Training Lessons

It's time again for another round of the Horse Lover's Blog Carnival. This week it is being hosted by Patricia over at Experiments in Training Equines. The subject this week is lessons we have learned from our horses.

The biggest lesson I have learned from horses is to seek help when necessary and know when you are in over your head.

Back three or four years ago I was taking classes part time at a local community college. A young girl who had just started college got to talking horses with me. It's funny how horse people just naturally find each other. She had raced high school rodeo and had a young filly for sale. The filly was an accidental breeding between a mare she used for barrels and a young stallion on their property. She was looking to sell and thought maybe I would be interested. She was pretty desperate for money as college kids always are and I thought it might be a good project. To be honest I'm not sure how much I paid for the filly, I do remember it wasn't a whole lot of money. I bought her sight unseen.

Jasmine showed up at our place on a fine fall day. As she was unloaded from the trailer I was shocked to see how much she was marked like N's ride at that time Sierra. She was lead into the herd and quickly adopted Nikki as her mother and settled in with little fanfare. As the fall turned into winter I got to know Jazz a little better. When spring rolled around I loaded her up and brought her to our trainer Tammy's. By this time she was about as big as she was going to get, a mere 14.2 hands and was built pretty slight. I was informed her right front leg was a bit crooked and she really wouldn't be much of a barrel horse.

She gave Tammy a bit of trouble at training. A fact that to this day I will admit had more to do with me and less to do with the horse. If I had only spent even a smidgen of time with the horse things might have been different. She was head shy and afraid of men. At her former home, it seems she had pierced her leg at one point while running through some woods and part of the twig was deeply implanted in her leg. From what I understand there was a series of shots that had to be administered and she also became needle shy.

After having 30 days of training put on her, she was brought back home. I was too green of a rider to have enough guts to get on her. I would, although, attempt to lunge her on occasion. During one such session I got the lunge line wrapped around my legs but was able to get myself untangled before she took off running across the field. After that session I left her alone for quite awhile while I reevaluated what to do with her. I decided to try lounging her again but told N to be ready to call 911 if needed.

It was after telling my young daughter to be ready to call 911 that I realized that I was over my head. I got a coggins drawn, some pictures taken of her, and had Tammy sell her for me.

The lady who bought her absolutely loves her. I couldn't be happier with the situation. She has worked diligently with her to cure her head shyness and trail rides her all over the place. Truly I think she has found a wonderful home.

Each horse we have owned has taught me a lesson or two, but I believe the lessons Jazz taught me were the most valuable. Asking for help and knowing I was over my head were valuable lessons to learn. Horses are huge animals who naturally startle and look to flee when scared. I try to always be aware of this fact and keep my children safe, but you can never tell when an accident may happen. All we can do is try and learn from our time with these beautiful animals.