Wednesday, 08 September 2010
|
• VOLUME 44 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Dumbledore... well, in my mind I think that is what I will call him, so much better than Dudley which makes him sound, well, like a dud... Easy to assume he is, that is “dumb”, which everyone seems to think. Why Dumbledore? Because one day, this horse will be the wise wizard seeming to know all the answers, just as Dumbledore did throughout the Harry Potter series. On the other hand, in the same series you had Dudley Dursley, the rather fat and spoiled cousin of Harry Potter. Before Harry knew that he was a wizard, Dudley would take every opportunity to make life difficult for him. Dudley is a selfish and spoiled brat who gets what he wants by throwing fits and seems to gain yet more weight in each successive Harry Potter book. While this horse did have a fair amount of weight to him, I would hate to think he was selfish or spoiled or an idiot, as one might think with this name. Dumbledore is and is going to be so much more a Morgan crossed with a.. ... You can see the workhorse in him...in the 17 hands, in the feet that are just a little larger than you would expect.
The one thing that struck me as he was tacked up, was the incredibly worried eye. He was so, so worried. So concerned. Especially the moment the bridle came out. All it made me want to do was to walk up to him and cuddle him and reassure this very big sweet scared child that everything was going to be okay. It is obvious that he is not stupid, but that he is trying so incredibly hard to please and he feels like he is failing and he doesn’t understand why. Fearfully, he tries but he doesn’t understand and he wants to please, he wants to do it right and he is all stressed out because he doesn’t think he is getting it right.
He is not to know that it isn’t his fault. We always have to remember that when we start a horse, this is NOT about making “him” listen, as in 'obey'. It is about developing communication, understanding, and if we are not doing that, we are failing our horses.  Anytime we jerk on the rein, anytime we pull harder, anytime we tell our horses NO, we are failing. NO is not training. NO is punishment. It is saying you are wrong. It takes away confidence from the young horse. It never shows him the right way. Only that he has failed. Our comments to our horses have to be constructive, it has to be all about helping them, to know, to understand, to be able to do what we want them to do both physically and mentally. If you can’t do that, you are not a trainer.  There is one funky thing with his conformation. He does have this problem with a neck that is so, so short on the top line. Not ewe necked per se, but definitely more muscle on the bottom half than the top, and his neck looks far too short for his body. Not only that, but when you look the bottom of his neck, it looks so much longer than the top line of his neck. Definitely not something that I would go looking for in a horse’s conformation. But I am hopeful that with good training and help, this horse will find a neck that he doesn’t have today. The Lesson that day, or How we can help. Brie is always kind - always giving to her horses. This horse just doesn’t want to move, and so she has gotten into the habit of throwing her hands forward. One of the last horses that we had worked together with, that was the right thing to do. That horse had learned to lean on the rider’s hand. He had no concept of holding his own head and neck up. Not sure what he thought his own neck muscles were for. But for this particular horse that we were working with today, it just wasn’t the right thing to do.
|
|||||||
|
An Equestrian Legacy