Holes and Strengths

Remembering back to my first few weeks working at Atwood Ranch I identified an interesting Hole/Strength (I'll explain why these go together later...) in my horsemanship. We had a long yearling who had quite a habit of turning his nose putting his shoulder into the rope and running off. He was an Appendix Quarter Horse, and he was BIG, and an RBE ... and he had figured out that this worked when the pressure got too much. It often happened in circle games and squeeze game. I was asked to play with him one day... I knew the issue, and so I, simply put, avoided it. I did lots of slow backwards s's, took the pressure off of him as much as I could, and didn't push him, so, he didn't run away. Cool right?  Well sorta... I do consider it one of my strengths that I am often able to play with horses, feel out challenges, and not raise dust. This way I tend not to create many issues or challenges in horses I play with... BUT I also tend not to be able to help them through larger issues very well either. So, especially from a horse development perspective, when you are developing a horse for someone else, it is SO important that they clearly understand pressure, and that they at least TRY things, instead of giving up and running off as was this horses tendency.

While at Atwood I kept having to have this at the forfront of my mind as I was constantly preparing horses for sale. And I met with many horses that had larger issues like this, and slowly I learned to tackle them and help the horse through them, and I learned SO much this way.

After a year at Atwood I returned back to the Parelli ISC. It was so interesting, when I showed up in Florida and began my time studying with Kalley, she gave me Savvy (one of Pat's super horses, that Kalley has since been given). Kalley said she did this specifically because she noticed I had a tendency, as she put it, "not to bother horses." With Savvy, a very sensitive, LBE with STRONG RBI tendencies, this was a blessing. Savvy and I got along great, and I was able to give her lots of hours of not taking things personally and finding harmony with humans.

However, Kalley also assigned me Warrior, a RBI mustang who had a saddling challenge. Kalley soon noticed that I wasn't really making any big changes in Warrior; I could saddle him, SLOOOOOWWWLY, without any challenges, and with good relaxation... however, I hadn't done anything to help HIM understand saddling game, I had merely figured out a savvy way to saddle him without bothering him :) How interesting? Luckily, under Kalley's guidance I was able to Play through pushing Warrior in certain areas, and helping him to understand saddling game. But my tendencey "not to bother horses" is still a horsemanship challenge that I play with constantly :)