(“Pay no attention to the trolls on Face Book.”)

Some of you guys will know exactly what I’m talking about here. For the rest of you, this is your morning’s dope slap. Years ago while working on the video for a national symposium, a “non-horsey” camera guy asked me why horses shied and were suspicious of things (like of him and his camera, for instance). I told him I was convinced that horses can see in an extra dimension.

It certainly seems that way sometimes! They “see” stuff, they think stuff, and they do stuff which, if we took it too seriously, could make us crazy. Better just to shrug your shoulders and admit to yourself… “They’re horses.”

Which brings us to a recent show—A pair of students, one on a Grand Prix horse, the other with a fourth level horse. The Grand Prix horse has decided that the correct number of one tempis to perform in his test is 13 (not 15 as is written on the sheet). The place where he chooses to finish his last passage on the centerline is three strides before G (not at the letter). The horse is quite sure that “his way” is better.

The other horse offers spontaneous moments of extreme fussiness in the bridle and occasionally gets his tongue out. (Can you say lack of thoroughness?) On the second day I had warmed this horse up for half an hour. He had set his evasions aside and none were evident by the time I turned the reins over to his rider. As you would expect, by halfway through his test they had resurfaced. So it goes.

Both of these horses, unbeknownst to their riders, were telling them of their devious plans in advance. Their owners’ skill sets have just not yet advanced to the place where they recognize the incoming messages. Jed and Granny were, no doubt, surprised and shocked when the oil bubbled up and made them rich. Had they been field geologists or seismologists they could have read what the land was telling them and reaped the benefits far sooner.

Unfortunately, there are no good shortcuts to learning to read what your horse is telling you. With experience you “wise up” and things which were mysteries become self-evident. In the meantime pay no attention to the trolls on Face Book who have never ridden past Basic 4 but can tell you that on a schoolmaster all you have to do is sit there and let him do all the work.