The ignorant, stupid, sad and cruel things I've seen ... Part I

I was talking to a friend the other day who has had the dubious pleasure of working at a stable I worked at several years ago.  Her comment was, "thank goodness I'm done there."  Which led to our sharing stories.

For purposes of the Interwebz, I won't name names.  Some of these things happened 20+ years ago, so there would be little point in calling people out now.  But, I want to share for the sake of education, and for the sake of, yes, someone at some point really has done that.

1.  Stable doesn't want to pay an actual farrier to shoe 22 horses, but one of the trail guides says he used to shoe.  He goes down to Tractor Supply, buys some who-knows-what-size Diamond shoes and who-knows-what-size nails, and proceeds to shoe owner's three horses (using a hammer, nippers, no anvil, no shaping the shoes, no setting the clinches...)  Yeah, thank goodness he started with the owners horses, or there would've been 19 trail horses lame and throwing shoes left and right.

2.  One of the older, dead-broke, kid-safe horses starts colicking Saturday afternoon.  Gosh, that would mean an emergency farm call on top of a large bill.  Give him some Banamine (IM, by the way, since no one knew it should be given IV).  Wait.  Still wanting to roll three hours later.  One of the trail guides says he knows how to tube a horse; he's tubed a cow.  Enter a garden hose cut for the purpose and a gallon of oil.  Everyone leaves for the night.  Come to work at 7 a.m. to a dead horse.  Big surprise.

3.  Young thoroughbred has a frisky moment after 20 minutes of good lunging and another 15 of good riding and bucks off young apprentice.  Barn manager says, let me have him and proceeds to lunge him until covered in foamy sweat.  When barn manager moves out a year later, new owner finds all the empty vials and syringes in the loft ... from where so-called trainer was doping colts before riding them.

4.  Stable hires third new manager of the year.  (Ever heard, it's not you, it's me?  In this case, it was THEM) ... New manager believes in Parelli Natural Horsemanship.  Immediately transfers 19 trail string horses to rope halters and begins putting clients on them without re-schooling or test rides.  I'm still amazed no one was injured from this ... only one horse took off back to the barn, and half a dozen realized they could stop and eat along the trail rather than go on.

5.  Overweight draft-cross pony with feathers and mane that falls down both sides of her neck.  Owner starts washing mane every other day.  Pony starts rubbing mane out.  Owner can't see the connection.

6.  Conversation with a young horse's owner.  Owner owned the filly's dam, hand-picked the sire, raised this filly.  She was a young 2 year old at the time.  "I have to have the farrier out to shoe Baby."
-- "Why?"
"Trainer won't take her unless she's shod."
Are you kidding me?  Find a different trainer.  Preferably one that doesn't think shoeing a growing baby is OK.  (see previous blog)

7.  Horse continually tosses his head while being ridden, but especially when evading contact.  Owner/trainer's solution?  Ride him in a tie down so he can't toss his head.  (Nevermind checking teeth, chiropractor, backing training down to a very basic level and working back up.)

Trust and training - Roanie

A long, lanky just-turned 3 year old filly came in with last spring's string.  She was foundation bred quarter horse with a lot of old speed blood and had that deep bay, almost blue roan coloring that people go crazy over.  She still had the coltish, not-quite grown into her legs look.

She was bred and raised by a local breeder.  The trainer he had on staff wanted nothing to do with her; had deemed her crazy and sent her to one of the local cowboy colt-breakers.  After 30 days, the breaker basically said she'd never be worth a thing, and they brought her home and turned her out, debating whether to spend more time and money or just call the local kill buyer and be done with her.

Since we were coming to pick up a number of his mares that were ready to break, Roanie came along with us.  From the beginning, she was personable.  She had a soft, kind eye, but she would tremble if you so much as brushed her too hard.  The boys rode her a few times and deemed her "too lazy to buck" - which is usually how I end up with 'my' string.  The lazy, the uncoordinated, the non-interested in cattle.  In the end, Roanie turned out to be none of these.

The first time I saddled Roanie, I knew it would be a long time, at least in a trainer's terms, before she was ready for a 'real' ride.  For the first week, we did round pen work, just lunging and ground driving, letting her relax while wearing the saddle.  The next ten days, I would get on and just sit.  It was like straddling a rocket.  She was so tense, no wonder they thought her lazy; to move out would've been to use every muscle she was bracing with.  She wasn't humped up like a horse that's thinking of bucking; this was more a fear of what was to come, a fear of yank and spur and ye-haw.  So, I would swing my leg over and sit and breathe.  If she wanted to step forward, we'd walk.   If not, we'd stand.  And, when she let out her big exhale, we'd be done for the day.  After a total of maybe two weeks of this, she was ready.  We'd walk and trot out in the open field.  We'd walk over and visit the cows across the fence.  And one day, we loped.  Free, easy and willing.  Her sensitivity made her incredibly responsive to leg, and while she was in her comfort zone, she learned incredibly quickly.          

I'm back

OK guys, anyone who might have stopped in or been paying attention has noticed I've been gone a long time.  Like, more than a year long time.  A lot has changed in my personal herd and in my employment, and I just haven't had the time and energy to properly keep up with the blog.

In all honesty, constantly absorbing idiocy in order to share and attempt to teach from it gets kind of depressing.

I have a lot of recent developments to share, and the blog is going to take a much more personal, "documentary" style turn in the next few months.  I'm still going to blog about stereotypes, misconceptions, and the occasional idiot owner (because let's face it, we all know that person down the road who has horses but shouldn't) ... but, for the most part, the blog is going to become a much more personal journey.  So, I hope you will come along and follow the adventure as I share my summer re-training project, my visits to regional clinics and shows (I promise ... observations will not call out people by name) ... and, we'll see what else comes along as we go!