Now, I am notoriously NOT a treat giver. I think that there are many other ways to become friends, earn trust, acknowledge a job well done, etc. I find that treats are almost always more exciting for the human giving them than the horse eating them. Yes, they may nicker at us or seem more excited when they see us but I don't think that means they love US or even equate a job well done in the arena to a handful of treats once they are back on the cross ties. No matter what Pavlov says, 99% of the time we just look like Italian mothers stuffing our pony's cheeks hoping they know how much we love them. 

I AM a big advocate in giving your horse praise when well deserved. I think that a well timed "good girl" can go a very long way and giving them a rest right after they solved the first step of the puzzle can further your progress by leaps and bounds. I think that horses deserve to be told how amazing they are and you will often hear me cheering "throw him a party!!!" after my students and their horses do something great. But, when you have a red mare who does NOT think that petting is a worthwhile reward... you improvise. 

Belle has had intimacy issues since I got her. The grooms on the track found it funny that when they scratched her belly she would squeal and kick, so they did it relatively often. She also vibrates at such a high frequency that without some extra magnesium in her system it almost seems like being touched hurts. Even with round penning, she has a large "bubble" and takes a long time to relax and join up. I have a red dog with similar feelings about being touched, and honestly... I'm not a huge touchy-feely person either so I get it, more than most. 

Belle loves to be cooed at and told that she's pretty, and when her guard is down LOVES to have her face and ears rubbed. But like all great Thoroughbreds, she's incredibly serious about her work. She also has to work a little harder than those Warmbloods and gets frustrated in the process. So how do you get a girl to know that she was amazing? How do you talk a girl into digging a little deeper when the going gets tough? What do you do when a pat on the back means zilch?                 Food.            (yep, me too Belle) 

While the dressage world loves to hand out sugar for what seems like just having their fancy pracing horses let them stay in the saddle, eventers are much more business like. And although I've lived in dressage land quite a few times I'm an eventer at heart. It took a long time for me to give in to the idea, but when the shoe fits.... give your horse some sugar! 

It has been a long road to getting her core muscles and specifically pelvic floor muscles to function properly. This means it has been very tough for her to jump and do a lengthening in the trot or canter. So, when I do get a good lengthening or a nice calm jump... I immediately stop, rub her neck and pay her for a job well done. The next time she offers a good one I do the same thing. Although they aren't perfect still, I can feel her wheels turning and when it gets tough she seems to dig in a bit deeper than before. 

I went to the Area 1 USEA meeting earlier this month. Tik Maynard was the keynote speaker and he said something that I've always believed, but have never put it as simply. It went something like this: Make your horses world neutral. There are things that they are drawn towards and things that they are drawn away from. It is your job to keep the +'s and   -'s equal. And while I've thought this for a while the timing of hearing it again and in this way was perfect. I had recently been having major problems with Belle being super reactive to her halter going on and I had become frustrated at my fire breathing dragon. But when I went home and consciously worked to keep things neutral I realized that I needed a way to refocus her and give her something positive while she was so certain that something negative was going to come. Insert sugar. Now, while she still anticipates something negative at times she is more willing to trust me and stay focused on what IS happening and not on what MIGHT happen.

 So, the moral of this is that sometimes you have to go against what you believe or do with 90% of the horses you train and try something else. Once Belle felt like she was getting paid fairly for her work, her attitude toward the work changed. 

I have thought about chronicling my adventure with Belle for a while. I have always had horses that other people couldn't seem to figure out, but she has been a type of challenge that I NEVER could have predicted. I got her off of the track at Suffolk Downs, planning to have her as a resale project. She was GORGEOUS and I knew that even if she didn't want to be an eventer she was too pretty to not sell easily. When I started working with her I was immediately infatuated with how quickly she processed things. She was such a hard worker and SO smart. It wasn't soon after putting her back into work that I decided to keep her for myself. I thought she would be a fun challenge and was athletic enough to be competitive. I knew she would teach me things, as all horses do, but she has and still is teaching me more than I could ever imagine. Yes, I have to be an accurate rider but she is making me a smarter, more creative horseman than I ever thought possible. In this blog, I plan to share my experiences and the lessons I learn from them. I will most likely share lessons that I learn from teaching my students, working with other horses, and just running the farm.... but most of it will be about my journey with this impossibly frustrating, incredibly amazing red mare. 

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I'm not talking about natural instincts that the good horsemen talk about. No, I'm talking about learning when to fight with her and prove your point and when to stop what you're doing and find another approach. Let's be honest... in her eyes, you're rarely going to be right. And like all strong willed women, she's not going to admit it even when you are. 

So, how do we know when she is just being a bully, b*tch, alpha mare (whatever you want to call it) and when you are? When I was mainly riding geldings, I firmly believed that they should listen and do what I told them and that if they didn't it was my job to make them. Did I beat my horses? Of course not! But I did expect them to follow me as their intelligent leader, as long as I had given them the education to be able to. Well, Belle changed that. I still take the fact that I am the leader seriously, but with a different respect. GREAT LEADERS raise their followers up. GREAT LEADERS make sure that their followers have the support they need to be successful. GREAT LEADERS listen to their followers. I realized that I have always been a good leader, but she deserves and demands a GREAT leader. I realized that it was (and still is, more often than I'd like to admit) me who was being the b*tch. 

So now that I am on the quest to be the leader that my red mare expects me to be.... how the heck do I balance my fight or flight? Well, I listen to what she has to say. I am a firm believer in the fact that horses who are reactive are actually way more intelligent than we give them credit for. Belle is a hard worker, like most mares are. So when she's spooking, refusing a jump, not letting me catch her, etc. I try to listen before reacting. Is she seeing something that I'm not? Is she uncomfortable in her tack? Does she not understand the question? If she becomes dangerous I do what is necessary to keep myself and her safe, but then I get my brain working s fast as possible to find the root of the problem and create a way for her to be successful in the situation. 

Tonight I taught late and ended up having barely enough time to take her for a hack down the road before dark. As we turned down the road that we had ridden down many times before, a runner appeared from around the bend. Now, Belle 110% is a survivor and something in the distance running at us was not only out of the norm, but according to her we were going to be eaten. She has learned to trust me when I tell her not to run, so she immediately grew roots and wouldn't budge. The runner passed us but Belle wouldn't let it go. Adrenaline had started pumping and what was supposed to be an easy hack was going to turn into a fight to just walk forward. It was a fight that wouldn't set her up for success. So I jumped off and visually became her leader. We walked side by side the 1/2 mile to our destination calm, confident and on a loose rein. Once we got to our turn around spot I hopped on (yep she calmly stood still), and we headed home. It was getting dark but since I didn't let anything eat us on the way out, she was confident on the way back. Now, did I really want to walk the 1/2 mile in my clunky winter boots? NO! But I definitely didn't want to fight and I am confident that the next time we head out on a hack she will remember that it was successful and be happy to go.