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Out on the road
22 August 2004 22:43It is a little over two years since Louise decided that we had been together long enough that she could afford to purchase a horse without causing too much grief and sorrow. When we first got together I was actually afraid of horses, mostly because I knew nothing about them and they are big animals that can easily flatten you if they choose to. Through a combination of introducing me to some friendly ones and explaining that grazing and browsing animals do not have a strong instinct for killing humans and are in fact quite cowardly most of the time Louise had won me over to the idea that dealings with equines are not guaranteed death for humans but I wasn't really ready for the effect that this animal would have on our lives.
Roo, show name Sharouf, is an arabian gelding with a very fine pedigree who Lou found working as a lawn-mower at a yard where she was looking at another horse altogether. He had done almost nothing in the seven years of his life before he came to live with us and it quickly became clear that he had every intention of continuing in a similar vein. I had absolutely no idea how much time and dedication owning a horse required and the sheer amount of work it took on our part to persuade Roo to do something as simple as pick up his feet or not barge us out the way when he felt that we were between him and his objectives. But as we began to experiment with different ways of working with him and build up a relationship it became clear what a completely nice person Roo is, friendly, inquisitive and eager to please. I enjoyed the realness of the work - in a world where you have been told it is good enough to try hard it is very rewarding to work with an animal who doesn't care how hard you are trying but will only listen if you actually do things right. Also, being out in a field on a regular basis helped me to rediscover how much I enjoy being away from towns and among fields and hedgerows. I also had the reassuring certainty that Louise knew almost everything about horses and knew exactly what she was doing. It has since traspired that I was entirely incorrect in this and that Lou was terrified of him for most of that year.
The next year we felt he was ready to take the next step into being ridden and he went off to be started (there is something horrible about the word "broken" when being used to describe the teaching of a living creature) and to learn about working under saddle. We were lucky enough to be able to send him to Lower Hartsop Farm, where Intelligent Horsemanship run their courses helping horse owners to understand the techniques Monty Roberts has pioneered for communicating with their horses using equine body language and behaviour to get the message across. At the end of Roo's time there he was happy to work under saddle, very green but, as always, willing to try very hard to do the right thing. We brought him back to a natural-horsemanship friendly yard in a local village. He took a while to settle down (having hardly shared a field with other horses before) but once he did we were able to get back to working with him and trying to get him fit.
It's not clear exactly when he damaged his back, but we suspect a wedding at the house neighbouring the yard where he was living probably did the trick. To a horse, fireworks are pretty much like the end of the world and the next morning we found a big hole in the fence between Roo's field and the neighbouring one. Our guess was that he had run straight into the fence, which would have been hard to see in the darkness, and somersaulted over it. Although he seemed fine at the time, he got increasingly sensitive about anything being done around his back or right hind leg and we decided to call in the vet. Almost exactly a year ago, he went off to Liphook Equine Hospital to be pumped full of radioactive chemicals, X-rayed and then locked away until he stopped glowing in the dark. Apparently being bitten by a radioactive horse can have very unfortunate effects - the superhero powers of Horse-man would mostly be to run away from stuff fast and to be very expensive to keep.
The prognosis was that there was something wrong with his Sacroiliac joint (the horse equivalent of his hip) and that we shouldn't make him do anything for a while. By spring of this year no change had happened and we realized we were unlikely to ever to be able to ride him.
Around the same time, Joe's owner was having a real problem with him bolting every time she took him off the yard. In many cases this would be easy enough to work through, but her yard opens onto a main road by a blind corner and it would only take one speeding BMW to bring about disaster. Louise and her were both regulars on the Intelligent Horsemanship message board and when she offered to put Joe up for loan we were lucky enough to be able to take him on and bring him to live with us. Joe is a big chunky patchwork horse, no taller than Roo but twice as heavy and experienced enough that I could use him to learn to ride and Louise could do more technical stuff and take him out when there were other people going on hacks ( I was happy to discover that hacking is a term for going out for a ride, which makes me feel my computer is secure from the vast majority of hackers as long as I don't leave it on a bridleway.)
As the spring wore on we decided to move Roo to a pleasant field a few miles away where he could be a full-time companion and not have to worry about working at all. This suited him ideally (although the walk over was an event in itself) and he decided to respond in his own unique idiom by starting to make a recovery. A few months ago we found a home for him with a family whose daughter really wanted a pony and would be small enough that when he did come back into work she would probably not damage his back and who Louise judged would be able to look after him and give him the attention he needed. We have visited him since and he is being very well cared for.
That was a brief history of my experience of owning horses. It took a surprisingly long time to document, but it gives context to todays achievements:
Today was the first time that we had tried to take Joe out on his own- he has been away from the yard in company a few times, but yesterday he went out of the gate and around a little bit and back in and he seemed to quite enjoy it, although he was a little nervous and we thought today we'd take things a little further. With me on foot and Louise in the saddle we took him the half mile or so from the yard to the village church, encountering other horses, cars, children and an old chap on one of those electric scooter mobility type things and Joe did us absolutely proud. He was on edge but he didn't bolt at any point, although by the final few hundred yards back home Louise was convinced that if anyone sneezed within a hundred yards he would be off like a firecracker. Clearly no-one did because we got back with no more than a "hi honey, I'm home" squeal from Joe to announce his return. I was very proud of him and of Louise, who had been almost equally nervous.
When we got home this evening we heard that Roo's physiotherapist had seen him and judged that he was probably alright to start working again and his new keeper had been able to sit on him bareback there and then without any problem whatsoever.
So today is a day in which we are proud of all our horses. Equines are expensive to keep, easily injured and hugely time-consuming, but the rewards of their company are tremendous and I'm deeply glad that Louise introduced me to them.
Roo, show name Sharouf, is an arabian gelding with a very fine pedigree who Lou found working as a lawn-mower at a yard where she was looking at another horse altogether. He had done almost nothing in the seven years of his life before he came to live with us and it quickly became clear that he had every intention of continuing in a similar vein. I had absolutely no idea how much time and dedication owning a horse required and the sheer amount of work it took on our part to persuade Roo to do something as simple as pick up his feet or not barge us out the way when he felt that we were between him and his objectives. But as we began to experiment with different ways of working with him and build up a relationship it became clear what a completely nice person Roo is, friendly, inquisitive and eager to please. I enjoyed the realness of the work - in a world where you have been told it is good enough to try hard it is very rewarding to work with an animal who doesn't care how hard you are trying but will only listen if you actually do things right. Also, being out in a field on a regular basis helped me to rediscover how much I enjoy being away from towns and among fields and hedgerows. I also had the reassuring certainty that Louise knew almost everything about horses and knew exactly what she was doing. It has since traspired that I was entirely incorrect in this and that Lou was terrified of him for most of that year.
The next year we felt he was ready to take the next step into being ridden and he went off to be started (there is something horrible about the word "broken" when being used to describe the teaching of a living creature) and to learn about working under saddle. We were lucky enough to be able to send him to Lower Hartsop Farm, where Intelligent Horsemanship run their courses helping horse owners to understand the techniques Monty Roberts has pioneered for communicating with their horses using equine body language and behaviour to get the message across. At the end of Roo's time there he was happy to work under saddle, very green but, as always, willing to try very hard to do the right thing. We brought him back to a natural-horsemanship friendly yard in a local village. He took a while to settle down (having hardly shared a field with other horses before) but once he did we were able to get back to working with him and trying to get him fit.
It's not clear exactly when he damaged his back, but we suspect a wedding at the house neighbouring the yard where he was living probably did the trick. To a horse, fireworks are pretty much like the end of the world and the next morning we found a big hole in the fence between Roo's field and the neighbouring one. Our guess was that he had run straight into the fence, which would have been hard to see in the darkness, and somersaulted over it. Although he seemed fine at the time, he got increasingly sensitive about anything being done around his back or right hind leg and we decided to call in the vet. Almost exactly a year ago, he went off to Liphook Equine Hospital to be pumped full of radioactive chemicals, X-rayed and then locked away until he stopped glowing in the dark. Apparently being bitten by a radioactive horse can have very unfortunate effects - the superhero powers of Horse-man would mostly be to run away from stuff fast and to be very expensive to keep.
The prognosis was that there was something wrong with his Sacroiliac joint (the horse equivalent of his hip) and that we shouldn't make him do anything for a while. By spring of this year no change had happened and we realized we were unlikely to ever to be able to ride him.
Around the same time, Joe's owner was having a real problem with him bolting every time she took him off the yard. In many cases this would be easy enough to work through, but her yard opens onto a main road by a blind corner and it would only take one speeding BMW to bring about disaster. Louise and her were both regulars on the Intelligent Horsemanship message board and when she offered to put Joe up for loan we were lucky enough to be able to take him on and bring him to live with us. Joe is a big chunky patchwork horse, no taller than Roo but twice as heavy and experienced enough that I could use him to learn to ride and Louise could do more technical stuff and take him out when there were other people going on hacks ( I was happy to discover that hacking is a term for going out for a ride, which makes me feel my computer is secure from the vast majority of hackers as long as I don't leave it on a bridleway.)
As the spring wore on we decided to move Roo to a pleasant field a few miles away where he could be a full-time companion and not have to worry about working at all. This suited him ideally (although the walk over was an event in itself) and he decided to respond in his own unique idiom by starting to make a recovery. A few months ago we found a home for him with a family whose daughter really wanted a pony and would be small enough that when he did come back into work she would probably not damage his back and who Louise judged would be able to look after him and give him the attention he needed. We have visited him since and he is being very well cared for.
That was a brief history of my experience of owning horses. It took a surprisingly long time to document, but it gives context to todays achievements:
Today was the first time that we had tried to take Joe out on his own- he has been away from the yard in company a few times, but yesterday he went out of the gate and around a little bit and back in and he seemed to quite enjoy it, although he was a little nervous and we thought today we'd take things a little further. With me on foot and Louise in the saddle we took him the half mile or so from the yard to the village church, encountering other horses, cars, children and an old chap on one of those electric scooter mobility type things and Joe did us absolutely proud. He was on edge but he didn't bolt at any point, although by the final few hundred yards back home Louise was convinced that if anyone sneezed within a hundred yards he would be off like a firecracker. Clearly no-one did because we got back with no more than a "hi honey, I'm home" squeal from Joe to announce his return. I was very proud of him and of Louise, who had been almost equally nervous.
When we got home this evening we heard that Roo's physiotherapist had seen him and judged that he was probably alright to start working again and his new keeper had been able to sit on him bareback there and then without any problem whatsoever.
So today is a day in which we are proud of all our horses. Equines are expensive to keep, easily injured and hugely time-consuming, but the rewards of their company are tremendous and I'm deeply glad that Louise introduced me to them.