Life in the "ManeStream"

A video clip showed up on my facebook wall recently and brought up, once again, the technique known as Laying a Horse Down. I wrote about this topic in an earlier post, but this encounter with the issue sent me on a different mental path.

Probably because I have been working with a horse whose way of being in the world resembles descriptions of humans with post-traumatic stress disorder, I started thinking about how to describe what I believe to be some of the psychological costs of this extreme and wrong-minded technique.

For those of you who haven’t encountered this type of horse “taming,” the basic program is this:

• First, you restrain an animal who is programmed to survive by running away,
• Then you force him to the ground, into a position where even his ability to draw breath is compromised,
• Finally, you lay on top of him to simulate a fatal attack by a predator.

You make this operation sound beneficial by saying it will help the horse get over his fear of you. You say that afterward he will be so thankful that you didn’t actually kill him, he will then trust and respect you.

Maybe a screwed-up Stockholm syndrome version of trust and respect. Isn’t it much more logical to expect this animal to fear you? Loathe you. Dread being in your presence ever again and find some way to prevent it. But trust you? That’s got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.

Ever see a baby bunny (or any other small animal) that has been caught by a well-fed cat? Bunny goes limp and plays dead, because if it moves it becomes way more fun for kitty – who isn’t really hungry – to play with. It’s called tonic immobility and it’s hardwired in to prey animals and, incidentally, humans.

If the cat loses interest or some interfering person comes along and convinces it to let the bunny go pretty quickly, the baby might scamper off to safety. But if the cat has been toying with the bunny for some time before the reprieve or rescue, the bunny might stay immobile, as if it can no longer move. As if it has given up and decided it’s already dead. Sometimes, if you find a quiet, safe place to leave these babies alone, they eventually come back to life and when you go back to check on them, they are gone. Other times, you simply find them dead, even if they didn’t have a mark on them. I have always felt that there was some mechanism – some kind of psychic tipping point – in these animals that makes them give up and die even when they are physically unharmed.  And, there is more than one way to die – the physical body can die, but so can the emotional/spiritual body.

There’s a lot of interesting research on the web linking this type of instinctive immobility during a traumatic experience to human psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative behaviors, anxiety disorders and even catatonia. One very interesting blog even linked the chemistry involved in this reflex to chronic pain in humans.

So, what exactly is a person doing to a horse by intentionally forcing the animal into this state? The justifications for perpetrating this kind of primal attack on a horse makes no sense to me, on any level – intellectual or emotional. Everything I know about what happens when a living being’s very survival is threatened tells me this horse, deprived of his first line of defense – flight – will either fight until he is horribly injured or dead or he will just check out mentally and emotionally, dissociating to the point that it’s as if he barely lives in his body anymore. Those vacant-eyed, shutdown horses may seem safe to people are either afraid of horses but won’t admit it or “easy to handle” for those are too lazy to do the work to create a respectful relationship with their horses, but doing that to another living being is a travesty. What, Stepford wives weren’t enough? Now we want Stepford horses?

Make no mistake. Horses who have been induced to check out are neither tamed nor trained. Both of those are processes that take time. Training is a mutual process of teaching and learning. How well would you learn if you were trussed up, forced to the ground and had somebody lay on top of you? (I believe when humans do that kind of thing to each other, it’s called assault!?)  If it’s such a great teaching tool for the early education of a living creature, why aren’t elementary schools the world over simply employing thugs to tie up the students and sit on them while the teacher expounds on the subject of the day? Wouldn’t that produce quiet, respectful students?

What makes me the maddest about the people who promote and defend this type of “training” method is that we know better, each and every one of us human beings. We can’t say that because we are predators, we just don’t directly relate to the instinctual responses of a prey animal. Although our intelligence and ability to design all manner of tools and techniques to maim and kill places us atop the food chain as master predators, don’t forget that we also have in our collective memory the experience of being prey. There are all manner of predators who can take down a human being, so we have that primal knowledge programmed in, as well.

Don’t think so? Just imagine dumping a couple of suburban families off in the Australian outback, the remote Canadian Rockies, the Amazon rain forest or a mid-east desert with no satellite phone, no weapons and no survival training. Are they predators or prey? Or ask anyone who has been physically abused or assaulted by a by another human. Freeze, flight, fight, fright – we’ve got it all in our circuits, too.

I have owned two horses in my life whom I suspected had been thrown as part of their early experiences with humans. Both were hyper-vigilant, dissociative, over-reactive and “hard to handle,” not because that was the underlying personality of either, but because of what had been done to them in the guise of “training.” With years of patience and consistency, they both found their places in the world and learned to exist fairly successfully with people. But the fear and discomfort they had to endure and overcome was entirely unnecessary. So much time and potential gone to waste. Their lives were made much harder and less happy because of a few misguided moments with the wrong people. That’s just wrong.

That was the question that came in the email I got today sharing the newsletter of an internationally known clinician who seems to be giving people free rein to beat on their horses. At least that’s what it sounds like to me. See what you think.

In his August 10 newsletter, natural horsemanship golden boy Clinton Anderson includes a “training tip” describing for his readers the necessary mental state required to successfully work with a horse. “Do what you have to do to get the job done. Do it as easy as possible, but as firm as necessary.”

Now, I don’t disagree with that advice in general. I believe that creating a successful working partnership with a horse requires a person to be present and to always communicate as clearly as possible. That means the rider has a responsibility to sensitize the horse to his or her own version of the cues, starting with a leg or seat aid and adding a well-regulated tap with a dressage whip to the side or croup if the horse doesn’t respond. I find it generally takes about three repetitions of this series (leg/seat aid – insufficient response – leg/seat aid with tap – desired response) to help the horse understand exactly what the rider expects.

My problem with this newsletter item begins with the next sentence (bold added): “Whether it takes just a look to make the horse move, or whacking him ten times as hard as you can, do whatever it takes to get the job done.”

What?! Other than to save life or limb, I don’t think anyone, anywhere, anyhow has either the right or the need to hit a horse as hard as he or she can. If a horse is coming at me with feet and teeth bent on doing some serious damage, you’re darn right I’m going to do whatever I can to stop him and keep myself safe. I got charged once when I was a kid and hit a horse hard right between the eyes with the brass bull snap on a leadrope flung with accuracy fueled by adrenaline. Stopped him right in his tracks before he mowed me down. And rightly so, I’d still say today.

But what if I was working with a horse on the ground trying to teach him to back away from me and he just wasn’t doing it, instead was barging into my space in a way that wasn’t particularly dangerous but certainly wasn’t respectful. Say I waggled my leadrope and motioned my arms and waved my stick and he still didn’t back up. Is it okay for me to hit that horse with my leadrope snap or some other implement? I say “no way.”

It’s pretty clear to me in this situation that either I haven’t done a very good job of preparing the horse for this exercise or I’m not communicating clearly with him right now or there is some physical reason he can’t do what I’m asking. Hitting him isn’t going to help me resolve any of those.

So, do I raise my energy and get “big” with a horse sometimes? Absolutely. But I can modulate that right back down the second I see the horse even begin to respond in the way I want him to. That helps him learn the lesson I’m trying to teach and retain what he figures out. If I’m “whacking” him with all my might, am I likely to be tuned in enough to see that “try” and make full use of the nuances of the teaching/learning relationship? Would you be, in this situation? Oh, and do you think a horse who is being hit is in any frame of mind to learn and retain anything? I don’t.

What I find most distressing about this particular “tip” is that it seems to me the vast majority of people who are devoted to this type of clinician/marketer are the newbies, the nice people who have their first horse and do not begin to have the skill or the feel to evaluate when a horse is trying, when he’s confused or when he’s being disrespectful bordering on dangerous. With many of those people, lack of knowledge and the accompanying fear dictate that any time a horse doesn’t do exactly what they think they are telling him, that horse is “being bad.”

I have seen over and over again that the people who know the least are the ones who are the most prone to over-react to everything. The horse just stomps a foot at a fly, but they think he is “trying to kick me.” On the lead or longe, he turns his head to look in the direction of a sound and the horse is “pulling on me.” The horse gets off balance and leans in when the handler pulls his head and neck toward himself and suddenly that horse is “crowding me.” And these are the people whom Clinton Anderson is telling to use as much force as they think is necessary. Yikes. Recipe for abuse if ever I saw one.

I can’t help wondering whether this was written in a fit of frustration about people who are so passive with their horses they never make any progress at mastering the requisite skills for Anderson’s program. Maybe.

He goes on to lament the people who just can’t seem to be firm enough with their horses, and even takes what seems to me to be a mocking tone about those who get uncomfortable and quit. Well, I’d say you can hardly go wrong if you listen to your gut, and if you feel uncomfortable at a visceral level about something you’re doing with your horse, it might be good time to at least step back and consider what’s going on.

That said, I don’t disagree with the basic premise of the rest of the “training tip.” Consistency, following through with each exercise, is very important both to the horse/human relationship and to the learning environment. If our rider above who is working to sensitize her horse to her aids responds too passively, she will never succeed because there is no clarity. If she gives a seat aid and the horse doesn’t respond (and she’s relatively sure she has both herself and the horse positioned correctly to give and respond to the aid, respectively), she needs to tap the coup with just the right amount of force to elicit the desired response. If she tap, tap, taps away too lightly and allows the horse to continue not to respond, she is teaching him to ignore her. If she “whacks” him too hard and he jumps forward reflexively, she got a response (usually a short-lived one, though) but he didn’t really learn anything because he was not responding in a way he can repeat from a lighter cue. The real, useful question from the rider and answer from the horse lies somewhere in between those extremes.

As an instructor who wants to help students become mindful horsemen and horsewomen, it is my job to help them learn what is too little, what is too much and what is just right, Goldilocks. I talk a lot, especially with my female clients, about the very important distinction between aggression and assertiveness. Former, not productive and not tolerated with my horses. Latter, one of the gifts horses give us for learning to live more honestly in all aspects of our lives. I encourage all my students to step up and take responsibility for their more-than-half of the partnership and the line “do it easy as possible, but as firmly as necessary” would fit right in to that part of the curriculum. But never, ever, would that involve “whacking (the horse) ten times as hard as you can.”

I know who I’d like to whack ten times right about now, and he doesn’t have four legs or fur. Oh, and is it just me, or is it very interesting that the photo illustrating this “training tip” doesn’t show the horse’s face?

Got to assist today in a momentous event in the life of one of my four-legged friends, helping a client back one of her lovely Lipizzans for the first time. It’s always a process getting a horse ready for that first ride, but this one was a little different.

I met Ephiny last September for a bodywork session requested to try to figure out why the mare was so incredibly averse to being touched on the right side of her body, especially in the loin area. Sensibly, her owner realized that could cause big problems when the horse was asked to wear a saddle, feel weight on her back and have a rider’s leg making contact with a large part of her right side.

It was one of the more interesting sessions I’ve ever been part of. I’m used to connecting with horses’ bodies and “reading” their own and their riders’ imbalances through the subtle interplays of brace and release, the accumulated layers of muscle memory apparent in an individual’s posture and movement.

But with Ephiny, I had the rare (and somewhat disconcerting) experience of “seeing” pictures of events that did not come from this lifetime. (Her current owner raised her from birth, so no hidden bits of history here.) The first picture that came into my mind’s eye while I was doing a fairly ordinary scan to find a starting point for massage was of a white horse with a bloody tear in her right loin. My practical side resisted the picture for a bit while I started making physical and energetic connections in the actual body under my hands. But the image persisted, so I just kept up my work and told the owner what I was seeing.

(Gotta love my clients, who know I sometimes turn into the crazy woman and who just come along with me and generally don’t miss a beat.)

The next picture that popped up on the internal movie screen was of another horse, which I “knew” was a stallion, inflicting the wound – a nasty slashing bite – in the process of trying to breed her. Savaged by a stallion. Pretty big trauma. I can see why that one might stick around energetically and create a “don’t touch me there” area of the body. I shared this image with the owner, who then had an “ah ha” moment about some interesting and puzzling issues involving her mare.

Seems Ephiny, then seven, never appeared to cycle regularly. She had lived platonically with her stallion pal for two years and would not let him mount her. (Polite stallions always heed a mare who says “no” or they can get their teeth kicked in.) Interesting. Chills up the spine interesting. (That has since changed. She now has obvious heat cycles; she even did a little flirting with the stallion today after her ride.)

But back to a year ago, when it became clear that a nice massage wasn’t going to quite get to the core of this horse’s issues. Happily, we have reiki and other forms of energy work for such situations. So them, commence to clearing old trauma. Energetically gather together all the disparate bits, open up a place for the unhealthy stuff to leave and give it a place to disperse. Pack it together, extract and disperse. Create an intention that the process goes on at the pace best for the horse and turn it over to her to continue at will. Or not – she had the option to hold on to the stuff and continue the accompanying behaviors.

Happily, this horse chose to do her own work and the owner experienced the gradual lessening of the mare’s right-side stiffnesses and crankiness as they worked through the patient process of teaching the horse to longe, accustoming her to wearing tack and getting her good and ready to handle the weight and presence of a rider on her barrel. Along with these traditional steps to prepping a horse for a rider, the owner also incorporated a series of ground exercises that help horses learn to release their jaws, lift the base of the neck and the ribcage and step through with ease. The exercises are designed to gently and progressively access and strengthen the mechanism of self-carriage, so they’re perfect for helping a green horse gain confidence in its balance.

That’s why this type of groundwork forms the basis for my very favorite way to start horses under saddle. It’s so easy to build in the simple ground exercises so they become a familiar, comfortable part of the horse’s routine with people. For the first weight-bearing experience, then, the designated “rider” quietly mounts and the ground handler just takes the horse through the familiar progression – release the jaw, lift the base of the neck and rock onto the hindquarters a bit (which lifts the back so the rider has a nice place to sit) and then push off the hind end and move forward.

Inevitably, Ephiny with her owner on board, started out a bit lurchy. So I repeated the series a few times and she found her walking gear. Interestingly, she was way more connected back to front on her (formerly explosive) right side. Left center-of-balance lifting mechanism and left hind had a bit more trouble synchronizing. But we did find her nice, swingy walk both directions and she did a great job of starting to figure out just how she needs to distribute her own weight to more efficiently carry weight.

The few times I’ve gotten to use this method of starting (or restarting) horses under saddle, it has worked incredibly well. Makes that first ride such a natural next step for the horse, it’s almost a non-event. Well, except for how happy the humans are afterward!

(You can read Ephiny’s owner’s blog about the experience and work back through the archives to follow her training diary, too.) Thanks to Traci Castleberry for the photos.

One of the things I like best about my work is the variety. No two days are the same. And I have learned that even though I show up to teach lessons with a general plan in mind, it’s really the horses who decide what they and their humans need on any given day. Sometimes a groundwork lesson turns into more of a bodywork session. Sometimes horse and rider need to move back through the progression of skills mastery and revisit a basic concept with a new perspective or challenge (mental or physical.) And sometimes circumstances change unexpectedly and other horses or people take precedence.

Take last Sunday, for example. Simple enough plan – teach two lessons at a lovely ranch near Tumacacori starting at 8 a.m. I met my client, Bobbie, at 7:45 to ferry across the Santa Cruz River crossing in her car. Except, well, we only got about three-quarters of the way across before we dropped off into a sandy hole. Had a nice chat while waiting to reach the ranch manager for a pull. Just as we were hiking up our pant legs and prepping to wade out and walk to the ranch, a very kind passerby came along and dragged us out. The ranch manager showed up just in time to drive us across in her large pickup with large tires – we didn’t even get our feet wet!

So, a 9 a.m. start instead, and it’s still lovely and cool and less humid than town. No worries. Except the black mare lieing on her side in one of the pastures we pass on the way on to the ranch, with her owner obviously trying in vain to get her to stand up. Turns out the mare’s owner and the ranch manager have been trying for a weeks to figure out what’s wrong with the mare, and visits from two different vets haven’t seemed to yield any help. Would Bobbie and I be willing to talk to the lady and see if our combined experience could offer any help. Of course! Who would walk away from a horse in distress? Not me, for sure.

So, by the time we get around to gate and into the pasture, the horse is up. Barely. She’s standing with her butt all hunched up under her and is shifting her weight back and forth from one front foot to the other. Took about 8-3/4 seconds for one word to come out of both Bobbie’s and my mouth. Can you guess what that word was?

DISCLAIMER: I am not a licensed veterinarian and I do not diagnose horses or any other animals, either for fun or for profit.

I am, however, an experienced horsewoman and a healer and, well, as the saying goes, “If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.”  I’ll bet more than a few of you who are reading this can name this particular bird.

Here’s the story we got from the owner (also known as presenting symptoms, if we were vets, which we are not):

Horse, a 20-year-old Foxtrotter mare, has had intermittent lameness for a couple of months. Said lameness got worse a few weeks ago after the horse was vaccinated with “West Nile and all those other spring shots.” The mare moved to this facility and was turned out on pasture a month ago. No noticeable change in lameness until the past two weeks. (Note: we waded through ankle-deep green grass to get from the gate to the horse and the ranch manager rhapsodized about how fast the grass has been growing the past couple of weeks since the monsoon rains started.) The owner has been treating the horse’s feet for thrush, but felt that had started to resolve.

The horse’s physical appearance included the aforementioned posture that suggested she very much wanted weight off her forefeet. On close observation, she was not only shifting from forefoot to forefoot, but she was also very slightly doing the same from hind foot to hind foot. All the large muscle groups were rock hard to the touch. Her topline was very undeveloped and she had a big belly. Her feet showed regular, wide horizontal rings from coronet band to the ground and her toes were very long. Her gums were pink and capillary refill seemed normal. Her skin was elastic, but just a bit tacky.

The mare has been seen by two veterinarians and her regular farrier in the past two weeks. Here’s what the “experts” had to say:

The shoer, when asked about the rings on the horse’s feet, told the mare’s owner and the ranch manager it was nothing to be worried about, but was simply a sign that the horse had been stressed at some point.

Vet #1 diagnosed a foot abscess and prescribed a sulfanomide drug. No other treatment suggested.

Vet #2 diagnosed by observation, no labs, selenium deficiency and had the owner start feeding a selenium supplement.

Neither treatment seemed to make any difference. In fact, the mare seemed to be laying down more and be much harder for the owner to get to stand up in the past two days. The owner has been visiting three times a day to administer meds and be sure the mare eats her supplements. She has been on four grams of powdered bute per day for the past two weeks, administered 2 grams in the morning and two at night mixed into beet pulp.

So, anyway, back to my story. After Bobbie and I help the nice lady lead her very sweet and game mare through the pasture, down a road, around the barn and into a dry-lot pen, we had a nice chat and answered the owner’s questions with lots of sentences that started “If it were my horse, I would …” Bet you can fill in some of those blanks, those of you who recognize and have managed horses with similar symptoms.

By this time, it’s coming on noon and getting hotter, though still breezy and significantly cooler than it’s been in Tucson. So, modified lesson plan for the day. A little saddle fitting (mostly to the human, an endurance rider who is battling chronic back pain.) Bad news: the new saddle makes the human’s back more sore, even though the super cushy seat is very nice. Good news: one of her other saddles is a good fit for rider and horse, though weighs a bit much for rider’s liking.

Next, a little groundwork, with me demonstrating how the horse falling even a little bit onto the forehand in the first step out of a halt sets up a cascade of heaviness and imbalance. Then some mounted work in the shady side of a pasture, practicing the same release and engage exercises that helped the horse achieve lightness from the ground. (Big smiles from the rider and droopy bottom lip from the horse.) A little trailer-loading practice, and everyone was done. Horse #2 will have to wait ‘til next time for her turn.

Though we got stuck, sidetracked and sweatier than planned, Bobbie and I agreed it had been a great day. We got the chance to talk a lot about our philosophies on good training and horse health and stupid people. We helped a nice lady and a very sweet horse and earned good karma points for the future. And we accomplished several teaching/learning tasks and left her challenging mare with “thinky lip.” It’s not all according to plan, but it’s all good!

I am getting spoiled … and so is one of my four-legged clients. You see, he is lucky enough to be owned by a terrific couple and his primary human is a chiropractor. A chiropractor whose professional practice is dedicated to human clients, but who is interested in learning to work on horses. And, of course, his own horse benefits from being practice patient.

For me, as the person helping them learn to rehab the horse after serious hoof issues, it’s wonderful. A few weeks ago when we were working with the horse at liberty, I noticed his back wasn’t swinging well and my eye kept being drawn an area at the base of his withers that should have been lifting, but wasn’t. I just drew the owner/chiropractor’s attention to the area and asked him to check it out.
“Now?”
“Sure. Why not? You know what you’re doing.”
“You want me to adjust him?”
“Yep.”
About 18 seconds later the horse was going around the circle with his back lifted, neck arched and knees stepping high. Gorgeous! But more important, way less concussion on those front feet that have been a chronic challenge.

Today the horse came out of his stall looking quite footsore, and even his handy protective boots didn’t give him quite enough relief. I started exploring his body and found a tight spot in the loin on the “lame” side. Then I got recruited to be the intermediate in muscle-testing and the owner found a needed adjustment at the hip and that recurring one at the base of the wither. The horse went from about 40 percent sound to about 80 percent and we were able to do some ground exercises with him to continue the process of reminding him to get off his forehand and shift his weight back.

Nice to have options that make the horse feel better and help him learn instead of just having to say “he’s lame, put him away and hope he gets better.” Everybody got to learn something useful today – both the two-leggeds and the four-.

Now if I could just have the luxury of a chiropractor with me every time a horse needs a little help. I would be so spoiled … and the horses would be so sound and happy!

Nothing quite like being lied to first thing in the morning, and by someone who was disturbing me and who wanted to sell me something. At 7:30 this morning, the phone in my home/office rang. Though I’m a dedicated call screener, I generally answer early-morning calls because I expect it’s either a client calling to change or schedule a lesson that day or the barn management telling me something has happened to one of my horses. Not today.

“Hi, this is Stan from Equine Somethingorother and I see you indicated you were having some problems with horseflies.”

“I did what?” (Mind you, I am most emphatically not a morning person and my brain cells were not primed for a telemarketing call.)

“You submitted an interest card, probably at a horse expo or show …”

“Nope. Didn’t happen. First, don’t you think it’s a little early for a business call? And second, I have not been to a horse event in years, so I am quite sure I did not submit any kind of card. Good-bye.”

Does someone at this company (regrettably, I failed to rouse the brain cells enough to ask him to repeat the name) really think that I don’t know whether or not I requested information from them? That I won’t realize they just prospected my contact info. off the web and cold-called me (despite my number being on the national no-call list)?

And even if I were interested in what they’re selling, would I buy from an organization that started off our professional relationship with a blatent – and completely unnecessary – lie? If he had said “we saw your website and thought you might be interested in our products,” I still would have suggested he was calling a bit early, but I wouldn’t have been angry.

If any of my fellow horse biz professionals get a call from this guy, please email me the name of the company so I can check them out!

As an independent service provider, I surely enjoy collaborating with other self-employed and self-empowered folks to make my work easier and more effective. And I’m very lucky these days to have a number of wonderful resources oriented toward making the world better for horses and riders in my “it takes a village” group of friends and clients.

Just this morning I worked with a new student who made truly unprecedented progress at finding a more balanced and free-moving seat on horseback. She was referred by my talented yoga colleague Jenny Kendall, who had already pre-programmed in some of the crucial awareness of body and breath. Made my job – and that of my faithful school horse – so much easier. And the student, an adult coming back to riding after a decade away from horses, is going to recapture (and, I suspect, exceed) her previous riding competence with much less of the pain and stiffness she expected. Everybody wins!

Then, this afternoon I sent out a new edition of my business newsletter featuring an article on practical and emotional preparations for the death of an equine companion. I had commissioned it written by client, friend and celebrant extraordinaire Kristine Bentz. That project grew out of a shared experience this spring when a barnmate spent an agonizingly frustrating day juggling all the logistics to put down her cherished horse. Instead of spending a sad-but-calm day enjoying his company and easing both their transitions before the scheduled euthanasia, she was on the phone for hours finding a suitable burial place and negotiating last-minute for the necessary equipment.

In addition to creating a lovely (but short) ceremony on the fly that day to acknowledge and celebrate the horse/human bond, Kristine provided a wealth of practical information about backhoes and cremation facilities and state laws regarding burials. As the owner of a 27-year-old horse, I realized I really can’t escape thinking about plans for his final day (though, happily, he’s not showing any signs of going anywhere any time soon.) And really, all of us who share our lives with horses know on some level that injury or colic could strike any day. Better to be prepared than to add worry and frustration to an already fraught situation. So I’m very happy to have a resource who knows how to help folks channel their emotions and find a heavy-equipment operator after hours.

Thanks ladies!

Ah, spring. And the attention of horse lovers of all kinds turns to the Thoroughbred racing world.

For reasons I can’t even begin to fathom, I have been enthralled by horse racing as long as I can remember. I recall watching every moment of the Kentucky Derby broadcast on television in the house where we lived before I was even old enough for school, and I never, ever missed seeing the race until the May I was in Norway as an exchange student.

The posters on my bedroom walls when I was a teenager weren’t of rock stars and actors – it was Secretariat who dominated the décor. I still remember right where I was when I heard the great horse had been put down, and I sat in my car alongside a Washington highway bawling my eyes out because he was dead and I never got to go see him in his retirement home at Claiborne.

And while I have plenty of issues with an industry that can treat living beings as tools to be thrown away when they no longer work, for some reason I still cannot manage to listen to Dan Fogelberg’s “Run for the Roses” without sobbing. (Highly amusing to my then-boyfriend the one time I heard the song live in concert, on a Preakness day sometime in the late ‘80s.)

Some years I’m more interested than others. This year, not so much. The last horse who really had me going was Smarty Jones. Actually, I laugh at myself when I realize I’m scoffing at the inevitable media predictions that one horse or another is “the one” to win the Triple Crown. “Oh,” I think, “that horse isn’t worthy. This isn’t a Triple Crown year.” As if I know or have any right to make such a pronouncement. But, then, I do really believe there haven’t been many horses in the past three decades who lived up to Big Red, nor a rivalry to match the thrilling, down-to-the-wire Affirmed/Alydar match-ups.

And what does any of this have to do with anything, really? Well, the other day I got to thinking about the qualities of those precious few people in my life whom I consider Friends-with-a-capitol-“F.” I have loads of acquaintances whose company I seek out and enjoy and a number of friends-with-a-small-“f” who form a solid and much-appreciated support system. But there is a miniscule number of humans I really, really trust. And the overarching quality I prize in those women (yes, they’re all women) is staying power.  I may have known them for decades or not, but they all have some serious chops – the character, moral fiber and fortitude to go the distance.

And this has what to do with Thoroughbred racing? In my brain, on the day, a connection between which Triple Crown race I most respect and how the test it poses reveals the same qualities in a horse that I most seek in the people with whom I work and live.

With all its pomp and tradition, the Derby certainly is dear to me. I haven’t been to any of the Triple Crown races, but I did spend several days at Churchill Downs in the late ‘70s on the only out-of-state family vacation we ever took. I still can picture those magical early mornings, when horses seemed to materialize right out of the mist that hung over the track and partially obscured the famous twin spires. Horse-girl heaven!

The Preakness, the “middle child” of the Triple Crown series and shortest of the trio, I watch just to see if the Derby horse can hold up. I have missed the broadcast many times over the years without much regret; replays on the evening news, or now on the internet, are good enough. Maybe it’s those made-over daisies in the winner’s blanket …

Turns out that my real favorite of the three classics is the Belmont, the distance race, the contest that asks those ridiculously young horses to run farther than they’ll ever race again unless they happen to spend their careers in Europe. Now I’ve had fun at various small tracks watching the Quarter Horses run, but those short races just don’t quite do it for me. Give me a long distance wire-to-wire win or a great come-from-nowhere in the last seconds of a mile-plus contest any day. And, for racing in this country, the Belmont is the ultimate test of staying power.

That’s what I’ll be looking for when I watch the race on Saturday and as I make choices in my own life. Who can go the distance …

Went to check out and support the new venture of an old friend yesterday. Veterinarian Michael Hutchison, who was my barn’s main vet from the time he started practicing in Tucson in 1993, has reinvented himself. After selling his traditional mixed vet practice, he went back to school and has come back as an equine acupuncture specialist. His return has already created quite a buzz around town, so I went to a lecture/demonstration this morning to reconnect and see what I could learn.

I always appreciated Dr. Mike’s open-mindedness, positive energy and his obvious enthusiasm for helping animals. His willingness to think outside the box and administer a then-unusual but now pretty mainstream treatment of intravenous DMSO saved one of my horses who otherwise would have been put down. And he is clearly super-energized by his new knowledge and direction.

At one point, it occurred he was present when I took a little step on the alternative healing path. While listening to his lecture, I remembered an incident that was one of my “ah-ha” moments back when I still didn’t quite believe in the profound effects of acupuncture/acupressure.

A lovely Paint mare belonging to my barn neighbor had aborted a late-term foal the day before and I had volunteered to hold her for the vet because her owner was at work when he could come. It was a cold late-winter day, with precip that kept changing from little ice balls to snow and back again – not what we’re used to in Arizona. In short, miserable for horse and humans.

So there is Dr. Mike, arm bare except for the long plastic sleeve and lubricant that should help him slip inside for a little exploratory procedure to ensure no damage was done by the unscheduled four-legged delivery. And there’s the mare, cold and cranky and probably very sore, with her tail clamped down, her backside with a big “Closed” sign on it. I was at the head, trying to sooth her and keep her still and dissuade her from escalating her understandable grouchiness into hind-leg target practice with the vet as target. I noticed the mare seemed to like her forehead rubbed and I remembered something I had learned about pressure points that cause an endorphin release.

“Hang on. I’m going to try something. I don’t know if it will work.” I reached up and stuck my thumb and a finger into the hollows at the front of each ear, putting pressure there while I continued to speak quietly to the mare. She stopped fidgeting, dropped her head and relaxed her body. Her whole body. In went Dr. Mike’s hand, then arm.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but don’t stop,” he said from the back end of the horse. I stayed put, the mare stayed calm and the vet was able to complete his exam. Cool! Guess there really is something to this acupressure stuff.

I don’t remember for sure, but I imagine the ever-curious Dr. Mike asked for an explanation of what I had done and I, no doubt, gave a very poor one because I really didn’t have a clue at that point. I just knew it had worked and I really had to know more. A few years later, after I relocated to Colorado, I happened across a lecture by the wonderful women at what is now the Tallgrass Animal Acupressure Institute and I started exploring with the use of their pioneering book, Equine Acupressure: A Working Manual.

Acupuncture and acupressure continued to fascinate me, both as a treatment modality and as a diagnostic tool. In 2003 I had the chance to be part of the inaugural acutherapy certification course offered by Aims Community College and I spent six challenging months getting a good introduction to traditional Chinese medicine theory and practice. (Yes, I can learn all those points and meridians. Yes, I do like to set needles. No, I do not want to work on humans. I’ll keep translating what I learn to horses, thank you very much.)

Acupressure fits so well into both the bodywork and the ground exercises I do with horses every day that it has become second nature. And though understanding the complexities of TCM is the work of a lifetime, it is quite simple to teach a few useful acupressure points to my riding students as part of their “toolbox” of connection techniques.

I’m feeling grateful for the horses who have guided me to learn, for the people who have taught me and explored with me and for the new healing skills of an old friend.

“My horse hates to longe … detests dressage … loathes lateral work … can’t stand circles … grinds his teeth over groundwork.”

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have heard someone tell me how much his or her horse hates some basic exercise. And I always think to myself, “Your horse hates it, or you hate it?”

Of course free longing isn't fun for a horse who is allowed to be heavy on the forehand, slamming into the ground at every gait.

Why in the world would a horse dislike any exercise he was carefully and respectfully taught to do? If the human thoughtfully plans and competently executes a progression of training exercises designed so each skill builds from what has been mastered before, most horses are pretty happy to play along.

Of course some skills will come more easily for each horse, depending on breed, conformation, temperament and experience. The build that makes rollbacks and spins a breeze might render extensions more of a challenge. The horse who loves to gallop cross country might find quiet, collected work more mentally difficult. But there’s no reason for any horse to take special exception to being asked to trot a correct 20-meter circle, to walk quietly when being led from the off side or to canter in civilized fashion over a pole.

In my own experience, my horses have only balked at doing what I ask in a few situations:

•    Instances when I got in a hurry and didn’t teach the mechanics of the movement well enough in an orderly sequence. I hit the ground a few times from horses who had natural talent but who hadn’t mastered the mechanics of jumping well enough to help them problem solve in less-than-perfect conditions.

•    Times when I didn’t adequately prepare my horse physically to accomplish the task without discomfort. It took several years before I could school lateral work with my long-backed race-bred Quarter Horse without his loin are getting really sore, but eventually I figured out the combination of conditioning and bodywork that let him learn lateral work happily.

•    Situations when imbalance, imprecision or incomplete understanding of my own biomechanics meant my body was moving (or not moving) in a way that either confused the horse or actually prevented him from doing what I thought I was asking him to do. Not long ago I had to apologize profusely to a very frustrated horse after a session in which I was trying to work out the “geometry” of the seat aids to transition from leg yield to half pass.

Teach the horse to balance and move with ease and comfort, and the same exercise becomes fun and beneficial for horse and handler.

I’m working with a couple of horses now whose posture choices and balance habits mean one “hates the round pen” and the other “kicks out a lot, so be careful of him on the longe line.” Both of them exhibit some combination of classic bad carriage on a circle – head high, hollow back, hindquarters disengaged and nose tipped out, shoulder dropped in, hindquarters disengaged. And both display the discomfort of their lack of balance on a circle quite similarly – they careen around at top speed, slam on the brakes unsolicited and try to cut across the circle or turn without being asked. Hyperness, histrionics and generally much ado about nothing. Walk/trot/canter/halt/turn on a circle is not difficult, advanced work. But those skills do form the basis for advanced work, so it’s important for both horse and human to find a way to practice and perfect them happily, completely and with confidence in their abilities.

I’m betting that after I invest some patience and time, a little bodywork and a lot of miles of groundwork, both of these horses will be converts and will enjoy learning new, fun exercises in the roundpen and on the longe line. I like it! And I’m betting so will they.