Poetry in motion
Last night a couple of hours before darkness, Zee and I came down to watch our granddaughter Sage Massey saddle a two year old filly for its third ride. This Red Roan filly was in the ranch round pen designed especially for starting young horses. Sage didn’t throw her leg over the saddle immediately but just stayed with her left foot in the stirrup then she proceeded to do lots of patting and rubbing. I could see the colt starting to relax and lick her lips. Also in the round pen was an older horse by the name of Isaac. Sage placed him in the pen to give the colt a feeling of being safe. This is where “Horse Talk” comes into play as I’m sure horses have very well developed body language and nonverbal ways of communicating. Horses are also very gregarious and feel most comfortable and safe as part of a herd. Sage wanted the two year old’s early experiences to be as pleasant as possible so why not put an older horse in the round pen for company.
It made sense to me so why had I never seen this way to make the colt feel as relaxed as possible. But I was raised and learned to ride in the 1940’s when you roped the colt to be started then the battle would begin with one person twitching the colt's ear called “earring them down” to tell the colt to stand still. Then the saddle was thrown on, cinched up quickly and ready for someone to ride. I don’t know who would be the chosen one to ride this colt that wanted to escape, these humans had made him very upset and ready to buck or stampede.
Over time humanity and the horse would sort of mend their relationship mostly out of necessity because for many centuries you needed horses to fight wars, plow the soil, pull anything that had wheels, and do all the heavy lifting that had to be done and the horse in return got something to eat.
Let’s go back to Sage where she has just finished putting her right foot in the stirrup followed by much rubbing and patting and moving around in the saddle. I watched the old guy look over at the youngster and said in horse talk, you’ve got a good lady on your back, take good care of her and she will take good care of you. It was poetry in motion that I had just watched.
See Ya,
Jack