My partnership with Talon completely transformed my approach to horsemanship. That sounds lovely, but the ingredients to this transformation were struggle, difficulty, frustration, anger, sadness, and feelings of failure. All things dark…
In my experience, growth often starts in moments of darkness. That was certainly the case in my partnership with Talon, but during that time I would never have said I was “growing”…I just felt bad and probably would have gotten very defensive towards anyone trying to share their wisdom regarding my situation. I had to learn in my own way.
I had to learn…
Progress in horsemanship is a long-game…slow and steady.
Often common practices in the horse industry are not in the best interest of the horses.
A horse’s behavior is his way of communicating–not something to “train” away.
There is always a reason horses say, “no,” and I had to learn to listen.
As I learned these lessons, I also became clear on my own values in horsemanship. This made me realize there were many situations where I wasn't listening to my own internal voice saying, "no,"—I needed to learn to listen when it says, "no," too.
I realized I didn’t want a submissive horse. I wanted my horse to be a willing partner in our relationship.
Talon taught me so much, but I was such a stubborn student. I actually thought he was the one being stubborn at the time (hindsight is always 20/20). I will be forever grateful for his patience and kindness as he taught me to learn to listen to horses.
In this blog series, I’ll be sharing memories of this stage of my partnership with Talon as I know everyone eventually encounters difficulty in their horsemanship journey, and I hope his story might shed light on that difficulty.
Talon came into my life when I realized Dart might be reaching the limit of what he could safely do in Eventing, and at that time my heart was set on reaching the highest level of Eventing. I began looking for OTTBs to adopt as their adoption fees fit my budget and I knew it was possible for them to have the athleticism to reach the highest levels.
I found several prospects and went on a road trip with my trailer in tow. Talon was the last of the three horses I looked at that day. This is a photo of our first ride together at the adoption facility.
I decided he was the one, and completed the adoption process.
My trailer at the time was not an easy trailer to load. It was a small, step-up horse trailer with no escape doors. It took my friend and I several hours to get Talon into the trailer, and I’m still surprised to this day we actually got him loaded into that trailer (you’ll understand why when I share memories to come regarding loading him).
I was so excited to have Talon in my life and excited about developing our partnership together. The problem was I truly did not have the experience Talon would require at that stage in my horsemanship, but through all the struggle, frustration, and difficulty to come in our partnership he would lead me to what I was missing…
My focus at that stage in my horsemanship journey was on TRAINING…
I didn’t know about the physical and mental issues horses develop when they are started far too young and thrown into the unnatural, stressful environment of being a racehorse, and I certainly didn’t have any tools to help horses heal from those issues.
I didn’t know how long it takes horses to be physically mature. Talon was racing when he was only two years old and had just turned three when I adopted him.
So, with this lack of experience I immediately began training him…
Of course, he received the best care I knew at the time, but I had only been exposed to one style of keeping and caring for horses at that stage in my horsemanship. Horses were kept in stalls with limited turnout, hay was limited and supplemented with commercial feed, and shoes were something working horses just had. I didn’t know there were other ways to keep and care for horses, and I certainly didn’t know the style of caring for horses I had grown up doing could cause horses stress…it was all I knew.
At that time, I viewed every “negative” behavior as a training issue…
Bite at me while tacking up and grooming →training issue.
Reluctant to move forward →training issue.
Refuse to do something → training issue.
You get the idea.
I didn’t know behavior is a form of communication. I didn’t consider he might be trying to tell me he had ulcers, that his feet hurt, that his saddle doesn’t fit, that he was scared, that he was confused, that he was hurting…
I viewed myself as a “horse trainer,” and I believed it was a horse trainer’s job to train away any “negative” behaviors.
The reality is my focus on training away “negative” behaviors was actually trying to tell my horse not to communicate how he feels with me. This was an extremely painful realization for me down the road, and I will spend the rest of my life making that up to him and doing what I can to help other horses by sharing what he taught me with other people.
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