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

I’ve found that no matter what experience you have, you really need to experiment. I think that is what good trainers actually do. They ride and they have their antennas out, and they’re always feeling for things.

So I want you to use your feel more than your logic. Don’t just repeat aids that you see in a book. After you’ve experimented, and you’ve found what your horse tells you he needs, then you can go home and try to figure out the logic of what just worked and why. The bottom line is, the more you experiment, the more successful you’re going to be.

This is a quote from Karen Rohlf from her book, Improve Everything You Do With Your Horse.

Karen also says the following.

Remember, the most important relationship is between you and your horse. not between you and an instructor that says, “That looks good.” … You and your horse’s understanding of one another has to come first, before what looks good. That’s always my first priority.

So remember, you are the expert on your horse. You should know your horse better than anyone else. Learn from the experts and their books, videos and clinics and then experiment with your horse to find out what works and what doesn’t work. You and your horse will be better for it.

Here's link to Karen's website.

And a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

And also a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.

Every once in a while somebody will ask me how can we know what a horse is thinking and feeling since they don’t talk. My answer is always that they do talk. They never shut up. They just don’t verbalize a lot. But they are definitely chatterboxes and I for one am glad they can’t verbalize their thoughts. Problem is that we confuse our inability to hear them with their inability to talk.

This is a quote from Ross Jacobs on his Good Horsemanship - Ross Jacobs Facebook page. Here's a link to his website .

If you’d like to learn more about Ross Jacobs and his teachings, check out his book, The Essence of Good Horsemanship. I think it should be on the reading list for all of us on the second half horsemanship journey.

Here's a link to check out Descript, the tool I use for almost all of my audio and video editing.

Here's a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

And a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.

Snowman would do anything my dad asked of him, and I believe that is because Snowman understood that my dad saved him and that down deep, the two of them were connected and somehow both of their lives were gonna be affected forever because they met.

This is a quote from Harriet deLeyer from the movie, Harry and Snowman. Harriet is talking about the relationship between her father, Harry deLeyer, and Snowman, the $80 former plow horse rescued from a truck bound for a slaughter house. Snowman later was named Horse of the Year and the pair won the jumper championship several times at the National Horse Show in New York City.

I also recommend the book, The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired a Nation, by Elizabeth Letts.

There are many ways to build a connection with your horse. Based on my experiences, I think that helping your horse is one of them.

Here's a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

And a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.

Sometimes accidents happen even when we are with horses whole-heartedly, and sometimes this takes the heart we have for horses right out of us. However, at some point, we must make the decision to be with horses or to be without them. In or out. It’s a decision we will be required to make again and again if we choose to keep spending our life in their hay-munching company.

This is a quote from the book, Continuing the Ride - Rebuilding Confidence from the Ground Up, by Crissi McDonald.

The wonderful book, Continuing the Ride, documents Crissi McDonald’s relationship with her horse Bree leading up to the accident that injured Crissi.

Crissi is the wife of clinician and author Mark Rashid. Crissi also talks about her recovery from the accident and the process of overcoming fear to ride again.

Bree had been Crissi’s trusted clinic horse for several years before Bree started to rear unexpectedly. Mark and Crissi gave Bree time off for several years and brought in veterinarians to find the cause of the rearing. This cause could never be determined.

In the second half of life we don’t bounce as well as we used to.  If we have a horse like Bree who is unpredictable despite our best efforts and the efforts of our veterinarians, we are smart to be the old, wise rider instead of the old, crippled rider. Stay off that horse so you can ride for as many years as possible.

Here's a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

And a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.

Horse people have only one job. And horses have only one job. It’s the most important job and it's the job that supersedes all other jobs. Nothing is more important when it comes to training. The job is to be focused and connected. That’s it. That’s the job. Even when doing other jobs, staying focused and connected to our horse and our horse to us overrides all other jobs in importance.

The one condition to the “one job” principle is that focus and connection are only important if you want a good relationship and a partnership. If you only care about a horse being an employee and doing a learned job, then focus and connection are less important provided the job gets done.

This is a quote from Ross Jacobs on his Good Horsemanship - Ross Jacobs Facebook page. If you’d like to learn more about Ross Jacobs and his teachings, check out his book, The Essence of Good Horsemanship. I think it should be on the reading list for all of us on the second half horsemanship journey.

Thinking back to my 30 plus years of riding as an adult, I can name the horses I had good focus and connection with and others where the focus and connection were infrequent or missing.  The latter group of horses were the ones I was riding when I was thrown and injured

Here's a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

And another link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood - it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too Late".

This is a quote from Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior, in the book, Do the Work, by Steven Pressfield.

Even in the second half of life, our time is not unlimited. We need to decide what’s important and what activities should consume our focus and attention. But if horsemanship is important to us, we should remember that the clock is ticking. If I can no longer care for my horse or my horse survives me, I want my horse to have good manners, in the stable and under saddle, so that my horse will likely transition to a new loving home.

So procrastination is still the thief of time in horsemanship. It’s time to work with my horse to develop good manners in the stable and under saddle. And it’s also time to document those good characteristics for the next owner if my horse needs to transition from my care. We will talk about how to do this in future podcasts and videos.

Here's a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

And a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.

All over the place, in every nook and cranny, there are not well educated people setting themselves up as horse trainers. Who are the professors at Oxford, Stanford, MIT? Are they people who dropped out of high school? And yet in the world of horses there are so many out there teaching and training who are the equivalent of high school dropouts.

This is a quote from Denny Emerson on his Tamarack Hill Facebook page.

However, the following is a quote from Denny Emerson in his book, Know Better to Do Better: Mistakes I Made with Horses (So You Don't Have To). He was talking about Cat, his first competitive eventing horse.

If I had him today, my approach would be to do everything in my power to earn his trust. I would do groundwork, I would do lots of walking under saddle.  I would try to get him to stretch, to gently bend, to get him over the idea that a human was an adversary — something like the ‘lion at the water hole’ that wanted to cause him pain.

Cat was typical of so many horses that are scarred from their interactions with humans. Some can be healed more successfully that others, but in all cases, patient, gentle handling is the way forward.

Denny wrote about Cat in his mid seventies. But as a horseman in my seventies, I'd like to work with teachers and trainers who recognize the importance of building trusting relationships, through patient and gentle handling much earlier in life. They don't need to have a degree from Dartmouth like Denny does. But they should help me to build trusting relationships with my horses.

The podcast quotes Tom Dorrance from his book, True Unity - Willing Communication Between Horse and Human.

Some people will ride a horse as long as the horse lives and they will never get what I try to get as early as I can, for a foundation. I don’t mean that I’m trying to get everything completed, but to get enough there to where if the horse gets troubled he will come to me; or to where I can get to him to come to me for security and cover. Without that foundation I feel very insecure with a horse.

If you're interested in learning more about the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society Training Challenge, here's a link to their website.

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

 It's my view that good horsemanship shapes training in a way that benefits both the horse and rider, rather than turn a horse into a submissive automaton. Good training should not squash any part of a horse's personality. It should keep the horse inside the horse.

I see this book not as a training book or even a behaviour book, but a book of ideas that need to be questioned and discussed by both the average rider and the professional community. It is my hope that it will get you thinking a little differently about your horse, and your approach to working with it, that will enhance your relationship, lead to better results and further your enjoyment.

This is a quote from the book, The Essence of Good Horsemanship by Ross Jacobs.

As Ross says, the book is not a training manual with 10 steps to make your horse a competitive champion. It is instead a book of ideas that you can think about, and evaluate in light of your own experience with your own horses.

With age, people are better at combining and utilizing complex ideas. In other words, they may not be able to come up with shiny new inventions or solve problems quickly like in the old days. But they get much better at using the concepts that they know and expressing them to others. They also get better at interpreting the ideas that others have — sometimes even to the people that came up with them.

This is a quote from Dr. Arthur C. Brooks in his book, From Strength to Strength - Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.

And here's a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society website.

And the Second Half Horsemanship website.

As horses go, none are alike in character, and even tho some colts might be from the same mother and father, alike in color and markings, none will be alike in thinking and acting, just as it is with human families or with crowds.

The bad might come out of the best, and the other way around.

... But I think the reader will get a fair idea, and maybe see as I do, a sort of likeness to the human in their faithfulness, or trickery or scheming bad or good acting, all in their different ways.

This is a quote from the Preface of Horses I've Known by Will James.

I read this when I was a kid, but then forgot about it in middle age. I tried various methods promoted by various clinicians to fix the problems I was having with some challenging horses. Those methods were not completely successful and I got hurt several times.

Finally I remembered this guidance from Will James and it's made all the difference. The Second Half of Life advantage is the ability to combine the lessons from a number of teachers in a creative way to fit the needs of the rider and the horse.

Here's a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

And a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.

 The one great precept and practice in using a horse is this, never deal with him when you are in a fit of passion. A fit of passion is a thing that has no foresight in it, and so we often have to rue the day when we gave way to it. Consequently, when your horse shies at an object and is unwilling to go up to it, he should be shown that there is nothing fearful in it, least of all to a courageous horse like him; but if this fails, touch the object yourself that seems so dreadful to him and lead him up to it with gentleness. Compulsion and blows inspire only the more fear; for when horses are at all hurt at such a time, they think that what they shied at is the cause of the hurt.

This is a quote from The Art of Horsemanship by Xenophon, edited and translated by Morris H. Morgan.

If you've been working with horses for any length of time, you've probably been frustrated with your horse or even angry with your horse.

When we deal with a horse in a fit of passion or anger we damage or destroy our relationship with that horse. Force only inspires more fear.

In the second half of life, maybe we can shelve the ego. Instead, we can show our horses that they have nothing to be afraid of. We can deal with our horses with gentleness.

Here's a link to the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.

And a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.