Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

Do you know, anyone who still thinks of horses as dumb animals in this day and age , should have been out riding with us yesterday.   My friend Jane’s horse Shea, systematically worked on me, physically worked on me, loosening up my “bad” knee and the cause of my bad knee, up higher in my pelvis – and last night was the best night’s sleep that I had with this sore knee in weeks.

And she did it consciously and deliberately – I could feel her doing it and Jane could see her doing it.  Thanks Shea!  And thanks Jane!

It was the longest ride that I had done in a couple of years, out in the magnificent trails in the hills around Tonimbuk, on a magnificent sunny winter day.  I have been so busy looking after my own horses by doing short rides to build their backs up, that I had forgotten the simple pleasure of riding out. 

I don’t get on other people’s horses easily and when I do, I need to listen to every early warning signal that something is Not Quite Right and take action on it, in order to ride with happiness and confidence.  It was such a pleasure to get on a horse for the very first time, feel her out for five minutes to make sure our communication worked properly and then go out and ride.

That’s what can happen when the horse is fit and confident and the human prepared to listen.  Jane’s horse’s are a credit to her.

Ahhh it was wonderful.  Shea not only consciously worked on my knee, she looked after me beautifully as well – played me like a violin in fact – doing this little jog trot that Jane said she had never seen, until I was comfortable enough to be saying, “come on. I am comfortable with faster than this!” (Maybe there’s a message there for our horses too.  Maybe we could do it like Shea and wait until the other party is so comfortable they started asking for more speed?)

I was happy to be able to help Shea in return, with a noisy dam water drainage pipe under the road that she had a fear of, by doing that approach and retreat and then  just sit there and wait for the Chew exercise that I describe discovering with Bobby in Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You. 

For those of you who haven’t read that book, I discovered (Bobby told me!) this brilliant method of dealing with things that my horse is afraid of when I am out riding. 

When my horse is afraid of something when we are riding out, I back away from it (not turning around and walking away, but backing away)  until he feels OK again.  I use the early warning signal that I call Not Quite Right, to know when to stop riding forwards and start backing away and for figuring out when I have gone back far enough.  And then I just sit there for however long it takes and wait for The Chew. 

And then I repeat that, however often I need to, until my horse is happy and relaxed about riding past this thing that they used to be afraid of. 

In Shea’s case, we got the feeling that something was Not Quite Right about 3 times I think, each time a little closer to the noisy, rumbling drain under the road, until the last time, her soft little ears swivelling around, she just marched freely forward over the top of it. 

The proof of how effective this technique is, is that (just like Bobby in the book) when it came time to ride back over it on our way home, she just strolled over it with a “what drain?” kind of attitude.

If you haven’t read either of my two books specifically for horse people, Zen Connection with Horses has audio lessons that you download into your MP3 player and those lessons take you step by step through recognising how you personally experience that feeling that something is Not Quite Right and how to take systematic action about it and get you used to taking systematic action about it, every time.

Noticing and acting on this Not Quite Right happens before you or your horse actually get afraid – so the freedom from fear and nerves that comes from paying attention to this feeling that something is Not Quite Right is completely liberating. 

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