Leadership under saddle – keeping him safe
I had the most amazing, wonderful, beautiful ride on Bobby today and we didn’t go more than 100 metres.
Errrr how can you call that a ride?” I hear you say.
On this ride, Bobby showed me the second baby step towards real leadership in the saddle and we didn’t ride more than 100 metres in the hour or so that we were out there.
(The first baby step is a stable, “plugged in” seat and I got that from Peggy Cummings Connected Riding work. I can’t recommend a connected riding clinic too highly. Coincidentally, there’s one at our new place just outside of Warragul in Victoria (AUS) for 6 days, starting 23rd November. Peggy Cummings herself, is out from Scotland, Trisha Wren from New Zealand and the best of TTeam will be here from England.
Sue McKibbon is organizing it and I think there is one rider place left and quite a few non rider places. Email me jenny@bookswithspirit.com and I will forward it to Sue or paper plane it over to her house!)
Back to our ride…
Leadership is about what you can do FOR your horse that he can’t do for himself (otherwise why would he want to follow you?) And in this case, I noticed that my eyes, with their different depth perception, enable me to see inside shadows and through reflections that my horse cannot. I also have a brain to eye connection that processes what I see, differently than my horse does.
I can use that brain to eye processing and my different experience of the world to identify an old bench that someone placed out for the walkers to have a rest, a map placed at the side of the trail, a moving monster that is really only the helmet of a bike rider coming over the hill or another that was only the front half of a goat moving behind a tree or yet another that was the disembodied legs of the foal scampering around in the shadows.
And I can use all that, both to keep him safe and to help him FEEL safe – because I think that feeling of safety is an essential part of leadership.
We sat at the gateway to a beautiful little valley, Bobby and I, and watched a stallion cavort up and down in his paddock, geese running around on the hill, a small mob of sheep suddenly flowing across the paddock, a newborn foal scampering around his Mum in the distance and the shadows of the trees, the birds, the breeze and the dapples of the sunlight producing a sometimes eerie effect.
While we sat in this beautiful place, with me on his back, Bobby was teaching me that, to keep myself and my horse safe when I am in the saddle, that the horse has to have some attention on me all the time. He was teaching me that there are times when the human eye is more useful than the horse’s eye, when the human experience is more useful than the horse’s. But for my eyes or experience to be useful in keeping him safe and feeling safe, then he has to be “tuned into me”.
We were sitting there at the gate enjoying the show unfolding in front of us and every time he stiffened up, ears pricked hard forwards, completely focused on something going on around us, I would look for some sort of signal that he was still “tuned into “ me.
I would shift my weight, rub him on the neck, cough or sigh or ask him out loud “are you still here with me sunshine?” I was looking for some evidence that he was “with” me – a soft ear flicked at me – something to show me that he was aware of me up there on his back and was OK about that.
And if his ear didn’t softly come back to me, I did whatever it took to get that to happen – clucked at him, jiggled my legs a little without losing my sitting bones against the saddle (when our horse has all their attention elsewhere, it’s not a great time to be losing our “plugged in” seat!), picked up the reins and backed him up a couple of steps (in one case, quite a few steps), slapped my leg or his shoulder gently with my bit of rope – whatever it took to get his attention back on to me.
And all this was interspersed with a complete immersion into all the happy, busy goings on in this lovely little valley, with lots and lots of just sitting there enjoying what was happening around us.
Why do I want my horse to have awareness of me ALL the time that I am riding? Because I can’t keep him safe, unless he keeps that awareness of me.
And it is my job to keep him safe in all the ways that it is possible for a human to keep a horse safe – I can use my eyes that have a different perception to his to notice that in that shadow is part of an old barbed wire fence laying on the ground, so to stay safe, move away from that please.
I can keep him safe by using my depth perception to see the creek and tell him that here in the shadows, is the edge of the bridge – wrap him in my legs and keep him to the centre of the bridge where he is safe.
I can keep him safe from the boogey man on the bicycle, the goat behind the tree and the weird movement in the shadows, I can help him to FEEL safe around all those things – IF he is in a place where he is aware of me on his back all the time.
This all sounds very beautiful doesn’t it? And it was. But I need to tell you that it wasn’t always pretty. Sometimes I had to get to get quite firm and insistent that he keep his awareness of me sitting up there.
And here’s the kicker – the big coincidence. Bobby has always and mostly been “with me” when we have been out riding – so he was acting out of character. When my horse acts out of character, I like to notice if there is anything that I need to know or do.
Is it coincidence that Sunny, broken in in terror and unridden for over three years, has been begging me to ride her? Is it coincidence that I’ve just bought a new saddle that fits her and me? Is it coincidence that I have just emailed someone to re-start her in a few weeks time? (I’ve never been the kind of rider that should be starting a horse.) Is it coincidence that Sunny is going to need all these skills and awareness from me in her “greenness”?
I suspect not…
