left leg, but my left hand was ready and I let him run into my open palm with the bridge of his nose. It deflected his attack perfectly. Just as he was about to launch a second strike, I bumped him with my right leg. Satts’ swung his head around to the right to grab my leg. His ears were flat and his mouth was open. But unfortunately for Satts he collided with my open right hand – this time a little below the eye. Once again, my left leg bumped his side and once again Satts flung his head around to ward off the feel. He was surprised that my hand blocked his path again.
Satts and I sat there playing war games from right to left and left to right. He never once managed to take hold of the cricket pads or pull me out of the saddle. After switching back and forth for about twenty or more times, I noticed Satts’ commitment to chewing off my flesh was showing signs of waning. The vigour of his attacks had diminished significantly. I kept nudging his sides with my legs, alternating left and right. It took another twenty to thirty repeats before he stopped trying to bite me. Instead he stood loudly voicing his protests by flattening his ears, swishing his tail, stomping his feet and pinching his mouth. He was mad. But he was no longer biting mad.
I fumbled out of the saddle (those damn pads) and landed on my bad leg, which caused me to screw up my face in pain. Then it was Satt’s turn to be rubbed and scratched for a few minutes. I led him forward and mounted again, but from the right side – just to keep it interesting. I left both reins loose this time and applied right leg to his flank. Satt’s immediately showed his displeasure with ears flat and open mouth and a tail so busy you could power a medium size town from its energy. He met my right hand midway on his journey to my leg. I never hit him with my hand, but I made sure that it was always there as a roadblock to my leg. If he wanted to take a chunk out of me he was going to have find another route. I used my left leg and my right leg and my left leg and my right leg again in quick succession. Just as Satts was about to swing around to attack one side, my opposite side would interrupt that thought and he would swing around the other direction, only to feel the opposite leg once again.
Poor Satts didn’t know what was going on. He couldn’t win. It didn’t take long before I no longer had to protect myself with my hand. Satts was now caught halfway between ideas before one of my legs would interrupt him and he had to make a change of plans. Perhaps ten minutes had passed when Satts gave up in frustration. The futility of trying to bite at my legs caused him to give up that idea. He just stood there, angry at the world.
I quickly stepped down to the ground and made a fuss of him. I felt he had made progress, but I didn’t think I had achieved anything magical. He was still not happy about the feel of my legs on his sides and he was still not moving forward. But I wanted to continue in this direction to see where it would take us. I knew Satts is not a horse that can be bullied, so I had to become imaginative and tackle problems from a tangent. Whether or not I was going about the issue in an effective way, I was going to learn something from the experimentation.
The next morning I got up at dawn. I had a busy day a work and the next few days would see the beginning of a new experiment that would keep me in the lab all hours. If I was going to get anymore done with Satts it had to be early morning.
It was a warm morning and it felt there was a summer storm making its way towards us. Satts seemed surprise to see me so early. I wore my cricket pads from the start to save time and Satts must have thought I wore them to bed.
I saddled him straight away and then him moved around for a minute to check in and ensure I could snug the girth an extra hole before stepping on board. Today I had an extra surprise for Satts, which I hoped would clear up his concern about responding the “correct” way to my legs. But I was not a hundred percent sure of what I was doing and I hoped Satts did not have a surprise for me. I had images of Satts brooding all night on ways to get back at me for our encounter. I know horses don’t plot or scheme and live largely in the moment, but when you have been bitten as much by a horse as I had by Satts you start to become paranoid.
Once I was set in the saddle I nudged Satts with my left leg, ready to block his head with my hand if he tried to bite me. He did. Immediately, I bumped him with my right leg and again blocked his attempt at gnawing on me. Left leg and then right leg again. It took only about ten repetitions before he stopped trying to bite my legs and stood still, albeit reluctantly and still raging against the world (well, more specifically my legs). I stopped using my legs and sat quietly while I rubbed his neck.
Now it was time to ask him to move. I tipped his neck to bend left and applied some left leg. He tossed his head around in fury and swished his tail, but did not take a step. I gathered both reins in my left hand at the same time taking hold of the bucking strap that sat across the pommel of the saddle. My right hand slid inside the pocket of my jacket. I was ready for my next experiment.
Again, I applied a small, but clear signal with my left leg hoping that Satts would have a light-bulb moment and stroll forward. But instead, he flattened his ears again and swung his neck around the left. Fortunately, my right rein was short enough to block him from reaching my leg. At that moment I squeezed Tess’ dog toy, which was hidden inside my right pocket. A loud, high-pitched squeak emanated from my jacket. Satts cat-leaped upwards and hit the ground running for his life. The grip on my bucking strap was more of a strangle hold and would normally have been enough to bend steel. Satts flew around the yard and occasionally offered a half-hearted buck on his way. But he was moving too fast to unseat me with his attempts to buck and I sat awhile waiting. I reached down to stroke his neck several times thankful that I had tightened the girth that extra hole.
After the fourth lap Satts had regained enough composure that he could listen to me once again. I used the inside rein to ask him to bend and slow down to a trot. There was a little fight in him and I needed to use the rein much firmer than I would like in order to get him to turn to the inside. I did as much as I had to before Satts was ready to slow down. When he found the trot, I allowed him his freedom while I continued to stroke his neck. Finally, I used my inside rein again to bring him back to a walk and eventually to a stop.
As Satts and I gathered our wits I realized that the squeaking toy was too much and I needed to soften my surprise. It had created too big a scare in my horse and his fear would not allow him to engage his mind enough to learn from the experience. If I repeated to use the toy, Satts would probably learn to associate my legs with “run for your life”, which was definitely counter productive.
When I sense Satts had calmed down I asked again with my left leg. He flipped his head in the air in protest. My right hand squeezed Tess’ favourite toy just enough to give out a short burst of a quiet squeak. Satts jumped forward a couple of strides and stopped. He was quivering underneath me, but still holding some semblance of composure. I nudged him forward again with my left leg, and then half a second later squeezed the toy gently. Again Satts shot forward for a few steps and halted. Another bump from my leg and another squeak from my pocket and Satts jumped and trotted for a third of a lap of the yard before walking and stopping. I repeated this lesson over and over again. It was not until the eleventh time of applying my leg than Satts shifted his weight forward took a step before I had a chance to use the dog toy. He didn’t toss his head or try to turn around to bite, but his tail told me he was not giving up the protest entirely.
On the next attempt I needed to back up my leg aid with the squeaky toy. But the following request with my leg was answered with a tentative walk for half a lap. It was a win I was not expecting to have that day. A good time to quit, I thought. In hindsight I probably should have repeated the exercise another couple of times to help entrench it in Satts’ mind. But stopping at that point did no harm.
After I unsaddled and returned Satts to his mates in the paddock, I realized I was late for work. No time for breakfast – just a quick shower and in the car. I was sort on a high from the ride and my mind was running ahead of me. People would think I was crazy for being so excited because my horse walked around the round yard for half a lap. But there was no question in my mind that it was a big deal for Satts. I wanted to tell people at work about the ride, but I had noticed that my research technician was quick to develop a glazed expression when I talked about the horses. I would have to wait until I ran into one of postgraduate students because they had to be nice to me and pretend to be interested if they wanted to graduate. I could torture them all I wanted with my stories.
I’m a great believer in the concept that nothing comes from nowhere. There was something inside Satts that I was missing. I had thought I had covered all the bases. Satts had proved to be a big project, which made me even more cautious than usual about crossing all the ‘t’s and dotting all the ‘i’s. But the aggressive biting of my leg caught me by surprise and I felt pretty inadequate about how to proceed. The problem preoccupied me.
My professor at work called me to his office to discuss why I kept coming to work injured. He offered some fatherly advice about spending less time with the horses and more time in the laboratory. I knew that all I had to do was agree with him and he would leave me alone no matter whether or not I did what he said. After I had gone back to my office and started changing into scrubs for the afternoon surgery, I had an epiphany. I realized I had gone about the problem the wrong way. I was trying to use my legs to encourage Satts to go forward. This was stupid considering the circumstances. I need to focus on using my legs to get Satts feeling okay about the feel of my legs against his sides. Until this was taken care of, Satts would never be able to give me the forward response I was wanting. Being worried by my legs so overwhelmed him that he could not think of a way to respond. His only reaction could be to attack the thing that was most driving him mad. Even though it seemed to me to be an over reaction, who was I to tell Satts he was wrong.
I didn’t know how I was going to address his worry and was still left in a quandary about what to do on our next ride. I figured I was left with little choice, but to address the symptoms and see if Satts would work it out. It’s not how I would normally like to solve a problem, but I didn’t seem to have many alternatives and I couldn’t see what harm it would do.
It was still a few more days before my bruising had faded and the swelling subsided enough for me to attempt another ride. Once again, I dressed with cricket pads for protection and wondered whether a bat would have been an even better idea.
Satts seemed no bothered at all about the way I was dressed. Once the preliminary groundwork had confirmed he was ready to mount, I put my foot in the stirrup and hoisted myself into the saddle. Even though I had not mastered the art of gracefully mounting with cricket pads strapped to my legs, Satts stood quietly while I fumbled my way into position.
I reached down the left rein of the sidepull and tipped Satts’ nose to the left. This time I didn’t cluck. Instead I nudged him with my left leg. It wasn’t hard or abrupt, but it was definite and clear – I left no question in his mind that my leg bumped him. Satts immediately zeroed in on my left leg, but my left hand was ready and I let him run into my open palm with the bridge of his nose. It deflected his attack perfectly. Just as he was about to launch a second strike, I bumped him with my right leg. Satts’ swung his head around to the right to grab my leg. His ears were flat and his mouth was open. But unfortunately for Satts he collided with my open right hand – this time a little below the eye. Once again, my left leg bumped his side and once again Satts flung his head around to ward off the feel. He was surprised that my hand blocked his path again.
Satts and I sat there playing war games from right to left and left to right. He never once managed to take hold of the cricket pads or pull me out of the saddle. After switching back and forth for about twenty or more times, I noticed Satts’ commitment to chewing off my flesh was showing signs of waning. The vigour of his attacks had diminished significantly. I kept nudging his sides with my legs, alternating left and right. It took another twenty to thirty repeats before he stopped trying to bite me. Instead he stood loudly voicing his protests by flattening his ears, swishing his tail, stomping his feet and pinching his mouth. He was mad. But he was no longer biting mad.
I fumbled out of the saddle (those damn pads) and landed on my bad leg, which caused me to screw up my face in pain. Then it was Satt’s turn to be rubbed and scratched for a few minutes. I led him forward and mounted again, but from the right side – just to keep it interesting. I left both reins loose this time and applied right leg to his flank. Satt’s immediately showed his displeasure with ears flat and open mouth and a tail so busy you could power a medium size town from its energy. He met my right hand midway on his journey to my leg. I never hit him with my hand, but I made sure that it was always there as a roadblock to my leg. If he wanted to take a chunk out of me he was going to have find another route. I used my left leg and my right leg and my left leg and my right leg again in quick succession. Just as Satts was about to swing around to attack one side, my opposite side would interrupt that thought and he would swing around the other direction, only to feel the opposite leg once again.
Poor Satts didn’t know what was going on. He couldn’t win. It didn’t take long before I no longer had to protect myself with my hand. Satts was now caught halfway between ideas before one of my legs would interrupt him and he had to make a change of plans. Perhaps ten minutes had passed when Satts gave up in frustration. The futility of trying to bite at my legs caused him to give up that idea. He just stood there, angry at the world.
I quickly stepped down to the ground and made a fuss of him. I felt he had made progress, but I didn’t think I had achieved anything magical. He was still not happy about the feel of my legs on his sides and he was still not moving forward. But I wanted to continue in this direction to see where it would take us. I knew Satts is not a horse that can be bullied, so I had to become imaginative and tackle problems from a tangent. Whether or not I was going about the issue in an effective way, I was going to learn something from the experimentation.
The next morning I got up at dawn. I had a busy day a work and the next few days would see the beginning of a new experiment that would keep me in the lab all hours. If I was going to get anymore done with Satts it had to be early morning.
It was a warm morning and it felt there was a summer storm making its way towards us. Satts seemed surprise to see me so early. I wore my cricket pads from the start to save time and Satts must have thought I wore them to bed.
I saddled him straight away and then him moved around for a minute to check in and ensure I could snug the girth an extra hole before stepping on board. Today I had an extra surprise for Satts, which I hoped would clear up his concern about responding the “correct” way to my legs. But I was not a hundred percent sure of what I was doing and I hoped Satts did not have a surprise for me. I had images of Satts brooding all night on ways to get back at me for our encounter. I know horses don’t plot or scheme and live largely in the moment, but when you have been bitten as much by a horse as I had by Satts you start to become paranoid.
Once I was set in the saddle I nudged Satts with my left leg, ready to block his head with my hand if he tried to bite me. He did. Immediately, I bumped him with my right leg and again blocked his attempt at gnawing on me. Left leg and then right leg again. It took only about ten repetitions before he stopped trying to bite my legs and stood still, albeit reluctantly and still raging against the world (well, more specifically my legs). I stopped using my legs and sat quietly while I rubbed his neck.
Now it was time to ask him to move. I tipped his neck to bend left and applied some left leg. He tossed his head around in fury and swished his tail, but did not take a step. I gathered both reins in my left hand at the same time taking hold of the bucking strap that sat across the pommel of the saddle. My right hand slid inside the pocket of my jacket. I was ready for my next experiment.
Again, I applied a small, but clear signal with my left leg hoping that Satts would have a light-bulb moment and stroll forward. But instead, he flattened his ears again and swung his neck around the left. Fortunately, my right rein was short enough to block him from reaching my leg. At that moment I squeezed Tess’ dog toy, which was hidden inside my right pocket. A loud, high-pitched squeak emanated from my jacket. Satts cat-leaped upwards and hit the ground running for his life. The grip on my bucking strap was more of a strangle hold and would normally have been enough to bend steel. Satts flew around the yard and occasionally offered a half-hearted buck on his way. But he was moving too fast to unseat me with his attempts to buck and I sat awhile waiting. I reached down to stroke his neck several times thankful that I had tightened the girth that extra hole.
After the fourth lap Satts had regained enough composure that he could listen to me once again. I used the inside rein to ask him to bend and slow down to a trot. There was a little fight in him and I needed to use the rein much firmer than I would like in order to get him to turn to the inside. I did as much as I had to before Satts was ready to slow down. When he found the trot, I allowed him his freedom while I continued to stroke his neck. Finally, I used my inside rein again to bring him back to a walk and eventually to a stop.
As Satts and I gathered our wits I realized that the squeaking toy was too much and I needed to soften my surprise. It had created too big a scare in my horse and his fear would not allow him to engage his mind enough to learn from the experience. If I repeated to use the toy, Satts would probably learn to associate my legs with “run for your life”, which was definitely counter productive.
When I sense Satts had calmed down I asked again with my left leg. He flipped his head in the air in protest. My right hand squeezed Tess’ favourite toy just enough to give out a short burst of a quiet squeak. Satts jumped forward a couple of strides and stopped. He was quivering underneath me, but still holding some semblance of composure. I nudged him forward again with my left leg, and then half a second later squeezed the toy gently. Again Satts shot forward for a few steps and halted. Another bump from my leg and another squeak from my pocket and Satts jumped and trotted for a third of a lap of the yard before walking and stopping. I repeated this lesson over and over again. It was not until the eleventh time of applying my leg than Satts shifted his weight forward took a step before I had a chance to use the dog toy. He didn’t toss his head or try to turn around to bite, but his tail told me he was not giving up the protest entirely.
On the next attempt I needed to back up my leg aid with the squeaky toy. But the following request with my leg was answered with a tentative walk for half a lap. It was a win I was not expecting to have that day. A good time to quit, I thought. In hindsight I probably should have repeated the exercise another couple of times to help entrench it in Satts’ mind. But stopping at that point did no harm.
After I unsaddled and returned Satts to his mates in the paddock, I realized I was late for work. No time for breakfast – just a quick shower and in the car. I was sort on a high from the ride and my mind was running ahead of me. People would think I was crazy for being so excited because my horse walked around the round yard for half a lap. But there was no question in my mind that it was a big deal for Satts. I wanted to tell people at work about the ride, but I had noticed that my research technician was quick to develop a glazed expression when I talked about the horses. I would have to wait until I ran into one of postgraduate students because they had to be nice to me and pretend to be interested if they wanted to graduate. I could torture them all I wanted with my stories.
After my success with using the squeaky dog-toy to re-wire Satts’ brain not to bite at my leg and to instead move forward, I was sure I had made a major breakthrough with the horse.
It took a few sessions to establish the proper response to the rider’s leg with no sign of aggression from Satts. At first, I settled for just a casual walk. But when it came to ask for a transition to the trot, the old feeling resurfaced in Satts. He was not as aggressive, but more sour about the pressure from my legs. Applying the legs with enough of a squeeze to ask for anything more than a lackadaisical walk, brought out the worst in him.
Luckily, I had my back-up option with Tess’ dog-toy. I began with a feel from my lower leg and waited for a free walk. But Satts just rolled forward like he had one foot on the brake pedal. I asked again from my leg and when nothing changed I squeezed the toy on my pocket – squeaka –squeaka – squeaka – over and over in rapid succession until I felt a freedom and energy come up in Satts. Then I stopped and allowed him to wind down into the “Satts 4-beat shuffle” again – which was quickly becoming the latest new dance craze around my place.
The next time I asked with my leg, I wasn’t going to accept the pitiful walk he had been giving me anymore. Satts was doing well enough that what was a “try” in response to the feel of my leg a lesson or two ago, was no longer a good enough try. I was about to move the goal posts and expect more from him.
I urged Satts forward with my legs and almost instantly the dreaded loud sound start emanating from my right hand jacket pocket. Satts leapt into a trot like he had somewhere to be in a hurry. I sat quietly and rubbed his neck as his flee dissipated into a forward walk. Shortly after I got him stopped by bending him on a left rein. I asked again from leg and again used the noise from the rubber toy to make it clear that my seat and legs were talking to him. Again and again, I repeated this process. Within about 10 mins Satts was walking freely when I lifted my seat and trotting with a forward rhythm when I squeezed my legs against his side. It was a nice change. But the best of all was that he was no longer getting upset about my legs being applied to his sides. His brain had connected the dots that if he simply moved forward there were no need to defend himself against the pressure. Satts felt better and I felt I didn’t have to keep wearing cricket pads to stay safe.
The next session was interesting (a euphemism for “I didn’t expect that!”). I worked with Satts on a consistent forward response to my legs at both the walk and the trot. It was going so well, that I had no concern about trying for a canter.
It is my usual practice on young horses not to ask for a canter, but for a horse to offer the canter. This means that I would establish a trot rhythm and then build it into a bigger and bigger trot and keep building it until the trot was so big that the horse would fall into the canter. So I would normally let the horse find the canter himself rather than demand it. Later on, when the transitions from trot to canter were smooth and unrushed, I would start training the canter on demand. But that was for later. Right now, I just want Satts to explore the option of a canter transition.
It didn’t take much to ask for a steady trot without using the dog-toy as back up. Satts was travelling to the left in a nice loose rhythm. I applied a bit more leg hoping for a little more “oomph”, but all I got was his tail swishing. I tried again with a slightly stronger application of my legs, but this time his tail was whipping around as if in anger. And I noticed the feeling that he was holding back from being forward - like the hand brake had been quietly applied. Now I was even firmer with my leg. Big mistake.
Satts’ head suddenly disappeared in front of me and his back elevated me to the top of the mountain. There was air between the saddle and me. I landed back in the saddle with a thud and I felt a lightning bolt of pain shoot through my groin. I grabbed the bucking strap across the pommel of my Keiffer saddle just as I was airborne once again. There was noise coming from somewhere under me. It wasn’t until later than I realized that Satts was letting out a roaring sound. This time when I landed Satts was no longer under me. He had moved to the right and I hadn’t. I landed on my left shoulder and hip. Satts kept bucking for another couple of laps of the yard. The sound coming from him was scary. I managed to get to my feet and stay out of his way because I was sure he would never have known or cared if he had run over me or not.
Finally, calm descended over the yard. I walked over to him, but felt a searing pain in my groin with the first step. I suspected my groin muscle had been stretched and strained when I landed in the saddle. Nevertheless, I manage to catch Satts who seemed far less bothered by what had happened than I was. He was blowing some smoke, but it appeared to be more from the exertion than the stress. I led him again and did a small amount of groundwork before putting my foot in the saddle to try again. However, as I swung my leg over the saddle I felt crippled by the pain. The only thought that crossed my mind was the jokes I would have to endure at work about a strained groin muscle.
With calm and grace I lowered myself into the seat, not really feeling confident that this was a good idea considering the pain spreading through my muscles. After a couple of hindquarter yields and a steady walk around the perimeter of the yard, I asked Satts to trot. He felt okay. I asked for a bigger trot – remembering not to do too much with my legs. A slight squeeze and I felt him ball up again. My hand quickly went to my pocket and a couple of squeaks from the toy were enough to encourage Satts to change his idea to wad up under me. He shot forward with an energy that surprised me, but I went with it as much as the pain would allow. The trot was much freer than before, so I allowed him to slow down again of his own accord.
Once again, I asked for a bigger trot, but needed the dog-toy to support my idea. When Satts let go of the brakes, I relaxed and let him come back to a slow trot. Up and down the trot we went several times like a kid practicing his musical scales. Finally, I felt there was a moment when Satts could offer more. He trotted around the yard and I kept nagging him to give just a little more. I had learned my lesson not to try to make it happen and I just waited until he felt ready. We must have completed at least a couple of laps at a hell-fire pace when I felt a letting go under me. I sat, clucked with my voice and squeezed with my legs. Satts rolled over into the sweetest canter transition I could wish for. I rode as quietly as I could in the saddle and allowed him to decide how fast and how far we would go before falling back to the trot again. He was a smooth ride for about half a lap when I felt him get a little tight and quick. I tried rubbing his neck to ease his worry, but to no avail. It wasn’t until we had done more than a lap and I touched the inside rein that I felt his mind come back to me and he smoothly returned to a large striding trot. I used the rein to follow him down to a slow trot, then a walk and finally a halt. We sat there while I rubbed and petted him from front to back. I then turned him to circle to the right and repeated the exercise. This time he felt better at the canter and the rushing that I felt when going to the left was hardly evident. Another couple of canter transitions in both directions saw the end of the session.
I had almost forgotten the groin strain until I tried to dismount. After taking care of the horse I went inside and grabbed a handful of ice from the freezer. The discomfort of the cold replaced the pain of my muscles. I was lucky because it turned out to be a minor strain and I was walking pretty well by the next afternoon.
I spent some time reflecting on the bucking episode. I realized that it did not come from nowhere. Satts gave me clear warning not to push the issue. He was struggling with just trotting with some freedom from the feel of my legs. He told me not to use my legs to ask for more. He warned me not to go there. But I chose not to listen. If I had used Tess’ toy instead of my legs it probably would have turned out quite differently. But you can’t fix stupidity.
The other thing I learned from the experience is that, as much progress as Satts had made with regard to feeling better towards the rider’s legs as a riding aid, there remained remnants of trouble about them. In no way was he feeling that the legs were a comfort to him and gave meaning to the cue to go forward. Somewhere deep inside the horse there was a feeling that pressure from the rider’s legs was to be tolerated only to a point. A feeling of acceptance and okay-ness was missing. The squeaky toy was a device that allowed me to circumvent being firm with my legs to avoid the type of response I suffered during the days work out. But it did not address the fundamental problem that my legs caused Satts a lot of troubled feelings. If I didn’t fix this issue, there was sure to be other times ahead when I would need ice from the freezer.
It took a few sessions to establish the proper response to the rider’s leg with no sign of aggression from Satts. At first, I settled for just a casual walk. But when it came to ask for a transition to the trot, the old feeling resurfaced in Satts. He was not as aggressive, but more sour about the pressure from my legs. Applying the legs with enough of a squeeze to ask for anything more than a lackadaisical walk, brought out the worst in him.
Luckily, I had my back-up option with Tess’ dog-toy. I began with a feel from my lower leg and waited for a free walk. But Satts just rolled forward like he had one foot on the brake pedal. I asked again from my leg and when nothing changed I squeezed the toy on my pocket – squeaka –squeaka – squeaka – over and over in rapid succession until I felt a freedom and energy come up in Satts. Then I stopped and allowed him to wind down into the “Satts 4-beat shuffle” again – which was quickly becoming the latest new dance craze around my place.
The next time I asked with my leg, I wasn’t going to accept the pitiful walk he had been giving me anymore. Satts was doing well enough that what was a “try” in response to the feel of my leg a lesson or two ago, was no longer a good enough try. I was about to move the goal posts and expect more from him.
I urged Satts forward with my legs and almost instantly the dreaded loud sound start emanating from my right hand jacket pocket. Satts leapt into a trot like he had somewhere to be in a hurry. I sat quietly and rubbed his neck as his flee dissipated into a forward walk. Shortly after I got him stopped by bending him on a left rein. I asked again from leg and again used the noise from the rubber toy to make it clear that my seat and legs were talking to him. Again and again, I repeated this process. Within about 10 mins Satts was walking freely when I lifted my seat and trotting with a forward rhythm when I squeezed my legs against his side. It was a nice change. But the best of all was that he was no longer getting upset about my legs being applied to his sides. His brain had connected the dots that if he simply moved forward there were no need to defend himself against the pressure. Satts felt better and I felt I didn’t have to keep wearing cricket pads to stay safe.
The next session was interesting (a euphemism for “I didn’t expect that!”). I worked with Satts on a consistent forward response to my legs at both the walk and the trot. It was going so well, that I had no concern about trying for a canter.
It is my usual practice on young horses not to ask for a canter, but for a horse to offer the canter. This means that I would establish a trot rhythm and then build it into a bigger and bigger trot and keep building it until the trot was so big that the horse would fall into the canter. So I would normally let the horse find the canter himself rather than demand it. Later on, when the transitions from trot to canter were smooth and unrushed, I would start training the canter on demand. But that was for later. Right now, I just want Satts to explore the option of a canter transition.
It didn’t take much to ask for a steady trot without using the dog-toy as back up. Satts was travelling to the left in a nice loose rhythm. I applied a bit more leg hoping for a little more “oomph”, but all I got was his tail swishing. I tried again with a slightly stronger application of my legs, but this time his tail was whipping around as if in anger. And I noticed the feeling that he was holding back from being forward - like the hand brake had been quietly applied. Now I was even firmer with my leg. Big mistake.
Satts’ head suddenly disappeared in front of me and his back elevated me to the top of the mountain. There was air between the saddle and me. I landed back in the saddle with a thud and I felt a lightning bolt of pain shoot through my groin. I grabbed the bucking strap across the pommel of my Keiffer saddle just as I was airborne once again. There was noise coming from somewhere under me. It wasn’t until later than I realized that Satts was letting out a roaring sound. This time when I landed Satts was no longer under me. He had moved to the right and I hadn’t. I landed on my left shoulder and hip. Satts kept bucking for another couple of laps of the yard. The sound coming from him was scary. I managed to get to my feet and stay out of his way because I was sure he would never have known or cared if he had run over me or not.
Finally, calm descended over the yard. I walked over to him, but felt a searing pain in my groin with the first step. I suspected my groin muscle had been stretched and strained when I landed in the saddle. Nevertheless, I manage to catch Satts who seemed far less bothered by what had happened than I was. He was blowing some smoke, but it appeared to be more from the exertion than the stress. I led him again and did a small amount of groundwork before putting my foot in the saddle to try again. However, as I swung my leg over the saddle I felt crippled by the pain. The only thought that crossed my mind was the jokes I would have to endure at work about a strained groin muscle.
With calm and grace I lowered myself into the seat, not really feeling confident that this was a good idea considering the pain spreading through my muscles. After a couple of hindquarter yields and a steady walk around the perimeter of the yard, I asked Satts to trot. He felt okay. I asked for a bigger trot – remembering not to do too much with my legs. A slight squeeze and I felt him ball up again. My hand quickly went to my pocket and a couple of squeaks from the toy were enough to encourage Satts to change his idea to wad up under me. He shot forward with an energy that surprised me, but I went with it as much as the pain would allow. The trot was much freer than before, so I allowed him to slow down again of his own accord.
Once again, I asked for a bigger trot, but needed the dog-toy to support my idea. When Satts let go of the brakes, I relaxed and let him come back to a slow trot. Up and down the trot we went several times like a kid practicing his musical scales. Finally, I felt there was a moment when Satts could offer more. He trotted around the yard and I kept nagging him to give just a little more. I had learned my lesson not to try to make it happen and I just waited until he felt ready. We must have completed at least a couple of laps at a hell-fire pace when I felt a letting go under me. I sat, clucked with my voice and squeezed with my legs. Satts rolled over into the sweetest canter transition I could wish for. I rode as quietly as I could in the saddle and allowed him to decide how fast and how far we would go before falling back to the trot again. He was a smooth ride for about half a lap when I felt him get a little tight and quick. I tried rubbing his neck to ease his worry, but to no avail. It wasn’t until we had done more than a lap and I touched the inside rein that I felt his mind come back to me and he smoothly returned to a large striding trot. I used the rein to follow him down to a slow trot, then a walk and finally a halt. We sat there while I rubbed and petted him from front to back. I then turned him to circle to the right and repeated the exercise. This time he felt better at the canter and the rushing that I felt when going to the left was hardly evident. Another couple of canter transitions in both directions saw the end of the session.
I had almost forgotten the groin strain until I tried to dismount. After taking care of the horse I went inside and grabbed a handful of ice from the freezer. The discomfort of the cold replaced the pain of my muscles. I was lucky because it turned out to be a minor strain and I was walking pretty well by the next afternoon.
I spent some time reflecting on the bucking episode. I realized that it did not come from nowhere. Satts gave me clear warning not to push the issue. He was struggling with just trotting with some freedom from the feel of my legs. He told me not to use my legs to ask for more. He warned me not to go there. But I chose not to listen. If I had used Tess’ toy instead of my legs it probably would have turned out quite differently. But you can’t fix stupidity.
The other thing I learned from the experience is that, as much progress as Satts had made with regard to feeling better towards the rider’s legs as a riding aid, there remained remnants of trouble about them. In no way was he feeling that the legs were a comfort to him and gave meaning to the cue to go forward. Somewhere deep inside the horse there was a feeling that pressure from the rider’s legs was to be tolerated only to a point. A feeling of acceptance and okay-ness was missing. The squeaky toy was a device that allowed me to circumvent being firm with my legs to avoid the type of response I suffered during the days work out. But it did not address the fundamental problem that my legs caused Satts a lot of troubled feelings. If I didn’t fix this issue, there was sure to be other times ahead when I would need ice from the freezer.
It took a few days for the pain in my groin to completely subside. The jibes from colleagues at work about a groin injury only added to my discomfort. Nevertheless, it was the price I needed to pay to make a break through with Satts and his worry about going forward. If he had not bucked as hard as he did and I had been able to ride it out I may not have learned the lesson I did.
I had plenty of time to think long and hard about Satts’ problem and it occurred to me that one of the obstacles to his forwardness could be that he had gotten sour about the round yard long ago. He had been worked a lot in the round yard and only had a little groundwork training out of the yard. I had not trusted him under saddle enough to ride in an open space and chose for safety sake to wait until his response to the reins and leg were much improved. I think that time had come.
Being worked in a small space whether it is a round yard or any other type of enclosure is great in the early stages. It helps keep a horse’s mind with the trainer and also limits his options enough to give the trainer’s idea some chance of being one of the options a horse will try. But there comes a point where it becomes boring for a horse. This is especially true when dealing with trying to develop a “go” button on a horse that doesn’t want to go. A horse likes to have somewhere to go and round and round a yard quickly becomes a hindrance to offering a horse a place to go to. He sees no purpose to going anywhere when he gets back to the same spot in just a few strides. It becomes mundane and monotonous.
I didn’t have an arena on the property I rented. I also didn’t have a paddock that was empty of grazing horses. My only option of riding out of the round yard was to ride down the steep and narrow driveway and along the dirt road. The driveway was more of a goat track about 800m long and surfaced with loose gravel for much of the way. It was mostly tree lined with deep drains on either side. There was no room for a horse to shy safely without falling into a drain or hitting a tree. The road outside of the property was a quiet gravel road with a wide verge. The property was the second last one on the road. Beyond the neighbours place was impassable by anything but walkers and horses. The road was a great place to ride young and green horses. But first we had to negotiate the steep driveway.
I brought Satts into the round yard for some warm up on the ground and a little riding. He was feeling terrific. The softness and level of okay-ness about the reins was better than most horses I had ever ridden at the same stage of training. I knew that if I get Satts feeling the same way about leg aids, I would soon have a horse that could work from a rider’s thought.
I sidled Satts up next to the gate of the yard. The latch was deliberately set in a way that it was easy to open and close from the saddle. I reached for the latch and shook the gate enough to make a rattle sound that caught Satts’ attention. Then I pushed the gate open. I surprised myself how much effort I used to swing the gate because it opened with a bang. I guess I was more tense than I realized. Satts immediately went to walk through the gate, but I turned him away before he had time to get his nose out the yard. I realized that it was a habit for us to leave the yard whenever the gate was opened. Satts was only trying to do what I had trained him to do from habit. I could feel his thoughts clinging to the idea of going out the gate even though I was asking him to walk around to the other side of the yard. When we got to the opposite side, I stopped him. We sat for a few seconds. There was a little energy bubbling away under me, but not enough to cause his feet to fidget. I backed him up, stepped his forehand to the left and stopped him again. Then moved his forehand to the right and halted once more before he had a chance to drift forward. I backed him up and then asked for a hindquarter yield to the left followed by one to the right. Again, I backed him up a few steps until I felt him melt into my hand. We sat still again. This time there was no energy looking for release. Satts and I were just hanging out together with nowhere special to go. About twenty seconds had passed before I asked Satts to walk again. This time we were on the track, heading towards the open gate rather than away. But I felt no change in Satt’s energy level. A couple of strides before we got to the gate I turned Satts away from the gate and towards the middle of the yard. It felt effortless. I hardly touched the reins and Satts had the sweetest turn I could have hoped for. It was a great feeling to have asked him to turn away from the gate and sense no trouble inside him. Just a short time ago that would have been impossible.
I turned Satts right and head straight towards the middle of the gate. A stride away from the gate, we halted. I stroked his neck while sitting there with a loose rein. I asked him forward and halted again with just his front feet on the outside of the yard. After a few seconds of calm patience, I asked Satts for another step forward so that his hind feet had cleared the gate too. I waited there for a few more seconds before directing him to the left down the driveway.
The first one hundred metres was quite a wide path and it allowed Satts to meander along the driveway like a drunken sailor. He was not sure of his feet on the loose gravel and the steep decline. Every few steps either his front or his back feet would skid along the ground making him tread carefully like somebody on skates for the first time. But he continued on his forward journey.
However, soon the path narrowed and the verge on either side transformed into 30cm deep drains. Trees overhanging the driveway appeared to form a guard of honour to celebrate Satts’ first venture into the wide world. He clearly did not think going any further was a good idea. He called out to any horse that might hear him. But none bothered to return his cry for reassurance. Satts was still going forward, although with faltering steps. I couldn’t blame him. It was easy to see why it was so scary. We had about 200m of narrow, tunnel-like road to go before it widened out again and sky was once again visible. I knew if I could get him past the trees he would feel a great deal better and confident.
It occurred to me to get off and lead him through the scary part. But I decided I would wait and see how he would handle it. If Satts fell apart, I could always get off then. But I wanted to see how he would do on his own.
We continued down the driveway on tiptoes. Thankfully the loose gravel had turned into solid road base and Satts was no longer slipping and sliding. We had travelled about 50m when Satts came to a wall and wouldn’t go any further. I urged him forward with my seat and legs, but that just made him try to turn left and then right in an effort to head back up the hill. I blocked his turns with my reins and did my best to keep him pointed down the driveway. With every touch of my leg on his sides, he swished his tail and tried to bring his head around to bite my leg. I had forgotten to bring the dog toy. I was wondering if I was going to be in trouble.
I noticed that Satts would look down the driveway in the direction we were travelling and then every so often he would look off to the side, as if he had forgotten about the scary laneway for a second or two. I kept him pointed where I wanted him to go. Then when he looked away I put both reins in my left hand, raised my right arm high and slapped my thigh with an almighty thwack. The chaps I was wearing made a very good thwacking sound. Satts jumped vertically with all four feet at once. He landed and trotted forward for a few strides. When he stopped I stroked his neck and then asked him forward with my leg again. He swished his tail and bobbed his head a couple of times. I asked with a firmer leg and got the same answer. Now I kicked him hard with my right leg and slapped my thigh with my hand as hard as possible. Satts took off trotting down the steep slope. I worried about him tripping on such uneven ground, but decided it was best to just let him go without interference. When I felt him slow the rushing a little bit, I asked him to stop. He was feeling quite on edge and still wanting to go home. A few seconds of a quiet halt was enough to satisfy me and I nudged him forward again. There was a moment of hesitation from Satts, but a second nudge quickly followed and was enough to convince him to walk onward. It was not the free walk I experienced in the round yard, but he was trying. Satts’ eyes kept darting left and right for bogeymen. Once we were through the tunnel of trees I felt him relax again and with just a slight urging from my legs he trotted down to the front gate.
Finally we were on flat ground and solid terra firmer. Without even knowing it, both Satts and I let our breath out and guard down. We had survived and lived to tell the terrible tale. But in the next second three teenagers on mountain bicycles flew past within about four metres. I was as surprised as Satts because neither of us had any idea of their presence. I expect the kids were just as surprised to see a horse come trotting at them from the side because they swerved and yelled in one motion. Satts leapt to the side and ended in the shallow roadside ditch. I was lucky to stay seated. He scrambled out of the ditch without harm and watched the cyclists zoom off with a “sorry mister.”
Poor Satts, I thought. For his very first venture out of the safety of the round yard, he was not having a very good day. I wouldn’t blame him if he chose never to ride out again. It was just too dangerous out here!
I made the decision to make it up to him in some way and let him eat from the lush grass growing by the side of the road. There was enough rich grass to keep any horse happy for days. I dismounted and waited for Satts to have a pick. But he was a little interested in exploring this new strange land instead. I knew that for Satts to delay filling his belly that he must be seriously on edge. I led him around and showed him some strange new things like a mud puddle and the sheep grazing across the road. Eventually his stomach got the better of him and he put his head into the middle of some long grass. I allowed him to eat for about ten minutes and mounted again. I pointed him up the hill towards the house. We walked and trotted homewward and he felt pretty good. He didn’t hesitate about going through the tunnel again.
When we got to the top of the driveway I rode him into the round yard where I asked for some trot/canter transition. They were the best he had ever given. After that I unsaddled and gave him a small feed before giving him back to LJ to boss around the paddock.
That night I reflected on the days ride. It was not the best first ride out that I had ever had, but it wasn’t the worst either. I felt Satts had made progress in listening to my leg aids. When I asked him to trot towards to the gate at the bottom of the driveway I used as much leg pressure as I had when he bucked me off in the round yard. It was very satisfying that he chose to go forward rather than dump me into the gravel. I counted that as progress.
There was still a lot of riding to do before he was ready to hand back to the racing trainer. And there was still some things he would need to know and feel okay about if he was ever going to race without coming back to me totally fried again. But it was clear now that he had a future as a riding horse. I had come to really love Satts and care a lot about what happened to him. If he was going to be trained for racing, I was going to make sure he was the best prepared breaker dad’s trainer had even had through his stables.
I had plenty of time to think long and hard about Satts’ problem and it occurred to me that one of the obstacles to his forwardness could be that he had gotten sour about the round yard long ago. He had been worked a lot in the round yard and only had a little groundwork training out of the yard. I had not trusted him under saddle enough to ride in an open space and chose for safety sake to wait until his response to the reins and leg were much improved. I think that time had come.
Being worked in a small space whether it is a round yard or any other type of enclosure is great in the early stages. It helps keep a horse’s mind with the trainer and also limits his options enough to give the trainer’s idea some chance of being one of the options a horse will try. But there comes a point where it becomes boring for a horse. This is especially true when dealing with trying to develop a “go” button on a horse that doesn’t want to go. A horse likes to have somewhere to go and round and round a yard quickly becomes a hindrance to offering a horse a place to go to. He sees no purpose to going anywhere when he gets back to the same spot in just a few strides. It becomes mundane and monotonous.
I didn’t have an arena on the property I rented. I also didn’t have a paddock that was empty of grazing horses. My only option of riding out of the round yard was to ride down the steep and narrow driveway and along the dirt road. The driveway was more of a goat track about 800m long and surfaced with loose gravel for much of the way. It was mostly tree lined with deep drains on either side. There was no room for a horse to shy safely without falling into a drain or hitting a tree. The road outside of the property was a quiet gravel road with a wide verge. The property was the second last one on the road. Beyond the neighbours place was impassable by anything but walkers and horses. The road was a great place to ride young and green horses. But first we had to negotiate the steep driveway.
I brought Satts into the round yard for some warm up on the ground and a little riding. He was feeling terrific. The softness and level of okay-ness about the reins was better than most horses I had ever ridden at the same stage of training. I knew that if I get Satts feeling the same way about leg aids, I would soon have a horse that could work from a rider’s thought.
I sidled Satts up next to the gate of the yard. The latch was deliberately set in a way that it was easy to open and close from the saddle. I reached for the latch and shook the gate enough to make a rattle sound that caught Satts’ attention. Then I pushed the gate open. I surprised myself how much effort I used to swing the gate because it opened with a bang. I guess I was more tense than I realized. Satts immediately went to walk through the gate, but I turned him away before he had time to get his nose out the yard. I realized that it was a habit for us to leave the yard whenever the gate was opened. Satts was only trying to do what I had trained him to do from habit. I could feel his thoughts clinging to the idea of going out the gate even though I was asking him to walk around to the other side of the yard. When we got to the opposite side, I stopped him. We sat for a few seconds. There was a little energy bubbling away under me, but not enough to cause his feet to fidget. I backed him up, stepped his forehand to the left and stopped him again. Then moved his forehand to the right and halted once more before he had a chance to drift forward. I backed him up and then asked for a hindquarter yield to the left followed by one to the right. Again, I backed him up a few steps until I felt him melt into my hand. We sat still again. This time there was no energy looking for release. Satts and I were just hanging out together with nowhere special to go. About twenty seconds had passed before I asked Satts to walk again. This time we were on the track, heading towards the open gate rather than away. But I felt no change in Satt’s energy level. A couple of strides before we got to the gate I turned Satts away from the gate and towards the middle of the yard. It felt effortless. I hardly touched the reins and Satts had the sweetest turn I could have hoped for. It was a great feeling to have asked him to turn away from the gate and sense no trouble inside him. Just a short time ago that would have been impossible.
I turned Satts right and head straight towards the middle of the gate. A stride away from the gate, we halted. I stroked his neck while sitting there with a loose rein. I asked him forward and halted again with just his front feet on the outside of the yard. After a few seconds of calm patience, I asked Satts for another step forward so that his hind feet had cleared the gate too. I waited there for a few more seconds before directing him to the left down the driveway.
The first one hundred metres was quite a wide path and it allowed Satts to meander along the driveway like a drunken sailor. He was not sure of his feet on the loose gravel and the steep decline. Every few steps either his front or his back feet would skid along the ground making him tread carefully like somebody on skates for the first time. But he continued on his forward journey.
However, soon the path narrowed and the verge on either side transformed into 30cm deep drains. Trees overhanging the driveway appeared to form a guard of honour to celebrate Satts’ first venture into the wide world. He clearly did not think going any further was a good idea. He called out to any horse that might hear him. But none bothered to return his cry for reassurance. Satts was still going forward, although with faltering steps. I couldn’t blame him. It was easy to see why it was so scary. We had about 200m of narrow, tunnel-like road to go before it widened out again and sky was once again visible. I knew if I could get him past the trees he would feel a great deal better and confident.
It occurred to me to get off and lead him through the scary part. But I decided I would wait and see how he would handle it. If Satts fell apart, I could always get off then. But I wanted to see how he would do on his own.
We continued down the driveway on tiptoes. Thankfully the loose gravel had turned into solid road base and Satts was no longer slipping and sliding. We had travelled about 50m when Satts came to a wall and wouldn’t go any further. I urged him forward with my seat and legs, but that just made him try to turn left and then right in an effort to head back up the hill. I blocked his turns with my reins and did my best to keep him pointed down the driveway. With every touch of my leg on his sides, he swished his tail and tried to bring his head around to bite my leg. I had forgotten to bring the dog toy. I was wondering if I was going to be in trouble.
I noticed that Satts would look down the driveway in the direction we were travelling and then every so often he would look off to the side, as if he had forgotten about the scary laneway for a second or two. I kept him pointed where I wanted him to go. Then when he looked away I put both reins in my left hand, raised my right arm high and slapped my thigh with an almighty thwack. The chaps I was wearing made a very good thwacking sound. Satts jumped vertically with all four feet at once. He landed and trotted forward for a few strides. When he stopped I stroked his neck and then asked him forward with my leg again. He swished his tail and bobbed his head a couple of times. I asked with a firmer leg and got the same answer. Now I kicked him hard with my right leg and slapped my thigh with my hand as hard as possible. Satts took off trotting down the steep slope. I worried about him tripping on such uneven ground, but decided it was best to just let him go without interference. When I felt him slow the rushing a little bit, I asked him to stop. He was feeling quite on edge and still wanting to go home. A few seconds of a quiet halt was enough to satisfy me and I nudged him forward again. There was a moment of hesitation from Satts, but a second nudge quickly followed and was enough to convince him to walk onward. It was not the free walk I experienced in the round yard, but he was trying. Satts’ eyes kept darting left and right for bogeymen. Once we were through the tunnel of trees I felt him relax again and with just a slight urging from my legs he trotted down to the front gate.
Finally we were on flat ground and solid terra firmer. Without even knowing it, both Satts and I let our breath out and guard down. We had survived and lived to tell the terrible tale. But in the next second three teenagers on mountain bicycles flew past within about four metres. I was as surprised as Satts because neither of us had any idea of their presence. I expect the kids were just as surprised to see a horse come trotting at them from the side because they swerved and yelled in one motion. Satts leapt to the side and ended in the shallow roadside ditch. I was lucky to stay seated. He scrambled out of the ditch without harm and watched the cyclists zoom off with a “sorry mister.”
Poor Satts, I thought. For his very first venture out of the safety of the round yard, he was not having a very good day. I wouldn’t blame him if he chose never to ride out again. It was just too dangerous out here!
I made the decision to make it up to him in some way and let him eat from the lush grass growing by the side of the road. There was enough rich grass to keep any horse happy for days. I dismounted and waited for Satts to have a pick. But he was a little interested in exploring this new strange land instead. I knew that for Satts to delay filling his belly that he must be seriously on edge. I led him around and showed him some strange new things like a mud puddle and the sheep grazing across the road. Eventually his stomach got the better of him and he put his head into the middle of some long grass. I allowed him to eat for about ten minutes and mounted again. I pointed him up the hill towards the house. We walked and trotted homewward and he felt pretty good. He didn’t hesitate about going through the tunnel again.
When we got to the top of the driveway I rode him into the round yard where I asked for some trot/canter transition. They were the best he had ever given. After that I unsaddled and gave him a small feed before giving him back to LJ to boss around the paddock.
That night I reflected on the days ride. It was not the best first ride out that I had ever had, but it wasn’t the worst either. I felt Satts had made progress in listening to my leg aids. When I asked him to trot towards to the gate at the bottom of the driveway I used as much leg pressure as I had when he bucked me off in the round yard. It was very satisfying that he chose to go forward rather than dump me into the gravel. I counted that as progress.
There was still a lot of riding to do before he was ready to hand back to the racing trainer. And there was still some things he would need to know and feel okay about if he was ever going to race without coming back to me totally fried again. But it was clear now that he had a future as a riding horse. I had come to really love Satts and care a lot about what happened to him. If he was going to be trained for racing, I was going to make sure he was the best prepared breaker dad’s trainer had even had through his stables.
In the following days most of our riding was done along the closed gravel road outside my front gate. Across the road from the property were two ovals where the local cricket club played on summer weekends. But from April through to September the playing fields were abandoned except for the occasional dog walker and council green keeper. It also was used a lot by some local horse people, as an equestrian reserve. Having 20 acres of flat, mowed open space was too good for them to resist. However, a year earlier the council and the cricket club had decided to fence the reserve to keep out anybody whom they decided shouldn’t have a key.
But the local authorities didn’t count on the ingenuity and unscrupulous nature of a local horse trainer who was able to cut the fence and make a gateway hidden in the bushes. The gate was out of sight to anybody who didn’t know it was there. This meant I now had a 20 acre riding arena for working Satts.
The first time we rode on the ovals I could sense Satt’s mind feel a little lost. There was no track or fence or line of trees to guide him as to where to go. There was only open space all around him. The options for him were far too many for him to feel comfortable. I knew my challenge was to keep him busy enough to stay mentally connected to me. I walked him where his nose was pointed, but every few strides I interrupted him with either a change of direction or a change of gait. Every time I felt Satts mentally wander away I was right there to restart a conversation with him. At first I was kept pretty busy, but slowly he was able to hold the connection for longer while at the same time study his surroundings.
At one point I asked him to walk over the artificial wicket that the cricket club had installed on the grounds. He hesitated at first, and then put a foot on the pitch. The sound that came from the ground caused him to leap over the wicket and stop. He stood shaking like an old man. When I turned him to walk back over the wicket, he began to prance on the spot with his neck almost vertical. I used my right rein in a wide arc and turned him to the right followed by a similar action to the left. I kept doing semi circles with only the inside rein directing him. The prancing dissipated very quickly, but it took a few moments more before I felt his back relax and his neck droop down to wither height. I kept doing this exercise as I edged him closer to the wicket. Just as he was about to step onto the wicket his neck flew up, but he continued to walk over the wicket. We did another three passes over the wicket before there was no need for any input from me.
Satts was becoming softer off my leg with each ride and moments like this when he was worried to go forward, yet did, gave me a huge thrill. He was so different from the horse that would try to bite my leg not so long ago. It wasn’t long before I could trot and canter him all over the cricket grounds with smooth transitions.
The ovals became a regular training ground. I figured that as long as I didn’t use it on the weekends, there would be no trouble. Well I was right about no trouble from the council, but there was trouble. Let me tell you about Satts’ bad day.
It was a Saturday mid morning and I decided to take Satts along the road, past the cricket ovals and the last neighbour on the road and continue to the end of the road where I knew the gravel turned into a mind field of mud holes and water puddles. The ride down the driveway was by now routine for Satts and he handled it with confidence. But as we turned out the gate to follow the road I felt Satts suddenly stiffen and stop. Before I looked to see what he was looking at I heard the shout “howzat.” The oval was peppered with middle-aged men in white uniforms. Satts had never seen a cricket game before. The wicket keeper had made a catch off the batsman and the entire fielding team was running and shouting to congratulate the keeper and bowler. To Satts it must have looked like a tribe of Bedouin warriors coming over the hill to cut his throat. I knew he had an urge to turn and flee, but he held his ground and quivered under me. I figured I only had a few seconds before Satts’ flight instinct kicked in, so I turned him to the right and urged him to ride the opposite direction. His response to the rein was stiff, but he managed to unlock his feet and turn away from the killer cricketers and walk in a shuffly-prancy sort of way. I used serpentines to try to help him relax, but that didn’t help a lot. Then I tried traversing over and around obstacles like ditches, logs and trees and within about fifty metres I felt him relax. The obstacles gave him something else to focus beside the cricket game. We stood quietly for a few moments.
I then again pointed Satts in the direction of the cricket game and walked him forward. I couldn’t say that he gave me a free walk, but he was trying. He stared wide-eyed at the movement on the oval. His poll was level with my eyes. I kept a loose rein so as not to interfere with his mouth, but not so loose that if I needed to act fast I would not be caught out with no reins. We passed my front gate and Satts’ walk became a little upright and less forward. His energy level had multiplied but he was covering less ground. I began to ask for serpentines again. At first they felt terrible because he was almost spinning around in the turns. But on each turn I did not release him until he softened a fraction to the reins, dropped his neck and his feet hit the ground with less force. I was working really hard to stay on top of his feelings and prevent him from tipping over the edge into panic. Just when I thought I was getting nowhere, I felt him take a huge breath. I couldn’t believe the sudden change.
We were only about a hundred metres from the players and Satts was the most relaxed he had been on the ride so far. Just as we rode by the wicket, there was a shout and commotion from the players because another batsman had met his end. Satts scooted sideways and forward at the same time and began to trot. This time I decided to let him go as his own speed since the trot was not out of control. Satts just wanted to put some distance between him and the crazies and I couldn’t see a problem with that.
In another hundred or so metres I asked Satts to slow down and then stop. I took him over towards the neighbour’s fence for a pick of lush grass growing by the road. We were both enjoying letting down from the stress of the last several minutes. Satts was just about to get his second mouthful when he leapt side ways across the road. I tried to hang on as he spun to the right. I was falling off the side and decided I had better give up trying to stay on. I kept the left rein in my hand, but my body lay sprawled on the gravel. Satts was pulling away from me as I struggled to get to my feet. “What is wrong with you,” I shouted at him.
He was blowing steam through his nostrils making the sound of somebody brewing a latte. His body shook from nose to tail. I managed to get my hand to him and rub his muzzle, but he seemed oblivious to my existence. When I finally looked to see what had unnerved him so much, I made out the shape of a dirt brown monster through the densely packed bottlebrush that lined the neighbour’s fence. It took a second or two to realize it was a camel. My neighbour was an animal nut who kept camels, alpacas, donkeys, horses, sheep and pigs. Normally the camels were kept in a paddock at the other end of the property, but today were different. Poor Satts. How could he be expected to cope with cricketers and camels all on the one day?
The camel didn’t seem to care too much about us, but the feeling was not mutual as far as Satts was concerned. I spent several minutes working Satts through a series of exercises to help him settle about the camel. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make Satts forget about the camel and besides what would be the advantage of that? So I went to work trying to help him feel not so bothered by his new friend. Eventually, I felt we were winning and he was focussed on me enough to get back in the saddle.
I mounted up and we continued on our ride. It did cross my mind that Satts might have had enough for one day, but I chose not to listen to my inner voice. We had another couple of kilometres to ride before we got to the mud. On the way I took full advantage of the terrain and rode Satts up and over embankments, backed him over a log or two, bashed through some thick bush. I even started him on a little leg yielding around mounds of dirt. By the time we had gotten to the end of the road Satts was feeling like a steady trail horse. He was calm, listening and responding to my leg and reins much better than a lot of older horses with much more experience. I was feeling pretty good about how far Satts had come and the changes he had made.
When we arrived at the end of the road there was plenty of mud and water to work with. It’s not as if Satts had not seen enough mud during the winter months. He had seen a lot and had no trouble walking through both mud and water when he saw a purpose. But it can be a very different deal for a horse to negotiate these things when it is our idea and not theirs. Often no matter how many times they have done it on their own, all hell can break loose when we ask them.
I started by riding up an embankment where there was a long strip of water laying at the base. It meant Satts had to cross the water to climb the ridge. At first he tried to avoid the water by side stepping to the right and then to the left. I used the reins to keep in the middle. There was no pressure for him to cross the water – just that he couldn’t turn away from it. Finally, in his eagerness to try something Satts leapt onto the bank of dirt, while putting one front foot and one back foot into the puddle. Next we tried another puddle that was about 2 metres long and 5 metres wide. I took Satts to the edge of one corner of the puddle. He shifted to the right a bit, trying to arc his way around the edge. But my left rein blocked him and he managed to walk into the water and out again in one stride. I was very happy how little fight there was in Satts about the puddles. I had expected much more resistance considering the trauma he had already suffered today. With a few more repetitions Satts was walking calmly through the middle of the water. He seemed to like the splash it made and was using his front feet to get his undercarriage soaked. The thought crossed my mind that water puddles might be a good way to get Satts started on Spanish walk.
As the final exercise, I saw a wide dark patch of mud on the road. On one side was a stand of tall green grass and other side it was bordered by a one-metre mound of loose blue stone gravel. At first, Satts hesitated about traversing the mud and tried to make his way to the grassy verge. But I kept him in the middle and after a few seconds I felt him get ready to try to make it. I relaxed the reins and urged him forward. He quickly scooted forward like he was crossing hot coals in his bare feet. But two steps into the mud he jumped to the side into the grass. What neither of us realized was that it was grass only on the surface. The moment Satts landed he sank though the grass and was almost chest deep in mud. He scurried panic stricken to avoid sinking. We had fallen into a sinkhole. I let go of the reins, took my feet out of the stirrups and rolled out of he saddle into the mud slurry. Meanwhile, Satts was using all his strength to scramble out of the hole to safety. It must have only taken five seconds for Satts to free himself, but it felt like I watched the scene before me for an hour. Finally, he was up and out of the sinkhole. I scurried to him and hugged him like I hadn’t seen him in a long time. We were both blanketed in mud. Satts was no longer a steel grey and I was no longer a white boy. My beautiful and very expensive Keiffer saddle looked more like an old stock saddle found in a clearance sale.
I checked him all over for cuts or injuries and only found a small nick on the heel of his left front foot – no doubt caused by the flailing of legs when Satts tried to extricate himself from the mud hole.
After I scraped as much mud as I could from the saddle, bridle, girth, Satts’ face and my arms, I walked him around before mounting to go home. I figured Satts had had enough challenges for one day and wanted to just give him the easiest possible ride home. Besides, I had mud in my boots and down my pants and I just wanted to find a hot shower and change of clothes. But just because I couldn’t help myself I asked him to walk through one last puddle on the way. Even though I was expecting him to say “No”, I was not surprised when he did not hesitate or try to evade the water. I couldn’t have been more proud of him.
The camel was no longer grazing behind the bottlebrush trees, but Satts took a long hard look at them just in case. The cricket game was still in progress. Satts didn’t seem bothered by them until there was a loud shout and flurry of activity as a batsman hit the ball for six. I felt Satts apply the handbrake a little. My legs told him to get going and he smoothly rolled into a trot with his ears and eyes looking for the property gate.
As soon as we got to the house, I unsaddled Satts and gave him and my saddle a thorough hosing. Then it was my turn to take a hot shower and change into clean clothes. What a day it had been.
Even though that ride was filled with more challenges and stresses than I would ever had chosen to expose Satts to, it didn’t turn out so bad. I think it was one of those rides that proved to be a turning point for him. And for me, it finally convinced me that there was a way that Satts could go back to racing and still survive. I could see the day was coming soon when I would have to send him back to Sydney to fulfil his destiny. My job would soon be done.
But the local authorities didn’t count on the ingenuity and unscrupulous nature of a local horse trainer who was able to cut the fence and make a gateway hidden in the bushes. The gate was out of sight to anybody who didn’t know it was there. This meant I now had a 20 acre riding arena for working Satts.
The first time we rode on the ovals I could sense Satt’s mind feel a little lost. There was no track or fence or line of trees to guide him as to where to go. There was only open space all around him. The options for him were far too many for him to feel comfortable. I knew my challenge was to keep him busy enough to stay mentally connected to me. I walked him where his nose was pointed, but every few strides I interrupted him with either a change of direction or a change of gait. Every time I felt Satts mentally wander away I was right there to restart a conversation with him. At first I was kept pretty busy, but slowly he was able to hold the connection for longer while at the same time study his surroundings.
At one point I asked him to walk over the artificial wicket that the cricket club had installed on the grounds. He hesitated at first, and then put a foot on the pitch. The sound that came from the ground caused him to leap over the wicket and stop. He stood shaking like an old man. When I turned him to walk back over the wicket, he began to prance on the spot with his neck almost vertical. I used my right rein in a wide arc and turned him to the right followed by a similar action to the left. I kept doing semi circles with only the inside rein directing him. The prancing dissipated very quickly, but it took a few moments more before I felt his back relax and his neck droop down to wither height. I kept doing this exercise as I edged him closer to the wicket. Just as he was about to step onto the wicket his neck flew up, but he continued to walk over the wicket. We did another three passes over the wicket before there was no need for any input from me.
Satts was becoming softer off my leg with each ride and moments like this when he was worried to go forward, yet did, gave me a huge thrill. He was so different from the horse that would try to bite my leg not so long ago. It wasn’t long before I could trot and canter him all over the cricket grounds with smooth transitions.
The ovals became a regular training ground. I figured that as long as I didn’t use it on the weekends, there would be no trouble. Well I was right about no trouble from the council, but there was trouble. Let me tell you about Satts’ bad day.
It was a Saturday mid morning and I decided to take Satts along the road, past the cricket ovals and the last neighbour on the road and continue to the end of the road where I knew the gravel turned into a mind field of mud holes and water puddles. The ride down the driveway was by now routine for Satts and he handled it with confidence. But as we turned out the gate to follow the road I felt Satts suddenly stiffen and stop. Before I looked to see what he was looking at I heard the shout “howzat.” The oval was peppered with middle-aged men in white uniforms. Satts had never seen a cricket game before. The wicket keeper had made a catch off the batsman and the entire fielding team was running and shouting to congratulate the keeper and bowler. To Satts it must have looked like a tribe of Bedouin warriors coming over the hill to cut his throat. I knew he had an urge to turn and flee, but he held his ground and quivered under me. I figured I only had a few seconds before Satts’ flight instinct kicked in, so I turned him to the right and urged him to ride the opposite direction. His response to the rein was stiff, but he managed to unlock his feet and turn away from the killer cricketers and walk in a shuffly-prancy sort of way. I used serpentines to try to help him relax, but that didn’t help a lot. Then I tried traversing over and around obstacles like ditches, logs and trees and within about fifty metres I felt him relax. The obstacles gave him something else to focus beside the cricket game. We stood quietly for a few moments.
I then again pointed Satts in the direction of the cricket game and walked him forward. I couldn’t say that he gave me a free walk, but he was trying. He stared wide-eyed at the movement on the oval. His poll was level with my eyes. I kept a loose rein so as not to interfere with his mouth, but not so loose that if I needed to act fast I would not be caught out with no reins. We passed my front gate and Satts’ walk became a little upright and less forward. His energy level had multiplied but he was covering less ground. I began to ask for serpentines again. At first they felt terrible because he was almost spinning around in the turns. But on each turn I did not release him until he softened a fraction to the reins, dropped his neck and his feet hit the ground with less force. I was working really hard to stay on top of his feelings and prevent him from tipping over the edge into panic. Just when I thought I was getting nowhere, I felt him take a huge breath. I couldn’t believe the sudden change.
We were only about a hundred metres from the players and Satts was the most relaxed he had been on the ride so far. Just as we rode by the wicket, there was a shout and commotion from the players because another batsman had met his end. Satts scooted sideways and forward at the same time and began to trot. This time I decided to let him go as his own speed since the trot was not out of control. Satts just wanted to put some distance between him and the crazies and I couldn’t see a problem with that.
In another hundred or so metres I asked Satts to slow down and then stop. I took him over towards the neighbour’s fence for a pick of lush grass growing by the road. We were both enjoying letting down from the stress of the last several minutes. Satts was just about to get his second mouthful when he leapt side ways across the road. I tried to hang on as he spun to the right. I was falling off the side and decided I had better give up trying to stay on. I kept the left rein in my hand, but my body lay sprawled on the gravel. Satts was pulling away from me as I struggled to get to my feet. “What is wrong with you,” I shouted at him.
He was blowing steam through his nostrils making the sound of somebody brewing a latte. His body shook from nose to tail. I managed to get my hand to him and rub his muzzle, but he seemed oblivious to my existence. When I finally looked to see what had unnerved him so much, I made out the shape of a dirt brown monster through the densely packed bottlebrush that lined the neighbour’s fence. It took a second or two to realize it was a camel. My neighbour was an animal nut who kept camels, alpacas, donkeys, horses, sheep and pigs. Normally the camels were kept in a paddock at the other end of the property, but today were different. Poor Satts. How could he be expected to cope with cricketers and camels all on the one day?
The camel didn’t seem to care too much about us, but the feeling was not mutual as far as Satts was concerned. I spent several minutes working Satts through a series of exercises to help him settle about the camel. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make Satts forget about the camel and besides what would be the advantage of that? So I went to work trying to help him feel not so bothered by his new friend. Eventually, I felt we were winning and he was focussed on me enough to get back in the saddle.
I mounted up and we continued on our ride. It did cross my mind that Satts might have had enough for one day, but I chose not to listen to my inner voice. We had another couple of kilometres to ride before we got to the mud. On the way I took full advantage of the terrain and rode Satts up and over embankments, backed him over a log or two, bashed through some thick bush. I even started him on a little leg yielding around mounds of dirt. By the time we had gotten to the end of the road Satts was feeling like a steady trail horse. He was calm, listening and responding to my leg and reins much better than a lot of older horses with much more experience. I was feeling pretty good about how far Satts had come and the changes he had made.
When we arrived at the end of the road there was plenty of mud and water to work with. It’s not as if Satts had not seen enough mud during the winter months. He had seen a lot and had no trouble walking through both mud and water when he saw a purpose. But it can be a very different deal for a horse to negotiate these things when it is our idea and not theirs. Often no matter how many times they have done it on their own, all hell can break loose when we ask them.
I started by riding up an embankment where there was a long strip of water laying at the base. It meant Satts had to cross the water to climb the ridge. At first he tried to avoid the water by side stepping to the right and then to the left. I used the reins to keep in the middle. There was no pressure for him to cross the water – just that he couldn’t turn away from it. Finally, in his eagerness to try something Satts leapt onto the bank of dirt, while putting one front foot and one back foot into the puddle. Next we tried another puddle that was about 2 metres long and 5 metres wide. I took Satts to the edge of one corner of the puddle. He shifted to the right a bit, trying to arc his way around the edge. But my left rein blocked him and he managed to walk into the water and out again in one stride. I was very happy how little fight there was in Satts about the puddles. I had expected much more resistance considering the trauma he had already suffered today. With a few more repetitions Satts was walking calmly through the middle of the water. He seemed to like the splash it made and was using his front feet to get his undercarriage soaked. The thought crossed my mind that water puddles might be a good way to get Satts started on Spanish walk.
As the final exercise, I saw a wide dark patch of mud on the road. On one side was a stand of tall green grass and other side it was bordered by a one-metre mound of loose blue stone gravel. At first, Satts hesitated about traversing the mud and tried to make his way to the grassy verge. But I kept him in the middle and after a few seconds I felt him get ready to try to make it. I relaxed the reins and urged him forward. He quickly scooted forward like he was crossing hot coals in his bare feet. But two steps into the mud he jumped to the side into the grass. What neither of us realized was that it was grass only on the surface. The moment Satts landed he sank though the grass and was almost chest deep in mud. He scurried panic stricken to avoid sinking. We had fallen into a sinkhole. I let go of the reins, took my feet out of the stirrups and rolled out of he saddle into the mud slurry. Meanwhile, Satts was using all his strength to scramble out of the hole to safety. It must have only taken five seconds for Satts to free himself, but it felt like I watched the scene before me for an hour. Finally, he was up and out of the sinkhole. I scurried to him and hugged him like I hadn’t seen him in a long time. We were both blanketed in mud. Satts was no longer a steel grey and I was no longer a white boy. My beautiful and very expensive Keiffer saddle looked more like an old stock saddle found in a clearance sale.
I checked him all over for cuts or injuries and only found a small nick on the heel of his left front foot – no doubt caused by the flailing of legs when Satts tried to extricate himself from the mud hole.
After I scraped as much mud as I could from the saddle, bridle, girth, Satts’ face and my arms, I walked him around before mounting to go home. I figured Satts had had enough challenges for one day and wanted to just give him the easiest possible ride home. Besides, I had mud in my boots and down my pants and I just wanted to find a hot shower and change of clothes. But just because I couldn’t help myself I asked him to walk through one last puddle on the way. Even though I was expecting him to say “No”, I was not surprised when he did not hesitate or try to evade the water. I couldn’t have been more proud of him.
The camel was no longer grazing behind the bottlebrush trees, but Satts took a long hard look at them just in case. The cricket game was still in progress. Satts didn’t seem bothered by them until there was a loud shout and flurry of activity as a batsman hit the ball for six. I felt Satts apply the handbrake a little. My legs told him to get going and he smoothly rolled into a trot with his ears and eyes looking for the property gate.
As soon as we got to the house, I unsaddled Satts and gave him and my saddle a thorough hosing. Then it was my turn to take a hot shower and change into clean clothes. What a day it had been.
Even though that ride was filled with more challenges and stresses than I would ever had chosen to expose Satts to, it didn’t turn out so bad. I think it was one of those rides that proved to be a turning point for him. And for me, it finally convinced me that there was a way that Satts could go back to racing and still survive. I could see the day was coming soon when I would have to send him back to Sydney to fulfil his destiny. My job would soon be done.
Over the next few weeks I had plenty of time to ride Satts in all sorts of circumstances. He was becoming more confident and bolder. In fact, a few times I felt him get the idea that he was in charge and I just needed to sit in the saddle and enjoy the ride. He was becoming so certain of how this riding caper was suppose to work that a few times I had to remind him not so gently that his job was not to take me somewhere, but to listen to me 100% of the time.
It happens so often with green broke horses that people ride them and ride them in an effort to get the horse use to be taken on rides. But in the process, they let the horse believe that his only responsibility is to head out where the rider points his nose. People forget that good training is not about miles in the saddle. It’s about educating the mind of the horse to be attentive to the rider and pliable enough that a rider can influence a change anytime he needs. One of the most strongly held myths in horsemanship is that nothing is better for a horse than a wet saddle blanket. Wet blankets can help get a horse use to going places, but it does nothing on it’s own to give you a focused, soft and contented horse.
This was the problem I faced with Satts. He was smart enough to learn that saddling up and pointing out the gate meant we are going somewhere. He got good at that pretty quickly. But a few times, when I wanted to change what he thought we were going to do, he expressed some dissatisfaction with my decision and told me what he thought of me in my role as leader of the expedition. It was never anything too big and was always resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties after we formed a committee to hear all sides and an independent arbitrator was called in to make a ruling that took into account the legitimate concerns and demands of both the biped and quadruped species involved.
All it took to overcome the problem was for me to be aware of those times when Satts was not mentally connected to me and instead was listening to the birds and smelling the flowers. The moment I sensed this happening I would make a change with my reins or seat or legs to make the issue a non-event. He was so smart that even I was surprised how good Satts became at staying with me on our rides.
I continued to ride on the cricket ovals and even occasionally in the round yard. He was coming along so well with his softness to the reins, that teaching him to side pass was simple. I always start with lateral movements from my reins, using no legs except to say, “go forward.” I don’t start with my legs asking for side ways movement – it all comes from the reins in the beginning. This is because on a green horse I don’t want to confuse the action of the leg that means “forward” with the action that means, “yield laterally.” So I always begin with the reins alone. When that becomes established, I introduce the inside leg by first applying the leg to the girth and back that up with the reins asking for a lateral step. With repetition, the horse soon learns that a touch with the inside leg is quickly followed by the reins asking for a side step. From there it takes nothing for the horse to understand to yield to the inside leg. Within a few days we were working on shoulder-in along the length of the cricket pitch, which really helped him engage his hindquarters and lift his back.
At one point I decided to play with some bridle-less riding. I had done lots of it over the years, but only ever with my own horses. I had my doubts about whether or not it was a good idea to teach a horse destined for the racetrack. But the temptation to have fun with it was too great for me to resist.
For me, the training usually begins with teaching to neck rein. I put Satts in the round yard and had an old stirrup leather buckled loosely around his neck. For headgear, I resorted to the side pull once again. I hopped into the saddle, put my left rein into my left hand and the stirrup leather in my right hand. I started wanting Satts to turn to the left, so I passed my right hand across toward the wither which caused the leather to press against the right side of Satts’ neck while opening up the left side of the neck. At the same time I rotated my upper body to the left in the direction I wanted Satts to turn. At first Satts shifted as if to walk directly ahead. At that moment I used my left hand to tip his thought to my left with an open rein. I felt him immediately lift his shoulders and yield to the left. It was a good start. Over and over I repeated the exercise of first asking with the stirrup leather and outside leg, followed by supporting what I wanted with the inside rein. Always offer how you want your horse to respond first, and then if you don’t get the response you wanted, clarify what you are asking for with your secondary aid. It’s a principle that is in everything we do with horses.
It took no more than about two minutes for Satts to clue into the idea of turning left when he felt the stirrup leather against the right side of his neck and right leg against the girth.
There was some initial confusion in Satts’ mind when I changed sides and asked for a turn to the right. But I patiently kept asking for what I wanted, while blocking what I didn’t want. Soon he was able to turn right or left without me having to touch to reins.
This followed the same pattern when he was asked to walk forward. The turns were always preceded by my use of the outside of the stirrup leather and my outside leg, but supported if I had to with the inside rein. It took maybe thirty minutes from when I started to have Satts walk, trot and cantering with changes of directions all over the round yard.
The next session I didn’t bother to fit the side pull on him. I was sure he was going to be great, but just in case I decided to start in the round yard. Yep! He was great. I opened the gate and ride him down the driveway thirty or forty metres, turned around and rode back up to the yard. I turned around again and rode him all the way to the front gate and headed a little way towards the neighbour’s property. I rode him over a couple of small logs and backed him up an embankment before pointing towards home again.
The next day we rode towards the main road where we sure to see traffic. This time Satts was dressed in a bridle and training bit. As we got to the intersection, cars were whizzing past at unlawful speeds. Satts had some experience with light traffic including trucks, tractors and one or two motorbikes. But that had always been one at a time. This was different. Streams of cars and trucks were flying by in front of us from left and right. We tried to cross the road, but had to wait for almost two minutes before the break in traffic was long enough to calmly get to the other side. Satts was legendary as he patiently waited for my signal to walk on. I didn’t really expect him to handle so much activity at high speed as well as he did. But I was learning that as Satts learned more things, stuff I hadn’t taught him was being taken care of too.
A good example of that was when it came to float loading. When Satts arrived on the truck he was a mess. The transport fellows described him as crazy and were quite scared of him when it came time to unload him at my place.
So it was with cautious optimism that I hooked the float to my car and led him toward the ramp. I had done a hell of a lot of groundwork with Satts by this time. He was leading as well as any horse I had pass though my hands in recent times. I knew he had to be better than when he first arrived, but I didn’t know how much better or what kind of trouble was about to erupt from inside him.
I walked up the ramp and into the float with Satts behind me. He stopped at the base of the ramp and sniffed all around. He looked inside, sniffed the sides, looked again, sniffed the ramp and did a poo. When the tail went down again, he lifted his front left leg much higher than necessary and slammed it onto the ramp. I waited with no pressure on the lead rope. His other leg went almost as high and again slammed down onto the ramp. Less than five seconds passed before Satts shifted his weight backwards then launched himself up the ramp and into the float. I scrambled to get out of his way. Once he discovered the chest bar was blocking his path, he stepped back to halfway out and stopped. I rubbed his neck and forehead, and then asked him to step down the ramp backwards. His movement was slow and deliberate – just the way I liked it. A few more rubs transpired while standing outside of the float and then I asked him to walk back in. This time there was no sudden lurching or nervous exploration of the smells. He walked into the float like he was passing through an open gateway. When he reached as far as he could go, he went to step out again, but a quiet hold of the lead rope caused him to still his feet and wait. A few seconds later and I asked for him to quietly back out again. Each step was like he was tiptoeing his way through a landmine.
I loaded Satts a couple of more times before quitting. The next day it took about thirty minutes to have him loading and unloading one-step at a time while I stood outside. If I led the lead rope past me Satts walked quietly into the float. If I lifted his tail, he slowly walked backwards until all four feet were on the ground. At any moment I could stop him, send him the other way or continue with what he was doing.
By the third day, I had him on a long rope and was able to sit in the car and send him into the float and stand quietly. In a further two days he was doing the same trick, but with no rope on him. I joked to some people at work that it would be perfect if I rigged up a button on the inside of the float that Satts could push with his nose and the ramp would rise hydraulically and lock itself. The only problem was that I could envisage driving down the road and Satts pushing that damn button again.
I knew that loading Satts onto a float was only possible because his groundwork was so good. Almost all floating loading issues are leading issues. The same was true when it was time to teach Satts to tie up.
When he first came to me, Satts was so reactive to the feel of a halter that I knew I couldn’t tie him up. He was the sort of horse that if he didn’t break all my gear trying to get away, he would probably have killed himself trying. But after doing a lot of halter leading work, I had to try to teach him to tie up. Most racehorses are tied in crossties. But I wanted to teach him properly. If Satts could handle being tied up with a lead rope, crossties would present no problem to him later.
I used a long rope clipped to his halter. In the round yard, I positioned Satts about half a metre from the fence and wrapped the rope three times around the fence post. I then stepped outside the round yard and sat in a chair directly opposite Satts with the end of the rope in one hand. I waited for Satts to do something. Once in awhile he went to pull away and felt the snug of the halter and stopped. He did this several times, but even after twenty minutes he didn’t try to pull away like he meant it. Clearly the many hours of halter training was doing its job.
I went back in the yard and walked behind him. In one hand I held the end of the rope and in the other I held my flag. I passed behind him from left to right waving the flag up and down (but not at him). He almost instantly pulled away with some force. I fed the rope through my hand and allowed the grip of the wraps around the post to offer some resistance. The rope fed through about two metres before Satts stopped. He looked at me as if to ask what just happened. He had never pulled away before and the rope went with him. He was so smart to realize that no matter how much he pulled the rope would give and the pressure on the halter would still be there. What was the point of pulling back when there was nothing to pull against? I repeated the exercise a couple more times before Satts stopped going backwards and instead stepped his hind end from left to right in response to my flagging from right to left. I did the same exercise with Satts tied to the limb of a tree and to the side of the float and to a tie-up ring outside the stable.
At night I would try to replay in my mind the past few months. I rewound to when Satts was impossible to catch and the times he had hurt me. I remembered building that stupid laneway so I could run him into the yard to clean his stable. I couldn’t forget the fear in Satts’ eye when he first arrived or the cat leaping and roaring when I first saddled him. My leg almost hurt recalling Satts’ teeth sinking into me and throwing me out of the saddle. And then I remembered the first time he walked up to me in the round yard and how much he cuddled to me when I found his itchy spot. Or how amazing it was when we fell into a sinkhole and he still let me get back in the saddle and didn’t hesitate when I pointed him at the very next puddle. I almost laughed out loud at remembering how ridiculous I looked riding in cricket pads.
I was in awe of a horse that a short time ago was leaking pee from fear when he felt trapped by the belly rope and now would let me ride across a busy road or canter in an open field with only a leather strap around his neck. The thought was tinged with sadness too because I knew I would soon have to send Satts back to Sydney. He was with me for a reason and that was to get him ready for life as a racehorse. I just didn’t want to let him go.
It happens so often with green broke horses that people ride them and ride them in an effort to get the horse use to be taken on rides. But in the process, they let the horse believe that his only responsibility is to head out where the rider points his nose. People forget that good training is not about miles in the saddle. It’s about educating the mind of the horse to be attentive to the rider and pliable enough that a rider can influence a change anytime he needs. One of the most strongly held myths in horsemanship is that nothing is better for a horse than a wet saddle blanket. Wet blankets can help get a horse use to going places, but it does nothing on it’s own to give you a focused, soft and contented horse.
This was the problem I faced with Satts. He was smart enough to learn that saddling up and pointing out the gate meant we are going somewhere. He got good at that pretty quickly. But a few times, when I wanted to change what he thought we were going to do, he expressed some dissatisfaction with my decision and told me what he thought of me in my role as leader of the expedition. It was never anything too big and was always resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties after we formed a committee to hear all sides and an independent arbitrator was called in to make a ruling that took into account the legitimate concerns and demands of both the biped and quadruped species involved.
All it took to overcome the problem was for me to be aware of those times when Satts was not mentally connected to me and instead was listening to the birds and smelling the flowers. The moment I sensed this happening I would make a change with my reins or seat or legs to make the issue a non-event. He was so smart that even I was surprised how good Satts became at staying with me on our rides.
I continued to ride on the cricket ovals and even occasionally in the round yard. He was coming along so well with his softness to the reins, that teaching him to side pass was simple. I always start with lateral movements from my reins, using no legs except to say, “go forward.” I don’t start with my legs asking for side ways movement – it all comes from the reins in the beginning. This is because on a green horse I don’t want to confuse the action of the leg that means “forward” with the action that means, “yield laterally.” So I always begin with the reins alone. When that becomes established, I introduce the inside leg by first applying the leg to the girth and back that up with the reins asking for a lateral step. With repetition, the horse soon learns that a touch with the inside leg is quickly followed by the reins asking for a side step. From there it takes nothing for the horse to understand to yield to the inside leg. Within a few days we were working on shoulder-in along the length of the cricket pitch, which really helped him engage his hindquarters and lift his back.
At one point I decided to play with some bridle-less riding. I had done lots of it over the years, but only ever with my own horses. I had my doubts about whether or not it was a good idea to teach a horse destined for the racetrack. But the temptation to have fun with it was too great for me to resist.
For me, the training usually begins with teaching to neck rein. I put Satts in the round yard and had an old stirrup leather buckled loosely around his neck. For headgear, I resorted to the side pull once again. I hopped into the saddle, put my left rein into my left hand and the stirrup leather in my right hand. I started wanting Satts to turn to the left, so I passed my right hand across toward the wither which caused the leather to press against the right side of Satts’ neck while opening up the left side of the neck. At the same time I rotated my upper body to the left in the direction I wanted Satts to turn. At first Satts shifted as if to walk directly ahead. At that moment I used my left hand to tip his thought to my left with an open rein. I felt him immediately lift his shoulders and yield to the left. It was a good start. Over and over I repeated the exercise of first asking with the stirrup leather and outside leg, followed by supporting what I wanted with the inside rein. Always offer how you want your horse to respond first, and then if you don’t get the response you wanted, clarify what you are asking for with your secondary aid. It’s a principle that is in everything we do with horses.
It took no more than about two minutes for Satts to clue into the idea of turning left when he felt the stirrup leather against the right side of his neck and right leg against the girth.
There was some initial confusion in Satts’ mind when I changed sides and asked for a turn to the right. But I patiently kept asking for what I wanted, while blocking what I didn’t want. Soon he was able to turn right or left without me having to touch to reins.
This followed the same pattern when he was asked to walk forward. The turns were always preceded by my use of the outside of the stirrup leather and my outside leg, but supported if I had to with the inside rein. It took maybe thirty minutes from when I started to have Satts walk, trot and cantering with changes of directions all over the round yard.
The next session I didn’t bother to fit the side pull on him. I was sure he was going to be great, but just in case I decided to start in the round yard. Yep! He was great. I opened the gate and ride him down the driveway thirty or forty metres, turned around and rode back up to the yard. I turned around again and rode him all the way to the front gate and headed a little way towards the neighbour’s property. I rode him over a couple of small logs and backed him up an embankment before pointing towards home again.
The next day we rode towards the main road where we sure to see traffic. This time Satts was dressed in a bridle and training bit. As we got to the intersection, cars were whizzing past at unlawful speeds. Satts had some experience with light traffic including trucks, tractors and one or two motorbikes. But that had always been one at a time. This was different. Streams of cars and trucks were flying by in front of us from left and right. We tried to cross the road, but had to wait for almost two minutes before the break in traffic was long enough to calmly get to the other side. Satts was legendary as he patiently waited for my signal to walk on. I didn’t really expect him to handle so much activity at high speed as well as he did. But I was learning that as Satts learned more things, stuff I hadn’t taught him was being taken care of too.
A good example of that was when it came to float loading. When Satts arrived on the truck he was a mess. The transport fellows described him as crazy and were quite scared of him when it came time to unload him at my place.
So it was with cautious optimism that I hooked the float to my car and led him toward the ramp. I had done a hell of a lot of groundwork with Satts by this time. He was leading as well as any horse I had pass though my hands in recent times. I knew he had to be better than when he first arrived, but I didn’t know how much better or what kind of trouble was about to erupt from inside him.
I walked up the ramp and into the float with Satts behind me. He stopped at the base of the ramp and sniffed all around. He looked inside, sniffed the sides, looked again, sniffed the ramp and did a poo. When the tail went down again, he lifted his front left leg much higher than necessary and slammed it onto the ramp. I waited with no pressure on the lead rope. His other leg went almost as high and again slammed down onto the ramp. Less than five seconds passed before Satts shifted his weight backwards then launched himself up the ramp and into the float. I scrambled to get out of his way. Once he discovered the chest bar was blocking his path, he stepped back to halfway out and stopped. I rubbed his neck and forehead, and then asked him to step down the ramp backwards. His movement was slow and deliberate – just the way I liked it. A few more rubs transpired while standing outside of the float and then I asked him to walk back in. This time there was no sudden lurching or nervous exploration of the smells. He walked into the float like he was passing through an open gateway. When he reached as far as he could go, he went to step out again, but a quiet hold of the lead rope caused him to still his feet and wait. A few seconds later and I asked for him to quietly back out again. Each step was like he was tiptoeing his way through a landmine.
I loaded Satts a couple of more times before quitting. The next day it took about thirty minutes to have him loading and unloading one-step at a time while I stood outside. If I led the lead rope past me Satts walked quietly into the float. If I lifted his tail, he slowly walked backwards until all four feet were on the ground. At any moment I could stop him, send him the other way or continue with what he was doing.
By the third day, I had him on a long rope and was able to sit in the car and send him into the float and stand quietly. In a further two days he was doing the same trick, but with no rope on him. I joked to some people at work that it would be perfect if I rigged up a button on the inside of the float that Satts could push with his nose and the ramp would rise hydraulically and lock itself. The only problem was that I could envisage driving down the road and Satts pushing that damn button again.
I knew that loading Satts onto a float was only possible because his groundwork was so good. Almost all floating loading issues are leading issues. The same was true when it was time to teach Satts to tie up.
When he first came to me, Satts was so reactive to the feel of a halter that I knew I couldn’t tie him up. He was the sort of horse that if he didn’t break all my gear trying to get away, he would probably have killed himself trying. But after doing a lot of halter leading work, I had to try to teach him to tie up. Most racehorses are tied in crossties. But I wanted to teach him properly. If Satts could handle being tied up with a lead rope, crossties would present no problem to him later.
I used a long rope clipped to his halter. In the round yard, I positioned Satts about half a metre from the fence and wrapped the rope three times around the fence post. I then stepped outside the round yard and sat in a chair directly opposite Satts with the end of the rope in one hand. I waited for Satts to do something. Once in awhile he went to pull away and felt the snug of the halter and stopped. He did this several times, but even after twenty minutes he didn’t try to pull away like he meant it. Clearly the many hours of halter training was doing its job.
I went back in the yard and walked behind him. In one hand I held the end of the rope and in the other I held my flag. I passed behind him from left to right waving the flag up and down (but not at him). He almost instantly pulled away with some force. I fed the rope through my hand and allowed the grip of the wraps around the post to offer some resistance. The rope fed through about two metres before Satts stopped. He looked at me as if to ask what just happened. He had never pulled away before and the rope went with him. He was so smart to realize that no matter how much he pulled the rope would give and the pressure on the halter would still be there. What was the point of pulling back when there was nothing to pull against? I repeated the exercise a couple more times before Satts stopped going backwards and instead stepped his hind end from left to right in response to my flagging from right to left. I did the same exercise with Satts tied to the limb of a tree and to the side of the float and to a tie-up ring outside the stable.
At night I would try to replay in my mind the past few months. I rewound to when Satts was impossible to catch and the times he had hurt me. I remembered building that stupid laneway so I could run him into the yard to clean his stable. I couldn’t forget the fear in Satts’ eye when he first arrived or the cat leaping and roaring when I first saddled him. My leg almost hurt recalling Satts’ teeth sinking into me and throwing me out of the saddle. And then I remembered the first time he walked up to me in the round yard and how much he cuddled to me when I found his itchy spot. Or how amazing it was when we fell into a sinkhole and he still let me get back in the saddle and didn’t hesitate when I pointed him at the very next puddle. I almost laughed out loud at remembering how ridiculous I looked riding in cricket pads.
I was in awe of a horse that a short time ago was leaking pee from fear when he felt trapped by the belly rope and now would let me ride across a busy road or canter in an open field with only a leather strap around his neck. The thought was tinged with sadness too because I knew I would soon have to send Satts back to Sydney. He was with me for a reason and that was to get him ready for life as a racehorse. I just didn’t want to let him go.
It was a busy time at work. As well as the usual tasks of supervising research students, setting exams, writing manuscripts, the head of my department had chosen me to volunteer to sit on two new committees. Not only that, but I apparently had volunteered to chair one of those committees. After all the effort over several years I had put into avoiding committee work, I was finally roped and hog-tied with all my usual excuses expired.
Anyway, this was the excuse I told my father for not calling him about my progress with Satts. But the real reason was that I was delaying as long as possible sending the horse back to Sydney. We had become good mates and we had shared difficult times together that gave us a bond. Well that’s what I felt. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Satts felt he was doing okay before he met me and he didn’t need any help from me to kick some human butt.
I told dad that Satts was doing great. I told him about a ride a few days earlier where I took Satts along a bush track, crossed the main road and road him around a lake reserve where people were having Sunday picnics and dads were playing soccer with their kids. My father seemed to think that was pretty impressive. But when I added that I rode Satts bareback and with just a stirrup leather around his neck, there was stunned silence.
“Do ya mean you only had a head collar on him,” dad asked?
“No dad, nothing. No bridle, no halter, no reins – nothing! Just a strap of leather around his neck.”
“Ya can’t do that son. That’s dangerous. He’s a racehorse. He’s bred to run. He could’ve taken off anytime!”
“Funny. That’s what the lady in the Mercedes said. We just crossed the Belgrave-Hallam Rd and gone up Horswood Rd, when a Mercedes came around the corner. The driver jumped out and screamed at me how dangerous it was to ride without a bridle out on the roads. She said I had no control and anything could happen. So I cantered Satts in a circle around her car and asked her if it looked like I was out of control? She got in her car and took off fuming.”
I told dad Satts was ready to go back to Sydney and begin life again as a racehorse. He would contact Kevin, his trainer, and arrange for a truck to pick Satts up for the long haul back to Sydney.
I tried hard not to think about it too much. When the decision was made to send Satts back I stopped riding him. I would go out in the evenings when I could and sit under my favourite tree with a cuppa tea in my hand and watch the horses. Satts was always the first to wander up for a scratch. LJ would be next followed by Chops. LJ had given Chops the assignment of clearing the way for LJ’s arrival. Chops was like an eager groupie who took delight at moving Satts out of the way for her master. Once LJ felt I had given him the appropriate amount of attention he deigned to allow Chops her share of the scratches. Finally LJ would wander off to other important matters and Chops would follow, keen to find other ways to please her master. Then Satts would return and hang out. This time under the tree was always my favourite part of the day.
It’s easy to dismiss the value of time hanging out with your horses as unproductive. Nothing is really getting taught or learned that will make a big difference to the results of your next competition. But I think there can be great therapeutic value in hang out time. I know for me, to sit with my horses is a great time to think and unload the stresses of the world. It reminds me that life is not about how much work I can fit into a day. When you are in the middle of stuff, it is so easy to believe it is the most important stuff there is. It’s easy to think the experiment I have started will get me published in Nature. Or the rising price of petrol is going to ruin us all. Or that bald patch on the top of my head where nothing will grow means I will never have sex again. But I believe “hang out” time can help put those things into perspective.
It helps in other ways too. One thing I reckon I’ve learned from hang out time is how to be better at doing nothing when there is a horse in front of me. We spend most of our time with horses being busy. We know it’s our job to be giving them jobs. We have to do something. It’s so hard for us to do nothing. I see in my clinics people who cannot do nothing with their horse. Even if they are not doing a job with a horse they can’t let a horse be within reach and not pet it. They have to constantly be stroking, petting or correcting. I think it has been difficult but important for me to learn to be around a horse and do nothing.
From the horse’s perspective, hanging out with people that having no expectations and no demands goes a long way towards learning humans can be associated with other things besides feeding time and pressure. A horse can learn that being around humans can be easy and not always something to dread.
In any case, I enjoyed my time spent under the tree, sipping hot tea and talking to the horses as if what I had to say was the most important thing they would ever hear.
A couple of weeks passed before I heard from the transport guys. We arranged they could pick up Satts on the Wednesday morning around 6:30am. This gave me a few days to double check his trailer loading skills and make sure he would be good on the day. Not all transport guys have the patience necessary when it comes to loading reluctant horses. Theirs is a hard job and I can see why they quickly reach for ropes and broomsticks. But I wanted to ensure that Satts was not going to be the victim of such methods. I had invested too much effort, energy and skin into changing his idea that people were the enemy. I didn’t want to see that undone in 2 minutes by an over eager truck driver.
I was having a cup of tea when I heard the truck rumbling up the driveway. They were early – it was 6:20am.
When I went out to meet them, lo and behold it is the same two characters that delivered Satts. We shake hands and the first words after “g’day” were “how d’ya get on with that mongrel?” I was not surprised they remembered Satts. You’d have to have advanced Alzheimer’s to forget him.
I told them I’d go get him while they turned the truck around and set up the truck bays. By the time I was bringing Satts through the gate the truck was ready and waiting.
“Just put this halter on him would ya mate,” the bigger fellow asked? I swapped my rope halter for a tattered webbing halter with a puny cotton lead rope attached.
“He can go in the back one and face him backwards. There’s a clip there to hook him onto mate.”
Satts walked up the thirty-degree slope and into the last bay. I swung his bum around and clipped him to the chain in front of him. The two drivers rushed up the ramp to swing the divider shut, almost trapping me inside with Satts. They were so eager to make sure he was captured that they almost scared him into trying to come out again.
When he was shut in with no possibility for escape the big fellow said, “Well that was easy. Betta than last time for certain.”
They said they had two horses to pick up at Cranbourne, then back to the depot to load another horse and then straight to Sydney. They estimated Satts would be at Rosehill in Sydney by about midnight.
I felt a wave of sadness as I watched the truck disappear down the driveway.
I didn’t know how Satts would take to racing. The factory setting of a big time racing stable was not something that Satts would automatically fit into easily. His temperament was too sensitive to be treated like a factory product whose relevance was counted by the fleetness he could cover 800 metres. I had my doubts if Satts would survive the process and even get to a barrier trial. He was the shape of mother’s show hack and a person could be forgiven for failing to see the athlete that lay underneath. So it was going to be a long time before he was ready to show his stuff and he might just fall apart before he gets that far.
If I ever saw him again would it be as a highly prized running machine or as the same crazed man-hating horse I first met? Both outcomes made me feel a little sad.
Anyway, this was the excuse I told my father for not calling him about my progress with Satts. But the real reason was that I was delaying as long as possible sending the horse back to Sydney. We had become good mates and we had shared difficult times together that gave us a bond. Well that’s what I felt. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Satts felt he was doing okay before he met me and he didn’t need any help from me to kick some human butt.
I told dad that Satts was doing great. I told him about a ride a few days earlier where I took Satts along a bush track, crossed the main road and road him around a lake reserve where people were having Sunday picnics and dads were playing soccer with their kids. My father seemed to think that was pretty impressive. But when I added that I rode Satts bareback and with just a stirrup leather around his neck, there was stunned silence.
“Do ya mean you only had a head collar on him,” dad asked?
“No dad, nothing. No bridle, no halter, no reins – nothing! Just a strap of leather around his neck.”
“Ya can’t do that son. That’s dangerous. He’s a racehorse. He’s bred to run. He could’ve taken off anytime!”
“Funny. That’s what the lady in the Mercedes said. We just crossed the Belgrave-Hallam Rd and gone up Horswood Rd, when a Mercedes came around the corner. The driver jumped out and screamed at me how dangerous it was to ride without a bridle out on the roads. She said I had no control and anything could happen. So I cantered Satts in a circle around her car and asked her if it looked like I was out of control? She got in her car and took off fuming.”
I told dad Satts was ready to go back to Sydney and begin life again as a racehorse. He would contact Kevin, his trainer, and arrange for a truck to pick Satts up for the long haul back to Sydney.
I tried hard not to think about it too much. When the decision was made to send Satts back I stopped riding him. I would go out in the evenings when I could and sit under my favourite tree with a cuppa tea in my hand and watch the horses. Satts was always the first to wander up for a scratch. LJ would be next followed by Chops. LJ had given Chops the assignment of clearing the way for LJ’s arrival. Chops was like an eager groupie who took delight at moving Satts out of the way for her master. Once LJ felt I had given him the appropriate amount of attention he deigned to allow Chops her share of the scratches. Finally LJ would wander off to other important matters and Chops would follow, keen to find other ways to please her master. Then Satts would return and hang out. This time under the tree was always my favourite part of the day.
It’s easy to dismiss the value of time hanging out with your horses as unproductive. Nothing is really getting taught or learned that will make a big difference to the results of your next competition. But I think there can be great therapeutic value in hang out time. I know for me, to sit with my horses is a great time to think and unload the stresses of the world. It reminds me that life is not about how much work I can fit into a day. When you are in the middle of stuff, it is so easy to believe it is the most important stuff there is. It’s easy to think the experiment I have started will get me published in Nature. Or the rising price of petrol is going to ruin us all. Or that bald patch on the top of my head where nothing will grow means I will never have sex again. But I believe “hang out” time can help put those things into perspective.
It helps in other ways too. One thing I reckon I’ve learned from hang out time is how to be better at doing nothing when there is a horse in front of me. We spend most of our time with horses being busy. We know it’s our job to be giving them jobs. We have to do something. It’s so hard for us to do nothing. I see in my clinics people who cannot do nothing with their horse. Even if they are not doing a job with a horse they can’t let a horse be within reach and not pet it. They have to constantly be stroking, petting or correcting. I think it has been difficult but important for me to learn to be around a horse and do nothing.
From the horse’s perspective, hanging out with people that having no expectations and no demands goes a long way towards learning humans can be associated with other things besides feeding time and pressure. A horse can learn that being around humans can be easy and not always something to dread.
In any case, I enjoyed my time spent under the tree, sipping hot tea and talking to the horses as if what I had to say was the most important thing they would ever hear.
A couple of weeks passed before I heard from the transport guys. We arranged they could pick up Satts on the Wednesday morning around 6:30am. This gave me a few days to double check his trailer loading skills and make sure he would be good on the day. Not all transport guys have the patience necessary when it comes to loading reluctant horses. Theirs is a hard job and I can see why they quickly reach for ropes and broomsticks. But I wanted to ensure that Satts was not going to be the victim of such methods. I had invested too much effort, energy and skin into changing his idea that people were the enemy. I didn’t want to see that undone in 2 minutes by an over eager truck driver.
I was having a cup of tea when I heard the truck rumbling up the driveway. They were early – it was 6:20am.
When I went out to meet them, lo and behold it is the same two characters that delivered Satts. We shake hands and the first words after “g’day” were “how d’ya get on with that mongrel?” I was not surprised they remembered Satts. You’d have to have advanced Alzheimer’s to forget him.
I told them I’d go get him while they turned the truck around and set up the truck bays. By the time I was bringing Satts through the gate the truck was ready and waiting.
“Just put this halter on him would ya mate,” the bigger fellow asked? I swapped my rope halter for a tattered webbing halter with a puny cotton lead rope attached.
“He can go in the back one and face him backwards. There’s a clip there to hook him onto mate.”
Satts walked up the thirty-degree slope and into the last bay. I swung his bum around and clipped him to the chain in front of him. The two drivers rushed up the ramp to swing the divider shut, almost trapping me inside with Satts. They were so eager to make sure he was captured that they almost scared him into trying to come out again.
When he was shut in with no possibility for escape the big fellow said, “Well that was easy. Betta than last time for certain.”
They said they had two horses to pick up at Cranbourne, then back to the depot to load another horse and then straight to Sydney. They estimated Satts would be at Rosehill in Sydney by about midnight.
I felt a wave of sadness as I watched the truck disappear down the driveway.
I didn’t know how Satts would take to racing. The factory setting of a big time racing stable was not something that Satts would automatically fit into easily. His temperament was too sensitive to be treated like a factory product whose relevance was counted by the fleetness he could cover 800 metres. I had my doubts if Satts would survive the process and even get to a barrier trial. He was the shape of mother’s show hack and a person could be forgiven for failing to see the athlete that lay underneath. So it was going to be a long time before he was ready to show his stuff and he might just fall apart before he gets that far.
If I ever saw him again would it be as a highly prized running machine or as the same crazed man-hating horse I first met? Both outcomes made me feel a little sad.
A couple of days after Satts had left my place I got a phone call from my father letting me know the horse had arrived safely at Rosehill in Sydney. The only other comment was from dad’s trainer who thought they brought the wrong horse because Satts looked like a late gestation mare.
Despite being anxious about Satts’ future I had enough on my plate to keep me occupied and not linger too long on the matter. My research was running in high gear. I had just published an important paper in the journal “Endocrinology” and I was riding a wave of popularity among the ivory tower fraternity. Requests for speaking engagements and collaborative studies were arriving daily. It made me wish I had included a request for funds for a personal assistant to my last grant application.
In addition to all that I was asked by a neighbour to help her with a troublesome horse. I really didn’t have the time, but since Satts’ departure I was yearning for another challenge. The horse was actually not so bad. My neighbour had been to a few Parelli clinics and was trying out her new found skills on her horse. Unfortunately, she had not done enough of the training to be clear in her own mind about what she was doing and she was passing this confusion onto her horse.
The horse was fairly simple and it was obvious that most of the problem lay with the owner. To be honest, it is a project that could have been dealt with in a week, but from the very start I enjoyed the company of my neighbour and chose to drag out the training as an excuse to spend time with her. But it was soon clear that she also enjoyed our time together and I no longer needed to find an excuse. It had been five years since my divorce and this was the first time I had kept company with anybody
So life was good. I was at the top of the world with my work and my private life was invigorated. This is why Satts did not pre-occupy my thoughts to a large extent.
One evening about three weeks after Satts was back in Sydney I received a call from dad. The first couple of minutes were taken up with the usual preliminaries; “how are ya son?”, “how’s work?”, “d’ya need any money?”
But then dad got to the meat of why he was calling.
“Kevin tells me that he sent Satts to a fellow for pre-training. He says Satts settled in pretty well, but he can’t take the reins. The training bloke nearly flipped him over the first time he picked up the reins. The vet and dentist looked at him and couldn’t find anything wrong.”
“Dad, Satts has a good mouth – not a racehorse mouth. Tell those blokes to lighten up on the contact. He doesn’t need somebody hanging on the end of the reins. He thinks he is being asked to run backwards. They have to stay off his mouth.”
Dad’s response was, “Well, I guess that’s okay for a riding horse, but a racehorse can’t react that way. Jockeys need to use the reins to balance in a race. They can’t have a horse that won’t let them use the reins.”
This made me a little irate.
“Listen dad, it’s not the job of the horse to be okay with bad riding. A good trainer and a good rider will feel what they have under them and adjust the way they ride. It’s not the horse’s responsibility to take care of crap riding. Tell Kevin to find a bloody trainer and jockey who have good feel for a horse and they will get along fine with Satts.
“Satts came to me a monster because of what bloody Kevin put him through the first time. I managed to turn him into a really nice horse that is safe and a pleasure to ride. If you’re going to listen to Kevin, I can’t help you and you’ll never see Satts on a racecourse. He just won’t make it. You might as well cut your losses now and retire him. Or you can listen to me and you have a chance of finding out what sort of athlete he really is. If Kevin does what he always does, he will get Satts to respond as he always did. Do you remember how that turned out?”
A week later dad tells me that he sent Satts to a trainer in Cobbity, south of Sydney. Two weeks after that the news is that the trainer likes Satts. He was riding the horse himself rather than send him to a pre-trainer. Satts had settled in really well and was being given light work to get some condition on him. The new trainer told dad that Satts didn’t need any education. He was good about the barriers; he listened to the rider and was really sensible. But what most surprised him was how bold Satts was about squeezing between other horses. He said most green horses needed to be pushed hard to convince them they can fit through a narrow space, but not Satts. He was full of confidence.
The biggest problem was going to be finding a jockey that could ride a horse with a super responsive mouth. Dad’s trainer talked to a lot of jockeys and put several on Satts during training sessions, but none seem to get along with the horse. Finally out of pure frustration he gave a new apprentice a try – only fifteen years old. The kid had come through pony club and done a lot of camp drafting. He had good balance and unusually quiet hands. It worked a treat. He found that the faster Satts travelled the quieter he needed to be on his back and Satts would settle quickly into a rhythm. It sounded like the horse and the kid were working each other out and it suited them both.
One evening I got a phone call just before I sat down to eat.
“Is this Ross?”
“Speaking.”
“Ross, this is Doug, your dad’s trainer.”
“Oh, how are you? This is a surprise. How’s Satts doing?”
“He’s great. That’s why I’m calling. Your dad said you really loved the horse, so I wanted to let you know what a fabulous job you had done with him. I heard from different people that he was a mongrel and should have been put down. Well, you proved them all wrong. He’s going so well.”
“Thanks Doug. You don’t know how relieved I am that he is doing well. He’s not easy and you seem to be the right bloke for him. He a super horse, “ I responded.
Doug said, “We stretched him out in a barrier trial today. He was running third with about one and half lengths between him and the horse running first at the 250 mark. Then young Steve told him to go and the bloody kick on that horse was tremendous. He passed them and took the lead in about four strides. It was like they were standing still. Steve said he had to hold onto his mane for dear life because of the acceleration. I think we’ll be able to win a race or two with him for your dad. We’ll give him another trial next week and if he does okay in that we’ll start him at Hawkesbury in a 1000m run in about two and half weeks.”
After I hung up the phone I was feeling a little elated. It made me wish I could see Satts running at Hawkesbury.
Satts did not win at Hawkesbury. The track had been subjected to heavy rain in the days preceding the race and Satts ran third. Two weeks later Satts won a 1200m maiden at Newcastle by two lengths. But he pulled up a little shin sore and was rested for six weeks. Over the coming months Satts had three wins, four seconds and two thirds. The highlight was a win at Rosehill. Dad was so proud to own a city winner. I still have the video clip of mum and dad being interviewed after the race by the TV commentator. Dad’s face was beaming. I was so happy for them both.
Then one morning I was working in the surgery halfway through an operation to remove the pituitary gland from the brain of a fetal sheep when Alex, the surgical technician, popped his head through the door and said my father called and could I ring him back as soon as I was out of surgery. Immediately my heart skipped thinking something had happened to mum or some equally terrible disaster.
I completed what was normally a four-hour operation in three hours, changed clothes and left the sheep in the capable care of the animal technician.
“Dad, what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry for pulling you away from work, son. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, dad everything is fine. But why did you call me? Is mum okay?”
“Yes, your mother if fine. It’s Satts. Doug called and said he tore a suspensory ligament at training this morning. It’s a bad rip and the vet thinks he should be retired. He said his leg probably wouldn’t stand up to the strain of racing ever again.”
“Aw dad, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry for you. Will he be okay? Does he need to be put down? Will he recover enough to be rideable,” I asked?
My father replied, “The vet thinks he will recover in about eight to twelve months and be okay for normal riding, but nothing too strenuous.”
“Well, what are you going to do with him?” I asked.
“Well, he needs rest. I was wondering if you could take him. I’d cover all your costs – feed, vet, anything,” dad said.
“You don’t need to worry about covering anything. Send him down. He’s got a home for life. I’ll look after him. We’re mates,” I said.
Two weeks later the same truck that took him away came rumbling up my drive. Satts was home again.
Despite being anxious about Satts’ future I had enough on my plate to keep me occupied and not linger too long on the matter. My research was running in high gear. I had just published an important paper in the journal “Endocrinology” and I was riding a wave of popularity among the ivory tower fraternity. Requests for speaking engagements and collaborative studies were arriving daily. It made me wish I had included a request for funds for a personal assistant to my last grant application.
In addition to all that I was asked by a neighbour to help her with a troublesome horse. I really didn’t have the time, but since Satts’ departure I was yearning for another challenge. The horse was actually not so bad. My neighbour had been to a few Parelli clinics and was trying out her new found skills on her horse. Unfortunately, she had not done enough of the training to be clear in her own mind about what she was doing and she was passing this confusion onto her horse.
The horse was fairly simple and it was obvious that most of the problem lay with the owner. To be honest, it is a project that could have been dealt with in a week, but from the very start I enjoyed the company of my neighbour and chose to drag out the training as an excuse to spend time with her. But it was soon clear that she also enjoyed our time together and I no longer needed to find an excuse. It had been five years since my divorce and this was the first time I had kept company with anybody
So life was good. I was at the top of the world with my work and my private life was invigorated. This is why Satts did not pre-occupy my thoughts to a large extent.
One evening about three weeks after Satts was back in Sydney I received a call from dad. The first couple of minutes were taken up with the usual preliminaries; “how are ya son?”, “how’s work?”, “d’ya need any money?”
But then dad got to the meat of why he was calling.
“Kevin tells me that he sent Satts to a fellow for pre-training. He says Satts settled in pretty well, but he can’t take the reins. The training bloke nearly flipped him over the first time he picked up the reins. The vet and dentist looked at him and couldn’t find anything wrong.”
“Dad, Satts has a good mouth – not a racehorse mouth. Tell those blokes to lighten up on the contact. He doesn’t need somebody hanging on the end of the reins. He thinks he is being asked to run backwards. They have to stay off his mouth.”
Dad’s response was, “Well, I guess that’s okay for a riding horse, but a racehorse can’t react that way. Jockeys need to use the reins to balance in a race. They can’t have a horse that won’t let them use the reins.”
This made me a little irate.
“Listen dad, it’s not the job of the horse to be okay with bad riding. A good trainer and a good rider will feel what they have under them and adjust the way they ride. It’s not the horse’s responsibility to take care of crap riding. Tell Kevin to find a bloody trainer and jockey who have good feel for a horse and they will get along fine with Satts.
“Satts came to me a monster because of what bloody Kevin put him through the first time. I managed to turn him into a really nice horse that is safe and a pleasure to ride. If you’re going to listen to Kevin, I can’t help you and you’ll never see Satts on a racecourse. He just won’t make it. You might as well cut your losses now and retire him. Or you can listen to me and you have a chance of finding out what sort of athlete he really is. If Kevin does what he always does, he will get Satts to respond as he always did. Do you remember how that turned out?”
A week later dad tells me that he sent Satts to a trainer in Cobbity, south of Sydney. Two weeks after that the news is that the trainer likes Satts. He was riding the horse himself rather than send him to a pre-trainer. Satts had settled in really well and was being given light work to get some condition on him. The new trainer told dad that Satts didn’t need any education. He was good about the barriers; he listened to the rider and was really sensible. But what most surprised him was how bold Satts was about squeezing between other horses. He said most green horses needed to be pushed hard to convince them they can fit through a narrow space, but not Satts. He was full of confidence.
The biggest problem was going to be finding a jockey that could ride a horse with a super responsive mouth. Dad’s trainer talked to a lot of jockeys and put several on Satts during training sessions, but none seem to get along with the horse. Finally out of pure frustration he gave a new apprentice a try – only fifteen years old. The kid had come through pony club and done a lot of camp drafting. He had good balance and unusually quiet hands. It worked a treat. He found that the faster Satts travelled the quieter he needed to be on his back and Satts would settle quickly into a rhythm. It sounded like the horse and the kid were working each other out and it suited them both.
One evening I got a phone call just before I sat down to eat.
“Is this Ross?”
“Speaking.”
“Ross, this is Doug, your dad’s trainer.”
“Oh, how are you? This is a surprise. How’s Satts doing?”
“He’s great. That’s why I’m calling. Your dad said you really loved the horse, so I wanted to let you know what a fabulous job you had done with him. I heard from different people that he was a mongrel and should have been put down. Well, you proved them all wrong. He’s going so well.”
“Thanks Doug. You don’t know how relieved I am that he is doing well. He’s not easy and you seem to be the right bloke for him. He a super horse, “ I responded.
Doug said, “We stretched him out in a barrier trial today. He was running third with about one and half lengths between him and the horse running first at the 250 mark. Then young Steve told him to go and the bloody kick on that horse was tremendous. He passed them and took the lead in about four strides. It was like they were standing still. Steve said he had to hold onto his mane for dear life because of the acceleration. I think we’ll be able to win a race or two with him for your dad. We’ll give him another trial next week and if he does okay in that we’ll start him at Hawkesbury in a 1000m run in about two and half weeks.”
After I hung up the phone I was feeling a little elated. It made me wish I could see Satts running at Hawkesbury.
Satts did not win at Hawkesbury. The track had been subjected to heavy rain in the days preceding the race and Satts ran third. Two weeks later Satts won a 1200m maiden at Newcastle by two lengths. But he pulled up a little shin sore and was rested for six weeks. Over the coming months Satts had three wins, four seconds and two thirds. The highlight was a win at Rosehill. Dad was so proud to own a city winner. I still have the video clip of mum and dad being interviewed after the race by the TV commentator. Dad’s face was beaming. I was so happy for them both.
Then one morning I was working in the surgery halfway through an operation to remove the pituitary gland from the brain of a fetal sheep when Alex, the surgical technician, popped his head through the door and said my father called and could I ring him back as soon as I was out of surgery. Immediately my heart skipped thinking something had happened to mum or some equally terrible disaster.
I completed what was normally a four-hour operation in three hours, changed clothes and left the sheep in the capable care of the animal technician.
“Dad, what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry for pulling you away from work, son. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, dad everything is fine. But why did you call me? Is mum okay?”
“Yes, your mother if fine. It’s Satts. Doug called and said he tore a suspensory ligament at training this morning. It’s a bad rip and the vet thinks he should be retired. He said his leg probably wouldn’t stand up to the strain of racing ever again.”
“Aw dad, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry for you. Will he be okay? Does he need to be put down? Will he recover enough to be rideable,” I asked?
My father replied, “The vet thinks he will recover in about eight to twelve months and be okay for normal riding, but nothing too strenuous.”
“Well, what are you going to do with him?” I asked.
“Well, he needs rest. I was wondering if you could take him. I’d cover all your costs – feed, vet, anything,” dad said.
“You don’t need to worry about covering anything. Send him down. He’s got a home for life. I’ll look after him. We’re mates,” I said.
Two weeks later the same truck that took him away came rumbling up my drive. Satts was home again.
I hadn’t seen Satts for about 16 months and was a little apprehensive that he might come back to me in the same freaked out state that he was when I first met him. But the instant the driver swung the divider to his stall across, I knew he was okay. Satts stood at the top of the ramp gawking around as if he was trying to get his bearings. He made one call and received a reply from Chops in the nearby paddock. That seem to satisfy him that he was where he thought he was. At the request of the driver, Satts gingerly followed him down the steep decline until he was on firm ground.
I led Satts the twenty metres to the stable that would be his home for a short while. It had fresh bedding, hay and water. Once I returned the halter and lead rope to the truckie, he wasted no time in wishing me luck and hopping into the cab to make his way to the next job.
Before going to the house to telephone dad with the news that his horse arrived safely, I made a cursory examination of Satts. He had the greyhound frame that all racehorses have when in work. His leg was clearly still swollen, but apart from that it was hard to tell if he had an injury. He stood equally on all four legs and did not seem to be protecting the damaged limb when he moved.
He took a momentary break from eating his hay to come to the door to sniff me, but my intrusion was not enough to distract him for long from filling his belly.
Dad had arranged for copies of the scans of Satts’ leg to be sent to my vet. So when the vet arrived two days after Satts’ arrival he was already armed with the necessary information. After a thorough examination of the leg, watching Satt’s movement and reading the report from the Sydney vet, my vet was not as optimistic as dad seemed about Satt’s prognosis. He said it was a very bad tear and there appeared to be some damage in the other foreleg too. He didn’t think Satts would ever be able to do much more than walk around the paddock. And even that may cause him some discomfort.
My next move was to insist on a referral to Geoff Hazard at the Werribee Veterinary Hospital. I had some experience with Geoff in the past and found him to be brilliant when it came to diagnosing musculo-skeletal problems in horses.
The next week I loaded Satts into the float and drove across Melbourne to meet Geoff at 9am. We were there for three hours while Geoff went over Satts from head to toe, took more scans and consulted with colleagues. With each minute I was becoming less sure that I wanted to know the verdict. One vet had already been pessimistic, did I really want to hear it confirmed? Finally, Geoff met with me and said that he thought Satts would come good for normal riding. He’d be no super athlete again, but there was no reason that with rest and time that Satts would not be able to cope with light riding in the arena and on the trail. No jumping, no racing, no barrel racing or polo or cutting or reining or anything that was going to raise his heart rate! I was to take him back for another examination in six months time.
Satts spent another two weeks in the stable before I introduced him back to the paddock. I didn’t want the other horses running Satts around the paddock, so I put him in a paddock adjacent to the others. Over the next few weeks I introduced each horse one at a time to Satts’ paddock. This gave Satts and each new horse plenty of time to get settled with each other before adding another horse to the herd. Overall it worked pretty well, but of course it was going to be impossible to ensure there was absolutely no galloping and cavorting. Nevertheless, Satts showed no sign of further damaging his suspensory ligament and except for the swelling in the leg, it was difficult to detect any injury.
It was close to three and half months before I was certain that the swelling in the soft tissue has significantly subsided. At the six-month mark when it was time to visit Geoff the vet again, there was only minor swelling. Palpation of the lower leg revealed ongoing healing in the soft tissue, but he remained relatively even in his movement. Geoff was pleased with the progress. The scans showed a lot of remodelling of the tissue. Geoff said he would look at Satts again in another 3 months. In the meantime, Satts was to be kept rested and living the life of a spoilt horse. Geoff made mention that Satts had lost his hard-bodied ripped muscle look and replaced it with the look of an overfed show hack. At least he now fitted into the rest of my herd.
A couple of more visits and finally I got the all clear from the vet that Satts could begin light riding again. It had been 15 months since he arrived and I’m sure it was a surprise to him to see a saddle again. I think Satts had become use to the comforts of retirement and was not expecting to ever be inside of a round yard once more.
I had formulated a plan that Satts could become a workhorse. He was big and strong and able-bodied enough to bear the brunt of the pushing and pulling that young, green horses can do. If his legs stood up to the workload, I was going to use Satts to work other horses from. But first it was to begin with just riding Satts. I needed to see what he remembered from the training I gave him and also how his emotional state stood up to the months of racing.
Our first session was just some groundwork with Satts wearing a saddle. His whole body froze when I girthed up my saddle, so I loosened the girth a couple of holes and walked him around in hand until I felt him soften. Then I buckled to the next hole and walked him again. I threw in a few hindquarter yields and some backing. Finally, he melted into my hand and I was able to snug the girth to its proper firmness with no sign of worry.
After doing a few minutes of work in hand to check out his response to the lead rope, I removed the halter and walked away. Satts watched me leave for a few strides, then looked left and took off with lightning speed like he was a fashion model being chased by a Big Mac. There was no bucking, just running. He ran so fast he struggled to stay on his feet. As I stood and watched him, I was glad the sand was not very deep and there was little chance of him damaging his ligament again. Since he had the fitness level of a pie eating contest winner, it didn’t take long for him to slow down and regain his composure to the point where we could actually get some work done.
That first session jogged my memory to recall what a nice horse Satts had become. I guess he was always a nice horse, but he hadn’t always had a chance to prove it.
The next session came the next day. I did a bit more groundwork and then rode him in a side pull. After a few turns and transitions from walk to trot to canter, it was time to open the gate and head out yonder. He seemed to be holding back going down the driveway. He was not very forward, but I put that largely down to the fact that he did not have shoes fitted and the gravel was making him a little hot-footed. When we got to the gate I was able to turn him left and walk along the grassy verge. He seemed more comfortable in his movement, but was still travelling like he was towing a barge. I could tell his mind was fixated on going back to the paddock. I had not planned on doing little more than take him for a ride to the gate and back, but this was an issue that I felt needed addressing now.
I stopped Satts about 30 metres past the gate. I sat quietly on a loose rein and waited. He called back to Chops in the paddock, but there was no answer. Satts began to look around. After a few seconds he turned his shoulders to the right and made a move towards the gate. I picked up my right rein and continued his turn. At first he pulled on my rein everytime he became lined up with the gate and then tried to spin quickly through the turn to get his nose pointing back at the gate. But I kept turning him. I was waiting for a change. Just when I considered he was never going to give up on trying to make his way back to the gate, I felt a lack of rushing and softening through his turn. My rein dropped quietly on his neck and he stopped, facing the other side of the road. I didn’t care where he was pointed. I only cared that he was no longer trying to get back home.
We rested for a few moments before I nudged Satts forward where he was facing. But after the first step he veered right again and looked to the gate. My right rein asked for more turning until he again let go of the thought that the gate was the most important thing in his life. When I put slack back in the rein we stopped, facing the gate. But with my left rein I asked him to about face and look up the road. A few moments of rest and I ask him forward again.
It took maybe seven or eight repetitions of the same exercise before Satts gave up the idea that he needed to be heading home now. We rode on for about another hundred metres before turning back. Satts was clearly glad to get home and see his mates. Although I could see there was potential for a problem developing with regard to being homebound, I figured today was not the day to be doing too much about it. It was Satt’s first ride in more than a year and I didn’t want to make the experience too much like work. There would be plenty of time and plenty of projects in the coming weeks and months.
Overall, I was pretty happy with how Satts handled the session. Obviously, he had picked up some bad habits; with a lack of focus being number one. But dad’s trainer had not done a bad job of keeping Satts settled and sensible. He had neither turned him into a fruit loop nor killed his personality – which I found to be fairly uncommon in retired racehorses. I was sure Satts would go on to be the working horse I needed.
I led Satts the twenty metres to the stable that would be his home for a short while. It had fresh bedding, hay and water. Once I returned the halter and lead rope to the truckie, he wasted no time in wishing me luck and hopping into the cab to make his way to the next job.
Before going to the house to telephone dad with the news that his horse arrived safely, I made a cursory examination of Satts. He had the greyhound frame that all racehorses have when in work. His leg was clearly still swollen, but apart from that it was hard to tell if he had an injury. He stood equally on all four legs and did not seem to be protecting the damaged limb when he moved.
He took a momentary break from eating his hay to come to the door to sniff me, but my intrusion was not enough to distract him for long from filling his belly.
Dad had arranged for copies of the scans of Satts’ leg to be sent to my vet. So when the vet arrived two days after Satts’ arrival he was already armed with the necessary information. After a thorough examination of the leg, watching Satt’s movement and reading the report from the Sydney vet, my vet was not as optimistic as dad seemed about Satt’s prognosis. He said it was a very bad tear and there appeared to be some damage in the other foreleg too. He didn’t think Satts would ever be able to do much more than walk around the paddock. And even that may cause him some discomfort.
My next move was to insist on a referral to Geoff Hazard at the Werribee Veterinary Hospital. I had some experience with Geoff in the past and found him to be brilliant when it came to diagnosing musculo-skeletal problems in horses.
The next week I loaded Satts into the float and drove across Melbourne to meet Geoff at 9am. We were there for three hours while Geoff went over Satts from head to toe, took more scans and consulted with colleagues. With each minute I was becoming less sure that I wanted to know the verdict. One vet had already been pessimistic, did I really want to hear it confirmed? Finally, Geoff met with me and said that he thought Satts would come good for normal riding. He’d be no super athlete again, but there was no reason that with rest and time that Satts would not be able to cope with light riding in the arena and on the trail. No jumping, no racing, no barrel racing or polo or cutting or reining or anything that was going to raise his heart rate! I was to take him back for another examination in six months time.
Satts spent another two weeks in the stable before I introduced him back to the paddock. I didn’t want the other horses running Satts around the paddock, so I put him in a paddock adjacent to the others. Over the next few weeks I introduced each horse one at a time to Satts’ paddock. This gave Satts and each new horse plenty of time to get settled with each other before adding another horse to the herd. Overall it worked pretty well, but of course it was going to be impossible to ensure there was absolutely no galloping and cavorting. Nevertheless, Satts showed no sign of further damaging his suspensory ligament and except for the swelling in the leg, it was difficult to detect any injury.
It was close to three and half months before I was certain that the swelling in the soft tissue has significantly subsided. At the six-month mark when it was time to visit Geoff the vet again, there was only minor swelling. Palpation of the lower leg revealed ongoing healing in the soft tissue, but he remained relatively even in his movement. Geoff was pleased with the progress. The scans showed a lot of remodelling of the tissue. Geoff said he would look at Satts again in another 3 months. In the meantime, Satts was to be kept rested and living the life of a spoilt horse. Geoff made mention that Satts had lost his hard-bodied ripped muscle look and replaced it with the look of an overfed show hack. At least he now fitted into the rest of my herd.
A couple of more visits and finally I got the all clear from the vet that Satts could begin light riding again. It had been 15 months since he arrived and I’m sure it was a surprise to him to see a saddle again. I think Satts had become use to the comforts of retirement and was not expecting to ever be inside of a round yard once more.
I had formulated a plan that Satts could become a workhorse. He was big and strong and able-bodied enough to bear the brunt of the pushing and pulling that young, green horses can do. If his legs stood up to the workload, I was going to use Satts to work other horses from. But first it was to begin with just riding Satts. I needed to see what he remembered from the training I gave him and also how his emotional state stood up to the months of racing.
Our first session was just some groundwork with Satts wearing a saddle. His whole body froze when I girthed up my saddle, so I loosened the girth a couple of holes and walked him around in hand until I felt him soften. Then I buckled to the next hole and walked him again. I threw in a few hindquarter yields and some backing. Finally, he melted into my hand and I was able to snug the girth to its proper firmness with no sign of worry.
After doing a few minutes of work in hand to check out his response to the lead rope, I removed the halter and walked away. Satts watched me leave for a few strides, then looked left and took off with lightning speed like he was a fashion model being chased by a Big Mac. There was no bucking, just running. He ran so fast he struggled to stay on his feet. As I stood and watched him, I was glad the sand was not very deep and there was little chance of him damaging his ligament again. Since he had the fitness level of a pie eating contest winner, it didn’t take long for him to slow down and regain his composure to the point where we could actually get some work done.
That first session jogged my memory to recall what a nice horse Satts had become. I guess he was always a nice horse, but he hadn’t always had a chance to prove it.
The next session came the next day. I did a bit more groundwork and then rode him in a side pull. After a few turns and transitions from walk to trot to canter, it was time to open the gate and head out yonder. He seemed to be holding back going down the driveway. He was not very forward, but I put that largely down to the fact that he did not have shoes fitted and the gravel was making him a little hot-footed. When we got to the gate I was able to turn him left and walk along the grassy verge. He seemed more comfortable in his movement, but was still travelling like he was towing a barge. I could tell his mind was fixated on going back to the paddock. I had not planned on doing little more than take him for a ride to the gate and back, but this was an issue that I felt needed addressing now.
I stopped Satts about 30 metres past the gate. I sat quietly on a loose rein and waited. He called back to Chops in the paddock, but there was no answer. Satts began to look around. After a few seconds he turned his shoulders to the right and made a move towards the gate. I picked up my right rein and continued his turn. At first he pulled on my rein everytime he became lined up with the gate and then tried to spin quickly through the turn to get his nose pointing back at the gate. But I kept turning him. I was waiting for a change. Just when I considered he was never going to give up on trying to make his way back to the gate, I felt a lack of rushing and softening through his turn. My rein dropped quietly on his neck and he stopped, facing the other side of the road. I didn’t care where he was pointed. I only cared that he was no longer trying to get back home.
We rested for a few moments before I nudged Satts forward where he was facing. But after the first step he veered right again and looked to the gate. My right rein asked for more turning until he again let go of the thought that the gate was the most important thing in his life. When I put slack back in the rein we stopped, facing the gate. But with my left rein I asked him to about face and look up the road. A few moments of rest and I ask him forward again.
It took maybe seven or eight repetitions of the same exercise before Satts gave up the idea that he needed to be heading home now. We rode on for about another hundred metres before turning back. Satts was clearly glad to get home and see his mates. Although I could see there was potential for a problem developing with regard to being homebound, I figured today was not the day to be doing too much about it. It was Satt’s first ride in more than a year and I didn’t want to make the experience too much like work. There would be plenty of time and plenty of projects in the coming weeks and months.
Overall, I was pretty happy with how Satts handled the session. Obviously, he had picked up some bad habits; with a lack of focus being number one. But dad’s trainer had not done a bad job of keeping Satts settled and sensible. He had neither turned him into a fruit loop nor killed his personality – which I found to be fairly uncommon in retired racehorses. I was sure Satts would go on to be the working horse I needed.
My plan was to get Satts prepared to work other horses. Breaking in and training can be hard on the body for a fragile little flower like myself. Although I have never been seriously hurt by a horse and never had any injuries worse than big ugly bruises, it is still a physically demanding way to spend your day. You get pulled around, so your shoulders ache. You’re always exerting yourself in positions that strain your back. Your knees get worked overtime with all those hours in the saddle and your legs become weary from miles of traipsing through sand arenas. And that’s not counting the rope burns, the crushed toes and the love bites. So, being able to work from a horse that can take a lot of the physical strain for you is something any trainer can appreciate.
My other horses were able to do the job to some extent, but they were not ideal. LJ was getting too old and his knees could not take being worked more than a few days in a row. Chops was only 14hh and although she was wonderful to ride she was too small to stop a 16.2hh Clydesdale cross ready to leave the scene at high speed. Besides, I had really screwed up early on when teaching her to work other horses. She was proving to be great at first. I was so impressed with her boldness for such a sensitive horse that I pushed her onto tough horses too early. She had helped me with about half a dozen settled horses and had taken to the work with gusto. But then a lady sent me an Anglo Arab gelding that was pretty sure of himself. He commanded all within his sight. I found him difficult to get moving forward when working him from the ground. So one day I rode into the round yard on Chops with a flag in my hand. Bruno came up to Chops like he was going to initiate her into his harem and I bopped him on the nose with the flag. I then started to direct him around the yard at a trot. Chops was doing terrific and listening well. But Bruno was not putting much effort into moving. I manoeuvred Chops to come alongside his hip about 2 metres to the inside and I flapped the flag. Bruno flung his head in our direction as if to tell me where I could put the flag. Then I raised the flag high and came down pretty hard on his rump. Bruno jumped forward, spun around and charged at Chops. I managed to bop him across the nose again, but Chops was turning and heading for the hills. She got nailed in the hip. I kept trying to flag Bruno away from us while at the same time trying to get Chops to turn to face him. I guess it would have been comical if I hadn’t been in the middle of it. Eventually, Bruno backed off and Chops stopped trying to escape over the fence.
That one mistake of presenting Chops with a horse like Bruno too early in her career was the ruin of her. After that, she was only good for working horses that were pretty quiet. She lost her confidence and if a horse threatened her she would back off no matter how much I pushed her into the fray. It was a mistake I promised I would never repeat with Satts.
Now that Satts was back in work and I had been riding him quietly around the paddocks and the horse trails, I could feel him gaining the focus he had lost while playing at being a racehorse. I could also see that he was becoming physically stronger. The ligament injury that had forced his retirement from racing did not seem to bother him at all.
I began introducing him to the things I would need him to know and be okay about in his new life as a working horse. I had already taught him how to neck rein before he left for racing, so I was ahead of the game in that respect. But I needed him to be good about being ridden with a flag and have that flag flapping like a politician’s gums around his head and his body. He needed to see it change sides and still not be bothered. He had to be okay when I picked it up from the fence and when I dropped it on the ground. He had to know when I was directing the flag to something else and he was to ignore it or when I was directing the flag at him and he need to know how to respond. I spent a lot of time shaking that flag at gates and trees trying to get them to move and then suddenly turn the energy of the flag towards Satts and get him to move from it and then back to the tree or stump. He needed to know the difference between when the flag was talking to him and he needed to do something and when it was talking to another horse and he didn’t need to bother about it. It sure helps to have a smart horse!
Another project was to get Satts feeling unbothered when I threw a rope from his back. He needed to be settled if I swung a loop above his head, around his side and when I threw it 5 metres away on the ground or at a post. The flag work helped prepare him well for this task. The hardest thing about the lariat for Satts was not to tuck his tail and run when the lariat got under his tail. This really bothered him and I spent quite a bit of time getting him to accept a rope grabbing tight around his hind end. The big breakthrough came when I taught him to back up into the loop around his rear. He discovered that when he backed up into the rope I released the tension in the rope. It was his way of controlling the rope. Although I had no intention of roping Satts’ bum, it has been known that when you have another horse on the end of your rope, it can occasionally position itself behind your saddle horse before you have time to do anything about it. More than one trainer has been bucked off their super quiet and experienced saddle horse when this has happened. I knew it could never happen to me (…again), but I figured it was best to be prepared.
Then it came time to get Satts okay with dragging a tarpaulin or a jump rail or horse rug or tyre. This proved a bigger challenge than the rope training. I started on the ground with dragging a chaff bag on the end of my lariat. Satts took to this pretty quickly. From both sides and with all sorts of objects to drag, Satts was doing great – even at a canter. But the real challenge was when the object was being dragged along the ground from in front of him. If I faced him to the object and dragged it towards us, he tried to turn tail and run. It really scared him. Coming at him from behind was okay, but coming from in front was a matter of life and death. But time, patience and consistency paid off and I was able to ride him while dragging objects from all directions and even being able to use my rope to flip a chaff bag from the ground and into my lap while he trotted around as if he had being doing it since birth.
The progress Satts had made was enough to make me think I actually knew what I was doing. But I wanted to be sure I didn’t repeat the mistakes I had made with Chops. Satts was sensitive, but he was also bold. He had come a long way, and our relationship was not just two work colleagues getting on with the job. In the process of teaching Satts the things I needed him to know, other things developed between us that I had not taught. I hardly ever used a halter or rope on him now. He came up to me when called and followed where I lead. I could even direct him with a little energy to where I wanted him to wait. He would ground tie and wait patiently while I walked away to get something from the tack room or house. I could direct him with pressure I had never taught him. For instances, if he walked away I could stop him and have him back up by grabbing his tail – something he had never had a lesson in. Satts had never had a lesson in ground tying or following at liberty or coming when called or backing up or when I touched his tail. To me, it indicated that Satts had a bigger picture of our relationship than just “I press button A and you perform behaviour B.” It occurred to me that Satts had learned that pressure and energy from me had intent and meaning and it was his vocation to try to make sense of it and respond accordingly. He was not just performing a bag of tricks I had taught him. He was interpreting my actions in a way that made sense to him. So while I had been teaching him lots of different behaviours, he was also learning things far outside those lessons they go to the heart of the relationship between horse and human.
I was very excited about starting Satts with another horse in the round yard. My aim was to make it easy for him to gain his confidence, so I volunteered Chops for the mission. They knew each other really well and although Chops was higher up in the pecking order, she threatened a lot without ever following through. If Chops decided to assert herself with Satts it would take almost nothing to call her bluff. I saw it as my priority to look after Satts’ confidence and make sure he listened to me. If things were going awry I would forget about Chops and take care of the horse under me. I had invested a lot of time and hope in Satts and I needed to make sure he developed into a quality working horse.
The first step was to work them together at liberty in the round yard. This would give Satts confidence with working in close proximity to another horse, but at the same time to listen to my direction.
For a minute or two I let them get familiar with each other in the yard. There was some squealing from Chops, but Satts followed her around like a bad debt. When I started to move them around together, Chops held the lead. After changing direction Chops again went out in front, flicking her head at Satts as she went past. Soon I asked Chops to change direction, but Satts was to maintain his direction. As they started to pass each other, Satts tried to turn to go with Chops, but I blocked him with the flag. After several laps, Satts settled in the rhythm and didn’t seem at all bothered by passing Chops going the other way. I figured this deserved a little break for both of them and called them into the middle where we all rested for a couple of minutes. Then I sent Chops out to the fence, while I asked Satts to stand behind me. Satts shadowed me as I followed Chops around the yard. Every time I asked Chops to change direction or slow down, Satts was with me like fly paper. Then it was Chops’ turn to stand by my side while Satts was working out on the track. I don’t think I could have asked for the work to be going any better. Both horses were listening and working well.
I gave them both a few minutes of rest, but added lots of rubs and scratches to the mix. Finally I slipped the bridle on Satts and stepped up into the saddle. I turned Satts away from Chops and walked to the fence to collect the flag.
I held the flag high in my right hand and passed it over to my left side and back again. Everything seemed okay, so I repeated it with a little more vigour. As I walked Satts around the yard I started swinging the flag as if I was swatting a fly. Chops was not bothered by this because she knew it was not about her, but nevertheless, she kept out of our way. As I trotted and cantered Satts, Chops was aware that there was no where she could stand where she would not encounter the man with the flag every few seconds, so she decided to stay ahead of us. I was not driving Chops, but she was intent in staying out of our way.
I brought Satts back to a walk and Chops parked herself by the gate. I approached her with a gentle wave of the flag as if to tell her she needed to not be at the gate when Satts and I got there. She walked on. I pointed Satts across the round yard to get in front of Chops. It was enough to stop her halfway and turn her in the opposite direction. I repeated this a few times and I could tell Satts was picking up on the job. Despite the fact that Satts seemed to work out what I was trying to do I decided I had better change the job because I didn’t want him believing he knew what I was asking and taking over. He needed to stay listening to me and not just doing the job because he thought he knew what was being asked. I needed to make the work a little less predictable for Satts.
I turned him away from Chops and asked for a side pass to the fence. When we got there, I climbed out of the saddle and stepped onto the fencing rail. I sat on the fence and scratched Satts’ wither. Chops wanted in on this and wandered over. It surprised me that she did not tell Satts to get out of the way. She just found a space to squeeze through and sidled alongside.
After a short time, I mounted Satts again from the fence and flagged Chops to move on. We followed behind. The next lap I moved Satts up to a trot and pushed Chops along harder. We cut her off on the other side and had her trotting in the opposite direction. I then flagged her into a canter, but told Satts to follow her at a walk in a tiny circle in the middle of the yard. Initially, Satts wanted to go with her and I had to drop the flag while I worked on him coming back to the walk. I firmed pretty hard on the reins and told him to stand quietly while we watched Chops lose a few kilos. Even though he was doing what I asked I could feel him bubbling away underneath me. When I felt him hit a good spot, I dismounted and picked up the flag again, than got back on.
As Chops slowed to a walk, I urged Satts alongside her. He was on the inside, so he could easily out pace her. As we caught up to rear, I reached across and petted her croup. Satts was easily out walking Chops, so I petted all along her back as we made our way to the front. Then I stopped and petted both horses. It was good way to finish Satts’ first day of his new career.
My other horses were able to do the job to some extent, but they were not ideal. LJ was getting too old and his knees could not take being worked more than a few days in a row. Chops was only 14hh and although she was wonderful to ride she was too small to stop a 16.2hh Clydesdale cross ready to leave the scene at high speed. Besides, I had really screwed up early on when teaching her to work other horses. She was proving to be great at first. I was so impressed with her boldness for such a sensitive horse that I pushed her onto tough horses too early. She had helped me with about half a dozen settled horses and had taken to the work with gusto. But then a lady sent me an Anglo Arab gelding that was pretty sure of himself. He commanded all within his sight. I found him difficult to get moving forward when working him from the ground. So one day I rode into the round yard on Chops with a flag in my hand. Bruno came up to Chops like he was going to initiate her into his harem and I bopped him on the nose with the flag. I then started to direct him around the yard at a trot. Chops was doing terrific and listening well. But Bruno was not putting much effort into moving. I manoeuvred Chops to come alongside his hip about 2 metres to the inside and I flapped the flag. Bruno flung his head in our direction as if to tell me where I could put the flag. Then I raised the flag high and came down pretty hard on his rump. Bruno jumped forward, spun around and charged at Chops. I managed to bop him across the nose again, but Chops was turning and heading for the hills. She got nailed in the hip. I kept trying to flag Bruno away from us while at the same time trying to get Chops to turn to face him. I guess it would have been comical if I hadn’t been in the middle of it. Eventually, Bruno backed off and Chops stopped trying to escape over the fence.
That one mistake of presenting Chops with a horse like Bruno too early in her career was the ruin of her. After that, she was only good for working horses that were pretty quiet. She lost her confidence and if a horse threatened her she would back off no matter how much I pushed her into the fray. It was a mistake I promised I would never repeat with Satts.
Now that Satts was back in work and I had been riding him quietly around the paddocks and the horse trails, I could feel him gaining the focus he had lost while playing at being a racehorse. I could also see that he was becoming physically stronger. The ligament injury that had forced his retirement from racing did not seem to bother him at all.
I began introducing him to the things I would need him to know and be okay about in his new life as a working horse. I had already taught him how to neck rein before he left for racing, so I was ahead of the game in that respect. But I needed him to be good about being ridden with a flag and have that flag flapping like a politician’s gums around his head and his body. He needed to see it change sides and still not be bothered. He had to be okay when I picked it up from the fence and when I dropped it on the ground. He had to know when I was directing the flag to something else and he was to ignore it or when I was directing the flag at him and he need to know how to respond. I spent a lot of time shaking that flag at gates and trees trying to get them to move and then suddenly turn the energy of the flag towards Satts and get him to move from it and then back to the tree or stump. He needed to know the difference between when the flag was talking to him and he needed to do something and when it was talking to another horse and he didn’t need to bother about it. It sure helps to have a smart horse!
Another project was to get Satts feeling unbothered when I threw a rope from his back. He needed to be settled if I swung a loop above his head, around his side and when I threw it 5 metres away on the ground or at a post. The flag work helped prepare him well for this task. The hardest thing about the lariat for Satts was not to tuck his tail and run when the lariat got under his tail. This really bothered him and I spent quite a bit of time getting him to accept a rope grabbing tight around his hind end. The big breakthrough came when I taught him to back up into the loop around his rear. He discovered that when he backed up into the rope I released the tension in the rope. It was his way of controlling the rope. Although I had no intention of roping Satts’ bum, it has been known that when you have another horse on the end of your rope, it can occasionally position itself behind your saddle horse before you have time to do anything about it. More than one trainer has been bucked off their super quiet and experienced saddle horse when this has happened. I knew it could never happen to me (…again), but I figured it was best to be prepared.
Then it came time to get Satts okay with dragging a tarpaulin or a jump rail or horse rug or tyre. This proved a bigger challenge than the rope training. I started on the ground with dragging a chaff bag on the end of my lariat. Satts took to this pretty quickly. From both sides and with all sorts of objects to drag, Satts was doing great – even at a canter. But the real challenge was when the object was being dragged along the ground from in front of him. If I faced him to the object and dragged it towards us, he tried to turn tail and run. It really scared him. Coming at him from behind was okay, but coming from in front was a matter of life and death. But time, patience and consistency paid off and I was able to ride him while dragging objects from all directions and even being able to use my rope to flip a chaff bag from the ground and into my lap while he trotted around as if he had being doing it since birth.
The progress Satts had made was enough to make me think I actually knew what I was doing. But I wanted to be sure I didn’t repeat the mistakes I had made with Chops. Satts was sensitive, but he was also bold. He had come a long way, and our relationship was not just two work colleagues getting on with the job. In the process of teaching Satts the things I needed him to know, other things developed between us that I had not taught. I hardly ever used a halter or rope on him now. He came up to me when called and followed where I lead. I could even direct him with a little energy to where I wanted him to wait. He would ground tie and wait patiently while I walked away to get something from the tack room or house. I could direct him with pressure I had never taught him. For instances, if he walked away I could stop him and have him back up by grabbing his tail – something he had never had a lesson in. Satts had never had a lesson in ground tying or following at liberty or coming when called or backing up or when I touched his tail. To me, it indicated that Satts had a bigger picture of our relationship than just “I press button A and you perform behaviour B.” It occurred to me that Satts had learned that pressure and energy from me had intent and meaning and it was his vocation to try to make sense of it and respond accordingly. He was not just performing a bag of tricks I had taught him. He was interpreting my actions in a way that made sense to him. So while I had been teaching him lots of different behaviours, he was also learning things far outside those lessons they go to the heart of the relationship between horse and human.
I was very excited about starting Satts with another horse in the round yard. My aim was to make it easy for him to gain his confidence, so I volunteered Chops for the mission. They knew each other really well and although Chops was higher up in the pecking order, she threatened a lot without ever following through. If Chops decided to assert herself with Satts it would take almost nothing to call her bluff. I saw it as my priority to look after Satts’ confidence and make sure he listened to me. If things were going awry I would forget about Chops and take care of the horse under me. I had invested a lot of time and hope in Satts and I needed to make sure he developed into a quality working horse.
The first step was to work them together at liberty in the round yard. This would give Satts confidence with working in close proximity to another horse, but at the same time to listen to my direction.
For a minute or two I let them get familiar with each other in the yard. There was some squealing from Chops, but Satts followed her around like a bad debt. When I started to move them around together, Chops held the lead. After changing direction Chops again went out in front, flicking her head at Satts as she went past. Soon I asked Chops to change direction, but Satts was to maintain his direction. As they started to pass each other, Satts tried to turn to go with Chops, but I blocked him with the flag. After several laps, Satts settled in the rhythm and didn’t seem at all bothered by passing Chops going the other way. I figured this deserved a little break for both of them and called them into the middle where we all rested for a couple of minutes. Then I sent Chops out to the fence, while I asked Satts to stand behind me. Satts shadowed me as I followed Chops around the yard. Every time I asked Chops to change direction or slow down, Satts was with me like fly paper. Then it was Chops’ turn to stand by my side while Satts was working out on the track. I don’t think I could have asked for the work to be going any better. Both horses were listening and working well.
I gave them both a few minutes of rest, but added lots of rubs and scratches to the mix. Finally I slipped the bridle on Satts and stepped up into the saddle. I turned Satts away from Chops and walked to the fence to collect the flag.
I held the flag high in my right hand and passed it over to my left side and back again. Everything seemed okay, so I repeated it with a little more vigour. As I walked Satts around the yard I started swinging the flag as if I was swatting a fly. Chops was not bothered by this because she knew it was not about her, but nevertheless, she kept out of our way. As I trotted and cantered Satts, Chops was aware that there was no where she could stand where she would not encounter the man with the flag every few seconds, so she decided to stay ahead of us. I was not driving Chops, but she was intent in staying out of our way.
I brought Satts back to a walk and Chops parked herself by the gate. I approached her with a gentle wave of the flag as if to tell her she needed to not be at the gate when Satts and I got there. She walked on. I pointed Satts across the round yard to get in front of Chops. It was enough to stop her halfway and turn her in the opposite direction. I repeated this a few times and I could tell Satts was picking up on the job. Despite the fact that Satts seemed to work out what I was trying to do I decided I had better change the job because I didn’t want him believing he knew what I was asking and taking over. He needed to stay listening to me and not just doing the job because he thought he knew what was being asked. I needed to make the work a little less predictable for Satts.
I turned him away from Chops and asked for a side pass to the fence. When we got there, I climbed out of the saddle and stepped onto the fencing rail. I sat on the fence and scratched Satts’ wither. Chops wanted in on this and wandered over. It surprised me that she did not tell Satts to get out of the way. She just found a space to squeeze through and sidled alongside.
After a short time, I mounted Satts again from the fence and flagged Chops to move on. We followed behind. The next lap I moved Satts up to a trot and pushed Chops along harder. We cut her off on the other side and had her trotting in the opposite direction. I then flagged her into a canter, but told Satts to follow her at a walk in a tiny circle in the middle of the yard. Initially, Satts wanted to go with her and I had to drop the flag while I worked on him coming back to the walk. I firmed pretty hard on the reins and told him to stand quietly while we watched Chops lose a few kilos. Even though he was doing what I asked I could feel him bubbling away underneath me. When I felt him hit a good spot, I dismounted and picked up the flag again, than got back on.
As Chops slowed to a walk, I urged Satts alongside her. He was on the inside, so he could easily out pace her. As we caught up to rear, I reached across and petted her croup. Satts was easily out walking Chops, so I petted all along her back as we made our way to the front. Then I stopped and petted both horses. It was good way to finish Satts’ first day of his new career.
My work at the university had not given me a lot of time to spend with the horses in the past week. For some mysterious reason, academics liked to have staff meetings at 7:30 in the morning. But even harder on my puny metabolism were obstetric rounds. They were held at the hospital every week and they always started at 7am! Unfortunately, my collaboration with several obstetricians required me to attend. For somebody who lived about an hours drive from work, that makes it near impossible to get anything done before work.
Nevertheless, I managed to squeeze twenty minutes or so after work with the horses over the next several days. I repeated the flagging work with Satts and Chops. Each day Satts gained in confidence and I even think he quite liked having the roles reversed where now Chops had to get out of his way.
I decided Satts was ready to begin training for working close in with Chops. This meant having Chops on the end of the lead rope and using Satts to help direct her. It’s not just a matter of leading her around from Satts – although that’s part of it. But more important than that is being able to direct her shoulders and her hindquarters in any way I choose. Stepping her back, bringing her forward, getting a lateral bend, side passing, changing direction, lunging etc are all part of working close in with a horse. It’s no different than if I was working Chops while standing on my own two feet, but in this case Satts’ feet are doing the job of my feet.
This part of a working horse’s job is the hardest because it requires them to be at their most confident and most attentive to the job. Sometimes you need them to be so subtle that a just a shift of weight will get the job done and other times you need them to get in the middle and create a dust storm. Your horse has to be ready and willing for those things at a moments notice. A saddle horse also needs to be brave because they are almost always within striking range of a client’s horse when working in close. They can get bitten, bumped off balance, stood on, kicked and climbed upon by a client’s horse. Just two years ago my own horse, Riley had a splint bone fractured by a client’s horse. A friend of mine has had a client’s horse try to climb over the top of his workhorse and into the saddle. It takes guts and confidence for your working horse to tolerate those kinds of antics and still be trying to get on with the job. I was sure Satts had the potential to be one of the best.
Giving Satts the experience of working in close with another horse was made really easy by Chops. She was already very good on the lead rope and not bothered by being close enough to rub the hair off Satts. But Satts still had his doubts. Every time I asked Satts to walk into Chops to move her away, his feet became a little more stuck and ears flattened. He was not sure this was a good idea. He had learned it was okay to move into her from a distance because the flag was always there to make sure Chops got out of the way. But it was a different story when she was so close that she could turn her tail and kick him. I figured that all he needed was more confidence and I did all that I could to help. When I asked Satts to move into Chops’ hindquarters, I put a good feel in the lead rope to let her know she needed to disengage her hind end. Just as Satts took a tentative step towards Chops, her hind end yielded away from him. I stopped Satts and scratched under his neck. I repeated the exercise again and again. I don’t know if Satts knew I was helping with the lead rope, but soon he was boldly pushing on Chops without holding back.
It went even smoother when we worked onto moving her shoulders across. Again I did my best to assist and it only took half the time for Satts to feel confident that he could drive Chops’ front away. I was soon having Satts help me direct Chops from a forehand yield to a hindquarter yield and another forehand yield without pause. Once he realized he was not going to get nailed by Chops he seemed to relish the job. Over the next few days, Satts was learning how to be a real help to me. I was soon able to side pass Satts into Chops and push her away. Chops could lunge around us and Satts stand there like the centre upright of a maypole.
For me, one of the hardest things about training a horse to work other horses is to keep my riding horse soft and responsive. It is the nature of having one horse under you and another on the end of a lead rope or lariat that causes you to divide your attention. This is especially true during times when there is a lot of activity in the arena. It is easy to be oblivious to the feel of your reins when you have another horse pulling the lariat out of your hand or to forget to take your legs off your horse when the other horse is on two legs. These are things that you might never do if it was just you and your riding horse. But with another horse in the mix that’s acting like it is the end of the world, sometimes your saddle horse suffers for you lack of attention to them.
This is where a good horse learns the job. When a horse knows what is going on, they can also learn to know what is expected of them. Some people call this “filling in”, where the horse knows what he has to do and just gets it done with or without our help. You see this all the time among eventers, jumpers, roping horses, milk delivery cart horses, working cow horses, etc. It’s this ability that allows me to do what I need even though my reins and my legs might be getting in the way. He knows what I need and will get it done in spite of me. Satts was going to prove to be great at this without taking over and ignoring when I really needed him to listen. But that’s for later. Right now he needed more experience.
That experience was going to be my older and tougher horse, LJ. As I have described before, LJ was the herd boss. He was tough, but not mean. Chops did the entire running around keeping the herd manageable. LJ rarely lifted a hoof because he didn’t need to. But when he did speak the ground shook, thunder clapped and the skies turned dark. This was not to say that LJ was a difficult horse to handle or ride. He was great and I knew that with my help, Satts was ready for him. But he was a strong minded and determined horse. When he had a thought, it was difficult to convince him that there were better options or even other options.
I began with flag work again. It proved to be really easy and comfortable for Satts, which was the idea. LJ knew how to yield to the pressure of the flag and was not at all intimidated by Satts. But the work on the lead rope was a little more challenging. While LJ was good with following the feel of the lead rope, he was less than forgiving of the big grey gelding moving into his space. This was a new experience for LJ and he felt it needed sorting out. I had to remind him a few times with the feel of the lead rope that his priority was to give to it and not be concerned with anything going on with Satts. Likewise, Satts needed to be reminded several times that when I picked up a rein or applied a leg aid, it had importance and he needed to listen to it rather than be anxious about LJ’s threats. Once I even had to let the lead rope drop to the ground in order to firm up on Satts listening to my leg. I spent nearly a minute reminding him what the leg aid meant. When the discussion was over, I trotted over to LJ, leant down and collected the lead rope and tried again. Satts’ response was much better.
The real test came a little later when I set it up so that LJ was standing ninety degrees to us. I asked Satts to walk into LJ’s hindquarters. I wanted him to push on the horse and knock him off balance. I had enough feel on the lead rope that if LJ felt the need to defend himself against Satts I could interrupt up with a swift bump down the line. It is important that a working horse learn to bump against another horse when it is required. Some horses will plant their feet and not budge when they are either confused or overly stressed. If that happens sometimes you want your saddle horse to be able to push against them to break the idea of freezing up. It’s a big ask for a horse that is either new to the game or lacks confidence. So you can imagine my excitement when Satts used his chest to bump into LJ’s flank and throw him off balance. Initially there was some hesitation by Satts to step into LJ on a collision course. He held back against my leg, as if to ask was I sure? But with some minor reassurance and a little more insistence, Satts nudged LJ like a bumper car. I think Satts was just as surprised as LJ when LJ lost his balance and swung his hindquarters out the way. It proved to be a very big moment for Satts because it gave him the confidence to soon try offering most things I asked with little or no hesitation.
I repeated the exercise several times from either side and I could feel the confidence in Satts growing. Soon I even had LJ on the lariat and was allowing the rope to wrap around Satts’ rear end and legs. Satts initially jumped around to find a way out of the tangled mess, which was a good way to remind me of the athleticism of the horse. But his mind was so settled that he was soon able to think his way out of the tangles. When LJ ran behind Satts and the rope tightened around his tail, Satts learned to step his hindquarters in the direction of LJ and release himself from the pressure. This was one smart horse. The level of cool-headedness that he revealed gave me the confidence that Satts could be the best working horse I had ever seen.
I was later proved right. About a year later I was sent a big Clydesdale/thoroughbred cross mare that was very difficult to lead. She had a penchant for running off whenever she felt she had had enough. It was a trick that she learned well because nobody could hold her and she was constantly rewarded in her flight response. Dozens of rope burns had taught the owner to drop the leap rope the instant she felt the mare get ready to leave. This taught the mare it was okay to pull away for the most trivial of concerns.
The mare weighed about 150+ kg more than Satts, but I figured if I handled the rope right he could handle her. I knew I would need my longest rope, so reluctantly I threw the loop of my sixty-foot lariat over the mare’s head. She immediately took off before I could dally the lariat to the horn of my saddle. It swizzed through my hand and I felt the burning by the time I got a couple of wraps around the horn. The mare had travelled about twenty-five feet and pulled up with a jerk that caused Satts to buckle at the knees and stumble forward. The mare hit so hard that it was only by the grace of a sturdy rear cinch that I didn’t get catapulted out of the saddle.
The mare stood looking at us with a confused expression. She must have wondered how we stopped her from so far away. I side passed Satts towards her and coiled my rope as we approached. I was hoping to get a hand on her neck, but by the time we got within twelve feet she took off straight again. I turned Satts ninety degrees and dallied my rope at the same time. This time I managed to slide my rope a little so that she didn’t hit the end like a wall. This was kinder on her and on Satts. Nevertheless, Satts still shuddered and lurched when the rope tightened. I’m sure she still didn’t know what stopped her.
I repeated the process of approaching her and then dallying my rope to the saddle horn when she left in a hurry. By about the sixth or seventh time, I felt Satts brace himself for the inevitable crunch that was to come when the mare hit the end of the rope. He would lower himself and spread his legs slightly, like he was hunkering down. I can only sympathize at the dread he must have felt every time he saw that mare ran off. But by about the fifteenth time the mare began to slow down. She still left in a hurry, but the urgency of her flight response was beginning to diminish. This gave me hope that the mare was starting to make a change just at the time when I began to think she would never get it. I think it was somewhere between number twenty five and thirty of her leaving that for the very first time she stopped her feet before the rope became tight. She felt the slack being taken out and she stopped running. It took a few more sessions before the mare was reliable to lead and didn’t try to bolt away anymore. But my biggest concern was Satts, not the mare.
Satts had taken a beating. The next day his wither was swollen and bruised. It was hot and tender to touch. I gave him nearly three weeks rest before saddling him again. And I didn’t have him work another horse for more than two months. But the episode with the mare proved to me what a great horse he was. Nobody could have blamed him if he had quit in the middle of working the mare. He was working far outside his weight class with a mare than would not give up. His body and his mind were being pummelled, yet he gave no sign of objecting. In my book he was a very special horse.
Nevertheless, I managed to squeeze twenty minutes or so after work with the horses over the next several days. I repeated the flagging work with Satts and Chops. Each day Satts gained in confidence and I even think he quite liked having the roles reversed where now Chops had to get out of his way.
I decided Satts was ready to begin training for working close in with Chops. This meant having Chops on the end of the lead rope and using Satts to help direct her. It’s not just a matter of leading her around from Satts – although that’s part of it. But more important than that is being able to direct her shoulders and her hindquarters in any way I choose. Stepping her back, bringing her forward, getting a lateral bend, side passing, changing direction, lunging etc are all part of working close in with a horse. It’s no different than if I was working Chops while standing on my own two feet, but in this case Satts’ feet are doing the job of my feet.
This part of a working horse’s job is the hardest because it requires them to be at their most confident and most attentive to the job. Sometimes you need them to be so subtle that a just a shift of weight will get the job done and other times you need them to get in the middle and create a dust storm. Your horse has to be ready and willing for those things at a moments notice. A saddle horse also needs to be brave because they are almost always within striking range of a client’s horse when working in close. They can get bitten, bumped off balance, stood on, kicked and climbed upon by a client’s horse. Just two years ago my own horse, Riley had a splint bone fractured by a client’s horse. A friend of mine has had a client’s horse try to climb over the top of his workhorse and into the saddle. It takes guts and confidence for your working horse to tolerate those kinds of antics and still be trying to get on with the job. I was sure Satts had the potential to be one of the best.
Giving Satts the experience of working in close with another horse was made really easy by Chops. She was already very good on the lead rope and not bothered by being close enough to rub the hair off Satts. But Satts still had his doubts. Every time I asked Satts to walk into Chops to move her away, his feet became a little more stuck and ears flattened. He was not sure this was a good idea. He had learned it was okay to move into her from a distance because the flag was always there to make sure Chops got out of the way. But it was a different story when she was so close that she could turn her tail and kick him. I figured that all he needed was more confidence and I did all that I could to help. When I asked Satts to move into Chops’ hindquarters, I put a good feel in the lead rope to let her know she needed to disengage her hind end. Just as Satts took a tentative step towards Chops, her hind end yielded away from him. I stopped Satts and scratched under his neck. I repeated the exercise again and again. I don’t know if Satts knew I was helping with the lead rope, but soon he was boldly pushing on Chops without holding back.
It went even smoother when we worked onto moving her shoulders across. Again I did my best to assist and it only took half the time for Satts to feel confident that he could drive Chops’ front away. I was soon having Satts help me direct Chops from a forehand yield to a hindquarter yield and another forehand yield without pause. Once he realized he was not going to get nailed by Chops he seemed to relish the job. Over the next few days, Satts was learning how to be a real help to me. I was soon able to side pass Satts into Chops and push her away. Chops could lunge around us and Satts stand there like the centre upright of a maypole.
For me, one of the hardest things about training a horse to work other horses is to keep my riding horse soft and responsive. It is the nature of having one horse under you and another on the end of a lead rope or lariat that causes you to divide your attention. This is especially true during times when there is a lot of activity in the arena. It is easy to be oblivious to the feel of your reins when you have another horse pulling the lariat out of your hand or to forget to take your legs off your horse when the other horse is on two legs. These are things that you might never do if it was just you and your riding horse. But with another horse in the mix that’s acting like it is the end of the world, sometimes your saddle horse suffers for you lack of attention to them.
This is where a good horse learns the job. When a horse knows what is going on, they can also learn to know what is expected of them. Some people call this “filling in”, where the horse knows what he has to do and just gets it done with or without our help. You see this all the time among eventers, jumpers, roping horses, milk delivery cart horses, working cow horses, etc. It’s this ability that allows me to do what I need even though my reins and my legs might be getting in the way. He knows what I need and will get it done in spite of me. Satts was going to prove to be great at this without taking over and ignoring when I really needed him to listen. But that’s for later. Right now he needed more experience.
That experience was going to be my older and tougher horse, LJ. As I have described before, LJ was the herd boss. He was tough, but not mean. Chops did the entire running around keeping the herd manageable. LJ rarely lifted a hoof because he didn’t need to. But when he did speak the ground shook, thunder clapped and the skies turned dark. This was not to say that LJ was a difficult horse to handle or ride. He was great and I knew that with my help, Satts was ready for him. But he was a strong minded and determined horse. When he had a thought, it was difficult to convince him that there were better options or even other options.
I began with flag work again. It proved to be really easy and comfortable for Satts, which was the idea. LJ knew how to yield to the pressure of the flag and was not at all intimidated by Satts. But the work on the lead rope was a little more challenging. While LJ was good with following the feel of the lead rope, he was less than forgiving of the big grey gelding moving into his space. This was a new experience for LJ and he felt it needed sorting out. I had to remind him a few times with the feel of the lead rope that his priority was to give to it and not be concerned with anything going on with Satts. Likewise, Satts needed to be reminded several times that when I picked up a rein or applied a leg aid, it had importance and he needed to listen to it rather than be anxious about LJ’s threats. Once I even had to let the lead rope drop to the ground in order to firm up on Satts listening to my leg. I spent nearly a minute reminding him what the leg aid meant. When the discussion was over, I trotted over to LJ, leant down and collected the lead rope and tried again. Satts’ response was much better.
The real test came a little later when I set it up so that LJ was standing ninety degrees to us. I asked Satts to walk into LJ’s hindquarters. I wanted him to push on the horse and knock him off balance. I had enough feel on the lead rope that if LJ felt the need to defend himself against Satts I could interrupt up with a swift bump down the line. It is important that a working horse learn to bump against another horse when it is required. Some horses will plant their feet and not budge when they are either confused or overly stressed. If that happens sometimes you want your saddle horse to be able to push against them to break the idea of freezing up. It’s a big ask for a horse that is either new to the game or lacks confidence. So you can imagine my excitement when Satts used his chest to bump into LJ’s flank and throw him off balance. Initially there was some hesitation by Satts to step into LJ on a collision course. He held back against my leg, as if to ask was I sure? But with some minor reassurance and a little more insistence, Satts nudged LJ like a bumper car. I think Satts was just as surprised as LJ when LJ lost his balance and swung his hindquarters out the way. It proved to be a very big moment for Satts because it gave him the confidence to soon try offering most things I asked with little or no hesitation.
I repeated the exercise several times from either side and I could feel the confidence in Satts growing. Soon I even had LJ on the lariat and was allowing the rope to wrap around Satts’ rear end and legs. Satts initially jumped around to find a way out of the tangled mess, which was a good way to remind me of the athleticism of the horse. But his mind was so settled that he was soon able to think his way out of the tangles. When LJ ran behind Satts and the rope tightened around his tail, Satts learned to step his hindquarters in the direction of LJ and release himself from the pressure. This was one smart horse. The level of cool-headedness that he revealed gave me the confidence that Satts could be the best working horse I had ever seen.
I was later proved right. About a year later I was sent a big Clydesdale/thoroughbred cross mare that was very difficult to lead. She had a penchant for running off whenever she felt she had had enough. It was a trick that she learned well because nobody could hold her and she was constantly rewarded in her flight response. Dozens of rope burns had taught the owner to drop the leap rope the instant she felt the mare get ready to leave. This taught the mare it was okay to pull away for the most trivial of concerns.
The mare weighed about 150+ kg more than Satts, but I figured if I handled the rope right he could handle her. I knew I would need my longest rope, so reluctantly I threw the loop of my sixty-foot lariat over the mare’s head. She immediately took off before I could dally the lariat to the horn of my saddle. It swizzed through my hand and I felt the burning by the time I got a couple of wraps around the horn. The mare had travelled about twenty-five feet and pulled up with a jerk that caused Satts to buckle at the knees and stumble forward. The mare hit so hard that it was only by the grace of a sturdy rear cinch that I didn’t get catapulted out of the saddle.
The mare stood looking at us with a confused expression. She must have wondered how we stopped her from so far away. I side passed Satts towards her and coiled my rope as we approached. I was hoping to get a hand on her neck, but by the time we got within twelve feet she took off straight again. I turned Satts ninety degrees and dallied my rope at the same time. This time I managed to slide my rope a little so that she didn’t hit the end like a wall. This was kinder on her and on Satts. Nevertheless, Satts still shuddered and lurched when the rope tightened. I’m sure she still didn’t know what stopped her.
I repeated the process of approaching her and then dallying my rope to the saddle horn when she left in a hurry. By about the sixth or seventh time, I felt Satts brace himself for the inevitable crunch that was to come when the mare hit the end of the rope. He would lower himself and spread his legs slightly, like he was hunkering down. I can only sympathize at the dread he must have felt every time he saw that mare ran off. But by about the fifteenth time the mare began to slow down. She still left in a hurry, but the urgency of her flight response was beginning to diminish. This gave me hope that the mare was starting to make a change just at the time when I began to think she would never get it. I think it was somewhere between number twenty five and thirty of her leaving that for the very first time she stopped her feet before the rope became tight. She felt the slack being taken out and she stopped running. It took a few more sessions before the mare was reliable to lead and didn’t try to bolt away anymore. But my biggest concern was Satts, not the mare.
Satts had taken a beating. The next day his wither was swollen and bruised. It was hot and tender to touch. I gave him nearly three weeks rest before saddling him again. And I didn’t have him work another horse for more than two months. But the episode with the mare proved to me what a great horse he was. Nobody could have blamed him if he had quit in the middle of working the mare. He was working far outside his weight class with a mare than would not give up. His body and his mind were being pummelled, yet he gave no sign of objecting. In my book he was a very special horse.
Soon after the few sessions of Satts working with LJ a new horse arrived on the property. It was a 13-hand pony Highland cross that my landlord had purchased for his daughter to learn to ride. It was a classic Thelwell pony – huge barrel of a body on stubby little legs, an overgrown mane that needed tending with a hedge trimmer and a head that was two sizes too small for its body. Its name was Basil, which says it all in my book.
Basil had been owned and ridden by a teenage girl at the monthly pony club rallies. The girl had recently had an excess production of growth hormone and mum decided it was time for her to upgrade to 15.3 hand Thoroughbred mare. So Basil had to go.
My landlord asked me to put a little time into the pony before his daughter rode because he had been left to rot in a paddock for the previous six months. I saw this as an opportunity to once again give Satts more practice at working other horses. I really enjoyed riding Satts when I was training horses, so working the pony was an excuse to have some fun.
Basil gave Satts plenty of practice of working with spoiled ponies that didn’t want to move and that sometimes let you know what they thought of you with their threatening gestures. At one point Satts was nailed by Basil in his flank. There was no harm done, but it shocked both Satts and I. He certainly was a brat of a pony who had been spoiled into believing his manure had no odour. But I was grateful for being able to give Satts the experience. After a few sessions I told my landlord that he should send the pony back because he was unsuitable for his daughter whose entire life experience amounted to no more than thirty or so rides.
Progress with Satts was interrupted for nearly two months after this. I was booked to speak at a conference in the USA and then spend six weeks at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh doing some collaborative research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. I was looking forward to the trip. It was an opportunity to catch up with long time friends and also to get my hands on some rare cell lines that I had been wanting to culture in my own laboratory for the past three years. Nevertheless, it was a long time to be away and horseless.
I was fortunate that one of the girls in the lab was happy to housesit for me. She lived with her parents and was glad of the chance to move into my house and be on her own when I went on trips. I knew the dogs and the cats and the horses would be in good hands with Wendy.
After my return I was swamped with ‘catch-up’ jobs at the university. For two weeks my phone was constantly ringing, students and colleagues were line up in the corridor outside my door to talk to me about things they needed me to do or things I should have done before I went on my trip. Plus in my absence I had been volunteered to chair a PhD advisory committee in the department. Add to that was the pressure to analyze the enormous amount of data I collected in Scotland and have it ready for publication before the next grants were due for submission. In all it was probably another month of being back home before I had a chance to work with any of the horses.
On about the fourth Wednesday since being home I was in the operating theatre making small talk with the crew while catheterizing a fetal sheep. The surgical technician, Cheryl, asked, “Are you going to ride in Riding of The Bounds?”
“What’s that,” I asked?
“You know. It’s when everybody rides their horse around the outskirts of Berwick. They close off the streets to traffic and people ride around the northern boundary and through the main street. They do it every year.”
“I’ve never heard of it. That sounds like fun. How do I find out about it,” I asked?
“I’ll bring in a cut out from the newspaper tomorrow. It’s got all the details and contact. But be prepared ‘cause some of the people don’t have much control of their horses. It can get a bit out chaotic,” Cheryl said.
I checked the dates and rang the organizers. It seems it is a tradition that goes back to Berwick in Scotland of riding the boundary to watch for invasion by other tribes. Somebody obviously thought it was a good idea to bring the tradition to Berwick, Victoria because of he problems with have with invading tribes.
The ride was scheduled for the following weekend. I hadn’t had any time with the horses since going overseas. I guess I could take LJ because he was the quietest, but I worried about his knees on the hard bitumen roads. I decided that I’d ride Satts and bugger how he goes. If he plays up, so be it. It will be good experience for him. He hadn’t been in a big crowd since his racing days, but I was sure he wouldn’t be the worst behaved horse on the day.
I managed to get one ride on Satts before the big day at Berwick. He was okay, but he was not at his best. On the Saturday morning I loaded him into the trailer and trundled the 20 minutes into Berwick. The parking area was at Arkoonah Park and it was chockers with horses and floats.
I unloaded Satts and tied him to the side of the float while I checked in with the stewards and got my gear ready from the car. Satts was on edge. He leaked energy from every corner. He became pretty toey when a two-horse buggy went past. But I had never seen his eyes grow so large as they did at the sight on a mini horse pulling a sulky. There were people riding like the man from Snow River with stock whips in hand. There were three kids riding one pony. I saw horses of every size, colour and breed. I saw people in fancy dress from period to clown costumes. And there were loud hailers – boy those loud hailers were loud.
I figured it would be the smart thing to do to ready Satts with some groundwork before the ride began. I found a small space in which to work and as we worked the space grew much larger. In those days groundwork was almost unknown. It was considered that anything more than lunging a horse was wasted time on the ground. People would stop and watch what I was doing, but nobody asked. They would stare, whisper to their friends and then walk away. I did my best to ignore them and concentrate of tuning Satts up to be more attentive to me and less to the mini horses and the other 200 or so equines.
Satts surprised me how well he was doing. He had been out of work for almost three months and add to that the large number of horses and activity, I was expecting more of the ‘old’ Satts. It crossed my mind that maybe one ride every three months was enough work to get the best from him.
The steward asked everyone to gather to begin the ride. Satts and I were stuck somewhere in the middle of the crowd. There was considerable bustle around us and a couple of horses only a few yards away had decided to have a kicking competition. This created a big push outward and we were jostled along as others tried to stay clear of the kicking horses. The riders were also at loggerheads as they cursed at each other for not controlling their horses.
The leaders of the pack had already been moving for a few minutes before the wave reached us and we could begin our trek. I spied a buggy with one horse and two people off to our right and chose to head towards them. I wanted Satts to follow in behind the buggy to gain confidence that like the horses in the round yard, he could move these dangerous looking contraptions with his presence. At first he was not sure, but he relaxed considerable as he learned that the buggy kept moving out of his space.
People were lining the footpaths to wave at the riders. Every amateur photographer was out that day. I stopped while somebody took our picture and was bumped hard from behind by a horse jogging sideways. “Sorry” was the voice of the rider and she continued sideways up the street knocking other horses out of her path. It was like watching bumper cars at the carnival.
I was very pleased how relaxed Satts was walking. He was probably the most “together” horse on the ride. A young girl on a palomino rode up beside me.
“He’s beautiful,” she said. “What’s his name?”
“Thanks. He was named Satan, but I call him Satts. I like your pony too.”
“Can I pat him?”
“Sure.”
She leaned over and stroked the side of his neck and mane.
“Mum, look at this horse. This is the colour I want for my next horse,” the girl had turned and was speaking to an older lady behind us. I thought every girl grew up wanting a palomino and here I found the one girl with a palomino who wants a grey.
As the ride continued I noticed the throng of horses had thinned out. Several people had pulled out because their horses were too fractious during the ride to continue. It seemed that by the end of the two-hour ride there were two categories of horses. Ones that lost fifty kilograms in tension-induced sweat and ones that looked like they had spent the day with their feet up reading the newspaper. There were hardly any horses in between. I was proud of the fact that Satts was one of those that looked like he had an afternoon nap.
When everybody completed the ride there was a presentation in the car park. I decided not to hang around and get Satts home as soon as possible. As I was unsaddling and sorting out the gear several people stopped by and congratulated me on what a nice horse Satts was and how calm and he had been. I exchanged small talk and thanked them as I packed the car.
All was ready for the trip home. I led Satts around to the back of the float and asked him to walk up the ramp. He hesitated and took a step back. I repeated my request and again he stepped back. What the hell was this about? He never baulked at loading. I slapped my chaps with the end of the lead rope and put a feel in the rope to indicate for him to go forward. He hesitated again, then stepped a front foot on the ramp. The moment he heard the sound of his hoof on the wood, he jumped in the air and leaped backwards. The folks who had congratulated me on how well Satts had done were watching. I tried to smile but under my breath I was saying “c’mon you bastard – don’t do this to me now!” I turned to the people and said, “He obviously had a good time and doesn’t want to go home – haha.”
I took a firm hold of the lead rope for Satts to come straight ahead towards me. He leaned back against the pressure and I slapped my chaps again and again, waiting for him to stopping leaning back. At first he pulled even harder, but I persisted with whacking my leg until he made a half-hearted attempt to come forward. We rested and I stroked his neck. I led him up to the base of the ramp and then stepped out in front facing him. I urged him forward towards me as I walked backwards up the ramp. He again hesitated, but I held firm. I sensed he was worried about going under the roof, so I put a downward pressure on the rope to encourage him to lower his head. When he gave to the feel of the rope, he was able to take a couple of steps forward. I stopped him and stroked his neck again. Then I backed him out.
“D’ya want a hand mate,” a voice from the small crowd boomed? “Ya don’t want to let him out. He needs to go all the way in and ya don’t let him out til he does otherwise he thinks he’s won.”
“Thanks anyway, but I’ll be right,” I said.
“Here mate, I’ll herd him up from behind and get him loaded for ya.” As the words came out of his mouth he charged towards Satts flapping his arms, clapping his hands and yelling ”here ya, here ya.”
I immediately went into protector mode.
“Look thanks mate, but I’ll do it my way. Don’t be coming up behind him scaring him. Leave it to me, thanks.”
The fellow turned with a shrug and I heard him say to the others as he walked away, “bloody mug.”
I again asked Satts to lower his head and walk up the ramp. As he approached the edge of the roof he tried to raise his neck and stopped. I blocked his head from going higher and directed him forward. After a moment of indecision he walked all the way to the front where he discovered a net of lucerne hay waiting for him. This was enough for him to forget about me as I walked out and locked the ramp shut. The drive home was uneventful even though it took about twenty minutes to crawl through the traffic jam of the car park.
During the trip home I was mad at myself for not thinking about Satts and the height of the float. I always knew from day one that the float was too small for Satts. But he had learned to load and travel so well that I figured we were getting away with it. But clearly I was only getting by due to Satts’ good nature. He showed today that he was not happy about the smallness of the float and he had come to the end of his patience with it. Enough was enough were his thoughts.
Satts had been going so well since coming back from racing that I felt a lot of pride in the work I had done. He had done everything I asked and always had a “try”. In my mind The Riding of the Bounds in Berwick had confirmed to me what a great horse he was and what a good job I had done with his training. But the floating loading episode had reminded me I was a bloody idiot who didn’t know nearly as much as I thought I did about horses. It is a story that has repeated itself over and over in my life. When things are going well with the horses I start to believe I know what I’m doing, then something always happens that reminds me that I’m an idiot who doesn’t have a clue.
Basil had been owned and ridden by a teenage girl at the monthly pony club rallies. The girl had recently had an excess production of growth hormone and mum decided it was time for her to upgrade to 15.3 hand Thoroughbred mare. So Basil had to go.
My landlord asked me to put a little time into the pony before his daughter rode because he had been left to rot in a paddock for the previous six months. I saw this as an opportunity to once again give Satts more practice at working other horses. I really enjoyed riding Satts when I was training horses, so working the pony was an excuse to have some fun.
Basil gave Satts plenty of practice of working with spoiled ponies that didn’t want to move and that sometimes let you know what they thought of you with their threatening gestures. At one point Satts was nailed by Basil in his flank. There was no harm done, but it shocked both Satts and I. He certainly was a brat of a pony who had been spoiled into believing his manure had no odour. But I was grateful for being able to give Satts the experience. After a few sessions I told my landlord that he should send the pony back because he was unsuitable for his daughter whose entire life experience amounted to no more than thirty or so rides.
Progress with Satts was interrupted for nearly two months after this. I was booked to speak at a conference in the USA and then spend six weeks at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh doing some collaborative research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. I was looking forward to the trip. It was an opportunity to catch up with long time friends and also to get my hands on some rare cell lines that I had been wanting to culture in my own laboratory for the past three years. Nevertheless, it was a long time to be away and horseless.
I was fortunate that one of the girls in the lab was happy to housesit for me. She lived with her parents and was glad of the chance to move into my house and be on her own when I went on trips. I knew the dogs and the cats and the horses would be in good hands with Wendy.
After my return I was swamped with ‘catch-up’ jobs at the university. For two weeks my phone was constantly ringing, students and colleagues were line up in the corridor outside my door to talk to me about things they needed me to do or things I should have done before I went on my trip. Plus in my absence I had been volunteered to chair a PhD advisory committee in the department. Add to that was the pressure to analyze the enormous amount of data I collected in Scotland and have it ready for publication before the next grants were due for submission. In all it was probably another month of being back home before I had a chance to work with any of the horses.
On about the fourth Wednesday since being home I was in the operating theatre making small talk with the crew while catheterizing a fetal sheep. The surgical technician, Cheryl, asked, “Are you going to ride in Riding of The Bounds?”
“What’s that,” I asked?
“You know. It’s when everybody rides their horse around the outskirts of Berwick. They close off the streets to traffic and people ride around the northern boundary and through the main street. They do it every year.”
“I’ve never heard of it. That sounds like fun. How do I find out about it,” I asked?
“I’ll bring in a cut out from the newspaper tomorrow. It’s got all the details and contact. But be prepared ‘cause some of the people don’t have much control of their horses. It can get a bit out chaotic,” Cheryl said.
I checked the dates and rang the organizers. It seems it is a tradition that goes back to Berwick in Scotland of riding the boundary to watch for invasion by other tribes. Somebody obviously thought it was a good idea to bring the tradition to Berwick, Victoria because of he problems with have with invading tribes.
The ride was scheduled for the following weekend. I hadn’t had any time with the horses since going overseas. I guess I could take LJ because he was the quietest, but I worried about his knees on the hard bitumen roads. I decided that I’d ride Satts and bugger how he goes. If he plays up, so be it. It will be good experience for him. He hadn’t been in a big crowd since his racing days, but I was sure he wouldn’t be the worst behaved horse on the day.
I managed to get one ride on Satts before the big day at Berwick. He was okay, but he was not at his best. On the Saturday morning I loaded him into the trailer and trundled the 20 minutes into Berwick. The parking area was at Arkoonah Park and it was chockers with horses and floats.
I unloaded Satts and tied him to the side of the float while I checked in with the stewards and got my gear ready from the car. Satts was on edge. He leaked energy from every corner. He became pretty toey when a two-horse buggy went past. But I had never seen his eyes grow so large as they did at the sight on a mini horse pulling a sulky. There were people riding like the man from Snow River with stock whips in hand. There were three kids riding one pony. I saw horses of every size, colour and breed. I saw people in fancy dress from period to clown costumes. And there were loud hailers – boy those loud hailers were loud.
I figured it would be the smart thing to do to ready Satts with some groundwork before the ride began. I found a small space in which to work and as we worked the space grew much larger. In those days groundwork was almost unknown. It was considered that anything more than lunging a horse was wasted time on the ground. People would stop and watch what I was doing, but nobody asked. They would stare, whisper to their friends and then walk away. I did my best to ignore them and concentrate of tuning Satts up to be more attentive to me and less to the mini horses and the other 200 or so equines.
Satts surprised me how well he was doing. He had been out of work for almost three months and add to that the large number of horses and activity, I was expecting more of the ‘old’ Satts. It crossed my mind that maybe one ride every three months was enough work to get the best from him.
The steward asked everyone to gather to begin the ride. Satts and I were stuck somewhere in the middle of the crowd. There was considerable bustle around us and a couple of horses only a few yards away had decided to have a kicking competition. This created a big push outward and we were jostled along as others tried to stay clear of the kicking horses. The riders were also at loggerheads as they cursed at each other for not controlling their horses.
The leaders of the pack had already been moving for a few minutes before the wave reached us and we could begin our trek. I spied a buggy with one horse and two people off to our right and chose to head towards them. I wanted Satts to follow in behind the buggy to gain confidence that like the horses in the round yard, he could move these dangerous looking contraptions with his presence. At first he was not sure, but he relaxed considerable as he learned that the buggy kept moving out of his space.
People were lining the footpaths to wave at the riders. Every amateur photographer was out that day. I stopped while somebody took our picture and was bumped hard from behind by a horse jogging sideways. “Sorry” was the voice of the rider and she continued sideways up the street knocking other horses out of her path. It was like watching bumper cars at the carnival.
I was very pleased how relaxed Satts was walking. He was probably the most “together” horse on the ride. A young girl on a palomino rode up beside me.
“He’s beautiful,” she said. “What’s his name?”
“Thanks. He was named Satan, but I call him Satts. I like your pony too.”
“Can I pat him?”
“Sure.”
She leaned over and stroked the side of his neck and mane.
“Mum, look at this horse. This is the colour I want for my next horse,” the girl had turned and was speaking to an older lady behind us. I thought every girl grew up wanting a palomino and here I found the one girl with a palomino who wants a grey.
As the ride continued I noticed the throng of horses had thinned out. Several people had pulled out because their horses were too fractious during the ride to continue. It seemed that by the end of the two-hour ride there were two categories of horses. Ones that lost fifty kilograms in tension-induced sweat and ones that looked like they had spent the day with their feet up reading the newspaper. There were hardly any horses in between. I was proud of the fact that Satts was one of those that looked like he had an afternoon nap.
When everybody completed the ride there was a presentation in the car park. I decided not to hang around and get Satts home as soon as possible. As I was unsaddling and sorting out the gear several people stopped by and congratulated me on what a nice horse Satts was and how calm and he had been. I exchanged small talk and thanked them as I packed the car.
All was ready for the trip home. I led Satts around to the back of the float and asked him to walk up the ramp. He hesitated and took a step back. I repeated my request and again he stepped back. What the hell was this about? He never baulked at loading. I slapped my chaps with the end of the lead rope and put a feel in the rope to indicate for him to go forward. He hesitated again, then stepped a front foot on the ramp. The moment he heard the sound of his hoof on the wood, he jumped in the air and leaped backwards. The folks who had congratulated me on how well Satts had done were watching. I tried to smile but under my breath I was saying “c’mon you bastard – don’t do this to me now!” I turned to the people and said, “He obviously had a good time and doesn’t want to go home – haha.”
I took a firm hold of the lead rope for Satts to come straight ahead towards me. He leaned back against the pressure and I slapped my chaps again and again, waiting for him to stopping leaning back. At first he pulled even harder, but I persisted with whacking my leg until he made a half-hearted attempt to come forward. We rested and I stroked his neck. I led him up to the base of the ramp and then stepped out in front facing him. I urged him forward towards me as I walked backwards up the ramp. He again hesitated, but I held firm. I sensed he was worried about going under the roof, so I put a downward pressure on the rope to encourage him to lower his head. When he gave to the feel of the rope, he was able to take a couple of steps forward. I stopped him and stroked his neck again. Then I backed him out.
“D’ya want a hand mate,” a voice from the small crowd boomed? “Ya don’t want to let him out. He needs to go all the way in and ya don’t let him out til he does otherwise he thinks he’s won.”
“Thanks anyway, but I’ll be right,” I said.
“Here mate, I’ll herd him up from behind and get him loaded for ya.” As the words came out of his mouth he charged towards Satts flapping his arms, clapping his hands and yelling ”here ya, here ya.”
I immediately went into protector mode.
“Look thanks mate, but I’ll do it my way. Don’t be coming up behind him scaring him. Leave it to me, thanks.”
The fellow turned with a shrug and I heard him say to the others as he walked away, “bloody mug.”
I again asked Satts to lower his head and walk up the ramp. As he approached the edge of the roof he tried to raise his neck and stopped. I blocked his head from going higher and directed him forward. After a moment of indecision he walked all the way to the front where he discovered a net of lucerne hay waiting for him. This was enough for him to forget about me as I walked out and locked the ramp shut. The drive home was uneventful even though it took about twenty minutes to crawl through the traffic jam of the car park.
During the trip home I was mad at myself for not thinking about Satts and the height of the float. I always knew from day one that the float was too small for Satts. But he had learned to load and travel so well that I figured we were getting away with it. But clearly I was only getting by due to Satts’ good nature. He showed today that he was not happy about the smallness of the float and he had come to the end of his patience with it. Enough was enough were his thoughts.
Satts had been going so well since coming back from racing that I felt a lot of pride in the work I had done. He had done everything I asked and always had a “try”. In my mind The Riding of the Bounds in Berwick had confirmed to me what a great horse he was and what a good job I had done with his training. But the floating loading episode had reminded me I was a bloody idiot who didn’t know nearly as much as I thought I did about horses. It is a story that has repeated itself over and over in my life. When things are going well with the horses I start to believe I know what I’m doing, then something always happens that reminds me that I’m an idiot who doesn’t have a clue.