How to have a Happy Horse

I have just finished reading a fabulous little book called “The Happy Horse”. I really wish it were available as a print book rather than the ebook which is the only format you can buy (at the moment) since there is more than one person I know who would really benefit from reading it. Written by Tania Kindersley up in the wilds of Scotland where she lives (and from the sound of it, where I’d like to live!), it is partly a collection of stories, reminiscent of Mark Rashid’s books, and partly a “how to” book.

The author, after a 30 year break from “horsing” (I love that word!), decided to go out and buy herself a Thoroughbred mare. When she got the mare home, rather than being able to just hop on and start riding, she discovered that her horse was not at all happy, and demonstrated this with a dazzling array of behaviour such as bucking, spooking and leaping about. But rather than label the horse “dangerous” or “naughty”, her new owner set about Googling how to make her horse happy. The results of her discoveries and her experiences are all detailed in the book.

I found myself nodding a lot whilst reading it, and often exclaiming (to my fairly bored family) “Exactly! More people need to realise this!” and so on. I think that we have made many of the same discoveries about horsing over the years. And there is some stuff in there that perhaps we haven’t realised yet, so much food for thought and perhaps some things to try with our horses, especially Sky, who seems to have a lot in common with the author’s red mare…….

There are quotes like this, which I could have written myself, and it’s something I often say to people who ask for my help.

“I am constantly amazed by how many people really do think that they can force a half-ton flight animal to do anything. They reach for the strong bits and the sharp spurs; they wrangle and wrestle and shout. They get out their whip. This does not work, but people go on thinking that somehow, if they get tough enough, it will work.”

And this, which pretty much sums up us “fluffy bunnies”:

"You may find that it is not the things you do with your horse that are hard, so much as the way people look at you as you do these things. If you choose not to walk with the crowd, the crowd can get a bit shifty and restless and cross. Some of that crowd may not want to think about herd behaviour; they would much rather get out their strong bits and their standing martingales and their side reins........then you might have to take a lot of deep breaths, count to ten......smile a blinding smile, and bugger on regardless.”

Over the years we have had so much criticism from fellow horse owners, both online and in real life. I can totally understand why some people can end up doing what is seen as “normal,” even if they’re not convinced it’s best for their horse, just to avoid such criticism. There are some nasty bullies out there. There are people who have criticised this blog because of the views I express about how to do what I feel is the best for my horses. You can’t please everyone, or even anyone sometimes. So it is refreshing to read something like this book and realise that there are people out there who have taken the time, done the research, disagreed with the “experts”, tried different things and found a method that works for them (and more importantly, for their horses) too.

So we shall continue to bugger on regardless, continue to ignore the negative comments and continue to learn as much as we can about how to make our horses happy. If you want to do that too, get a copy of this book. Your horse will thank you for it :-)

On the Trail of Genghis Khan

No, not me. I do fancy doing a long ride one day, but not this long! I am currently reading the above titled book by a chap called Tim Cope who rode 10,000kms (!) across the Eurasian steppe from Mongolia to Hungary. Took him over 3 years......

Makes my ambition to ride from our UK house to our French house one day seem somewhat tame.....

Anyway, this is an interesting read. For a start, Mr Cope couldn't actually ride a horse when he started. Pretty much straight away, his horses got nicked (not for the last time, as it turned out). He acquired a dog, and what sounds like a serious vodka addiction along the way. And learned lots of interesting stuff.

Here are some excerpts that I particularly like.....

"When Dashnyam climbed back onto his horse, I watched him closely. Observing a custom universal among horsemen the world over, he carefully approached his black gelding from the left-hand side and eased into the saddle. Horsemen in the Western world believe this tradition originates from a time when cavalrymen carried swords on their right leg. On the steppe, however, among the descendants of those who introduced horses and cavalry warfare to the West, there is a belief about this custom that is probably older than both the Iron Age and Bronze Age. In a culture where the sun has always been worshipped and gers still strictly face south toward the life-giving orb, the word for "left" in Mongolian, baruun, is the same as the term for "east". To approach a ger from the east or mount a horse from the left is to approach in the same direction as the sun passes through the sky. To approach from the right and therefore the west is the sign of an enemy and can only invite trouble."

"Mongolians believe the spirit of a horse can live on in its hair, even long after death, and in the past, nomad warriors collected the hair from their best stallions to weave into a sulde or "spirit banner", which served to bring good luck and as a way of harnessing the spirit of nature"

 An observation he makes after waking up freezing cold one winter morning in Kazakhstan:

"The horses, by comparison, didn't seem to be suffering-and for good reason. Descendants of horses that had survived natural selection over thousands of years, they were equipped with a physiology uniquely adapted to the extremes of the steppe.....their hairs, lifted slightly away from the body by special muscles under the skin, gave them the ability to regulate heat loss. Later, in the Ukraine and Russia, where people had a more Western approach to horses, I was told that leaving horses in the open without winter blankets, as nomads did, was unimaginably cruel. I came to think that this view was based on one of several misconceptions that many Westerners hold in relation to the natural horse and therefore the culture of horsemanship on the steppe. Horses in Europe, after all, are blanketed largely to prevent the horse from growing a long winter coat....and if a horse has been blanketed from a young age, the muscles under the skin that control the movement of the hair and thus regulate heat are not able to develop. The horses are therefore unable to keep themselves warm, the need for blankets being a human-induced one"

 Well worth a read, lots of info about the history of the regions he travels, more recent (and at times quite harrowing reading) as well as during Genghis' 13th century journey of conquest. And as you can see, there are some stunning pictures.....

Really?

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I have just been made aware of the existence of this book. About a Fjord called Seraphina. Concidence? No.......

The author did indeed used to own a "a lovely Norwegian Fjord mare named Seraphina, the inspiration for this book." And then she moved to America and Seraphina couldn't go too, so I got her. And as those of you who regularly read this blog will know, that's when the hard work really started.......

So the blurb on Amazon says: "All the family's animals - the dog and cat, the chickens and ducks, and her mother's big grey horse - are awaiting this joyous arrival."

If only fact had followed fiction! Hardly a joyous arrival....and my "big grey horse" wasn't to chuffed with her behaviour, I can tell you. She wasn't too nice to the chickens and ducks either, or the dog......

Had a quick look at some of the book and I'm afraid that,  apart from being fairly unimaginative, given that it's basically a Disney Princess version of what actually happened (without any of the nasty tiresome, real life, dealing with a pony who needed to know that yes, humans can be some use at looking after you and no, you don't need to try and take over, and yes they can be trusted.......), it's also badly written with some truly dreadful twee illustrations so I won't be rushing out to buy it any time soon for my kids, even if it is about my horse!

I shall probably invest in this instead, a far more favourable review.....

A very long ride, day 2

Saturday morning we woke up ridiculously early as you do when camping. Didn’t even get woken by the SNO, she was still snoring. First thing first, check the horses. They were mostly flat out after their exertions.......!

Lovely breakfast of barbecued bacon (well, the nearest you can get from Lidl) and Tess’s chook eggs. She knows which bird laid which egg so the SNO was able to choose which one to have.  Levered the OH out of bed to go and buy bread. He then announced he was off running for most of the day but as he had presumably imagined that I’d have known telepathically to pack his running gear, he’d need to take the car to go back home and fetch it. Suggestions that he just run home were met with a frosty glare......

As soon as the kids woke up they immediately wanted to saddle up the poor horses and go jumping. We delivered the obligatory lecture about resting them and putting their welfare first etc. To alleviate the sulking we went to check out the TREC course in the woods.

We sat around for the rest of the day occasionally creaking to our feet to go and make tea. Tess bought me this brilliant book for my birthday about 2 women who rode all the way from Canterbury to Santigo de Compostela on their Appaloosas. I immediately want to do something similar, the idea of leaving the OH and the kids behind for months is very appealing, but I suspect we’ll have to wait a few years. To qualify for membership of the Long Riders Guild you have to have done a minimum of 1000 miles in a single journey. Tess and I started idly planning it anyway....

At around tea time, a birthday cake arrived, home baked by Tess. It was too windy to light the candles (no, there weren’t 43 of them) so I pretended to blow them out. We ate it with more cups of tea.

Then the outside caterers (or Gary as he’s known) showed up with a barbecue and enough food to feed an army. This is just as well because he and Tess’s OH had disgorged an army of small boys and bicycles from their cars. We moved on to wine and beer (my OH having thoughtfully brought two crates of Belgian beer along). Gary served up kebabs with all the trimmings and the ravenous hordes made it disappear in short order. The OH finally staggered in looking somewhat the worse for wear after 15 miles. Think the mid life crisis obsession is getting a bit out of hand......

As the evening wore on, we caught up the somewhat surprised horses and saddled them ready for the night ride.

They didn’t look impressed, frankly. We set off into the dusk following our guide, Aude. We rode through the vines, having a canter as night fell, then went on into the woods in the dark. The kids made all sorts of spooky noises and we concentrated on not getting impaled on low branches. We stopped by a house and thankfully the inhabitants seemed to know Aude so presumably weren’t too surprised to see a bunch of horses arrive at 10.30 at night.

The horses didn’t seem to mind the night ride, Maverick was significantly better behaved in the dark than in the daylight, Gandalf wasn’t too happy to be at the back though and kept scurrying along to plant his nose in Seraphina’s tail.

Back to the campsite after a fun two hours, the only problem being that the moon stayed firmly hidden behind the clouds the whole way. The OHs seemed to have polished off most of the 2 crates of wine and were well into “talking bollocks” mode, but there was plenty of wine left for us.

So we drank more wine and eventually went to bed........