2013 Trail to Texas -- Mustang Million competition

Just the other day, I was sitting atop a ridge, looking at deep draws and cedar-covered hills that form the Powder River breaks. Beneath me was Sandy, the mustang mare who has been my partner on an incredible trail this summer and fall.  Some of you know the story; I'd like to share it with those of you who don't.

About two months ago, I competed again in the Mustang Makeover competition in Fort Worth, TX.  This year's competition was billed as "The Mustang Million" -- the Mustang Heritage Foundation, which oversees the event, set a goal of adopting out one thousand BLM mustangs, and raised one million dollars' worth of prizes for the competition.

Unfortunately, I was not one of those to take home prize money, buckles, or other awards.  I did, however, take home prizes worth more than money.  I hope you'll walk with me along the trail we've been on these last few months.

Of course, the first step toward competition is adopting a mustang from a designated BLM range. Originally, Darcy and I had planned on traveling to an adoption site in Nebraska to select this year's mustang. However, just days before I was to leave, I received a phone call from our Wyoming BLM office, telling me that the Nebraska horses had been quarantined because of an outbreak of equine influenza.  Because I'd already missed other adoption weekends (deemed too far away) in Oregon and Texas, I only had one other opportunity: I'd have to travel to Fort Worth for an adoption weekend just days away.

It seemed that this was going to be the first bump in the road:  compared to Nebraska, Fort Worth is 500 miles farther from our home.  Going there meant an investment of more time, more money, more hardship for my family.  I made the choice to go, and a friend who traveled with me arranged for us to transport some horses to offset the expense. Still, I had to miss an important family event in order to go, so the choice was not without personal cost 

When we finally got to Fort Worth, we had a half day to preview the horses that would be up for adoption. Most of them were smaller geldings that would not have been a good match for me.  Last year, I'd made friends with a guy who worked for the Mustang Heritage Foundation, and had watched me ride Amigo.  He pointed me to a four-year-old palomino mare, and said that he thought she would match my riding style.

As I looked at her in the pen, I noticed her quiet manner and kind eye.  In addition, she had more size than some of the geldings:  we know from history that Army remount horses, some of which had draft blood, were often turned out on the open ranges; she had most likely descended from some of these.  Her dark palomino coloring and size hinted at some Belgian blood.  In the end, I was able to adopt her for $200, and since I'd earned a $100 credit by registering early as a BLM adopter, I only paid $100 for her.

Once I got the mare home, my oldest daughter saw a picture of her online and suggested I name her Sandy. The name rang true, not only for her coloring, but her sweet, though sometimes onery, personality. I discovered that, most of the time, Sandy was very easy to connect with: she seemed to rely on me to show her how to behave.  Her training progressed very quickly, from halter training to standing under saddle.  I was riding her within five days of bringing her home:  she did spook and occasionally jump, but she never did buck or offer to run off with me.  She seemed to accept the training, not passively, but out of trust in the bond we had.

Because the initial weeks progressed so smoothly, I thought the rest of the road would be fairly easy: I thought the initial bumpiness was over.  I was wrong.

On June 5, my crew and I set out to gather cattle from one of our larger pastures, in preparation for branding.  Of course, I was not mounted on Sandy at that time:  instead, I was riding a gelding I'd purchased a year ago.  He had a history of bucking, and that was part of the reason I'd been working with him; other than that problem, he was a well-muscled, beautiful horse with the potential to be a pick-up horse.  I actually believed we had worked through his "blow-ups," as we hadn't had any trouble for several months.  As I rode out across the sagebrush-covered, rocky pasture, however, the horse began to buck so powerfully that he pulled my foot out of the stirrup and tore my hamstring.

Once that happened, I could no longer stay mounted on the gelding; I ended up coming off over his front shoulder, landing on my shoulder and neck. I managed to get back on the horse and continue to gather, but he started bucking again, and I just hurt too badly to ride him through it. Once we got back to the ranch, I discovered I couldn't control my right arm very well. A trip to the emergency room, several Xrays and an MRI, and several hours later, we found out just how badly I'd been injured.  Because of the power behind the bucking, the hard ground, and my own size, the impact of the landing fractured one of the cervical vertebrae in my neck. By the end of the day, I was in a cervical collar, with numbness all the way down my right arm and a torn right hamstring.

At that point, it didn't seem that I would be able to continue to train Sandy at all. At the outset, the doctor recommended six weeks in the collar, with minimal physical activity, and certainly no activity that posed a risk to my spine.

As I stated earlier, this accident occurred at the beginning of our branding weekend: three days of intense work that I was not able to help with. It tore me up to not be out in the middle of the activity with my crew, and to have to watch other people do my work. However, it also opened my eyes to the caliber of help I had hired, and the willingness of my friends to help me. And seeing that gave me an idea about how to keep Sandy going.

Within two weeks of the accident, Sandy was back in the round pen, this time under one of my hired men, J. W.  I stood at the edge of the pen and coached him through mounting and riding her.  After J.W. worked with her for a few days, my other hired man, Sam, took his turn.  I ended up training Sandy for four weeks with Sam and J.W. as her riders; I supervised and instructed the men, but did not ride my mustang during all that time.

I've presented colt-starting clinics for five years, and have helped my hired men start many colts for me, so I was not unaccustomed to coaching from the sidelines. There were still many differences:  I was not able to physically demonstrate the manuevers I was asking Sam and J.W. to do, and therefore had to be more precise in my verbal instructions. In addition, this was not just any ranch horse we were training; Sandy, being a mustang, differed from domestic horses.  She'd already formed a strong bond with me, and now I was asking her to trust two other riders. Finally, because we did not have the luxury of time even before my injury, we had to progress her training at a pace that was more rapid than what Sam or J.W. had experienced before.

The experience of doing Sandy's training in this fashion also reinforced my long-held belief in the importance of ground work.  I worked on the ground with Sandy for hours each day, teaching her the manuevers that Sam and J. W. would later ask her to do when they rode. I taught Sandy by using pressure on certain parts of her body in order to ask her to move, and then I taught the men to cue her by using the same pressure points.  The instruction this time around, if not more physically intense than Amigo's had been, was certainly more mentally intense. I have been riding horses all my life, so many of the cues I give are instinctive, something I don't think about. In order to train Sandy after the accident, I had to reflect on exactly what cues I needed to teach the horse, and then focus on communicating these cues to the riders in order to get the movement I wanted.



Because I worked with her every day, Sandy remained "hooked up" to me more than to Sam or J. W.  I was still the person catching her, feeding her, grooming her, and teaching her. I developed a habit of whistling when I went out to her pen to catch her, and Sandy, intelligent as she is, started coming to the gate at the sound of my whistle. 

After four weeks in the neck brace, my doctor finally gave me the OK to begin riding again, as long as I didn't get on anything that would buck.  The doctor gave me that news on July 5: that afternoon, my family and I went to the Big Horn Mountains for a camping trip. When we returned on July 7, the first thing I did after we unpacked was saddle Sandy.  She was the first horse I rode after my accident.  I can't describe how great that feeling was!

Because of the care we'd taken in her training during the month of June, most of the fundamental skills were already there.  My riding in July and August was about sharpening those skills, and paying attention to my own riding.  My injury affected my balance, and I learned that I had to pay close attention to how I was shifting my weight in the saddle or cuing Sandy with my legs:  sometimes she would perform a manuever, such as a spin, incorrectly, and I'd find out that I was really the one at fault.

Finally, September arrived, and Darcy, Sandy and I headed to Fort Worth to compete in the Mustang Million.  This year, instead of competing against about 60 people in the Legends division, we were competing against 100 more!  Everything was more crowded, more noisy, and more busy than the previous year.

On the first day of competition, we completed a basic horsemanship pattern:  bridling and mounting, running a simple pattern at a trot and lope, doing a lead change, and picking up the horse's four feet once dismounted.  Sandy and I competed well enough in this pattern, although she did drop out of her lope down into a trot at one point in the pattern.  She did not like the confinement of the indoor arena, and was easily distracted from her job. 

Our second full day in Fort Worth became a learning day for Sandy and me: the second competition class, trail, was split into two days, and so we had a day "off." It really wasn't a break, however:  we'd learned in the run-through for the class of two obstacles for which I hadn't trained Sandy yet, so this day became all about last-minute training.  The first obstacle was a jump:  within about thirty minutes of working with Sandy on the ground, I could get her to jump over a log placed at an angle against the corral fence.  Once I got on her back, I used the same cues to get her to jump over the raised log.  She was a natural! The second obstacle wasn't as easy:  the pattern required a horse to lope around fourlogs placed in a pinwheel pattern; the entire diameter of the pinwheel was 10 feet, so for a horse to maintain a lope in that small of a circle was a real challenge.  We worked for a long time on that one, but by the time Darcy joined us that afternoon, she was able to video Sandy and I loping over a pinwheel in the practice pen.

Our second day of competition - third day in Fort Worth - was the trail class.  Sandy completed every obstacle, but lost points for balking at crossing the bridge, for stepping just outside the logs on one sidepass maneuver, and for not loping a complete circle around that pinwheel -- she saw a gate as she came around the circle and broke out of the pattern.  Her jump over the log, however, was beautiful!

Finally, we got to the third day -- the reining pattern.  This had been the class for which I was the most nervous, mostly because the pressure was on me to remember so many parts of the pattern.  And, sure enough, when we loped into the arena and Sandy slid to a stop, I was so excited and impressed with her slide stop that I went straight into a spin, when instead I was supposed to back her five steps!  My fault, not hers.  Sandy showed her grace and athletic ability in this pattern:  her spins, slide stops, rollbacks and lead changes were strong and well-executed.  By this third day, she had grown more accustomed to both the heat in Fort Worth and the confinement of the indoor stable and arena, and was not as easily distracted as she had been during the first two classes.

In the end, Sandy and I placed in the top two-thirds of the Legends division:  not where I had hoped we'd be, for sure.  All things considered, however, we were lucky to just be able to compete.  It was a bumpy trail to Texas this year, but we did make it there, and that was an accomplishment in itself.  

And now, I have this incredible, beautiful palomino mare.  I didn't pay that much for her, so I feel no pressure to sell her. I can simply enjoy her athleticism, her skill at tracking cattle, and the bond we share.  Even though Sandy now runs out in the big pasture with the saddle-horse bunch, I can still whistle for her: if she's within hearing distance, she'll come running.  That's worth more than buckles or money any day.

Texas and Home Again

            One month ago, I was in Fort Worth, preparing to watch the finals competition of the Extreme Mustang Makeover. As many of you know by now, Amigo and I did not qualify for that final round; only the entrants with the top twenty scores were invited to compete on Saturday night.

            As anyone who prepares for a major competition knows, to not make the final cut is devastating. Amigo and I had been through so much, had prepared so diligently, that I couldn’t help but be disappointed. However, after some time to reflect, I have a bit different perspective on the two days of the Mustang Makeover.

            When Amigo and I arrived in Fort Worth, I could see that the level of competition was higher than I had anticipated. So was the intensity of preparation and work. During that first Wednesday afternoon and evening, Darcy and I had to get Amigo settled in his stall, unload tack and supplies, find the lot where we were to park the horse trailer, and find our own hotel. In addition, I had to attend an exhibitors’ meeting, where I received a series of patterns to memorize for the next days’ competition. Needless to say, the level of stress was intense.

            That night, when I finally was able to ride Amigo, I had the additional challenge of presenting an indoor arena to him. I had intended to prepare him for that new environment by riding him at a neighbors’ house, but his sore leg and other commitments prevented that from happening. His first experience of being ridden indoors was actually at the famous John Justin arena in the Will Rogers Equestrian Center!

            Amigo responded to all this new stress by becoming very reliant on me.  To that end, the time I put into establishing a trusting relationship with him really paid off; he did not refuse to enter that indoor arena, nor, over the course of the next few days, to do anything that I asked of him. When he did enter the arena, of course he showed nervousness about the walls and the banners posted there, the other horses and riders, the noise level. But he didn’t balk or shy away from anything, and he rode out just the same as he had been on the ranch. As for myself, I had to be careful to control my own stress level when I was on him, so that he wouldn’t sense my anxiety. The only way I could do that was to just focus on the ride and the maneuvers I needed to make, and not think about what the other riders were doing with their horses.

            We stayed in that practice arena until nearly 11 p.m.; the next morning started at 5:00 a.m. with feeding and grooming Amigo and finding our way to the performance arena, held in the Coliseum.  Amigo again demonstrated his trust in both Darcy and me as we made our way through the stall area and out of the Richardson-Bass barn. I rode him, and Darcy walked a little way ahead; Amigo was nervous in this crowded environment, but followed Darcy through the stalls. To go from the Richardson-Bass barn to the Coliseum, we had to leave the lighted barn, cross the street in semi-darkness, and then enter another brightly-lit walkway. Amigo traveled tentatively, but balked only when he had to cross a metal door strip to enter the Coliseum walkway. This time, Darcy walked back to him and let him sniff her blouse; he followed her straight into the walkway then.

            Our first competition was in a reining pattern class, and since I had signed up for the highest division, the pattern was somewhat complex. Darcy and I had spent much of our dinner the night before drilling through the pattern, and I had tried to run through it with Amigo as much as possible in the practice arena. Still, I was extremely nervous about this particular class, as I have no experience in formal reining competition. To top it off, I was the third competitor to run! Thankfully, we were able to attend a walk-through meeting with the judge before the class; likewise, I was hoping to watch the first two competitors to get some hints on how to run the pattern.

            When I got to the walk-through, however, I discovered that the first two competitors had scratched; I was now slated to run first in a class I’d never attempted, with a horse who had only been in an indoor arena the night before. Needless to say, I was cursing myself for not preparing a little better; even though we’d spent hours and hours over the summer, I was quickly finding out that I could have done more. My nerves did get ahead of me then, and I entered the arena mentally stressed. Amigo, however, did not demonstrate any fear of the strange environment.  I completed my rollbacks incorrectly: instead of stopping and then rolling back, as is done in reining classes, I made one fluid, high-energy motion, more like a cutting maneuver. I also almost missed a second circle in my left lead, causing me to bobble the lead change in order to go back to make the circle. Both of these mistakes cost me, and I did not score very well in that class. Had I been a bit more prepared, or had I been able to watch those first two competitors, I would have known the proper way to do the rollback. Had I been more mentally focused instead of letting my nervousness get control, I would not have nearly missed that second circle. At the end of the first class, I was in 37^th place out of 41 competitors – not where I wanted to be at all!

            There was no time to sulk about that placing, though, because the next class took  place right after lunch. In the meantime, I had to memorize the next pattern and take care of Amigo. My biggest concern that first day was that he wasn’t drinking much water; the taste of the chlorine in the city water system was too foreign to him. I had not thought to bring water along, or to use my old trick of disguising city water with Kool-aid powder. Because Darcy and I didn’t know where to find a grocery store, and because we didn’t have a lot of time to look, we opted to purchase several $3 bottles of water at the concession stand just to get him to drink something between the competition classes. By the next day, I located a tank in a part of the building where roping steers were held: because cattle had drunk from that tank, it was dirtier and smelled more like home, so he would take it.

            Our next competition was a trail class: in that event, riders are expected to maneuver through several obstacles that would naturally occur on a ranch or out on a trail. I had a lot less anxiety with this one.  My daughter, Maria, and I had constructed a trail course at home for practice, so many of the obstacles were already familiar to Amigo. Plus, this was more my style of riding: in my line of work, I regularly step over deadfall, cross bridges, drag calves, open and shut gates.  The only obstacle I worried about was the trailer-loading at the very end of the course: Amigo does not load well into strange trailers, as we’d learned with a few trials on our trip down. When we stayed overnight in Amarillo, he had balked at loading into our trailer the next morning, so I had spent some time teaching him. The trailer being used in the competition, however, was a shiny new aluminum model, with no smell or sign of other horses on it. I just didn’t know how well Amigo would load into that type of trailer, and I worried about it quite a bit.

            When it came my turn to compete – number 19 this time! – there had already been several competitors who didn’t complete the trailer-loading. Others had trouble with the log-dragging: there were a couple horses that bogged their heads and bucked, or just ran off when they felt the weight of that log behind them. I’d trained Amigo to be accustomed to dragging objects already, since work as a ranch horse requires dragging calves, so I didn’t anticipate trouble there.  Another obstacle that caused some difficulties for others was a bridge with false shrubbery surrounding it: the horses didn’t trust that false brush. I wasn’t sure how Amigo would react to that, either, as he typically doesn’t like strange things on the ground. Nonetheless, I tried to go into the arena confident and assured; I knew that my anxiety had contributed to me forgetting part of the pattern in the earlier class, and I was determined not to let that happen again. Amigo performed beautifully, not refusing to complete a single obstacle. He did demonstrate some hesitation at crossing the bridge with that false brush around it, but I just let him take his time to sniff it, and then he crossed. Maybe he thought it was just like crossing our deck with Darcy’s flower pots all over!  However, we did have trouble at the end with the trailer. I should have just trusted my instincts: Amigo is used to me looping the reins over the saddle horn and just sending him into a trailer. I didn’t think he would go, though, so I first attempted to lead him in. He pulled back and refused to step up. So, I got out of the trailer, looped the reins, and sent him in, and he stepped up like he’d been doing it all his life!  With that mostly clean run, we advanced to take 28^th place in the trail class.

            After a more relaxing night, we awoke the next day to light rain and much cooler weather in Fort Worth – a welcome break.  Amigo even seemed to notice the change in the weather, and was calmer when we got him ready for the last preliminary competition. This time, it was a trainer’s choice class: when we registered, we selected whether to compete in Western or English elements for this last test. Of course, I had selected Western, as had all but two of the competitors in my division. For the Western elements competition, we had to ride into the arena and complete patterned maneuvers – called “dry work” -- then call for a steer, work it down the fence, and pen it at the other end of the arena.  Of all the events so far, this felt the most comfortable and familiar to both Amigo and me.  We had worked cattle in the arena at home quite a bit, particularly toward the end of the summer. I knew Amigo has great instincts for watching and tracking cattle; however, he can lack speed because of that leg injury, so I knew I couldn’t let the steer get away from me.  I watched several of my fellow competitors get into this bind, letting the steer get out too far ahead of their horse and then not being able to get it penned at the end. I also watched several smooth, easy runs, so I knew the competition would be tight. My best bet was just to get the steer penned, and not try anything too flashy.

            The dry work part of the class required me to complete several rollbacks again: it was a personal victory for me that Amigo and I had worked quite a bit on ours, and completed them successfully. When the steer entered the arena, his lowered head and “wild” eye immediately told me that he was on the verge of going on the fight.  In the back, the steers were being rammed up a chute before being turned out for the competition, so most of them entered the arena already in a high state of anxiety. I knew I had to back off a bit, and let him make the first move, rather than pushing him. Amigo sensed this too, and watched the steer carefully. When the steer broke to run down the fence, Amigo and I went with him, and calmly completed one of the required turn-backs. We worked the steer as we would have worked one at home, trying our best not to further stress the animal; by contrast, some of the riders had almost run over the top of their cattle to get them turned back. Amigo kept himself at a workable distance rather than getting so close that the steer would explode, but he never lost his control of the animal. Once we completed the required turn-backs, we penned the steer and finished the class. Our performance wasn’t as showy as some of the others, but we got the job done; in the end, we placed 23^rd in that class.

            So, I didn’t ever place high enough to average out in the top twenty in my division. However, I am so pleased with how Amigo performed: throughout the two days of competition, even though he was presented with situations and settings that were completely unfamiliar, he never once refused a task. It was as if he trusted me enough to know that I would not ask him to do anything harmful or dangerous. His instincts for self-protection were satisfied by the bond between us; that bond helped us to create a great team. Although the conditions of the mustang adoption allow me to sell Amigo once I’ve owned him a year, I don’t think I ever will. He will be in my string, and in our life, for as long as we have him.

            As for myself, I learned things about horsemanship and training that will forever alter the way I work. Since the Mustang Makeover competition, I’ve already attended an intensive horsemanship clinic that combined elements of Western and English riding – something I never thought I’d do, prior to my experiences in Fort Worth. But, I think that when a person closes the door to learning new things and new ways, he might as well hang up his spurs. 

I don’t ever intend to take mine off.

 

 

 

           

 

End of the Journey

            Today, after nineteen hours of travel, Amigo, Darcy and I arrived in Fort Worth.  This afternoon has been filled with the process of checking him in at the Extreme Mustang Makeover competition at the Will Rogers Equestrian Facility here, attending training meetings, and looking at other mustangs here to compete.

            And so, in many ways we come to the end of our journey tonight.  We have completed our “Trail to Texas” – no matter what happens in competition over the next three days, we have met our goal of being able to compete.  The progress Amigo has made from mid-May to today awes me.  The horse himself awes me: this particular mustang has demonstrated the best of this amazing breed.

            In some ways, the process of training Amigo has been something like dating.  Each time I thought I had him figured out, there was another layer to peel away!  For me, this “peeling away” caused me to ponder and muse about him more than I typically do about a horse.  We raise Quarter Horses, and so many of the colts I start I have known since birth, and of course I know their parents as well. When I do start outside horses for people, they can usually tell me some things about the horse’s background and experiences. Even when I do colt-starting clinics away from home, the participants know a little about their horse, and can share pertinent information.

            With Amigo, there was none of that background information to provide a road map for this journey.  Other than knowing the range from which he was gathered, I had no clues about the life experiences that were going to affect my relationship with this animal. Each time I have peeled away another layer, discovered another aspect of his life, I have been better able to understand why he behaves the way he does, and why some of his behaviors have challenged me so much.

            Some of the discoveries I’ve made simply astound me. Shortly after arriving at the ranch in May, Amigo’s back left leg began to swell, and the swelling got to be severe enough that I quit working with him.  We speculated that there was infection, or that he had been kicked. I took him to the vet; neither of these proved true. Instead, I was presented with the possibility that he had pigeon fever – which could easily have disabled him, even ended his life. When the swelling went down after several days, we ruled out that possibility. However, the swelling returned a couple weeks later, resulting in another trip to the vet. This time, we did X-rays of the leg: we discovered that a bone had been broken at one time. Normally, a broken leg is a death sentence for a horse in the wild: predators look for animals that are weaker or disabled. Somehow, Amigo managed to hide his injury enough that it was able to heal. The bone is strong – probably stronger than it had been originally – but Amigo occasionally experiences swelling from the injury. He never shows lameness, although sometimes he is not as able to maneuver on that foot as on the other three. Still, the truth remains: many horses would not have survived long enough for a broken bone to heal, let alone be able to function normally on that leg.

            Amigo revealed another interesting layer of his personality on one of our sadder rides this summer. I had a draft horse mare that I was expecting to foal, although she was quite late. One morning, she came in with the other brood mares, and I could tell that she had foaled, but there was no baby with her. My crew and I spent most of the day riding through that pasture, looking for the baby. At one point, when I was close to giving up the search, Amigo noticed something. He put his nose down near the ground, sniffing. I let him have his head, and sure enough, he led me to the spot where the mare had foaled; signs of the blood and afterbirth were still there. A short distance away lay the carcass of the baby foal, by now partially eaten by coyotes. Although it wasn’t the discovery I wanted to make, at least I was able to confirm that the baby was dead. Had it not been for Amigo’s extraordinary senses, I wouldn’t have had that certainty. Some domestic horses have those heightened senses as well, but that awareness usually comes after years of training and exposure to different environments.  Amigo noticed cattle out in the pastures on some of his earliest rides, so I knew he had that sensory intelligence. What I didn’t know was just how developed his senses were; undoubtedly, this is another result of his life before we met.

            Many other parts of our journey this summer relate back to Amigo’s background as a wild mustang.  Even tonight, taking him through the underground tunnels to the indoor arenas at the equestrian center, he has shown me his true nature.  Amigo does not like to be confined, and does not like this indoor environment. He was born a wild animal, and has been stalled outside all summer. Being indoors is contrary to his nature. In the end, this horse is sensitive, smart and soulful.  Hopefully, I have given him a chance for a better life than the one he lived before; I know he has become a friend and opened my eyes in many ways.

            He has truly become my amigo.

Milestones

Last night, Amigo and I reached a milestone in our training journey:  I had some yearling bulls in the arena, and, with the help of my hired man, Logan, I was able to rope them using Amigo.  Logan first roped one bull around the neck, and I rode in on Amigo to rope its hind feet. When he showed no adverse reaction to that, I tried roping the head of another bull, and was again successful with Amigo.

 While roping is not a required activity in the Extreme Mustang Makeover competition, doing cattle work is, and a horse that can be used to rope definitely knows the basics of working a cow.  Working a cow involves being able to track and even anticipate the cow’s movements, and moving quickly enough to accomplish the necessary action – whether that be pushing the cow back into the herd, cutting it out of a herd, or roping it.  Roping is a pinnacle activity for a ranch horse: if a horse can be used for roping, then by necessity he knows how to track a cow’s movements and how move quickly enough to put his rider in the best place for the catch.  Therefore – for Amigo – roping those bulls last night was a lot like graduating from high school – there is still much room for improvement, but what he has accomplished deserves celebration.

None of this has happened overnight, but, like any journey, it has been a series of small steps leading up to the major goal.   Just as a student learns to read one letter at a time, rather than all at once, an untrained horse develops into a useable animal by progressing through very small steps. Skipping a step would be like that student skipping a letter of the alphabet: the result would be a gap in learning that impedes achievement of the end goal.  So while I have always held a picture in my mind of what I want to accomplish with Amigo in the end, I still have had to be satisfied with the small steps leading up to the goal.  

One of my main focuses in training any horse is to work on desensitization to stimuli that might normally cause the horse to become anxious or upset. A rope and a running animal would certainly constitute that kind of stimuli. Therefore, the journey to being able to rope those bulls last night started with the training that happened in the first week or two that Amigo lived here.

One of the first activities I did with Amigo – described in the June 27 entry of this blog – was to work with his feet.  While the point of that training exercise was primarily to promote his safety and to teach him to move and pivot on each individual foot, it also was an activity that desensitized Amigo to having a rope touching his legs and feet. Once he decided that the rope didn’t pose a threat, he was well on his way to the success we gained last night.

All summer, as I’ve been riding Amigo, I’ve also been thinking ahead to the goal of being able to rope on him. Therefore, I’ve continued desensitization exercises during our nightly rides: specifically for the roping, I’ve gotten him accustomed to having a rope swung in the air beside him, and to feeling that rope across his rump and along his body. In the roping arena or out in the pasture, there is much activity – the cattle, the other horses, the rider’s body, the wind – so a roping horse must be able to remain calm and focused amid all this activity. And, as with any high-intensity activity, the unplanned often happens: a rope comes across the horse’s rump or hits him in the flank, a steer runs right into him, another horse cuts him off.  Roping horses must not only be physically sound and agile, but they must also possess enough mental maturity that they won’t explode at all these unforeseen events.

Although it may not seem connected, the work I’ve been doing to prepare for our trail class also contributed to Amigo’s success in last night’s roping adventure. With my daughter, Maria’s, help, I built a small trail course next to our driveway.  I consists of normal trail class obstacles: a bridge to cross, poles to step over, an “L” to back through, a box to turn around in. When I ride Amigo through this trail course, I am definitely preparing for competition in Fort Worth, as there will be a trail competition there. But, I am also preparing him for the roping and cattle work in less obvious ways.

Teaching him to step carefully through those logs – placed about two feet apart – helps Amigo develop the precise foot control that he will need for more advanced riding and maneuvers, including tracking and cutting a cow. Teaching him to pivot tightly in an eight-foot-square box also helps develop that foot control, and improves his balance – all very important when he is chasing a quick, snake-y animal like a yearling bull.  Even having Amigo back through that “L” shape, formed by logs on the ground, plays into roping:  one necessary movement for a rope horse used on a ranch is to “work the rope”, a movement in which the horse backs slightly to keep the rope, dallied to the saddle, pulled tight so that the cowboy can dismount to work on the animal.

Training a horse really does come down to the entire process: from earning the horse’s trust, to desensitizing it to common stimuli, to teaching it to place its feet and move out with speed and agility – all these steps come together in a finished horse. Therefore, a trainer must, again, always keep the end goad in mind, and be willing to put up with the inevitable frustrations that will happen along the way. Even the setbacks become valuable lessons when they are looked at from the perspective of understanding the animal better, and becoming a better partner for the horse.

Amigo is not a finished horse, by any means. However, he has accomplished so much in so little time that I can’t help but be amazed by him.  We will continue to work, and to prepare for competition in September – only three short weeks away!  But, I will still take time to bask in the success that we had last night, and to be gratified to have been a part of it.

Pushing the Limits

This journey has been rich and fulfilling, but it has not been without its hard times. There have been several incidents with Amigo in which he seemed to be testing his boundaries, pushing to see what he could get away with -- not unlike a teenager might do to his parents.

* Amigo has bucked me off twice, both times within the first few weeks of riding him.  In both instances, he began to buck after being asked to move into a lope. At first, this behavior really surprised me:  during all our ground exercises, he had not acted out or rebelled against what I was asking him to do. Amigo generally behaves respectfully toward humans, not aggressively.  So when we were out in the meadows riding, I was not prepared for him to throw me. After the second time it happened, I put him back in the round pen and asked my hired man to ride him while I watched. The purpose of this was twofold: I wanted to see what actions might be triggering the bucking, and I also knew that Logan, my hired man, would be able to ride Amigo through any tantrums, particularly in the round pen.  

One of my main tenants of training horses is to make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy. Therefore, if Amigo started to buck with Logan, the plan was to make him work harder through the bucking, and then calm down and reward him when he stopped. However, he didn't buck with Logan, even though Logan was doing all in his power to trigger a fit:  kicking, slapping with his reins, waving his arms, making noise -- anything to over-stimulate the horse and bring on a temper tantrum. That meant I had to reflect more on my own riding, and what cues I might have given Amigo.  I finally came to the conclusion that my saddle was pinching him as we moved into a lope, particularly because I was tensing my own muscles, anticipating a blow-up. It was a mistake born of a couple causes -- Amigo's tendency to "bunch up" underneath me when he loped, feeling like a colts who is about to buck; and my own reluctance to end up on the ground.  Even though I've trained hundreds of horses, I was still reminded of how I need to be supremely aware of my own actions, cues and messages.


* Because of our busy schedules and some physical setbacks that have affected Amigo, there have been times when I haven't ridden him for several days.  I try not to let this happen often, and even on days when I don't ride, I try to put Amigo through the ground exercises that I referred to in the July 16 entry, just to keep his feet moving and his mind engaged. Still, even with this steady work, there have been times when he has balked at being ridden after having a few days off. Usually, rather than bucking or violent behavior, Amigo's disobedience shows itself as plodding along with little energy, or as acting skittish with a lot of nervous energy. 


While it is always important to show patience with a horse that is coming along, it is also important to maintain the relationship of authority over the horse. Therefore, when Amigo misbehaves on our rides, I usually give him a little while to figure out the right thing to do. In the cases when he doesn't, I make his life a little more difficult. Usually this amounts to making him sweat more. One night, while Amigo and I were riding with my wife and her mare, Amigo balked at breaking into a lope. Loping is a problem for him, and yet it is a gait he has to master. It's no different than teaching a child how to wash the dishes or sweep the floor: sometimes we all have to learn things we don't like to do. When he refused to break into a lope on flat ground, I made him lope all the way up a long hill. That might seem mean, but he got to rest and got petted at the top of the hill -- his reward for loping all the way up. Again, it's like giving a child a bowl of ice cream or a chance to watch television once his chores are all done -- the way we make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy. Gradually, Amigo will learn to do what is asked of him the first time, without having to balk.


* Again, just the other night, Amigo was being lazy, not doing what he was asked and not moving out with energy. This time, we were riding near the house, so I decided to put him back into the large round pen. There are several feet of deep sand in that pen; anyone who has walked along a beach knows that sand creates resistance, making movement harder. I put Amigo through the paces: loping circles left and right, spinning, coming to slide stops. By the time we were done, we were both drenched with sweat. Amigo was perfectly capable of completing all of these manuevers; he was simply being lazy about doing them. Having to work even harder in the deep sand of the round pen led to a huge attitude shift for Amigo: by the next night's ride, he was performing all those maneuvers with only the slightest cue, immediately upon being asked for them.


This blog post might make me sound contradictory, because I've talked a lot about establishing trust with this mustang. However, the way he has been testing his limits and my authority are actually very positive developments. Not to over-extend the comparison, but my wife - who works with teenagers - and I often talk about the similarities between training horses and raising kids. If you think about it, the first few years of a child's life should be about establishing both a relationship of trust and of authority. When they begin to test you, it is because they trust you enough to do that. Over and over in a child's or teen's life, there are cycles of building trust with authority figures, and then testing that trust by pushing the limits.  

With a horse, particularly a horse that has not had human contact like Amigo, trust does not come easily. If Amigo still feared me, he would never test me the way he has. Therefore, his testing is a sign of positive development. Be clear, he is not acting out aggressively, kicking or striking: those would be signs of extreme fear and distrust.  He is simply being naughty, and is relying on me to help him make the right choices. As he matures as a horse, he will begin to make those choices on his own.

Mounting Up

            Once Amigo became comfortable with my presence, with the ranch routine, and with having all parts of his body in contact with a human, it was time to prepare to ride him. Again Amigo had to overcome a natural fear. In the wild, predators – particularly mountain lions – attack horses by jumping on their backs; therefore, horses instinctively run and buck when something is on their back, in an attempt to throw off whatever in on top of them.  For several days before I attempted to ride, he spent several hours saddled and tied in the barn, so that he was accustomed to the feeling of the saddle. I also worked him in the round pen with another horse as he was saddled, gradually increasing my proximity to him so that he got used to me being positioned above him.

            Finally, after a little over a week of preparation and establishing a trusting relationship with Amigo, it was time to actually get into the saddle. Even this huge leap actually happens in small steps. With Amigo, or with any colt, there is a series of exercises I go through when preparing to mount for the first time. Once the horse is saddled, I take him to a round pen and complete the following series of movements:

* First, I just encourage the horse to move around the pen freely, letting him warm up and once again get used to the feeling of the saddle. Wearing the saddle while standing in the barn is one thing; feeling it move on top of him while he trots and lopes is another. Once he’s moving out well, I use a flag – a piece of plastic on the end of a flexible rod; this tool makes a swishing noise when I swing it in the air around the horse’s body – never coming into contact with the horse itself. This is another way to ensure that the horse is desensitized to both the noise and the air movement that will accompany being ridden. I am checking that there is no goose or buck in the horse as he moves out under the saddle.

I then catch the horse; using the lead rope from the halter, I work the horse on the ground in order to make sure that all four feet are “broke loose” – in other words, that each of the four feet yields to pressure, as we worked with the rope earlier. In a series of precise movements, I move the colt in a circle, asking him to pivot on each foot in turn, and move the other three around freely.  By this stage of training Amigo, or any colt, he’s been through this dance many times, both saddled and unsaddled; I simply repeat the moves to reinforce the learning he’s already been through. 

* Once there seems to be no resistance in any foot, I switch my focus to the head. Standing on either side right at the shoulder, I gently lift the lead shank towards me to determine how soft the mouth is. If the horse is responsive to gentle pressure on the shank, I can assume that his feet are sufficiently loosened up. If the mouth shows resistance, I need to move my focus back to his feet and work them again. The two parts of the body might seem to be disconnected; however, in order for a horse to tip his head easily in response to pressure on the bit, he has to balance on his feet. This goes back to the feet being the foundation. If a foot is “stuck,” he will resist leaning on that foot to balance; then the mouth, and entire body, will be tight. 

* Up until this point, I have been standing solidly on the ground myself. Now, after getting soft movement in the head and feet on both sides, I stand at his left and tip his nose toward me. I place my toe in the stirrup of the saddle, always conscious of a safe means of escape in case he begins to buck. I stand and bounce gently in the stirrup, keeping the head pulled over to me. What I want is for the colt to stand quietly when he feels pressure in the stirrup: a horse that walks off while being mounted is a danger.

* Once I’m satisfied that the colt will stand, I pull myself up, lean over the saddle, and rub on the opposite shoulder with my hand. I also move the opposite stirrup around. Both of these movements help let the horse know what will be coming next. The sensation of having a body – in this case, the rider’s legs – encircling his body is strange and frightening to the horse. Experiencing this feeling with in small doses is the best way for him to overcome this fear. 

* At this point, I swing my leg over and sit down in the saddle, always keeping his head pulled to the left so that I can circle him up beneath me if he begins to buck. Once I’m in the saddle, I rub the colt’s hindquarters, shoulders, neck - touching him all over to desensitize him to the feeling of having a living creature on top of him. The firm, gentle touch helps reassure the horse that he is in no danger.

* I rock in the saddle, then ask the horse to move forward and turn to the left. Again, I am feeling through his body for free movement in his feet. When he is circling easily, I stop, and turn him in a circle to the right. 

* Finally, we move out in larger circles in the round pen; I keep encouraging the colt’s forward movement, just getting him used to moving around with a rider on his back. I am looking for signs that the horse is relaxing with me on him: with most colts, those signs include dropping their head, licking their lips, relaxing the muscles of their body, and even pooping. I want the horse to be completely comfortable moving at various gaits with a rider on top, and I want the movement to be equally as easy in circles to the left or to the right. 

* After getting this free, relaxed movement, I turn the horse toward the inside of the round pen. Even at this early stage of riding, I am conscious of positioning my body so that my weight is on the foot that needs to pivot and stabilize the turn, while taking my weight off the three feet that need to move around freely.   

This entire training series can take several hours, or even most of a day, depending on the colt. If any step is unsuccessful, I cannot advance to the next, or I risk my own safety and my horse’s. I owe it to the horse to stay at one step until we are ready to advance. Amigo is advancing very quickly, a sign of his intelligence and trust; however, if he doesn’t progress quickly enough to be able to compete in Texas in September, we will not compete. It is always more important to do the right thing for the horse than it is to meet whatever arbitrary goals I have as a trainer. 

Laying a Foundation

           As Amigo settled into a routine on the ranch, he became more comfortable around people, dogs, and other horses. In particular, he had to become accustomed to the small barn kittens darting between his legs as he was tied in the stall to eat his grain.

            Though this seems on the surface a little thing, it actually helped Amigo a lot. Those kittens -- and more specifically, the feeling of having something brush against his hoof and leg -- desensitized Amigo to the point where I could start working with his feet.

            On a Saturday afternoon one week after Amigo arrived at the ranch, I spent several hours working with his legs and feet. In that first week I had already achieved many milestones, including being able to touch him all over his head, neck and body; teaching him to lead without pulling back; and establishing a bond between him and me that will allow us to continue to progress as a team. However, at that point he had yet to allow me to touch his feet. Not only did this pose a problem in simply handling Amigo, but also this resistance prevented me from exploring the reason for some swelling on his right hind leg that had been there since I picked him up in Colorado. Therefore, it became quite important that he allow me to touch and pick up his feet.

            My method was simple and one that I've used on hundreds of horses: I simply roped one foot at a time, and allowed Amigo to kick against the pressure of the rope. As he fought, I held the rope taut but continued to move with him so as not to pull him off balance. The objective was not to overpower the horse, but to teach him not to resist the pressure. As soon as he quit fighting and put his foot down, I released the pressure on the rope. Then we repeated the process as many times as necessary, until he didn't fight at all when he felt the rope tighten around his pastern. Once I was able to rope one foot without him fighting, I moved on to the next.

            As expected, the rear right foot, on the swollen leg, took the longest. I suspect that Amigo learned quickly to protect that foot, to not let anything else touch it or injure it further. It was interesting to observe that, although he resisted being touched on that foot and did show signs of swelling, he had never favored that leg while I worked with him. We think that, in addition to learning to protect that foot, he had also learned not to display pain or weakness in that leg, as this display would put him in danger in the wild.

            The technique of roping the feet has several practical applications among horsepeople. As mentioned, being able to pick up a horse's feet allows a human to examine them, clean the hooves, and shoe them. Teaching the horse to stand still when they feel the rope against the pastern will help minimize injury if he ever gets caught in a coil of loose barbed wire.

            However, I have another goal that leads me to use this roping technique: once the horses stops fighting the pressure of the rope, I then use the rope to teach the horse to plant that foot and move the other three feet around it. This will eventually transfer to the signals I give when I am riding him: as I use my body to put pressure on one leg, he will stabilize that leg and pivot on it, moving the other three feet around -- the beginning of a spin. Thus, an advanced movement -- one that does not come naturally for the horse -- begins simply, with foundation work on the feet.

            So much of horse training is like that; one needs to think far enough ahead, to what we want the finished product to be, to know the techniques and strategies that are best used. When we take the time to lay a solid foundation in the first days and weeks of training, we will most likely be rewarded sometime down the road with a horse that is a talented, willing partner.

            Many trainers used to believe that advanced movements, like spins and crossovers, were achieved by pulling on the horse's head and mouth; some may still think this. And it is true that a horse's head controls much of their balance: one quickly learns, riding young colts, to pull their head around in order to regain control when they begin to buck or run away. However, you don't want your horse to be off balance; you want him to move freely. A horse's foundation is his feet: therefore, you must teach him to find both balance and fluidity there, on the most solid part of him.

            We worked for at least an hour with me horseback, roping Amigo's feet to desensitize them, and then to begin to teach him how to move on them. At the end of the day, another milestone: Amigo let me pick up all four feet!  The initial contact, with my hand encircling the pastern, should have felt similar to the rope. When he fought my touch, as he did, I simply stayed with him as I'd done before, moving with him but not releasing. Release for Amigo only came when he surrendered the foot and allowed me to touch it. I was finally able to look more closely at the swollen leg, which would prove to be a bigger problem than I thought within a week or so -- more on that in another blog post.

            At the end of the afternoon, we had made good strides in once again establishing trust. For a horse to allow a human to touch his feet and legs - his very foundation - is an immense act of trust, and surrender. Likewise, for a human to bend down and place his head next to the most powerful part of these magnificent animals also requires faith. Amigo and I are learning to trust each other, to have faith that neither one of us is out to harm the other. That will be our most important milestone in the end.