Never Stop Learning

I realized yesterday that I never had actually learned to ride in the 50 some years that I have been riding. It came as quite a shock. I have had and have been around horses since I could walk and all of the horses that I have had were already trained or I raised them from birth and had taught them myself. I always rode bare-back, no shoes and no bit; not for any reason it is just I never had any tack to speak of beyond a hackamore and I became very comfortable with the situation, plus it was a lot less expensive and I could be ready to go before my friends had tied their horses to get ready to tack up. I never rode in a ring, I just did trail riding. The foals that I raised just came with me everywhere and I just talked to them and we seemed to reach a very suitable agreement.

When our girls started riding lessons it was easy for them, because they understood the body language and the horses' characters and so they felt very comfortable both around and on them. They had also always ridden bare-back.. They were young enough that the change from bare-back to a saddle was easy and they both became Three Day Event Champions in the Basque Country where they went to school. When they came home and rode our horses and started with all of this discipline stuff things started to change. I remember one day my younger daughter, Amber, was working my foal, Casi, in the ring and asked me how I got her to put her head down. I just said, “head down Casi” that was it; couldn't be easier but the girls were horrified. I think that they always assumed that mom knew how to ride and everything else about horses. Now that they had learned dressage and jumping and knew all about leg aids etc they felt it was time to teach our horses as well. Thankfully the horses adjusted well to the combination and even became very good therapy horses. They seemed to understand who was riding by what sort of tack they had on or whether or not they had to stand at the ramp and be led around for hours.

My new horse, Frisona, is seven years old and had never been ridden or had any life experiences, like traffic, dogs, trees etc. she just lived peacefully on a hill top with 30 other mares and was put into foal every year without much success. Her nature is so sweet and she is so willing to learn and help me that she has been very easy to back and start to train. Now I have a trainer that comes once a week because I feel as if I am out of my league. She is doing great but I have to learn along with her, even if it is just so I can go trail riding. I feel like someone who has driven all of their life and just got into a stick shift; there are so many things to think about, it all used to come naturally and I never thought about it, now I have to remember to stay centered, watch where I am going, learn the leg aids and hardest of all learn to lengthen my legs so that they stay in the stirrups. At 17”2 she is quite large and I am not as strong as I used to be so I have started riding in a treeless western saddle. It is very comfortable and I feel much safer taking a green horse out to meet the world than I would if I were bare-back. It just came as a shock that in my whole life I had never learned all of these things yet always rode very well.

Things Are Looking Up

Where I came from, living with thirty other mares and foals, food was on a first-come first-served basis. 30 horses meant 30 buckets of pienso in the trough then the hay and alfalfa in the middle of the large paddock. At the trough who ever ate faster got more, so I became a vacuum cleaner and worried about chewing later. Girls all kind of gang up and get into groups, each group helping the other members to food, grooming, water etc. I just couldn't quite fit into any of the groups so kind of hung out by myself, maybe talking to some of the ponies or younger males on the other side of the fences. My name is Cariño and I am a registered PRE brood mare, with a blood line to make you all jealous. I have had three colts, all spectacular. I lived on a farm where the man just loves horses so he has them for a hobby. He has another job to make money to pay for us all. A few times a year he likes to take all his friends out for a jolly and a paella in the campo, so they all arrive with bread, wine, chorizo and all the fixings for a good day out. They each get to choose their horse. I got picked quite often because I love going out on excursions and I am not afraid of anything. I loved those outings because other than that I was pretty much alone in the paddock because the girls didn't really like me much, until one day, a strange man came to look at us. He looked at me and I looked at him. He asked our man if I could come out so he could talk to me. The next time he came, I came out of the paddock but not just for a talk, we went for a trail ride. There was something very special about this new man and I think he thought I was special too. A few weeks later he came back and gave our man a wad of really wet money; it had fallen out of his pocket while he was showering me after a ride. I don't know what happened but next thing I knew I was at a new place with the new man together with a big fat thing they called a therapy horse. She looked like a sofa to me. We had really good food in my new house and I got along with Cookie, the therapy horse, except she liked to eat really slowly so I would vacuum down my pienso and kick her out of her stall and eat hers too. Boy, this was great and easy too, she just went to the big box and ate hay and alfalfa. There was always stuff in the big box so after a few weeks of pigging out I realized that I could take a break sometimes and there would still be food left. I had a lack of salt and minerals when I was young so I loved to put everything in my mouth; still do. They got me a salt and mineral block but I never tried it until one day a new horse arrived. I thought I was pretty good size, but wow, this was some big black mare. As soon as she came into the paddock she ran straight to the salt block and looked like a cow, liking it for ages then she drank half the bath tub. I guess she didn't have one either at her old place, but she knew she needed one. The new horse was called Frisona; stupid owner didn't know that is what her breed is in Spanish and thought it was her name, well now she is stuck with it. She had also lived with thirty other mares and youngsters and all the hay was in one huge box with a roof on it but they didn't have the trough for pienso. This was getting better and better, I could eat so fast that I could finish mine, kick Cookie out eat hers and still have plenty of time to eat Frisona's. Frisona had to eat lots of times a day and in small quantities until she got used to the pienso but then boy, jack pot, I was on a diet and she had to gain a lot of weight so in the end she got fed three times a day and I could kick her out every time and eat it all myself. Now I really needed to be on a diet, they said I had a Michelin, I don't know what that is but they were all laughing and grabbing handfuls of my fat. All of this came to an end; gates went up poles went in.

I was locked in my stall until the other girls had finished then they let me out but I got my way at the big box. I found that if I came at it looking really mad, ears back, head out; you know the look, the others would step back just long enough for me to get my head in the box then I could keep my head there and walk around the box kicking at anyone that came near. If they put their head in the box I just bit them and they left, but then the lady human got really mad. Well they tried everything, electric fence, dividing the paddock with the other two on one side and me on the other. I outsmarted them on every move. I pulled the plug on the bathtub so many times we have had to buy lots of new ones, I opened the gates. I'm so talented, I don't know where to begin. Well, today my life was ruined..They took Cookie away a few days ago, to go back to work with disabled people in Barcelona, sad for our children that rode her every week but great for the disabled people at her new place. You see, Cookie can carry a lot of weight and stand still for a long time and is very gentle and not too tall so she is really good for people in wheel-chairs. I've watched her. People do the strangest things on her but they always seem to be happier and feel better when they get off. Even people who don't like horses like Cookie: she just has one of those magnetic characters. Well, back to me because she is gone. While Cookie was here on vacation during the summer, when she wasn't working with the children, Frisona moved to the other side of the paddock so she would stop rubbing her mane and tail. See, Frisona is really delicate, she may look big and tough but she is just a gentle giant and even the flies and mosquitoes get the best of her. I did too, biting and kicking her. Now she is on the other side and we also have an electric fence between us. She is starting to heal from all of her wounds from rubbing and from me biting. Today it hit me and I felt very sad and all alone. I could eat and drink all I wanted, no one to bother me, well, that was the problem there was no one for me to bother, so I just stood and watched Frisona while she slowly ate her food. Remember that strange man that came to see me? Well he has something very special about him and he saw something very special in me. Even though there were lots of mares, he knew instantly that I was his. That lady again, made him go look at other horses to be sure I was the right one and every time he saw another one he said no, Cariño is for me. He called me that – it means darling. We have such a special relationship, some people think I can be a bit of a bitch or hard to handle because I don't like to work or learn in the ring but I love trail riding and so does my special man. He doesn't care about dressage or any of that stuff, he just likes to brush me and talk to me and take him out riding.. He loves me just the way I am and I love him the same way. Somehow I think we are soul mates and meant to be together. Every once in a while you find that very special someone just like I think that lady has found with Frisona. The four of us are all kind of difficult in our own ways but we seem to be just the piece that was missing to make the other better.

Cookie Heads North

Slightly out of the blue, Cookie was needed up in Catalonia by Cadí Moixeró. She left last week. We both miss her terribly. Lenox thinks he's getting out of riding, but we have two horses that remain with us here.