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It's All About What's In Your Heart and How You Use It"

© Gwenyth Browning Jones Santagate

In the year and a half that my filly has been here she's gone from an unhandled, wild foal to a calm, quiet, playful, inquisitive young mare who loves human company. She's had ropes thrown on her, around her, she's worn saddle pads, she's been cinched, she's learned to circle in a lunge pattern at a walk and trot, she's learned never to turn her butt to a human, she follows her "leaders", she comes when called, she respectfully backs off from her feed dish until asked to eat ... all sorts of things that a youngster needs to learn in the way of social manners. She moves over when asked, steps back, stands, comes forward, ties, leads ... she's a wonderful, quiet, respectful young lady in most situations. I can stand over her, lean over her, pick up her hooves, sit on her when she's lying down, lie down with her ... all sorts of wonderful, best friend activities. As most horses who are seeking safety and comfort from their lead mares, she likes to stand and be close to her leader. This can be dangerous for the human. She's not a lightweight standing over 15 hh and weighing in around 900+ pounds right now. She gets reassurance from touch just as any other normal horse does when feeling a bit insecure. Horses touch one another, lean on one another, like to crowd each other for comfort. That's part of the equine wiring for survival and safety. When bunched together in a herd, the mountain lion has a hard time getting into the middle of the herd to eat his lunch. It's usually the straggler, the horse last in the herd who stands out a bit alone who gets to be the main course. Horses know this instinctively. So, humans need to understand this and teach the horse how to be watchful and respectful of humans when feeling insecure. The horse can't change its hard wiring but the humans can help the horse learn to think through scary situations and to be respectful of the human in the process. Again, its not about the horse - it's about the human. The horse can't change; the human must.

Two weekends ago my filly showed me just how much she depends upon me for her safety. She had a meltdown when the neighbors began some sort of activity next door with which the filly was not at all comfortable. She begin to alert, trumpet, and then fizzle. She ran around and around the round pen seeking escape. I waited for her to hopefully settle but she didn't. Trying to prevent a wreck as I saw she was ready to bolt through or over the round pen, I stepped in. She immediately ran to me and tried to climb on top of me as she screamed in panic and moved her hooves in fear. I'm not a huge person and that weekend I had an acutely painful back spasm. I was unable to move quickly and was getting very nervous that I was going to be trampled under her feet in her panic. Every move I made caused excrutiating pain shooting down my legs. What an awful situation; not one becoming of a seasoned, veteran trainer and teacher at all and one that was dreadfully remindful of the power of these 1000# animals with whom we share life. I was in a pickle and unable to help my filly very much. I got her on lead and ten minutes later, after lots of circling and dancing and trumpeting and prancing, we made our way back the 50 feet to her own paddock where I asked her to back away from me and do a few turns on the forehand. She did. I directed her feet a bit more then turned her loose. She flew up to the other horses and I'm sure related all the events to them that just passed. All's well that ends well, right?