Ebony Comes Home

As you may have noticed from the title, we went from having two horses in the backyard to having three. It took one week. Actually, it took less than a week. You might recall that the conversation that started us thinking about another horse or two occurred on February 13. Ebony came home on February 19^th. Scary how fast things can move sometimes.

After we decided (rather abruptly) that we were in the market for a third horse we talked to Carly. She and her brother each had a horse for sale. Mojito is a paint and he was the first horse we were considering. We had watched Carly’s brother training the horse several times while were there for lessons and we were impressed. So we went and rode the horse and it just wasn’t right. Tira-Toes just did not click with the horse. You could see in her eyes that she was a little frustrated since the horse did not respond well to her. I rode the horse and it turns out he is still learning to neck rein and hasn’t worked out all the cues yet. He tends to turn his head to far to one side or the other. He would be a great horse for a more experienced rider who is comfortable with training a horse, but not such a good horse for a novice rider.

The horse that Carly had for sale is a 13 year old registered paint though it does not have the typical paint markings. Ebony is nearly jet black but has brown highlights all through her coat. A very pretty little horse. Tira-Toes had a much better connection to this mare. Ebony responded much better to Tira-Toes’s cues and you could see the joy in Tira-Toes’s eyes as she rode the horse around the arena. Carly and I talked a bit and we both felt the Ebony was a much better horse for Tira-Toes. Ebony has been trained with flags (VERY important for a Westernaires horse) has done a fair amount of trail riding and has been known to go through a drive through or two to get some refreshments. She neck reins well and still moves off of leg cues. She is forgiving so when Tira-Toes stands up in the saddle while trotting, Ebony holds her pace. We are doing a little work to get Ebony to improve her stops as she tends to take a few more steps than she should. Just the kind of horse I was looking for a novice rider.

Next step, vet check. It’s not that I don’t trust Carly, it’s just that Carly is not a vet. It is never bad idea to have a vet check over the horse you are thinking of buying. A friend from Westernaires was looking at a horse they found on Craig’s List and they liked what they saw. They did a vet check and the horse did not pass. It had a lot of issues and they would not have been able to ride it. A couple of days later the add on Craig’s List had changed to discourage potential buyers from doing a vet check. Anyway, we went off to the vet and Ebony did really well right up until we started to lunge her. She was limping a bit on her left front. Carly (who came to the vet check with us) and I just looked at each other. I had ridden Ebony in a lesson once and Carly had ridden her quite a bit over the last year and she had never shown any sign of lameness. But the vet gave her a lameness score of 1. The vet also said that it looked like the front shoes were not on properly, that the shoes were causing Ebony’s feet to twist ever so slightly to the outside. The vet, as part of her fee, told us to bring the horse back in two weeks and she would recheck Ebony for lameness again. That sounded fair to me and, frankly, I wasn’t too worried about it because I trust Carly and I was familiar with the horse. Carly and I decided that I should take the horse home and have my farrier come take off the shoes and re-trim her feet. So we load her into the trailer and set off for home. The voyage home deserves a post of its own.

In the mean time, Tira-Toes has a few words to say about her horse. Without further ado, I give you Tira-Toes.

Hi, it’s Tira Toes again and I have just got my own horse. Her name is Ebony and she is jet black all over except for a white star on her forehead and two white socks on her back legs. She is thirteen and we bought her from our trainer, Carly. She is very sweet. In her first few days she did not bite or kick the other two horses until she became fed up with Beamer bullying her around and kicked him. She rides easy and has a smooth lope and a trot better then Beamers. By better I mean it doesn’t feel like you’re sitting through an earthquake. I have decided to join Westernaires with my friend Tessa Toes in August. I think my dad was about to shoot me when I looked at him and said I want her. A new horse means new tack, a new trailer, and all that commotion of two daughters at Westernaires at different times. But I wrapped him around my little finger and I got my horse. My goal for Westernaires is to be the most obnoxious Tenderfoot there. I have neon rainbow colored reigns, a purple saddle blanket, a multi colored saddle pad, a lime green breast collar, and a purple helmet. I love my horse.

What I love about Carly is the way she helps you learn. She builds you up step by step until you reach your goal. Carly is a fun and nice teacher. She has worked with many different horses and students and she knows the perfect way to help you learn. My goal when I first went to Carly was to be able to ride Mariah. She started me on a easy going horse like Beamer then she put me on a more, shall we say, exciting horse and I barley felt the difference.

Meet My Trainer

After walking Mariah home from our old barn I realized I had a horse that would not get the trailer. More specifically, the horse would not get in the trailer for me. I knew she would get in a trailer because her previous owner used to trailer her all over. Mariah knew what a trailer was and how to load but she refused to do it for me. I tried a couple of things that had worked with Beamer but to no avail. I could not get her close to the trailer and I had no idea how to proceed. I needed help. I needed a trainer.

You might recall that I had worked with two trainers in the past. The first trainer was just not a good fit. She had my daughter in tears and she could not communicate what she was trying to do. The second trainer was better at telling us what we needed to do but she already had a rather significant client base so that made it really tough to get time with her. The Parelli trainer that had helped us get Beamer into the trailer had moved away so she was not available at all. Time to start looking.

Where does one look for a trainer? The best way, at least in my mind, is to talk to people who have worked with trainers and have similar riding interests to your own. So naturally I asked around at Westernaires. I told people I was looking for a trainer to help me with some trailering issues and it turned out that one of the girls on my daughter’s team had worked with a trainer regarding some trailering issues and they were very pleased with the results. They had her phone number so I wrote it down and called the trainer later that night.

I would like to introduce my trainer: Carly Davis of Balance in Training. This is Carly:

Okay, she is a bit older than this today. This is Carly when she was 8 with her third (Third!) horse Scout. (Just for reference, I am 48 years old and on my first horse) This picture is Carly at the beginning of a career that I don’t think she had realized she had chosen at this point. I think good trainers start at a young age. To be sure, they don’t know what they are going to be when they grow up but they love horses. They are willing to climb onto the back of any horse somebody will let them ride. In fact, they may go looking for horses to ride. That willingness usually means they end up riding a lot of different horses which teaches them about all kinds of different horses. Stubborn horses, skittish horses, well mannered horses, ill-tempered horses, horses that don’t want to go, horses that don’t want to stop, horses that like to buck and most any other horse you can think of. Each different horse she rode taught her a little bit more about cueing horses, keeping her seat and disciplining a horse. She has ridden many different horses since this picture was taken. She went through Westernaires (she even won a horse from Westernaires!) and she rides at some of the local feed lots (I am guessing for fun as much as anything else).

At some point she knew she wanted a career that had something to do with horses and she discovered that she had the knack to be a trainer. She had enough experience with horses to know how to handle them and, more importantly in my mind, she has the patience to teach both a horse and a rider the lessons they need to learn. So she embarked on a quest to become a trainer. She went to college and earned her degree Bachelor’s in Agricultural Business and Equine Science. After earning her degree she started working on honing her training knowledge by attending seminars put on by various trainers to learn some more techniques for dealing with horses and to gain a bit of insight about how to teach people as well. Every now and then I can’t do a lesson with her because she is off to another hoses clinic so she can keep knowledge up to date. This is Carly today:

She is shown here with two of her former students. The paint is Diesel and the red dun is Mojave. These two have since “graduated” and gone on to live with new families.

My first meeting with Carly was at our place. I have always wondered what she was thinking after our first lesson together. At the time I called her I was somewhat enamored with Parelli training methods. We had had some success with Parelli methods with Beamer so naturally I figured it was the best and only way to train horses. And Parelli is supposed to be fast. If you watch enough of the Parelli videos on line, one starts to think that in five or ten minutes you will have a horse that loads in the trailer by merely pointing the horse at the trailer and telling it to get in. So that is what I was expecting I guess.

I introduce Mariah to Carly and I get a lesson in what horse training is and what it is not. Carly walked Mariah around to the back of the trailer and Mariah would not go near the trailer. Carly worked to get that horse to take a step into that trailer for over an hour. And here is why I always wondered what Carly was thinking at the end of that lesson: at the end of the lesson the horse was covered in sweat and had not put one foot into the trailer. Now, for a trainer hired to get a horse into a trailer, ending a lesson without managing to get a foot in the trailer would seem to be cause for concern. Will her new client (me) think that she is a bad trainer because she failed to get the horse in the trailer? Will she lose me as a client just because she didn’t work the miracle I had expected? During the lesson, Carly had explained very carefully what she was doing and why. She had me try it a couple of times and corrected how I held the lead line and the handy stick. When Mariah tried to push through me she explained that I need to stop her and make her back up. I learned a lot in that first lesson about applying and releasing pressure when training a horse. I was not disappointed about the horse not getting in the trailer. I had read a Clinton Anderson book and learned that it usually takes more than one lesson to teach a horse something so I was not overly concerned.

The next day I went out and took what Carly had shown me and I got one foot in the trailer. Cool. I actually applied something I learned and the horse responded! Carly came again and worked with the mare another day and got two feet in the trailer and gave me a couple of more tips. Over the next week or so and another visit from Carly, I worked with Mariah and eventually got all four feet in the trailer and standing calmly! Today, I throw the lead rope over her back and point at the trailer and she steps right in. The biggest thing Carly taught me was that the horse was not afraid of the trailer, the horse just didn’t trust me! Carly helped me establish the level of trust needed to get the horse in the trailer. All told, it took about two weeks. As Clinton Anderson said in his book, “If you take the time it takes, it takes less time.” We took the time required and today I have a horse that has no problem trailering. In fact, I can throw the lead rope over her back, point at the trailer and tell her to get in and she does. The horse had learned to trust me. This new level of trust would also start to pay of in the months that have followed.

Well, I was impressed. Carly had taught me something about what horses respond to. How pressure and release of that pressure teaches the horse what you want it to learn. She taught me that you cannot let a horse get away with anything because once they learn they can make you move your feet, you’re in trouble. You have got to have and hold that lead horse position in your herd of two (or more). I asked Carly if she gave riding lessons and she said yes. That was roughly about March of 2010 and she is still my trainer to this day. The horse that threw me the first time I got on now stands quietly while I get on. The horse that used to run all over the pasture is learning to collect and control her gait.

The relationship we have with our trainers is an interesting one. We tend to look at trainers as our friends and we forget that they are professionals. They make their living by working with people and their horses. We need to remember to treat them with the same level of respect that we treat other professionals we deal with. If you schedule a lesson, keep it. When those times happen, as they always do, and life throws you a curve, call your trainer as soon as you can to let them know you can’t make it. There have been times when I have had to cancel a lesson so I have called Carly and asked her if she could work with one of my daughters instead. She has always been willing to do so and she would probably be willing to do it even if I didn’t call her ahead. But if she knows she is going to be working with my daughter instead of me ahead of time she can better prepare a lesson for her. We need to pay attention to our lesson times. Trainers usually work by the hour and it’s not really fair of us to cut into our trainer’s earnings and another client’s time. Okay, enough time on the soap box.

On a side note, that trailering lesson was one I was able to share with some friends at Westernaires. They had a new horse that was taking them about 45 minutes or more to trailer. They were a bit frustrated to say the least. I showed them the cues Carly showed me one day while at Westernaires. They looked a bit skeptical but later that day when they were wanted to get home but the horse did not want to get into the trailer, they tried it. They were able to get their horse in the trailer in about 10 minutes. They were ecstatic! They got home at a reasonable time for the first time in a couple of months. They practiced with the technique a bit and guess what, now they just point him at the trailer and he gets right in. No, I am not saying I am a trainer by any stretch of anybodies imagination. I am saying that when we understand what the trainer is teaching we can sometimes help a fellow horse person out.

Finding Our Second Horse Mariah or How Not to Buy a Horse

The arrogance of guys sometimes surprises me and I'm a guy. We have had one horse for over a year now. If ridden him for a total of maybe 5 hours but have spent a fair amount of time grooming him. We have learned how to get him into the trailer and hauled him back and fort to Westernaires without any troubles. I am now a horse expert! (Anybody hear reality lining up to administer a full body hockey style reality check?) We have a new house and it is now time to find a second horse.

We actually have few criteria for a second horse. We want a horse with enough training on it so that The Instigator's friends and other non-horse type people can ride it. We want one that is healthy and sound (well, duh!) and we want one we can afford. And since we are horse experts now, our vast knowledge and a vet check is all we need to find the perfect horse. (Reality is skating a bit faster now and starting to line up for that reality check).

My niece found a Craig's Listad for a chestnut Morgan. Cute pictures, nice description and, most important to me, the price was right. So we hop into the car and off we go to see her. Here is a picture taken the first day we met her.


Not the best picture for conformation but since I didn't know anything about conformation (and I am the self-proclaimed horse expert!) its the best I've got.

I think we all fell in love with the big brown eyes. Her barn name was Squiggy. I hated it from the moment I heard it. All I could think of was "Laverne & Shirley" and the two guys known as Lenny and Squiggy. So not going to have a horse named Squiggy. But I digress. Squiggy was trained in dressage and had actually won two or three (sorry, don't remember the exact number) of blue ribbons. She obviously had some good training on her.

The owner brought her into a stall and we saddled her up and its time to ride. The owner put a unique piece of tack on the horse that I had never seen before. I asked about it and she told me they were draw reins. They clipped to the D-ring on the saddle and had a short piece of elastic that clipped to the bit. Thus tacked up, we headed off to the arena to ride. The owner hooked up a longe line and longed her a bit in each direction. She was very well behaved and collected. So The Instigator hoped on her back first and away they went. Squiggy was very well behaved and responded nicely. I got on and rode and she was well behaved for me. Tira-Toes rode her and had not a single problem either. We are VERY much licking what we see.

We decided to go ahead with the vet check. The owner was nice enough to transport the horse to the vet we were using for the vet check. She passed with flying colors. Really, the vet struggled to find anything negative to say. The worst thing he could say is that she has a very slight paddle in her front feet as she moves. So we decide to buy her.

The day we go to pick her up I ride her again. We didn't put the draw reins on her at first and she was a bit ill-behaved. That should have been a warning (reality is skating faster now) but we put the draw reins on her and she was a perfectly collected perfectly behaved horse. We took the saddle off and the owner wanted to show me something. She was starting to train Squiggy to pull a carriage. So she hooked up the long lines, ran then through a training surchingle and I got to drive her around the arena. I have to admit that that was a blast. I don't know why I enjoyed it so much but it was fun. She turned easily to cues and controlled her gait. I was really pleased with the horse and glad we bought her. So we took her down to the trailer, the owner loaded her up and Squiggy officially became Mariah. We headed for home. (Ominous skating sounds in the back-ground)

There were no problems getting her home and out of the trailer. We were still boarding at this time and there was a stall right next to Beamer so we put her in. She was nervous, as yo would expect, but no major issues. The next day we let her run around in the arena and roll and just generally get used to her surroundings.

After a couple of weeks, I decided it was time to ride her. The owner had given us her bridle so I put that on and she stood perfectly calm while I did. I did not have a saddle but I did have a bare back pad and since I was not going to do anything other than walk I figured that would be fine. Never mind that this would be the first time in my life I have ridden bare-back. No problem, I'm a horse expert, right? (skate skate skate) I put it on, cinched it down and lead her into the arena. I took her over to the loading blocks and got up on her back.

BOOM! Reality unloads a full body reality check right on me. As soon as I sat down on her back she took off. I wasn't ready for it and the next thing I know I am sliding off and headed for the ground. Since it is a cold January day, the arena, already wet from snow, is frozenhard. I land on my hip and right forearm and it HURTS! (I also think I hurt my shoulder in that fall. For about six months after that fall I could not use my right arm to lift more than maybe five pounds straight out in front of me. I couldn't pick up a gallon of milk. My shoulder blade moved in strange ways that shoulder blades don't normally move in. It didn't hurt unless I tried to pick something up so I never went to the doctor. Don't tell my mother that. She'll scold me. Now, a year later, I am happy to report that my shoulder is essentially back to normal.)

I takes a moment for me to collect myself before I stand up but I do get up. I limp (boy does my hip hurt) to where she is standing, collect the reins and lead her back to the loading blocks. I get back up on her back and she takes off again. But this time I'm ready so I do not come off again. But I quickly learn that I have no meaningful control over her and I jump off her back. Since this was a planned evacuation, I actually land quite neatly on my feet. Our first ride is done. And now, I admit it, I'm a bit scared of getting back on her.

It was not to long after this that it was time to move the horses to the new house. So we load Beamer right up into the trailer and go get Mariah. We take her to the trailer and she will not get in that trailer. She wont go near the trailer. Rather than force the trailering at this point we take Beamer to the new house and then I go back for Mariah. I am going to have to walk her back to the house. We have to be out of the barn today. Fortunately, the new house is only about a mile from the barn so it is not a bad walk.

I had a good plan for getting her home, I was going to walk her along the ditch road to avoid going up a very busy street. We walked all the way down the ditch road, a much longer walk than expected, only to be met with a locked gate and no way around it. Nuts. We walk all the way back to the barn and now our only choice is to walk along the busy street. My one mile walked turned into about a 3 mile walk due to that little detour. Oh well, I really do need the exercise. I am happy to report that we made it home with no further incident. We now have horses in our back yard. Pretty cool.

A few days later I took her to the trailer and tried again to get her into it with no success at all. None. Not even an attempt by her to put a foot it. Hmmm... I may not be the horse expert I considered myself to be. I need help. Its time to find a trainer. Again.

Now, for those of you still keeping tabs, this is where things are standing on the terms of the promise:

Daughter: $900.00 for horse

Dad: $100 dollars for horse
$950 for trailer
$550 for receiver and hitch.
$300 first months boarding
$450 for saddle, breast collar and cinch
$120 for saddle pad
$200 for headstall, reigns and grooming supplies
$75 for miscellaneous sundries such as muck rake and bucket and the like.
$200 for trailer training
$1200 for four months board.
$50 for grain (Grain! Are you kidding me! Why do hay burners need grain! Next up - nutrition)
$1800 for about 6 months more of board.
$50 for 6 months of grain (we figured out a reasonable ration)
$1250 for knee care
$2300 for Mariah.
$3600 for a year of boarding.

And this does not include the house and some of the things that had to happen there. More on that next time.

Got Horse, Got Tack, Whats next...

Well we now have a horse, we have a way to transport said horse from point A to Point B and we have the tack required to ride the horse. Life is looking good. I have since come to understand that when life is looking good, the other boot (usually cover with muck and mud) has not fallen.

I thought it would be a good idea for Beamer's mom, The Instigator to do a few lessons with her new horse just to get acquainted with him. Grammy thought this was a good idea as well so she treated The Instigator to a few lessons. There was a trainer that several of the boarders at the barn used and they all thought she was great. Se we hired her for a few lessons. Yet another lesson learned the hard way. We didn't know anything about her or her methods, we were relying entirely on hear-say around the barn. The first lesson didn't go to bad bit I was starting to suspect that this trainer was better with horses than with people. By the end of the second, and last, lesson with her I was sure. Now The Instigator had not been riding long so she had not built up certain muscles and callouses yet. The trainer kept her on the horse for nearly two hours. I finally had to call an end to the lesson when I saw tears in The Instigator's eyes. Just what I need. A trainer who drove my kid to tears for no apparent reason. These were just basic riding lessons. That was the end of that.

The Instigator was doing well riding Beamer so we decided it was time to take him down to Westernaires and introduce him to the madness and mayhem otherwise known as the owner's parking lot. Now the other boot falls. Did you know that it takes a while for a horse to learn to trust a new owner? Did you know that some horses will refuse to get in "that large scary cave where lions live on wheels", otherwise known as a trailer, until they trust you? I know that now. We did manage to get him into the trailer in not too much time and get down to Westernaires. It took us two hours to get him in the trailer to come home and we were the last trailer out of there that night. We were a little perturbed, to say the least.

Time for a trainer. We went back to the first trainer since we really didn't know anybody else to turn to. She was able to get the horse into the trailer fairly easily. But she couldn't teach us how to do it. After several weeks we were no better off. Beamer would get into the trailer for her, but not for us and we were not making any progress. Then one day while we were working on trailering, a new trainer showed up at the barn. She was there to work with somebody else and saw us trying to get the horse in the trailer. It was not going well and she took mercy on us. She came over and showed us how to get the horse in the trailer and explained a bit of what she was doing. Her method was a bit different than the first trainer and with a little explanation behind us, we at least had chance of getting the horse into the trailer. In the end, instead of taking over an hour to get the horse in the trailer, it ended up taking us about a half-hour to get the horse in the trailer. Better, but still not right.

So one Saturday we were trying to load the horse and friend of one of the other boarders showed up. She saw us struggling to get the horse into the trailer and asked us if we needed help. I politely said now, that we needed to work this out for ourselves. She said that she was a certified Parelli trainer and she could help us. So I said okay. She didn't do anything real different than the other trainers had done except she provided a much better explanation of what we were doing wrong and how to fix it.

The first two trainers basically took the approach that you drive the horse and work it hard enough so that the trailer becomes a safe place to rest. But we were working the horse so hard that he was no longer thinking. This trainer got us to all calm down and then showed us how to apply pressure to the horse by tapping lightly on the flank to encourage the horse to step forward. 5 minutes later the horse was in the trailer. We backed the horse out and The Instigator and I tried. Took a bit longer, but we got the horse into the trailer. That young lady moved away within the week but she did give us some good direction and peak our interest in Parelli.

Now this whole adventure lasted some three or four months. It was no small source of frustration for us and even after or brief experience with Parelli methods, it was still not perfect. He would jerk his head up and back and it was by the grace of God alone that he never managed to split his head open. But during this whole time The Instigator was continuing to work with Beamer. She was riding and grooming and doing round pen work. As we gained a bit more confidence in ourselves and Beamer came to trust us a bit more the trailering challenge resolved itself. All we have to do now is walk him to the back of the trailer, toss the lead rope over his back and tell him to step up. He steps right into the trailer and stands calmly.

So what did learn from this. Talk to potential trainers. Trainers need to do two things well. First, they need to be able to train a horse. This one is pretty obvious but you need to know how this person works with horses and have they trained enough horses to really know what they are doing. Second, and more importantly, they need to be able to train you. Horses learn fairly quickly if you are consistent and patient. Most of us are neither consistent nor patient. And that is where a good trainer really comes through. We lack consistency and patience because we do not know what we need to do. When a horse does something we don't want it to do and we don't know how make it stop, we get mad and do the wrong stuff that usally makes the situation worse. A good trainer can show you what to do and explain why you do it. Once you know that, when the horse acts up, you know what to do and it is so much easier to remain calm.

Okay, so the tally stand thus:
Daughter: $900.00 for horse

Dad: $100 dollars for horse
$950 for trailer
$550 for receiver and hitch.
$300 first months boarding
$450 for saddle, breast collar and cinch
$120 for saddle pad
$200 for headstall, reigns and grooming supplies
$75 for miscellaneous sundries such as muck rake and bucket and the like.
$200 for trailer training
$1200 for four months board.
$50 for grain (Grain! Are you kidding me! Why do hay burners need grain! Next up - nutrition)