the fine art of schmoozing a horse

Last week we were up at the Murieta Equine Complex, involved in that strange pastime we call horse showing. The tumbleweed and hay fever town of Rancho Murieta is about 130 miles northeast of where I live in the SF bay, and is a little known destination to even the natives, who would never venture so far off highway 50 unless they had a really good reason. By the time I steered off the highway and onto Dillard Rd., past ranch homes and fields high with spring grasses, I felt like I had never left. It was four years back, and I was in my trainer’s car, turning into a rural driveway surrounded by paddocks of geese and goats. This was the road we had taken so long ago to the small farm where I found my first horse, a skinny bay gelding standing in a pen, gnawing on a piece of inedible straw.

The horse show was at the same grounds where I had had my last fabulous competition on my old horse. When I pulled into the driveway, I saw the covered arena where I had last ridden him — his whole body pivoting off his hind foot when I turned my head towards the next fence, his precise reactions when I spoke to him in the middle of a sea of rainbow colored jumps. He’s still shiny and happy and living at the same barn where I kept him, but I don’t own him anymore. I’ve been asked to step a new horse up, and learn to ride all over again on a different horse in a familiar setting.

Horses are as varied as the crazy people who love them. Just as in a human relationship, you will sometimes get along better with some horses than you will with others. With people, some will “click” with you, some will grow on you, and others you’ll never be very close to. Horses are no different. The key with any horse you’ve been asked to ride or show is maintaining a good working relationship, even if you aren’t the perfect match. It’s sort of like that co-worker you respect, but with whom you don’t always see eye to eye. Together you can accomplish great things, but you have to negotiate through the disagreements first to find a common ground.

Horses communicate almost entirely through body language, among themselves, and with you. While they do make various horse sounds (neighs, nickers), their primary method of telling you that they’ve understood your request, or that they are hurting, afraid, excited, or angry is through body language of varying extremes. In this sense, horses can be somewhat predictable, but only as predictable as a person you’ve just met who has to make a decision. If you know a horse, you know what it’s going to do, what it’s thinking, and typically, how it is going to react. If you are very familiar with a person, say, your best friend, you have a good idea of what kind of a decision he is going to make, or whether or not he understands what you have said.

It is just as complex with an unfamiliar horse and rider. One of the challenges that “catch” riders face is the pressure of riding a new horse to its maximum ability without knowing it. (If you are so lucky and ride well enough to be a catch rider, you are the kind of person that horse owners hire to show their horses and win.) It takes a while to establish a working relationship with a new horse, to figure out how to explain things to him and to understand what he is trying to say to you. This may sound philosophically cheesy, but it is a fact about riding that the common city slicker (or even a person with limited riding experience) would be strained to comprehend.

It was this way at the show with Penny and me. Penny is my favorite Sharks fan’s prized possession, a little gelding with a ton of spunk, a mile long show record, and a multi-talented resume. He is one of the more opinionated horses I have ever met. Educated almost exclusively by my trainer, he prefers things to be “just so” and won’t settle for mediocre riding or half-hearted attempts. Sometimes, he won’t even settle for someone who’s not my trainer. I had had a good warm up on him when I first got to the show; he was jumping boldly even while I was still figuring out how to adjust his stride. We entered the first class and abruptly had, what we call in horse terms, a “disagreement.” Disagreements are usually followed by “discussions” during which I try to re-explain what it is I need the horse to do, and during which he either understands and complies, or continues to disagree. Disagreements can sometimes test the limits of one’s riding ability, as horses can disagree in a number of ways in an over fences class. They can stop, run out, buck, rear, spook, or perform combinations of these disobediences. In the meantime, your job as the rider is to 1) not fall off and get yourself disqualified and possibly killed, and 2) calm the horse down and convince it that jumping the requested fences is a good idea.

In Penny’s owner’s vocabulary, this is called “schmoozing.” You can beat some horses around the arena with a long stick, just as you can intimidate some people into compliance. Other horses and people will fire that right back at you. These are the individuals you must schmooze. Schmoozing a horse is a little bit of pressure, and a little bit of “I trust that you will cooperate with me now, with no intervention.” It’s just the right ratio of enforcer vs. partner, and is typically something that takes a significant amount of time to learn to balance between an unfamiliar horse and rider team. Penny and I had about two hours to figure this out.

After two challenging rounds of disagreements, he and I dropped down a level to rebuild his confidence. Upon entering the class, he promptly refused my requests again, and I laid into him with the crop to reassert my intentions. The key with Penny is not to overstay your welcome. Continued beatings do little to convince him of anything other than the immediate need to dump you on your rear end while the whole world is watching. We turned around and he was apparently convinced (for at least this fence) that it was wise to jump. He came around to the second fence and I reminded him with a snap on the shoulder that we were still in business, still on course. He was tentative; he and I were still leery of each other and neither one wanted to trust completely. Despite this, he made the brave decision to jump the second fence. I reminded him again at the third, and then, very subtly, he told me he knew what to do and to let him drive. After landing from the third fence, he stretched down and out in his neck and leaned forward into the bridle. I gave him no further reminders. His very small hint told me he had it figured out, and that I only needed to tell him where to go next. This was the same clue he gave me in the following class, when, as we rounded the turn, I smacked him a reminder and he took ahold of the bit, taking me down to the fence with profound purpose.

The best riders are the best schmoozers, and so this seems to bleed over into the rest of life. Of course, when schmoozing doesn’t work, you can always beat someone over the head with a long stick. It’s worked for me at least once.