A Baby Boomer Dreams of Arabian Horses - Rhythm's Story - Part 4

Part One of the Baby Boomer Series

Rhythm's Story starts here

After the young Arabian horse's experience with Harvey Jacobs, there was a big change in our relationship. Every since Rhythm had been a foal, I had been able to get him to do anything that I wanted but he was always afraid of me. Just walking into his stall would case the colt to climb the farthest wall trying to get away. I would talk softly to him and try to be reassuring but the young horse had no trust in me.

I would cluck to him and he'd turn and face me like he should. Trying to put the halter on, the horse stood there and shook. His eyes darted wildly and I could see the wheels turning. If there had been a way to flea, Rhythm would have been history.

As much as I love horses, that was really hard for me. I knew that his reaction was based on those difficult training sessions when he was small. I just didn't seem to be able to find a way to break through that wall that I had put in place. So every time I walked into his stall, my heart would sink and I felt like a real brute.

It's probably important to note that Rhythm didn't feel this way with anyone but me. With the rest of the family, the red colt was a sweet affectionate horse. It didn't matter whether Lindsay or Dave cleaned the stall, the horse was sure they were in there to play with him. The colt would pull on their clothes, grab at the fork or try to dump over the wheel barrow, if they wouldn't pay attention to him.

It was required that he get a least two or three good minutes of scratching on his whither and maybe another two or three of scratching under his chin. Oh, ya, then there was that spot right up under his throat between the branches. Once all three of his favorite spots had been dealt with, then the horse just might let them clean his stall.

Of course, you know for that scratching that he stretched his neck out, lifted his head and set his lower lip a quivering just like any other horse. That wasn't enough for Rhythm, he'd make these little sounds that I swear sounded like a cat purring only horse size. His eyes would flutter and sometimes he'd even drool.

Harvey's work gave me a starting point. Once I had haltered the horse, I would ask him to drop his head before we even thought about doing anything else. It was so interesting to see how doing something so simple could have such a big impact on the horse.

Rhythm's neck is set on really high. His usual position is with his head up in the air over the top of people. It had never dawned on me that the horse's eye being higher than mine relayed to the horse he in in a dominant position. That was the last thing I wanted this horse to believe.

I have known since my John Lyons days that a horse dropping it's head releases endorphins. That causes them to relax. But I had never seen the need for that to happen with the horse in hand. I mean I could see the need with a frightened horse under saddle on the trail or even in an arena. It just hadn't occurred to me that getting that horse to drops its head when I wanted to lead it would help my horse to soften his attitude.

With Rhythm, anything that would bring the horse down a notch from that huge attitude of his was a really good thing. I quickly learned that getting the horse to put his head down low and keep it there, really changed the dynamics in our relationship.

The other big thing I had learned from Harvey was that I wasn't praising this horse enough. I have always been a person telling those around me that they just aren't praising their horse enough. For me to be told I wasn't praising my horse enough means there are really a lot of people out there doing the same. This changed the way I handle all of my horses.

It's so easy when you have as many horses as I do, to get done what needs to be done and move onto the next horse. But that just isn't good enough, particularly for Arabian horses. They need more than just a pat or a word to tell them they are ok. The amount of time for the praise needs to be much longer than the amount of time that went into correction.

Those extra minutes taken to build up the horse after a schooling session have proved to be invaluable with all of my horses. For Rhythm it was the beginning of finally building the kind of relationship that I love with my horses. It took years to overcome the damage I did on those two or three training sessions but it was worth every second.

It didn't take years, however, for Rhythm to get over trying to climb the back wall of his stall trying to get away from me. That only took a couple of weeks. I can't even tell you what a relief that was. I had always been afraid that he was going to do himself some kind of serious injury and it was going to be my fault. Thanks to Harvey Jacobs I have the tools to fix such things.

For a while, that's what we did, worked on Rhythm's attitude in hand. Because the Arabian horses from these bloodlines mature so slow, I wasn't going to be riding him anytime soon. I did put in lots and lots of ground work before I got anywhere near thinking about starting him.

To be continued...............

This picture is Rhythm is the snow in the presentation ring in front of our house. I think he was a coming three year old at the time. As you can see, this horse loves the snow!

Rhythm's Story - Part 5

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