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Overview
In this second edition of the beloved title, with a new brand-new afterword, Rashid invites us to enjoy his all-new reflections on the lessons learned from a life spent with horses.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781628730975 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2011 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Sales rank: | 615,234 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
School Starts
I had just fed our four horses, three in the corral and one in the barn, and the one in the barn wasn't eating. A horse not eating at feeding time is almost always something to be concerned about, and if it were any other horse, I might have been alarmed.
The other horses were already pinning their ears, squealing, and running each other off the three piles of hay, one for each horse. As was their ritual, for the next five minutes or so they'd play a sort of musical chairs with the piles, moving each time the smallest one of the bunch — a little 14.2-hand, line-back dun gelding named Tuff — decided he needed some hay from a different pile. With ears pinned, he would head over to the closest pile and chase off Red, a 16-hand sorrel gelding that dwarfed Tuff. Red would, in turn, pin his ears at Quincy, a 15-hand gelding eating quietly at the third pile, sending him over to the pile Tuff had abandoned at the beginning. They'd all settle back down until Tuff decided to move to the next pile, starting the whole thing over.
While it was fun watching those three sort out their eating arrangements for the evening meal, it was the gelding in the barn that had my attention. He was an old horse, Buck. At twenty-three years old, he was beginning to show his age. Only a few months earlier, I had retired him from ranch work and given him to my youngest son, Aaron.
I'd recently taken Buck off the winter pasture, because he wasn't faring as well as I liked. Although he wasn't really thin, it was obvious that he wasn't doing as well as the others on the pasture. He was a hard-keeper to begin with, and any time he started to lose weight it raised a red flag for me. I brought Buck home so I could supplement his diet and maybe get him to put on a few pounds.
Buck stood in his run just outside the barn and stared at me. He watched my every move, occasionally shifting his weight from one hind leg to the other. Even though I'd just put his nightly share of pellets in his stall, he completely ignored them, a behavior that would worry most folks. A horse not eating, especially his extra feed, usually meant something serious was going on, colic maybe. But I could tell that Buck wasn't sick. He was just trying to tell me something.
I was pretty busy at the time and tried to ignore him as I went about my chores. But after all the years we'd been together, I knew when he got this way, it would be impossible to ignore him for long. I turned and looked at him.
"What?" I asked.
As if answering, he nonchalantly turned his head and looked into his stall. I walked over to the run, reached through the panels, and stroked his neck. He kept his head turned, and even though I could barely see his left eye, the one closest to me, I saw that he was looking at me.
Fine. At least I knew that whatever it was he wanted must be in his stall. Probably something with his pellets, I thought. I put my rake down, walked around the corner and into the barn, opened the metal sliding door to his stall, and went in. Buck met me in the stall. I checked the pellets for foreign objects; there weren't any. I picked them up, smelled them, and even tasted them to see if they were okay; they were. I checked to make sure he had plenty of clean water; he did.
He stood looking at me. I looked around in the stall but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, so I petted him on his head and left the stall. He snorted loudly and shook his head. I returned and looked at him through the door. He quietly turned and looked out at the horses in the corral playing musical hay piles. Again, even with his head turned, I could see that he was looking at me.
Okay, so now I knew that he wanted something he didn't have, but the others did, and it had something to do with his stall. Whatever it was, it was more important to him that the two scoops of pellets in his feeder. I knew this because, over our years together, in thousands of situations, Buck had spent a great deal of time trying to train me to listen to what he had to say. With the patience of a saint, he had presented ideas that I'd never have thought possible for any animal other than a human to have.
The first time Buck tried to get me to listen to him, it was to help me understand how horses do things. It happened about a year after we started working together. He was seven years old at that time.
We were working a roundup I'd helped with for many years. Like usual, we were helping a friend gather his herd of about 120 horses from twenty-five hundred acres of land. Buck and I were alone when we'd come upon thirty head up in the rocks above a small mountain valley. We successfully worked them down into the valley, and our next moves were to bring them down a draw, across a meadow about a mile in length, through a tunnel that ran under the highway, and finally into the large catch pen.
The only problem was that Buck and I ended up between the horses and the draw on the south end of the valley we needed them to go down. We would have to get around them to the north in order to drive them to the draw. This was a precarious situation, because one wrong move on my part and I could end up scattering the herd to the far ends of the pasture. On top of that, just out of sight in the trees at the north end of the valley, there was an open gate that led to another five hundred acres — and I definitely did not want them getting to that five hundred.
Buck and I slowly started to make our way around the herd, giving them a wide berth, so as not to alarm them. We were nearly all the way past the herd, and everything was going well, when I noticed the horses begin to watch us pretty carefully. Even though we were moving slowly, they started to mill around. A few of them even turned and headed toward the line of trees to the north, right where the open gate was. They weren't moving all that fast, but in my mind's eye I could see them breaking into a lope and taking the rest of the herd with them.
Wanting to get out ahead of them and stay ahead of them, I urged Buck to pick up a little jog trot. Much to my surprise, he refused. As far as I could remember, this was the first time he had refused to do anything I asked of him. I asked again, and again he refused, maintaining his slow, steady walk.
With a quick glance at the herd, I could see that a couple more horses had joined the ones already on the move. I quickly began trying to figure out why Buck's wasn't responding. We hadn't been working that long, only about an hour, and he'd been walking the majority of that time, so I knew he couldn't be tired. I turned around in the saddle and glanced back at Buck's tail to see if he needed — how can I say this delicately? — a rest stop. But that wasn't it, either.
Nope, for some strange reason he simply wasn't doing what I was asking him to do, and I didn't like it. I nudged him harder with my heel, and he swished his tail defiantly. The rest of the herd had joined the others on their trek northward, albeit at a lazy walk. I nudged him again; he responded with a tail swish and a head shake.
We'd traveled a short distance farther when I looked over to see that the herd had all but stopped. The horses had even dropped their heads to graze a bit. Instead of relaxing, I saw this as our chance to put some space between us and the herd and close off the north end. I nudged Buck again and again he refused, this time blowing hard through his nose.
It was obvious to me he couldn't see the urgency in the situation, and I was beginning to get annoyed with his refusals. Meanwhile, the horses had raised their heads and haltingly begun to move north once again. Finally, in what I can only call a fit of aggravation, I just blapped Buck hard with both heels. By this time he was just as aggravated with me as I was with him, and his aggravation came out in a jumping transition to a fast lope.
There, I thought. Finally he's doing what I want. And none too soon, because just as he jumped into a lope, the herd woke up, hesitated for just a second, and then broke as fast as they could go toward the north end of the valley. Suddenly, and I suppose not surprisingly, we found ourselves in a major foot race. It was us against thirty head of pretty fresh pasture horses, and we were all heading for the same place. Buck and I were jumping rocks and sage, dodging gopher holes, and leaping over small puddles from the previous night's rain. The herd, tails in the air and manes in the wind, were running for all they were worth, some whinnying wildly as they went.
We reached the woods going about as fast as Buck could run, and we were only about fifty yards ahead of the herd. A quick glance back over my shoulder showed the herd was gaining fast. What was worse was that we were having to dodge trees and avoid low-hanging branches, while they were on a narrow, unobstructed path that led straight through the gate and into the five hundred, now only about 120 yards in front of us.
They were flying down the path, and I knew it was going to be close, maybe too close. I urge Buck to move faster, but instead, he slowed down ever so slightly. That one hesitation was enough to let the herd shoot past us and right though the gate. Buck continued to slow from an all-out gallop, to a slow lope, to a trot, and finally to a walk. I watched helplessly as the herd disappeared into the trees and rocks of the five hundred, running just as fast as their feet could carry them.
I remember seeing a cartoon once. It was of two horses standing side by side, both wearing saddles. One horse was looking at the other with a disgusted look on his face, and a caption read, "If my cowboy doesn't start listening to me, I'm bound to get a bad reputation."
I'm as sure as I can be that that was exactly what Buck was thinking as we stood there listening to the hoof beats of the herd fade into the distance. As for me, all I could think of at that time was how much work my horse had just caused me. Had he just gone faster when I asked him to in the first place, I reasoned, we would have no doubt had the herd in the catch pen by now. Instead, we would spend the next two-and-a-half hours searching for, gathering, and then bringing the herd back through the gate and into the small valley we'd just come from.
The nice thing about having that much time on your hands is that it gives you the opportunity to think. Now, as I said, most of my initial thoughts were of how mad I was that Buck hadn't responded when I asked him to. And that, it was my feeling, was why we were in the mess we were in. I have to admit those pretty much remained my thoughts for the next half-hour or so. In fact, I would have probably continued thinking that way had it not been for one simple thing. It doesn't seem like much now, I suppose, but at the time it turned out to be very humbling.
While I was sitting there on Buck's back, mentally beating him up for not doing what I asked, when I asked it, I noticed that he was simply going about his business, just as he had before the foot race. Not only was he going about his business, but he was doing it very thoughtfully. He was stepping carefully over rocks and downed timber. He was slowly traversing the draw and finding the safest way to the bottom. He would stop when something didn't look right to him, then turn and choose another, more prudent direction. Every once in a while he would prick his ears in a certain direction, telling me exactly where the herd was.
In short, while I was feeling sorry for myself and stewing about my horse, he had already gone back to work, pretty much without me and, indeed, in spite of me. Not only that, but he was taking care of me while he was doing it!
As I said, once I came to my senses and realized what was happening, I found it to be very humbling indeed. However, there was another lesson that I believe he tried to teach me that day that I had missed completely. Unfortunately, that particular lesson wouldn't become clear for quite some time.
Following the incident in the valley, Buck's apparent refusal problem just seemed to disappear. In fact, even during the rest of that day, he went right back to being just as responsive as he'd always been. His good behavior continued until about three months later, when a horse that was having a great deal of trouble leading was brought to me for help. As it turned out, he didn't really lead at all.
I had already spent some time with the young gelding in the round pen doing ground work, which he did pretty well. He even led pretty well in the pen. However, as soon as I started to lead him anywhere outside the pen, he took a few steps and locked up. I had worked with him from the ground for a couple of days with limited success, so I decided to pony the youngster off Buck. That would give me more options in terms of how I could work him. More importantly, if he got to pulling back or jerking on the end of the rope, I could just dally up and let him work against Buck instead of working against me.
The next day I took the colt and Buck to the big arena. I got up on Buck and, with the youngster's lead rope in hand, asked Buck to walk forward. Without even taking the slack out of the rope, the young gelding quietly walked next to Buck like he'd been doing it all his life. He made no trouble whatsoever. We made one uneventful lap around the arena, and things were going so well that I thought maybe all the ground work I'd done over the past couple of days had actually made a difference. Just as I was getting ready to pat myself on the back for a job well done, we passed the gate that we'd come through much as I'd hoped.
We had walked about five feet past the gate when the youngster planted his feet and refused to go any farther. Buck kept walking and very quickly the slack in the rope disappeared. Before we got to the end of the rope, however, I took a quick dally so that the pull from the rope would be on the saddle horn and not on me. As the rope put tension on the saddle horn, I could feel Buck shoulder into the pressure. It felt like we were trying to pull a tank out of the mud. I turned around to look at the youngster and saw him leaning backward with all his might, the lead rope tight as a fiddle string and his halter stretched out about as far as it could go. I could see the whites of his eyes. His nostrils flared and his lips were tight.
I asked Buck to stop, which he did without releasing the pressure. I had a pretty good idea that continuing forward might not be the most productive thing at that point. Even if the colt gave in and came forward, he would probably come in a gigantic leap, endangering all three of us. I decided to try to break his feet loose in another way. So I turned Buck to the right and, while keeping some tension in the rope, went back around the youngster's right side, ending with Buck facing north and the colt facing south. I continued to ask Buck to move forward until the youngster's head was turned to the point where it was facing the same direction as Buck and I, although his body still had not moved.
Basically, we were trying to get the youngster so far off balance that he would pretty much have to move his feet in order to regain his balance. Once he moved, we could direct him and hopefully get him leading again.
The problem was that once we got the youngster into that position, Buck just stopped. I urged him forward, squeezing him with my heels, but he refused, acting as if he didn't feel me. I asked again, but Buck didn't respond. The young horse appeared to be teetering, ready to take the next step, and I felt all we needed to do was give him just a little more encouragement to get the movement we were looking for. I asked again for some movement from Buck, and he acted as if I weren't even there.
Finally I just jabbed Buck with my heels, and he responded by just barely offering some forward movement. Much to my surprise, Buck leaning forward and putting that small amount of additional pressure on the rope was all it took for the young horse to lose his mind completely. The youngster also lost his balance and moved his feet — as I had originally hoped he would — but not at all in the way I expected. Suddenly I had an explosive ball of energy locked to my saddle horn by an eight-foot lead rope. It felt like we'd hooked a nine-hundred-pound marlin that wasn't very happy about being caught.
Well, needless to say, things got a little western for a few minutes, and by the time the dust cleared, I was happy to see that everyone was all right. We took a few minutes to regroup and were able to continue on, albeit a little slower and a whole lot more cautiously. The young gelding overcame his difficulty with leading in a relatively short period of time, and things progressed pretty smoothly from that point forward.
Even though everything worked out just fine, I found that in the days and weeks that followed, I had a great deal of trouble getting the incident out of my mind. I couldn't help but have this overwhelming feeling that I had missed something. Whatever it was, I knew it was important.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Life Lessons from a Ranch Horse"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Mark Rashid.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Harry Whitney,
Preface,
Introduction,
PART ONE: LESSONS,
School Starts,
The Teacher Speaks,
Recognizing the Problem,
Lesson One: Non-Confrontation,
Lesson Two: Planning Ahead,
Lesson Three: Patience,
Lesson Four: Persistence,
Lesson Five: Consistency,
Lesson Six: Fix It and Move On,
PART TWO: DAY WORK,
Working Together,
The Path,
Positive Conflicts,
Blending,
Balance,
Communication,
Practice,
The Beginner,
PART THREE: BUCK'S LEGACY,
One Last Ride,
Afterword,