Riding Them

The Bully Chase

Paloma

SHE'S NOT JUST A HORSE, SHE'S PALOMA

I was working with Paloma, a spirited 7 year-old Quarter Horse mare, and I was amazed at how smart and willing she was if I just respected her freedom to choose.

Paloma's "join up" or "hook on" was solid. Mary, her owner and I, never used a halter when working with her. The horse stood right with us, walked when we did, jogged when we did, stopped when we did, and stood still when told to, no matter how far away we went from her. And when we called, she came trotting.

And above all, she felt safe.

It took some time to achieve this in the beginning, but all in all, it came about pretty quickly. We worked with her in the round pen using our vocal cues and body language and never resorted to putting a halter on her with a lead rope to make her do what we were asking. We would just ask her, making sure she knew clearly what we wanted, leaving her the freedom to say yes or no. If she didn't want to do something we were asking of her, we wanted to know. Mary was much the same horseperson as I was, and it was important that we have Paloma hanging out with us and doing what we asked because she wanted to.

Because she chose to.

If she didn't want to do something, we would be ready for it. Our simple philosophy was to always find a way for Paloma to say "yes". Like I said, Paloma was spirited, and as Paloma progressed into more advanced levels of training, whether it was in groundwork or in riding, she would sometimes rebel a little. All we would do is retreat back to something she could do well and, more importantly, something she was happy to do well, which would keep our relationship with her solid and keep us all on the same team. Through patience and consistency we would then work our way up again and make it to new levels. We weren't forcing her to stop being spirited, we were showing her how to control it.

This way, Mary and I were always the leaders, Paloma was the follower, we always had her saying "yes", and we were always having fun. After a while a rhythm developed through patience and consistency, and this then led to the two most important points of all between horse and human-safety and trust. This won over Paloma, and her world opened up more and more with every training session.

Because who doesn't want safety and trust?

It reminded me of the time I realized sometimes horses want to get to the same place we want to go.

I was 28 and working as a cowboy at the Rancho de la Osa in Arizona, a mile away from the Mexican border in the Sonora Desert. It was early one morning and I was about eight miles out from the ranch looking for a group of horses we had turned out about a month earlier. We had almost fifty head at the ranch and we were constantly turning them out onto the desert to graze for a while. At times we had ten out, sometimes as many as forty.

I looked down from the saddle to one side and the other studying the ground for signs of their passing. Nothing new. Just old, dried up tracks. I looked into the surrounding trees and the old mesquite blankly stared back at me with the weighty all-knowing silence of the desert. A few beams of morning sunlight penetrated through the tree limb roof, like frozen spotlights content with what they were shining on, and as I rode through them their touch of warmth was comforting.

Further along I saw some other tracks. I got down off of Alto and touched the dirt. It was cool and fresh, and darker in color than the topsoil. The sun had not yet cooked this newly upturned dirt.

Alto's eyes were calm and contently interested. He knew this job. I took his bridle off and started walking and he followed and together we walked out of the trees and made our way up a small, grassy hill. My spurs making the only sound in the land as they politely jingled with each step.

From the top of the hill we watched them as they grazed. It was always a delight to see. They watched us as well, picking up their heads in our direction every now and then as they enjoyed the day. Alto stood over my shoulder. His chestnut coat had turned fuzzy at the onset of colder weather, causing the white blaze running down from his forehead to his nose to look more prominent, like a warm cap perfectly fit.

Either through ground training or riding I had worked with most of them. Now they were free horses grazing in the fresh yellow grass with the mountains set behind them and the air calm and cool as if the moment was painted onto the landscape.

I took a deep breath and let it out easy. This sight was a living art.

I smiled as I went to put Alto's bridle back on.

"Alright, my man. Let's get these big puppies home."

The mesquite trees were nothing but blurred jagged shapes as we flew by them. I ducked to one side and then the other as branches narrowly missed taking my head off. Cuts and scratches from inch long mesquite tree thorns started accumulating on my hands, on my cheeks, on any exposed skin. Suddenly there was an arroyo. Without thinking I shifted my weight forward and Alto gathered himself under me and we went airborne and a silence came over the world as we glided over the ditch.

In front of us ran four horses I could see. The dust erupting from under their pounding hooves suffocated the air. I would catch glimpses of the others up ahead but like ghosts they were only half there, half materialized in the swirling cloud of dust, there then gone then back again. It was a land of split second decisions as we cut hard through the trees to stay right with them. Their shapes faded more and more into the dust though. Without me there to herd them and point them in the direction I wanted who knows where they were going. I was afraid I was going to lose these horses.

The trees then gave way and Alto and I came galloping out into the grassy flats. The air settled and there we were running with the eight horses in the clear open right toward the ranch, moving in swift unison, all turning together as if working under one mind, hooves pounding the desert floor like thundering war drums, manes and tails streaming behind like flags.

I let out a joyous yell. A yell like Cody, the head cowboy, made my first ride out with him and we brought in a band of horses. It's dang fun bein' a cowboy, ain't it! He yelled. Can you believe we get paid for this! Joy shining in his face.

The wild horse in them had been reawakened. There was nothing like a good run. They were delighted and proud in the graceful movement of their bodies as they stretched over the raw desert land. Even with me on his back Alto moved just as effortlessly, never missing a step. His heart was as big as the world and he gave it all. I was happy in the feeling he seemed to love this work, like he would be doing it without me, walking the land, sniffing tracks, looking for horses to bring home.

It was then I realized all the horses here knew this routine, and they were all choosing to follow it. Alto knew we were out looking for horses and the horses on the range knew I had come to lead them back home. And in all the running, they were just being horses. Even more than that-they were being themselves.

Pretty soon we settled down into a relaxed walk and with the excitement over I reached down and patted Alto on his neck. His left eye shifted back to look at me and there it was-that feeling I would get with a horse. Something simple, something right, that was all I knew. I took my chocolate brown Stetson off, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and I looked up into the deep blue Arizona sky. Over the tops of the mountains an orange glow was gaining strength. The blood-red Arizona sunset in the making.

Everything under the sky was content and the horses were soft. Hard work in the past had paid off. It was all as beautiful as I had ever known anything to be and as we walked through the tall grass I smiled at how easy it seemed that day for life to be good.

Horses are pretty big and we're pretty small, so we need to take the time to make sure our relationship with them is as safe as possible. It's such a fun thing-to have a relationship with a horse-and we don't want to be worrying about getting hurt all the time. But so much of what we do, particularly when we get impatient or frustrated, takes away from their freedom as a horse and who they are as a horse and that's when the accidents happen. Rather than putting in the time to build a solid relationship with a horse based on who they are and their rate of progression we just force them into what we want them to be.

We should have just as much fun with our horses when we are on the ground with them as we do when riding them. When we do, then riding can be as easy and fun as hanging out with them in the pasture, and hanging out with them in their pasture can be as fun as any gallop through a desert.

The more I trust a horse and the more it trusts me the less I see a halter on them, the less I have to control them, the more I let them make the decision, and the more they make the right and safe decisions on their own. A horse loves a good human leader and we love a good horse follower, and we need it to be that way to keep it all safe. It's like this great and wonderful snow-balling affect that all starts with respecting them as an individual, just as you would a person.

Galloping on a horse because you make it do it.

Or galloping on a horse because it loves doing it with you.

All I know is whenever I galloped with Alto, even though I couldn't see his mouth, it always felt like that horse was grinning from ear to ear.