Things Worth Doing : Fun with Horses

by Scylla

We have two horses now. Both of them were born on our old property, and I’ve trained them myself. The older, named Mischief is a fairly nice pluggy mare. When people come over with kids, they sit on Mischief and we walk them around, and everything is smiles.

The other one is named Jasper. Jasper is something else. He’s a full blooded quarter horse of almost pure Poco Bueno blood (that ‘probably doesn’t mean anything to you, and it ‘probably shouldn’t, but Poco Bueno was pretty famous as quarter horses go.) Unlike most quarter horses, Jasper has some serious size to him. He’s a tall horse, with all the musculature of his breed. He’s absolutely gorgeous, and his color is blood bay with black mane and socks.

In giving Jasper his initial training, what’s known as breaking, I received the first concrete evidence of something I’d feared might be true: I was no longer young.

Now when people think of breaking a horse they often get the wrong picture. They think of a rodeo scene with some brave cowboy riding a thrashing bronco. The brave cowboy masters the wild beast by refusing to be thrown, and eventually the crazed animal realizes it was been dominated by the brave cowboy’s virile indomitable will. At this point it becomes a trusty steed, and the cowboy makes it go where he wants and do what he wants.

This bears no resemblance to reality, whatsoever.

There is a basic, obvious and incontrovertible fact when you are working with horses, and it is one that will be demonstrated to you in umistakeable fashion if you’re not quick enough on the uptake to figure it out first.

In any direct physical conflict between man and horse, the horse will win every time. There are no exceptions to this rule.

I weigh two hundred pounds. Jasper is probably approaching three quarters of a ton. While I am strong for a man I am contemptible in terms of horsepower. For this reason it is basically impossible to force a horse do anything it doesn’t want to do. Nor is it possible to catch a horse that doesn’t want to be caught, or keep it caught if you could. Similarly, if a horse makes the non-negotiable decision that it doesn’t want you on its back, there is no way in hell you are staying there.

Now, you may protest that you’ve seen people catch horses in fields that didn’t want to get caught and that you’ve seen cowboys ride bucking horses and not get thrown off, and that you’ve seen people force horses onto trailers or otherwise make them do things they clearly don’t want to do.

You may have seen these things, but the real truth is that they are all a lie. The reason that the lie works is because horses, while great noble and admirable creatures, are also incredibly fucking stupid.

The way to train a horse is not to impose your will on it in some manly fashion, or pit your steely thews against those of the beast, and not even to gain its trust (as if such a thing were possible.)

The way to train a horse is to lie to it, lie to it so thoroughly and completely that it believes your bullshit. Your success and failure as a horse trainer will depend entirely on your ability to prevaricate skillfully. That is all there is to it, and once you understand that basic truth, you know just about all you need to know. The rest is details. Lying is the underlying premise.

You don’t believe me? Very well. I will share my credentials. I have been riding since I was 13 years old. I learned to ride throwaway horses at a military institution founded by retired cavalry offices. I rode in the Junior Olympics at age 16 and 17, worked summers as a cowboy at a dude ranch and as the Director of horsemanship at a summer camp. I have trained dozens of horses from scratch and I have taught hundreds of people how to ride, and the first thing I teach everybody before I let them near a horse are these two rules.

1. Don’t ever actually ever start to believe that you are in control of a horse

2. Don’t ever let the horse know rule number 1.

These are basic rules that sound trite and simple, and most of the time people nod their heads when I tell them this, but they don’t really understand. Like most simple and elegant truths it is easy to communicate but difficult to understand until all of a sudden it knocks your dick in the dirt.

That’s enough background. Here’s how I trained Jasper:

By the time Jasper was old enough to be ridden we’d had a baby for a year. I didn’t have a lot of time to work with jasper as a colt, so I basically had to start from scratch.

I began my relationship with Jasper under false pretense, as is the proper fashion. One afternoon we started hanging out together. I hopped into the horse field, and began walking around pretending to do stuff, while pretending to completely ignore him. When he got used to the idea of me futzing around, I started futzing closer. Her moved away, and eventually by pure random futzing I would again futz into his vicinity. Seeing as I didn’t have any interest in him, he eventually decided it wasn’t worth his time to move away.

By continuing to pretend that I wasn’t particularly interested I would brush up against him, put my hands on him, move all around him, and generally get as close and intrusive as possible while at the same time seeming to be innocuous accidental and utterly casual.

In fact, this is the exact strategy I used to use to get girls to make out with me in the back of my car. The difference is that my goal is to get a piece of clothing on the object of my attention, not off. The piece of clothing is a halter which is just a couple of straps that fits over a horse’s head and face to which a lead line can be attached.

I futz around, and as if by magic suddenly the halter is on, and a piece of rope is looped through an eyelet on the halter, but not tied. If he pulls away and runs, I let the loop slide out so he doesn’t drag the rope.

The lie so far is that I’m not interested or not doing anything interesting. The horse doesn’t have to believe this lie, and I don’t particularly expect him to. The only thing he has to be convinced of, is that anything I’m doing is nothing worth any concern.

Next up is the big lie. I wait for the horse to move, and as soon as he starts to move I pull him in the direction he’s moving, not urgently, but enough to be noticed. The conversation begins.

Jasper looks up at me, as I tug and says “What the fuck?”

“Excuse me?” I reply.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Me? Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“All right, then.”

We will repeat this conversation several times until he stops asking me what I’m doing. It’s important to get this right because this is the lie upon which all other lies will be founded.

Once he clearly expects to be pulled in whatever direction he decides to move in, I begin to compound my lies.

I pull first.

If I’ve lied well Jasper will notice the tug, as he’s been noticing the tug before. Since the tug is always in the direction that he wants to go, he must be wanting to go in the direction he’s just been tugged, right?

It’s a remarkably easy lie to pull off, and once that’s done it’s not half an hour that I’m leading the horse all over the place. We walk around for several hours and I perpetrate more deceit upon the unwitting beast. For example, as we’re walking Jasper may see a particularly tasty piece of grass and decide to put his head down to chomp it. As he does, I pull up sharply and snap the rope.

What has happened is this. Jasper has decided to put his head down and grab a bite, and the snapping jerk has startled him in the process, and caused him to stop. After enough repeats he decides that this means he can’t put his head down, when in fact if he actually really stopped and tried, he could. If he does try with all his might, than I will kick, shout, scream, startle or even kick him in the face so that he decides it’s not worth the bother, but it’s much better if he just believes he can’t.

For several days I just lead Jasper around. Eventually I lead him to a saddle and bridle and with more nonchalant lies I get those on his back and head, and practice putting small amounts of my weight on his back.

Eventually the big day comes. I have used great big round bales to enclose a small area. Jasper is wearing a small English saddle (no horn) with no stirrups. I wouldn’t want to get impaled on a horn, and I wouldn’t want to get my feet caught in stirrups. I will be holding onto the horse with my thighs, and, believe it or not, my back.

My wife is watching. I haven’t done this in ten years. I hop, hop, hop as I’ve been doing on other days and then with one hop suddenly I’m on Jasper’s back.

This is the part where generally you picture the rodeo cowboy on the bucking bronco. If it actually comes to that it is a sign that things have gone badly wrong. Things have gone well after a brief moment of alarm from Jasper and he resumes eating his bale of hay. I sit on his back and futz around quite a bit so he gets used to the idea of somebody sitting on his back futzing around. Then I get off, lead him around, get back on, futz some more and repeat for an hour or so until the whole thing has gotten completely boring to the horse.

Oddly, this is similar to the way I screened horses for the summer camp. I would walk out in the field, jump on the horse’s back, wave my arms and legs, bounce up and down, and scream. If the horse looked at me like I was an idiot and just stood there, I’d make a note, “kid’s horse.” I don’t go quite this far with Jasper, but do futz quite a bit.

Then I start the leading trick. I tug on a rein just like I did when I led Jasper around, and eventually we start walking around the small enclosure with me on his back.

Unfortunately, everything goes smoothly. I say “unfortunately,” because all great liars and con-men know that before they can ever be truly credible and believed, there has to come the moment when the person you are lying to suddenly decides that you are full of shit and calls you on it. If you are a truly great liar, you know this moment will come. You have planned for it, and you are ready to prove all yours lies are true.

This is that moment, and I am ready to prove my lie. I have a crop in my hand, the thing a jockey uses. It’s harmless, but it stings, and makes a cracking sound. Jasper has no idea what this thing is, as I have never used it, though I have always carried it. When he suddenly turns on me and decides I am full of shit, and that he doesn’t have to put up with all this stuff I’m doing, I will wield this crop on his backside, startling the hell out him, and hopefully proving that I possess ultimate power.

As I said, it’s unfortunate, but Jasper is now buying all my bullshit hook line and sinker.

I teach him to walk, trot, canter, turn, stop etc. all over the next few weeks and all without a challenge.

It occurs to me that I am just so good that I never actually need to prove my lies. I am so smooth that I will go unchallenged. As usual this is about the moment I get proven wrong.

Suddenly I am the rodeo cowboy, except I am a piece of cake. I drop the crop, and never really get back in control of my seat on the Jasper’s back. I don’t do much of anything except go flying through the air, and when I land I realize I am not so young any more. Gravity has increased and the surface of the earth has hardened considerably since the last time I pulled this gig.

It is a colossal screw-up. Jasper has just proven that I am full of shit and a liar. He now knows he’s in charge. He doesn’t have to put up with me. And, he has just proven to himself that he can get me off of his back any time he feels like it.

If I don’t quickly disavow him of this notion, he will be no good, forever.

This is how they make bucking rodeo horses. They let them win. Once they know they can win they never stop trying. It can get pretty dangerous too. Once they know they can win they will try all kinds of other tricks. Normally I can stay on a bucking horse. Bucking is only one trick that a horse has, though. Rodeo horse have been taught to depend on this one trick, but in real life horses rear up on their hind legs and fall on you backwards to get you off their backs. Sometimes they will lie down and roll. They will smear you against a fence or a tree. This is why I say it’s impossible to stay on a horse’s back if he really doesn’t want you there. If he’s serious, he can rear up, fall over backwards and squash you like a bug.

Jasper has just learned that he can win any time he wants to, and I hurt.

A lot of people think that the saying about jumping back on a horse right after you fall off has something to do with self-confidence, but really it’s for the horse’s benefit. It proves to the horse that he doesn’t gain anything by throwing you. It stops the horse from getting the idea that it’s done working if its rider gets thrown.

Since Jasper is in the early stages of training, this is much worse. I need to lie extremely well now. I need to do something that will expunge this memory. I need to convince Jasper that what he thinks just happened actually didn’t.

As I jump back on, I can sense the change that his victory has engendered. He’s going to try it again very soon. I can’t let him. So I start with him instead, and crack him in the flank with the crop. Startled he leaps forward and starts to run. I let him for a moment then pull back hard on the right rein twisting his head up and causing him to circle. He tries to overpower me and succeeds in straightening his head, but as he does I crack him again, and again. He throws his head up and I pull it around. He circles stops put his head down and begins bucking. I keep yanking on the one rein to pull his head up and punctuate each buck with a crack on his hindquarters.

Head down, buck. Crack! Yank! Again and again we go until finally head up he circles at a fast trot, no more bucking, no more fighting. This is the time when I push it. We keep trotting in a wide circle. He is trembling and covered with sweat and so am I. Each deviation from the norm earns him a crack with the crop, each attempt to slow down, each expression of will earns a sharp crack. Until finally there are no more deviations. He was tested me and lost so thoroughly that he will no longer doubt.

All the lies are true.