04/29/2022
To all of those who struggle with the complex horses, we got this. My Bourbon is not the horse for everyone but he is the horse for me.
"I have to keep working on myself, all the time. I have to search for knowledge and ask for help and not be proud. I must never give into hubris".
https://www.facebook.com/380953402107735/posts/1429538530582545/?sfnsn=mo
I wrote this post on the 24th of February, 2020, and I've chosen it as the pinned post because it's the first thing I'd like you to read if you have just stumbled upon the red mare. It will tell you a bit of our history together and explain why I write so much about her and perhaps express what I would like her stories to achieve. They are here for encouragement. They are to let you know that miracles are possible, if you don't give up. They are to tell you that you are not alone.
I belong to quite a lot of horse groups and sometimes I read despairing stories from people who feel that they are never going to get a relationship with their horses. They’ve tried and tried, but they keep taking ten steps backwards. They wonder if they and their horses are just the wrong fit, that there’s some kind of profound character clash going on. They are so tired and miserable that they want to give up. I try not to give unsolicited advice, but if they ask for help, I will tell them some red mare stories. And I’ll usually put a link to this page.
But I was thinking this morning that if you came here for the first time, you might think that it was all bluebirds and butterflies. There is the red mare doing The Place of Peace! Here is the little bay mare giving her eleven-year-old jockey a perfect dowager duchess trot! There is Clova the Connemara merrily galloping up the hill on a loose rein! And here is the Posse, and everyone is smiling!
I suddenly thought that if I were really struggling and I saw all that, it might make me feel worse, not better. So if you are new to the red mare, and you’ve come here for encouragement and consolation, I’d like to tell you a story.
It wasn’t always this way. When the red mare arrived, I was not the human she needed me to be and she had no peace. She was so horrified by my lack of skills that she reared like a circus horse, threw her head around so furiously that I thought for a while she might have a brain tumour, and found puddles so terrifying that she refused to walk through them.
Everything mortified her - sunlight on water, very old people walking very slowly, any kind of bridge. There were the famous years, or at least famous in my mind, when she became completely unhinged by The Evil Golfers on the Hill of Doom. If she even glimpsed the golfers in the far distance, she would freak out. (I still don't fully understand why.)
Once, we were working in an arena full of people when she spooked so violently at a mug of tea that I almost fell off. Everyone kindly said ‘Well sat,’ but I felt so humiliated that she could be undone by a cup of tea that I replayed the shaming moment in my mind for weeks afterwards.
I cannot tell you how often I wanted to give up. I would cry tears of frustration. I would lash myself for my lack of horsing talent. I would break one of my golden rules and lose my temper. I once yelled at her, ‘What do you want from me? Blood?’
She’s always going to be my complex one, and thank goodness she is, because it means I can never get smug or rest on my laurels. The little bay mare turned out to be simplicity itself, once I made the mental breakthrough with her and connected my mind to hers. She’s like your coolest chilled out friend who just gets on with life and doesn’t make a fuss. As long as she has enough love and something good to eat, she’s utterly content. The red mare can, even now, have a bit of a wobble, or come up with a stern No, or lose her confidence. I have to pay attention to what she is telling me. I have to keep working on myself, all the time. I have to search for knowledge and ask for help and not be proud. I must never, ever give in to hubris. She loathes hubris. It’s possibly her least favourite thing in the world.
But all the work was worth it, because the more I give to her, the more she gives to me. She’ll take over on a ride when I’m supervising my young ones, and literally find her own way home. I don’t have to steer her or give her any cues or anything. She’s learnt to do her own Place of Peace, and will often go into her trademark Zen trance of joy without me having to help her. She has made the Standing Still Olympics her own, and goes for gold every time. And, most lovely of all, this rearing, spooking, plunging mare now gives pony rides to children. The more novice her rider is, the gentler she becomes.
When I wrote The Happy Horse, telling some of these stories, I said that if I can do it, anyone can. I’m not a naturally talented horse person. I have no great gifts. I struggled to learn a lot of what I had to learn. I found the technical stuff difficult and I found a lot of the mental stuff counterintuitive. I’m quite competitive, and I’m a doer. One of the hardest things I had to learn was the grand art of Doing Nothing. I had to force myself to stand in a muddy Scottish field and breathe. I had to dig out my patience with a spoon.
But I did do it, and so can you. This mighty mare is the beat of my heart and the light of my life, but there were moments in the early days when we had such arguments that I don’t think I even liked her very much. (I wanted her to be perfect, and the fact she wasn't made me feel small and ashamed. It's difficult to feel love when you are caught in that toxic tangle of emotions.) She’s had a lot to forgive, but luckily her heart is the size of Pluto. The love and understanding between us now is something I can’t express in words, and words are my business.
It was a long road to get to where we are now, and it got rocky and scary in places, but it is the greatest path I ever took. She made me a better human being, and I’ll never stop being grateful for that. She gives me joy every single day.
So, if you are in the dark places, please hold on to hope. There is light at the end of that long, mournful tunnel. The red mare and I are living proof of it.
Blueberry Hill Dressage offers quality dressage training to individuals who own or lease their own horses and on limited lesson horses.
