This is a chapter from my book, Old Men and Horses. The books (Old Men and Horses, and Changing The Tide) contain a series of short stories about my path to horsemanship under the guidance of two old men who were twin brothers, Walt and Amos.
If you need to get your horse home from a show and it won’t load into the trailer and you are running out of daylight, sometimes things don’t go according to the horse’s preferences.
There is a lot of discussion and lecturing about the use of energy when working with horses. Energy is certainly a factor in being an effective rider. But energy in itself does not tell a horse what to do or how to do it.
Many years ago, a friend asked me to start a pony that was to eventually be ridden by her five-year-old daughter. The pony was a very sweet and smart six-year-old, eleven-hand gelding – as cute a pony as you could ever wish to own.
But, she is not like a Ferrari. She isn’t super sensitive. She isn’t lazy. She isn’t spooky or rushy or dull. She can be all those things, but they are not who she is. They are who I made her through my training and our shared experiences together.
