Senior Horsemanship - Tips to Help Us Enjoy Better Years with Horses and More of Them

In this episode of the Senior Horsemanship Podcast, I talk about planning for after us. That is planning for our horses' care if we can't care for them anymore.

One possibility is to adopt a horse from a rescue like Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society. Bluebonnet retains ownership of the horse and will always take the horse back if the adopter can't care for it. Bluebonnet will also provide training and fostering to make the horse more adoptable. If you don't live in Texas, perhaps there's a rescue with similar policies.

Another option is to provide for your horses in your estate plan. We'll be talking with an attorney in a future podcast about estate planning for horses and pets too.

Thanks for listening to the Senior Horsemanship Podcast.

There are many good reasons for seniors to volunteer for Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society in Texas or at similar horse rescues in other areas. According to Dr. Jennifer Williams, Executive Director at Bluebonnet, the top reasons are:

1. Seniors fostering horses can do that for a limited time and get a fostering stipend to offset some of the costs of having horses.
2. Seniors volunteering in other ways can be involved in promoting the welfare of horses without the responsibilities and costs of owning horses. If you have a skill or interest, there's probably something you can do to help horses in rescue transition to a new and better life.

If you're interested in supporting Bluebonnet in some way, please visit their website at Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

So in summary, here are four good reasons why you should consider adopting from Bluebonnet if you’re a senior living in Texas.

#1 - You get an honest health and training history for the horse you adopt. Anything Bluebonnet knows, you will know. 

#2 - You get a 30 day period to try the horse at your barn and if the horse doesn’t work out, you can return the horse and get your adoption fee back. 

#3 - If your circumstances change and due to finances or health, you can’t keep your horse Bluebonnet will always take that horse back and find a new good home for it. 

#4 - You get the support of Bluebonnet members throughout the State of Texas. If you need a farrier or a vet or you heed help with a behavior problem, Bluebonnet will try to find the information you need. 

If you don’t live in Texas, Jennifer has described what you can look for in an equine rescue to help you adopt wisely wherever you do live. We will have more information about what to look for in an equine rescue in a future podcast. Here's the link to Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society!

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Senior Horsemanship Podcast.

It comes back to whether or not we accept that definition of a good horseman or horsewoman: “A good horseman or horsewoman is someone who, in an educated way, always puts the best interest of the horse first and foremost.”

This is a quote from the book, Begin and Begin Again - The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses, by Denny Emerson.

Welcome to the Senior Horsemanship Podcast. Which was the Second Half Horsemanship Podcast. We'll be talking about better horsemanship in the senior part of life. For most of us that means horsemanship for the love of it.  That means horsemanship where we always put the best interest of the horse first and foremost.

I'm your host. Paul Sherland.

Denny goes on to say the following:

So any aid applied strongly enough to create nervous tension is an aid applied too strongly. There’s part of my problem, I realized. A kick tells the horse what I want, but it also creates tension, so I have to teach my horse to respond instead to a nudge, a tickle, some pressure that allows him to stay below his anxiety threshold.

Everything I had been doing was based on too much — too much force, too much pressure, too much too soon, too much assumption that my horse knew what I wanted but was simply not doing it right, too much, too much. I wasn’t teaching, I was forcing. And force always escalates, because force creates anxiety in the horse, anxiety creates resistance, resistance elicits more force from the rider to counteract it and down the rabbit hole we go.

It is a fundamental truth that I wish I had learned half a century earlier, and if it can help some riders and trainers — at any age — on their journey, I believe it will help them create stronger bonds with their horses.

I’m working on the website for Senior Horsemanship with the goal of getting it up and running by the new year. If you have comments or feedback about this podcast or any of the podcasts, please visit one of my other websites, SaddleUpAgain.com, and contact me there. I appreciate your comments.

I appreciate your interest in the podcast. And I hope to continue to provide information that interests you in the days ahead. Thank you for listening.     

A burden of these years is to allow all the stereotypes of old age to hold me back. To hold me down. To stop the flow of life in me.

A blessing of these years. Is that they give me the chance to break the bounds of a past life. And to create for myself, a life more suited to what I now want to be.

 This is a quote from the book, The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully, by Joan Chittister.

• Do you want to be able to ride for years into the future?
• Do you want your horse to be healthy for years into the future?
• Do you want to be able to care for your horse as you get older?
• If you can’t ride for some reason, would you like to be able to remain involved with horses?
• If for some reason you can’t care for your horse, to you want your horse to go to a good home where she’ll be loved and appreciated for the rest of her life?

If your answers are "yes" then you may be interested in what I'm calling Future Horsemanship.

Many of us set our schedules and build our task list for the day based on what other’s need done rather than what we need to do for ourselves. We never seem to have enough time to exercise, train our horses, ride as much as we’d like or need to, and develop horsemanship goals based on what we’d like to be able to do a year from now or five years from now.

With Future Horsemanship, we’ll set goals for exercising to build the strength and fitness we need to ride our horses for years to come. We’ll set goals to work with our horses to build their fitness and train them to be horses that would win friends wherever they go. We’ll set goals to develop our horsemanship to enable us to work with our horses for years into the future. All of these goals drive the habits we form today to achieve those horsemanship goals in years ahead.

Future Horsemanship will be one of the topics we’ll cover in Senior Horsemanship. 

As I mentioned last week, I want to better prepare for the possibility that I might have to give up my horses. Or that one or more of them might outlive me. I have three horses and they're all different. But their prospects for a good life following me could be improved if I take the time to train them to be easier to handle, easier to ride and easier to care for. 

As one of my Future Horsemanship goals, I plan is to do a series of videos, demonstrating my training progress and problems with these horses. The videos will help me share my experiences with you. And they also document where these horses are in their training — what they know, what they can do, and what they have issues with doing. Those videos should be very helpful in finding my horses good new homes if they ever have to be moved from my care.

Thank you for listening!

I’ve also become increasingly aware of how challenging it is to age. Our bodies change, grief finds us more frequently, we listen as our doctor tells us about invasive health screenings we must endure. Health insurance goes up and energy goes down.

But along with all of that, I also notice the frost on a horse’s whiskers in the winter. How on a chilly morning, the wind catches the mist of their breath. How standing beside them allows me to calm down and experience a grounded sense of peace. The rhythmic sound of horses chewing. Watching them gather hay into their mouths. Feeling their warm huffing breath on my hands or face is the best self-care of all.

For me, horses are sacred. In their veins, whether pureblood or born of unknown dam and sire, the horse carries memories of battles and races, kindness and cruelty, nobility and work.

This is a quote from the book, Getting Along with Horses: An Evolution in Understanding, by Crissi McDonald.

Perhaps you’ve also evolved in understanding your horse. Hopefully your experiences over the years, in working with horses and in doing other things, have changed and improved your horsemanship.

My hope is that many of you will share those experiences on the podcast so that  the rest of us can learn from your successes and your mistakes. Some folks on social media are more than willing to share advice based on little or no experience. My goal with the senior horsemanship podcast is to foster the sharing of experiences that might be helpful to other folks and their horses.

You should know your horse better than anyone else. You’re in a better position than anyone to apply or discard the possible lessons learned from these experiences.

One of my goals is to better prepare for the possibility that I might have to give up my horses or that one or more of them might outlive me. I have three horses and they’re all different. But their prospects for a good life following me could be improved if I take the time to train them to be easier to handle, easier to ride and easier to care for.

My plan is to do a series of videos demonstrating my training progress and problems with these horses. The videos will help me share my experiences with you, and they’re also document where these horses are in their training. What they know, what they can do and what they have issues with doing.

I hope that you’ll share your horse journey with me and with other listeners to the podcast. I appreciate your interest in the podcast. And I hope to continue to provide information that interests you in the days ahead.

A burden of these years is to fail to get beyond the bitterness of having been displaced, and to not see that being moved quietly off all the platforms of life is also to be free of the stagecraft that goes with them.

A blessing of these years is to wake up one morning and find ourselves drunk with a very thought of being alive. Then wherever we go, we will spread the joy we have finally been able to find in ourselves.

This is a quote from the book, The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister. 

 Welcome to the Senior Horsemanship Podcast, which was the Second Half Horsemanship Podcast last week. We'll be talking about better horsemanship in the senior part of life. 

I'm your host. Paul Sherland. Well, the set. 

Well, the Texas Secretary of State has assigned the assumed name of senior horsemanship to my company. And I've obtained the domain name for senior horsemanship. The podcast name is changed to senior horsemanship. And I'll be building the senior horsemanship website over the next few weeks. 

So why the change? Probably the most important reason is that I'm certainly a senior horseman, at age 71 with three horses. I'm also very interested in riding, caring for and training my horses as long as I can. I'm also very interested in making as long as I can to be as long as possible. That's my goal in horsemanship. 

I don't have any goals in the competitive arena. Not that competition is bad, but I just want to enjoy my horses. If you compete. Then I hope you do it for the joy of working with your horse. 

So, what will we talk about? How about the following? 

I'd like to talk about horse training. First because a well-trained horse makes life safer and makes our time with our horse more enjoyable. 

A well-trained horse also has better prospects for a good home if for some reason we can't continue to keep our horse. So for the good of ourselves and our horses, horse training for seniors is a great topic. 

I'd like to talk about horse care. I care for my horses myself, and I've learned some things in the process that I'd like to share. I also hope to learn from others about ways to make horse care better and easier as we grow older.

I'd like to talk about riding fitness and safety around horses. I've lost about 40 pounds over the last year and a half, and it's made riding easier for me and my horses. But with the weight loss has come some loss of. But with the weight loss has come a loss of some strength. 

I've also suffered from my share of horse related injuries over the years, including a broken arm, broken ribs, several concussions and most recently broken toes. What can we do to be safer with our horses? I'm not as nimble as I once was. 

I'd like to talk about the mental aspects of horsemanship. Because we need to rely on the mental more than the physical as we get older. When I was younger, there were ways of handling horses that could be characterized by make them do it. And don't let them get away with it. As I've gotten older, I've realized that there are better ways and I'll talk about them. 

Finally, I'll talk about horse, horse. 

Finally, I'll talk about how horsemanship can be much more than riding a horse. I've been a volunteer with Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society here in Texas for a number of years. And there are some volunteers who could be examples for all of us. Several volunteers can't ride anymore, but they foster horses and give them a great start on a new path in life. Other volunteers work on the admin side to give the organization the ability to help as many horses as possible. All of those activities count as horsemanship. We'll talk about those and more. 

The Second Half Horsemanship Podcast has its roots in much earlier efforts. About 12 years ago, I launched a Yahoo group and a website called Mature Riders which was intended for horse people in middle-age. I was in my late fifties so the timing seemed about right. 

Then in 2015, I launched a website called Saddle Up Again for riders in midlife and beyond. That attracted some interest, but it seemed to be targeting a group that didn't identify itself as midlife and beyond. That made it a marketing challenge. 

So earlier this year I launched the Second Half Horsemanship Podcast, again to focus on horsemanship issues for those of us in the second half of life. There are some very significant changes in mental abilities that occur in our forties and fifties. And there are fundamental changes in our metabolism that occur in our early sixties. 

For many of us, there are also changes in our outlook on life. There's a move away from career and toward a vocation that's based on our interests and abilities, more than salary and status. These are changes that might reward more mind than muscle in our horsemanship journey. 

However, I'm getting older. I'm certainly a senior citizen. I'm 71 and well past the start of the second half of life. I've concluded that it would be best to rebrand the podcast to focus on those of us who call ourselves seniors. 

Delle, a friend of mine, suggested that I check a Facebook group called equestrian seniors. I found that there are more than 60,000 members of this group. I also found that some horse loving friends from years ago were also members of the group. This is a lively, highly active group of horse lovers. And it has convinced me that I can rebrand the podcast to serve those of us who proudly identify ourselves as seniors and continue to be interested in topics associated with horsemanship. 

So I've applied to the Texas Secretary of State for a new assumed name for the podcast and a website. Hopefully by next weekend, I'll have an approval for the name I've requested. If so I'll announce it on this podcast next weekend. 

I appreciate all the topic ideas I've received from members of the equestrian seniors Facebook group. I appreciate your interest in the podcast. And I also hope to continue to provide information that interests you in the days ahead. Thanks for listening.     

When I was a kid, I was largely taught by more experienced horse people. My mentors owned a riding school and I worked casually for them in exchange for lessons. They taught me everything from how to tie a knot to how to perform a half halt and position a horse in front of a jump. All the basic skills that a person needs to know at the beginning began by religiously following the instruction of my two mentors. I didn’t think too much about what I was told or why things were done that way. It was what it was because my mentors said so.

So today 90% of my new knowledge comes from horses and thinking/experimentation. The rest is divided between other professionals, books, videos, and students. Who knows where it will come from tomorrow?

This is a quote from the Good Horsemanship by Ross Jacobs Facebook page in a post titled The Evolution of Learning from November 13, 2022.

Unlike Ross, my horsemanship journey started at age 10 with six lessons at the local stable, books from the public library, and a subscription to Western Horseman Magazine.

My family lived in a horse friendly community. And I sometimes got lessons from the 16 year old boy down the street. But my horse was kept in a small barn near our house, and I rode every day the weather allowed it. I fed my horse, groomed my horse, was bucked off my horse, got back on my horse and got thrown less as time went on. Most of what I learned about horses was learned from my horse and experimentation.

My family moved after about a year. My horse was sold, and I didn't ride much for almost 30 years.

When I bought a horse and started riding again, I took lessons and attended clinics and watched videos. I was working full time so there was much less time for riding. Most of my knowledge came from these expert sources of information and I tried to apply that information to my horse with varying levels of success. 

Now in my early seventies, I would agree with Ross that 90% of my new knowledge comes from my horses and thinking and experimentation. For me there is no one horsemanship method or mentor who has all the answers for me and my horses.

I hope you’re at a place in life that allows you to experiment with your horses, and watch for feedback from them to learn what works and what doesn’t. I hope that you think of horsemanship as a journey with detours and occasional setbacks. I hope you enjoy every day on your journey to better horsemanship in the second half of life .

Here's a link to Descript, the audio and video editing software that I use and recommend.

And here's a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.

There is so much variation in the human individual that the approach has to be a little different in order to fit each person. They might come out with the same results as someone else, but if everyone tried to take the same approach, there wouldn’t be too many of them coming out with the same solution. That’s another thing I think is important to emphasize — this is an individual process. I tell people that over and over when they are trying to get something worked out. I say, “All I can do is try to help.” It has to come right out of the inside of the individual. There is no other way I know of that they can get it. It depends on what  the situation may be; there might be many things, but there is a variation in how they are applied. People tend to say, “That’s a little deep. I know what you are saying but I don’t understand it.”

This quote is from the book, True Unity - Willing Communication Between Horse and Human, by Tom Dorrance.

In the quote, Tom Dorrance emphasizes that humans are individuals and that our horsemanship approach should be individual too. Our horses are also individuals and the relationships that we have with our horses are unique.

For years I read books, watched videos and attended clinics where various approaches were taught as if the same approach would yield the same solution. That was not the case. Maybe I needed a certain trainer’s saddle or bridle or maybe another video would help.  I was taking the methods from these clinicians and applying them to my horse without taking his unique personality into account.

When my horse didn’t respond as the video or book or clinic indicated he should, I interpreted this as resistance or stubbornness.  Our relationship was characterized by drilling and tension. Over years of clinics, books and videos, we headed down the wrong path.

I think this happens to lots of riders and their horses. We buy a horse and something happens early in the relationship that causes us to loose confidence in the horse. We anticipate trouble and ride like that. We do more groundwork and that makes the problem worse instead of better. Many of us sell the horse or quit riding altogether.

What worked for me was to watch a Warwick Schiller video on YouTube titled, 10 Year Old Girl Training. In the video, Warwick describes riding a horse at an event called Equidays in New Zealand. The horse almost bucked him off during his demonstration. Later in the day, the same horse was ridden by his 10 year old owner in an obstacle class and the horse behaved perfectly. That experience caused Warwick  to have an epiphany about the importance of connection in horsemanship. Watching Warwick’s video caused me to remember my experiences riding as a 10 year old and the importance of the connection I had with my horses at that time.

So I changed what I was doing. I stopped the groundwork drilling and I looked for ways to remove the tension I was seeing in my horse. It worked and it rebuilt the relationship I had with that horse and changed what I do with my other horses.

So I hope that you’re experimenting to find the right approach for the solution you’re looking for with your horse. I hope that you recognize that the solution you read about or see in a clinic might not be the best for you and your horse. I hope that you recognize tension in your horse and that you work to start and end your sessions with your horse without tension and with relaxation.

Here's a link to Descript, the audio and video editing tool that I use and recommend.

Here's a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.