It's like that quote you always hear about people coming into and out of your life, but some friends leave footprints in your soul.... Well this is a little story and a tribute to a horse that has done that to me.
Hustler first appeared in my life in September of 2013... Approaching FAST being led off the back of a 4-wheeler. Tracy, a friend, and very dedicated horsewoman, got off the 4-wheeler leading a beautiful dark bay horse with a skinny white blaze, and said just one thing to me, "I just know its time for him to come home." I don't think ANY of the three of us knew in that moment the journey that that horse was about to lead us on... Except perhaps him. He gazed straight at me...with eyes that begged me to understand, that ached to be vulnerable, but that also offered an intensity and guardedness that I had seen only rarely before.
Hustler did come "home" that day. He was led to his temporary paddock, a staccato cadence in his feet that never stops, constantly aware, a prey animal to his very core. The next day Tracy invited me to play with him, and our conversation, and his teaching of me began.
That winter I would spend many hours playing and riding this horse. Having massive breakthroughs, and giant set backs, days where his understanding and connection where stronger than any I had every felt, and others when his brain just would not register me as a leader, a source of safety, or anything other than a predator out to get him... A situation he must fight for his life in. But slowly we made progress, we saw glimpses of the amazing horse underneath the baggage and fear and assumptions.
On his back he began to truly understand how to yield from your legs instead of panic and run. Every time I used him to demonstrate in a clinic he would FORCE me to be more consistent, and precise then any horse I had every touched... There was no sneaking around trying to make things "look good"... There was only principles with him. And the rewards for this were in the same realm, ten fold of those with other horses. When you ride him you feel the depth of his struggle to understand, his struggle to not runaway, his struggle to trust, and because of this when you feel him truly "get" something... His conscious CHOICE to understand, converse and engage instead of panic... There is nothing else in the world more magical.
When Tracy suddenly lost her horse, and Hustler became her main squeeze, they BOTH tackled the project with a focus and learning curve that was steep. I remember countless times when Tracy got to his relaxation, and then the tasks and requests she made were easy. One day in a clinic I was asking students to put their horse's front left foot on a cone. Tracy looked at me like, "You're crazy, I'm just thrilled we are standing still, NEAR the cone," and in that moment Hustler lifted his foot up and put it down directly on the cone. We all have stories like that with horses, their capacity for connection and understanding of our intention is incredible. It gives me chills every time I hear Pat tell the story of it being pitch black one night in Colorado when he heard a scuffle and he thought, "oh no, Casper's out, how am I ever going to find him in this?" By the time he got outside, there was a skinny white blaze standing next to the porch.
As it is with many things, the extremity that gives us such beauty, can also give us grief and challenge and pain. Just like an artist with an incredible ability to depict human emotion, this also means they feel its negativity to the largest extent. Hustlers ability to connect and understand, also lends him to push into any energy or pressure that he feels when that need to fly from fear overwhelms him. And overwhelm him it sometimes does...
Last summer I took him with me to Colorado to ride with Pat and Linda for three weeks. Linda sat with us for almost twenty minutes as he processed his deep emotions about mounting... Talking me through what she saw him going through, and allowing us to dig a two foot deep trench with his front foot in her beautiful arena. Saying that he needed to go there, to process the emotion, to come through it. Since that day, and many days since, of learning to just BE with a horse in intense emotion, his mounting is now connected and relaxed. Im so grateful to Hustler for teaching me this: How to BE with a horse or a human while they process something, not feel the need to fix it, or change it, or soften it, to just be, truly present and WITH that emotion. Then Linda rode all over the ranch with us; helping me to give him clear boundaries on the trail so that he could find freedom within those boundaries.
After that it was on to Pats world where he immediately diagnosed his tendency to push into pressure and energy of all forms. Enter... Cows. Pat coached me on using the cattle to help Hustler to understand and respect energy bubbles instead of crashing through them. Then we translated this knowledge to the flag, and then onto the human. Until I had a horse who's first reaction began to be to be connected with me instead of panicking and running into pressure. The opportunity Hustler gave me to learn from both of these master horseman, and watch them both push to diagnose and discover what we could do to help him has been unparalleled in my own journey, and I can't thank him and Tracy enough.
Coming back from Pats I began a program of asking him to lie down. I didn't use a saddle, or force him over, I just used a 22 ft line, pressure and release and set it up and wait. After three sessions he laid all the way down for the first time, and it was one of the most powerful moments I have ever experienced with a horse. You could see and feel that for a moment, he had given up, the only way he could be vulnerable enough to lie down was to give up, to surrender completely. I sat with him and rubbed him until he began to lick and chew, and shook his head, standing and returning to himself. Today he trusts me enough to lie down, roll and even stretch out flat, and the journey to get there has never been dull, as each time I must earn it.
There are things that are still a struggle with Hustler. Tieing, Trailer Loading, Leaving the herd; his claustrophobia, sensitivity to people places changes and things, and lack of trust makes his journey challenging. But through that journey he is teaching us all so much.
I believe when we ride, most horses give us this false sense of security. Most of us believe, and most horses allow this belief, that if we HAD to, we could MAKE them turn, or stop or go. Riding Hustler removes that from your mind. As you ride him you KNOW in the deepest parts of your being that when you ask, he is CHOOSING to respond. When you ask, he is processing your relationship, the rapport and respect you have earned, and choosing to share in the conversation you are offering. The very first time I rode him I said I've only ridden two other horses with a bigger "engine," Pats horse Magic, and Amy Bowers horse Saphire. That intense power, matched with his guarded vulnerability, really causes you to process the depth of our connection with horses; the significance of what it is we ask of them. Creating a relationship with a prey animal, and crossing that boundary that nature has drawn for them, carved in by thousands of years of evolution, that is a huge thing that we ask of these incredible animals... And Hustler makes you feel the weight of your request. This sits deep and profoundly with me, and I thank the universe for the opportunity at this lesson.
