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.