Читать книгу A School Horse Legacy, Volume 1: ...As Tails Go By - Anne Wade-Hornsby - Страница 8

When the riding school started, my husband and I were renting a house across the street from his parents. The main estate had since been sub-divided. My in-laws lived in a gorgeous, stately 7500 square foot mansion across the street; we rented a much smaller stone and stucco home in the middle of an orange grove that had originally been built for the son of a former resident of the big house.

Our piece of property included the house, a separate two car garage/workshop, and a sort of shed diagonally across from the house. We had about an acre of land, but the orange trees and stumps in the exact middle of it, between the shed and the house, and a huge graveled driveway, precluded using it for any kind of exercise area for the horses. We built a rudimentary fence from wire and two by fours, and those were our corrals. They were small and rickety, and needed frequent repair, but they were cheap. We did have wire fencing of a kind around the property, sort of an inexpensive version of chain link. When I look back on all that, knowing now the damage horses can do to themselves and property when not safely confined, I absolutely marvel at our good fortune. God truly protects babies and fools.

As I mentioned, Hashy was a trooper. She accepted the confines of her wire “pen” right off. She was way too smart to endanger herself. When I sold Merlin, and bought Benefactor, it was a different story. Bene (pronounced Benny) was huge – 17.2 hands of chunk. His mother was a Quarter Horse, mostly thoroughbred, who had escaped her confines one night at a local stable and managed to get herself bred by a draft horse of some sort at the ranch next door. The result was a really big bay “Baby Huey” who charged into this world genetically engineered to bust out of things.

He was a little over three when I bought him. Needless to say, I learned, quickly, that if one is looking for a nice, safe, school horse, a dim three year old isn’t it. My best school horses averaged around 16 to 20 years of age and were mellow to begin with. Well, Bene was mellow. He wasn’t terrifically spooky and he had been well “broke”. Typical of most Western trained horses I looked at or considered purchasing at the time, Bene had been trained at the age of two by a professional. And I had no complaints. The de-sensitizing practices, heavy Western saddle, and no nonsense work in the round pen and subsequent trail rides his previous owners acquainted him with did nothing but positive things to his mind. Throughout my riding school days to this day, the best horses I ever worked with were those trained by good Western trainers or those I trained myself. But, for all that, Bene did not have a lot of common sense.

Thank heavens he wasn’t spooky. At first I attributed this to a mellow personality. I soon learned he just didn’t worry about a lot of things, like gates, and fences, holes in the ground, riders’ aides, bits, crops, and yelling. Pretty much nothing fazed him, and to get a reaction from him, the stimulus had to be precise, and the goal a picture in the rider’s brain.

I learned quickly that “modeling” starts and finishes with the rider. In this respect, the years of teaching public school sixth – eighth grade students in math and science helped me no end. He gave me my first real lessons in communication between horse and rider.

I bought Bene because he was huge. I am six feet tall. I wanted a competition horse to do 3-Day Eventing and jumping. I had not taken formal dressage lessons nor had I ever actually ridden in a 3-Day Event. So, when I bought him, I had no clue, yet, of the extraordinary lessons I would learn from this horse, lessons that made me sympathetic to all the trials and challenges I was to put my riding students through time and time again. Challenges that I could guarantee they would overcome, because I had had to deal with all of them as I developed my school horses. Bene was the first in a long line. He was also a blank slate that took every tool in my rider’s tool chest to work with successfully, and made me invent others!

When I bought Bene, around 1972 or 1973, I did not immediately use him as a school horse. I had Hashy, and my other two or three students had their own horses. I was, myself, taking lessons from a local trainer with fairly impeccable credentials. I will always thank her for impressing upon me the importance of quiet, effective hands. She also taught me the value of positive feedback and encouragement, which I never, ever got from her. She didn’t like my horse (too coarse, not refined enough), nor the fact that I asked a lot of questions. She wanted me to attend clinics when a) I had no trailer to get there, and b) no way were clinics in my budget. My husband and I were eating frijoles twice a week to afford my lessons. We finally parted ways when she said she had found the perfect horse for me for $5000! I was earning about $1100 a month at the time. Teachers made decent money in the ‘70s, but that was way out of our budget and, besides, I knew Bene could be great. But I did attend some clinics. I took Bene to nearby Charles de Kunphy Dressage Clinics, and was much the better for it. For one, I learned what a 3-Day Event was.

By this time, Bene was about six, and I had been jumping him for two years, more or less. As I said, nothing much worried him, and he had brightened up a little. If I pointed him at a jump, and he figured he could make it, he would jump it. Didn’t matter what it was, up to about four and a half feet, he would go for it. Its appearance was of no consequence, and I can’t remember him refusing unless he was unclear on the landing. In the hunter classes, we routinely lost to the more refined horses, all other things being equal. In jumpers, we won year-end buckles and tons of ribbons. But I really wanted to “do” 3-Day Events!

I was getting more students by the week. I needed goals for them. I needed to, and wanted to, broaden my equestrian base. In the ‘70’s, you didn’t need some sort of degree to be a riding instructor. Quite honestly, though I never lied about my background, I also never mentioned to my first student with a horse for me to train with, and for, her, that she was my first. Her horse finally turned out well, and she and both of her brothers took lessons from me. In fact, I learned as much from MJ’s horse as I taught. Eva was really stubborn, and had all the PMS tendencies that my own school mares never had, so I learned to appreciate that such tendencies do exist even in horses, and tried to be sympathetic (somewhat) when students used that as an excuse for a funky lesson.

I brought ring/rail work, cavaletti, jump work and trail rides into my lessons. We had playdays and Christmas drills, as well as vaulting, but I wanted to get my students to shows, as well. Bene was the main reason I was able to do this.

We bought a little two horse trailer as soon as we could afford it, as well as a towing vehicle: a Dodge half-ton van. The trailer was too small for Bene. Again, I hadn’t yet subscribed to Practical Horseman and learned that trailers came in different sizes! Poor Bene got squeezed into a standard Quarter horse trailer with a solid to-the–floor divider, and we just couldn’t figure out why he scrambled when we turned corners. When he and Hashy were both in our first trailer, it was stuffed. I had, meanwhile, become a charter subscriber to Equus and read my friend’s copies of Practical Horseman and saw the error of my way. We traded in the two-horse and got a roomier four horse stock trailer. The horses and I rode more easily, and I could take students’ horses to horse shows.

Bene was never a great school horse. His size intimidated many of my students. He took a finesse seldom achieved by anyone including me to get on the bit or even collected, so he didn’t do particularly well in flat classes. He didn’t pay much attention to bits. I tried them all. In lessons, he never ran away with students, he just didn’t exactly halt when asked. His canter to trot or canter to walk or trot to halt, any slowing transition, was veeeery slow, beyond deliberate. Nor did he give in his jaw or flex much. This presented problems in classes with a horse in front of him, like in the show ring. Because he was big and had a long stride, I simply had to teach his riders at shows to suck it up and circle him when downward transitions were asked for, to avoid slamming into the horse in front of them.

At this point, one might ask why I put up with this, or what kind of instructor was I, not to be able to do a better job of training. Well, for me, Bene was what I needed. Maybe not always what I wanted, but he definitely had his good points. In the hunt field, once I put him in the most severe bit I could find so he wouldn’t bowl over the horse in front of us, he went on forever. In one memorable hunt at Chatsworth, on a spring day that could only be that hot in Southern California, every other horse in first field had overheated and their riders asked to be excused. The field master’s horse and I were the only ones left, and we stopped a few minutes to let our mounts get their breath. We then turned for home, jumping everything in our way. It was grand! Another time, at a local horse show, in 114 degree heat (I am absolutely not exaggerating), Bene and I won the highpoint that day in jumpers, because other competitors wussed out. Heat did not ever affect his performance, and that is a plus in Southern California. Further, though he was strong as an ox, I am no lightweight; at six feet, I have never been fat, but there is a lot to me, including long legs.

And my legs are what held him. They are my best part. I learned from a young age to clamp those suckers down. I never enjoyed being thrown, and to this day, my leg strength has saved me countless times. When I used my seat and legs, Bene listened.

Also, I learned to appreciate a German martingale. You can buy the ready-made ones with rings on the reins for the clips from the martingale part, or you can use a length of soft rope or longe line through the ring of your breastplate through the bit rings to your hands. In either case, you can create an experience that will encourage your horse to give to the bit. I have always been very careful when I have my students use this piece of equipment. There are plenty of trainers that consider draw reins and German martingales a crutch but I have horse/rider pairs that simply would never have been successful without them, the same way you need to use a leash or choke chain on some dogs before they heel perfectly without one. The martingale does many things when used effectively: your horse understands he can flex, and at the same time, by doing so, builds the muscles that support correct flexion; the rider can sit correctly without being pulled forward, and builds the muscles to support correct posture. Both learn what it feels like to work in a correct frame. Under my direct supervision, students and horses using German martingales always do better for the specific problems that need to be addressed. Then you go forward without it, as indicated. As it so happened, Bene won me a great German martingale set as First prize at a show. I still have it and still use it all these years later, but I got the most use out of it with him!

I finally got to a 3-Day Event! In 1976, the Bicentennial year, we went to San Diego Country Estates, to an event sponsored by the SDCE Stables and spent the night in our van, with Bene tied outside the horse trailer. Another learning experience. Listening to your horse munching on hay, then pawing for what he can’t reach, and slamming the (now) empty water bucket against the side of one’s van, all night, is not conducive to a winning endeavor. I made it through the dressage test passably, but the cross country was an eye opener. I was tired and I couldn’t understand why all these people were wandering around the place. After all, we had a map of the jump course. I was used to the show ring, where you memorize the course (naturally), watch other people go round, and then do it. I had the order of the jumps on cross country down pat, because they give you a picture/map. But, I figured, if these people were walking out there in the great big field, maybe I better, too. I had planned on just watching two or three goes to see how it was done. The jumps I could see looked like a lot of fun. That’s when I heard about Roads and Tracks (simply a timed distance to warm up for the cross-country phase), which were still done in those days, even at Training level. I realized that, obviously, if I were riding in one timed part, I could hardly be watching other people. So, I followed the people around who were walking from jump to jump. I realized this was a good thing, because some of the jumps were in pretty wild places, like the crotch of a tree and a very wide ditch that you evidently had to sort of slide down, jump at a certain point, climb out of, and continue on. By the time I figured out that my Roads and Tracks time was getting pretty close, I barely had time to tack up, get to the starting box and begin that phase. The trot time during Roads and Tracks gave me plenty of time to wish I had read about and learned a whole lot more about this sport. Remember, I hadn’t had 3-Day lessons.

Pretty quickly after Roads and Tracks, I was in the start box for the CrossCountry phase. To say we were bold is an understatement. I still have the picture one of my students had done on a silk screened T-shirt of us doing this very big water jump where you jumped hay bales in front of rails into a pond. My original business cards were a silhouette of Bene and me at that water jump. The slide-y ditch was cake: we jumped it from lip-to-lip—l didn’t want to lose time doing that sliding and climbing. Unfortunately, we were eliminated because I forgot a jump. I zoomed right by the one after the tree crotch because I didn’t mark it on the map, nor did I walk the course more than once or repeat the course orally to someone reading the map--all things I require my students to do. Of course, I was perfect in stadium jumping--they let eliminated people go last if there is time enough, and there was.

Nonetheless, I had found my thing. I had something to specialize in. I knew what I had to do to improve, and to teach this sport. Also, 3-Day incorporated all the disciplines of horsemanship--I could teach students for years before I ran out of ideas! Bene took me to Pebble Beach, to Field Hunter Trials, to tons of shows. We learned together and worked hard for what we needed to know, at a pace we could handle.

Bene was never quick, but his strength carried the day. I had him for about 10 years. He was my first true equine love. I had two other horses before him, but in both cases, though I cared a lot for them, there were circumstances that made it clear they would not be horses that would end their lives with me. Bene did. He was never more than a passable school horse. He simply took too much leg, too much push, and way too much strength to control, for the average rider. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body, but I was the only rider who ever got any kind of controllable forward motion out of him. At the same event as our first, in San Diego, but five or six years later, we were on course going over a zigzag rail fence at the top of a knoll, the lowest thing on course, and Bene hit it, solidly, with his front feet--thwack! He had always done better over the high fences he respected. He didn’t so much as trip, and his feet stayed under him, we even finished the stadium handily, and placed second or third. He came up lame a few days later, with no swelling in the leg, so I took him to be x-rayed.

Neither the vet nor I could believe he had not been a lot more lame a lot sooner. His “mule” hoofs, plenty big, but long and narrow as opposed to being roundish, had contracted heels that, in turn, had put pressure on other internal hoof structures enough that the blow at the cross-country fence had caused fissures that were not going to heal. His hoof structures were in pieces. He really was getting lamer by the day. I was ill. I left him there. My vet has back pens where you can go when you need to leave a horse. Writing this brings back the memory as if it were yesterday. We had lost Hashy not many months before, even had her replacement, but Bene was my first real competition horse.

I had countless first places, I had proved all those people who called him coarse and unrefined wrong. In fact, today, they call them Warm bloods. When I got tired of telling people he was a Quarter Horse/draft cross, I just said Irish Draft and got oohs and ahhs. What Bene taught me was that you can go really far using what you were born with when you couple it with what you are good at and don’t let things spook you. I led him back and thanked him for his strength and willingness, his fortitude, and for the confidence he gave me as rider. We learned so much together, mainly because we both had so much to learn. He was strong enough and thick enough that I couldn’t ruin him, really. He just sort of plunged on through, and I was quite good enough to hang on. We were lucky to have each other. My heart was heavy indeed as I left him, but I also knew those crummy feet were a death sentence. He was contentedly munching hay when I gave him his last kiss and hug.