Author: Laura Highcove

So I was finishing up getting loads of sawdust when Megan told me I could join the advanced class in their horsemanship lesson with Maggie. This happened on Wednesday, so I was a little surprised, but it seemed like it would be fun to me.

I feel guilty about it, but I don’t think I remember the names of the two girls that were there. I want to say Rachel and Jenna, but I could be entirely wrong. Blah names.

Anyway, the girl I think is Rachel had Dill on a lounge rope, and the girl I think is Jenna had Ella on a shank, and was walking around like I was.

I walked around, working on my straightness and stopping again. I also managed to begin timing my steps so that I was going at a pace that matched Maggie’s. I could hear her hoof-beats (so glad she’s on my right) which gave me the right timing. I had less problems with her bending away due to my speed (or lack of it) as a result.

After a while, Megan came out to show me how to do a haunch turn. The goal is to rotate the horse on her back right leg, such that it stays in place and the rest of the horse moves around it.

Megan also traced in the dirt the three positions needed for horsemanship. Perpendicular to the horse, parallel to the horse, and diagonal (about 45 degrees between the other two)

Anyway, for a haunch turn I needed to be parallel to Maggie, shoulders squared at her head. The point is to step into her and have her move away from me while keeping her right hind leg in place and keeping her body straight. I also have to keep my eyes on that right hind leg the entire time. (If it goes out of view, then she’s bending which is a nono.)

I had some trouble with this one. Most of the time I failed to follow the ‘circle’ around her and kind of kept going straight such that she had to move forward to follow me. Far fewer times I moved too close to her, forcing her backward. I did manage to get it…for a few (slow) steps two or three occasions, but I still don’t feel how it’s supposed to be. And she’s certainly not staying straight, which probably means I’m not keeping my shoulders square.

Somehow I wonder why this is next in the list of things to learn instead of backing up (which I saw Jenna doing) which seems much easier than haunch turns since it seems like you just have to walk in a straight line. Well time will see if I eat those words when I get to backing up or not.

Oh, I also tried setting up…once…but she got bored with me and I gave up in embarrassment.

So this week I did my horsemanship with Maggie, a gray mare. Since Morgan was not around, Deb gave me my task for the day, which was keeping Maggie straight when we were walking, and have her stay straight when we stopped.

The first thing that happened was I discovered Maggie was taller than Money. Now I knew this just looking at her, of course, but one of the first things I had to do was figure out how to adjust to her being taller. First off, where I had needed to shorten my stride so that Money didn’t have to jog to keep up with me, for Maggie I could walk more normally. Secondly I had to keep my right hand higher so that I wasn’t forcing her to keep her head down.

So we started off walking. I found I needed to make sure to keep my hand smooth, and that often times when Maggie’s body began to move away from me, it was actually because I was walking too slowly. I had to speed up enough to straighten her out, but not too much that she would start trotting.

I also was able to improve my stopping such that I felt much more confidant about it. Not every stop was perfect, but it was much better than last week at least.

Maggie also has an annoying habit of turning her head toward me when she stops. Money was very well trained and I never had to think about that, but with Maggie it has to be in the back of your mind in order to keep her straight. It was interesting learning to adjust between the two horses. I assume when you’re going to go to a show, you focus on using one horse so you get practice with them, but for learning, lots of experience is better than being stuck on just one horse.

So I’ve been working at the stable for a few days now. I’m getting to know the routine, the horses on sight (still working on it…), and some of the other things that go on around the place.

I was helping the other two girls who were there, Becca, who works at the stable, and Morgan, who is Deb’s daughter. Did I mention Deb’s name last post? She’s the one who owns the farm. Either way, we were taking out horses to the front pen. I took a smaller mare named Serra and on the way we passed by a field that already had a horse in it, a gelding named Ray. He was being happy to be out of his stall, running around.

And I am embarrassed to say that I lost my leader check and Serra decided to walk all over me. Not literally, but just in that she knew she could misbehave and went ahead and did so. That’s when Deb ran up and disciplined Serra and took her to the field.

I went back to the barn, what little of my ego that existed completely smashed as if Serra had trampled it. I had convinced myself that I knew something about horses at all, and now I knew I was sorely mistaken. I could only assume, at this point, that Deb would come to tell me that I just wasn’t working out, I didn’t know enough, and I should just leave.

Instead she was practically smiling when I saw her next, and while she said she was not happy with what had happened, she was happy that it had very clearly shown her where I needed to start with my lessons.

So I met when her and Morgan and she told me some truths about the horse industry that were quite sombering, but were things I did need to hear. One of which was that since I had not been riding and competing since I was young, it would be extremely hard for me to make it in the business. The 17 year old Morgan was already a world class champion and even she wouldn’t be guaranteed anything.

Deb then said I would be working on horsemanship on the ground. This did not surprise me, and while I guess I was mildly disappointed, I was excited about learning anything new. (Maybe I was also glad that they didn’t think I was beyond help.)

So for the actual first lesson, after which this post is named…

Morgan took me to their indoor ring with her horse Money. She told me a snug fitting halter is best, and showed me the shank which is threaded beneath the horse’s chin and up the side of the halter to the ring beside his cheek on his right side. (Forgive me for any ignorance of terminology.)

She then had me sit and went through her “paces”. Walking, trotting, stopping, squaring (boxing?), and the thing where the horse turns while keeping his back legs in place. I just can’t for the life of me remember what she said that was called.

I was then brought up and she showed me to stand with my shoulder at the middle of Money’s neck on his left side. The right hand holds the shank just at the edge of the stitching and the left hand holds the looped extra with the line facing forward. (I feel I have described this poorly.) Stand tall, look forward (not at the horse), feet together, chin up, elbows at my side, arms parallel and right hand just next to his jaw. (Not too close, but just at that position.)

Morgan explained that to start walking, I was to move my hands forward slightly and then step back into them, such that was now walking with the same positioning I had been in while standing. Since Money is a very well trained horse, he stepped out right after me. I did have to shorten my stride a bit. No reason to hurry, and because Morgan’s much shorter than I, Money is used to a smaller stride.

To stop I was to use a count of three then lean back slightly and come to a halt. This was much harder. I kept stopping too abruptly and so Money would move slightly past me before being able to stop. It was really rather amazing when I did get it right though and he just stopped right next to me. Of course that’s what he’s supposed to do, but it seemed amazing just the same.

It did help when Morgan mentioned that I can take smaller steps when I get started and slow down a little when I’m getting ready to stop. Not sure if this is just for learning, or if it just means that one does not have to move at a perfectly constant speed.

After I had practiced starting and stopping for a while, she taught me about squaring the horse. I do the stop as normal, then turn so my toes are (still together) facing toward the horse’s left shoulder. Then the goal is to get the horse’s hooves  lined up with each other.

I was told the way to do this is to line up my right hand as if there was a string connected to the leg I wanted to move, and then move my hand back. I had more trouble with this one. I would move my hand and he always seemed to want to move his front legs, and when I tried to lower my hands to have him move his back legs I always seemed to drop my hand too far such that he couldn’t see them anymore and thus did not respond. Plus sometimes it seemed impossible to get a line to the leg I wanted without having to pull on his head, so maybe I need to stand closer to his head to lessen the angle? I’ll have to ask. This is certainly going to take some practice.

But at the end, I was left with a sense of accomplishment and a desire to practice and learn more. This is a part of working with horses that I just didn’t know existed.

In all truthfulness, I don’t think I have the dedication to ever try to own my own place or try to be a world champion in showing. However, as of right now, I am still interested in learning horsemanship, work my way up to riding and try some dressage, (or reining, not sure which I’ll end up doing) and go to some shows.

Maybe once I’ve had a taste of that I’ll be able to better decide if I want to keep competing, or maybe just continue riding for pleasure. I would like to think I’d always be able to get some sort of job mucking out stalls and trading them for lessons. There’s no shame in keeping horses as a hobby.

So I’ve always loved horses. I get excited whenever I see them, I have dozens of figures (including My Little Pony), and my walls used to be plastered with them.

I took lessons for about a year, but since my family was never very rich, I was left to pay for them myself, and eventually I was no longer able to do so. I had planned on going to school for Equestrian Studies, but that turned into Computer Science.

When my husband and I moved back to Blacksburg, I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to get back into horses. Unhappy with programming as a job, I was eager to find something I did like.
So I handed out applications, called farms, and got tons of nos or non-answers (never returned my calls).

One lady looked over my application and saw that I had a cs background. She needed help getting her website to work on IE8 (So does everyone else in the world, stupid Microsoft.) and so I came back to help with that.

It turned out that the solution was either to upgrade to the newest version of Microsoft Publisher (/slaps forehead) or get the server to send a command that made the page display the same as it would in IE7, which is something I couldn’t do.

Despite that, Deb, mentioned that her workers worked for barter. They cleaned stalls and took care of the horses, and she gave them lessons. While this didn’t solve my problem of no income, it would get me back near horses, and give me a chance to ride and get some exercise. I decided this seemed like a decent deal as long as I got a paying job elsewhere.

So Wednesday past I started going in the mornings and helping out the other morning worker, Becca. I learned the feeding schedule, mucked stalls, helped turn the horses in and out. I still don’t know all the horses on sight, and a few of them I probably only know because they’re almost always in their stalls, but I figure that will come with time.

Right now it’s just good to get out and do something. I still feel guilty about not having a paying job, but I have another two applications to put out today. Not sure what to do if no one contacts me. I am really dead set against any fast food job, and I’d like it to be a place I think I would enjoy working.

I’m probably being too picky, but I’ve been unhappy in a job before and the money isn’t worth the depression it brings.