“Try”
One of the biggest things I value in my horses.
Everybody is going to have their moments where the emotions get to high to handle. Spooks happen. And with patience and time and an expansion of life experiences we can help those moments become less frequent. But what matters most is, what comes after the inevitable tough feeling and spook?
Does a spook turn into a bolt turn into something catastrophic?
Or can they regather themselves, turn that around, and try again.
That resilience can be hard to cultivate in these prey animals that for all of history have survived by running away from danger. We have to help them learn to recover from the hard moments and develop as stable an emotional balance as possible.
I’ve left the audio alone for this video. You can hear just how much I talk to my horses while we work. As well as the very vocal ravens we are fortunate to have around!
Bringing home two wild ones at the same time has undoubtedly made my job as a trainer harder. They have each others fear to feed off of and far less drive to seek a connection with me while they have their little herd of two.
Yet it brings me so much joy to see them playing together. To know that they have a friend. Especially another colt to really be able to get up on their back legs and box with. It’s play, it’s natural, it’s normal. And it makes me happy to see them relax into their environment.
We are 10 weeks into this process together and I have so many videos to share. Yet I haven’t torn myself away from the horses and the work itself long enough to sit down and share it all.
These boys loaded up at 10am today! Or, yesterday actually, I’m writing this post after midnight with just three hours left of driving to the ferry! It’s been a long haul and it’s not done yet.
I could not ask for a better driver, supporter, and in this case videographer, than my wonderful partner Justin.
Fireball enjoying blackberry picking with me at the start of our ride last week!