116 Horse training 101

      January 19, 2015
Having been furnished a complete set of "the horse training" dvd's the day before I fell to sleep watching the first couple of lessons.  I was thinking how lucky we were to be in
such an ideal place.  It was warm, we were safe it seemed to be perfect.  Remember what your parents told you "if it seems to good to be true, it probably is!" Well this time that's got to be wrong.  The next morning I was a little nervous, not of the horses I had worked with all sorts of dysfunctional horses using my gentle horse training methods for years.  It was that I had to follow a training system exactly to the letter, this might be tough.  Ruthie and I positioned ourselves on a platform overlooking the bullpen and watched Bobbie work with one of the colts (I know you purest

On the way to a session. 

wont be happy however I'm not going to distinguish between male and female, we are just going to call a young horse a colt.) its a 50 foot enclosed training area.  The walls are over eight feet high and my thought was I didn't have
to worry about the colts getting out.  Then a thought, wait, neither can I!  After training in corrals, round pens, farm yards and various fenced enclosures one of them strewn with junked tractors and machinery this should be a real treat.   The ground had been

The podium, checking to make sure
there wasn't a chair to throw.

 groomed and a bale of cotton type fiber worked into it to provide some cushion.  My first impression was that mechanically she seemed to know the training system very well, however there didn't seem to be any fluidity to her moves and commands.  She seemed stiff and a little out of time.  My experience was that you had a split second to relax pressure to reward the horse.  If you did it to soon you rewarded a miscue, if you relaxed to late you missed a training moment.  A miscue by the young horse and her demeanor seemed to escalate quickly and was transferred to the horse.  But who was I to judge.  I was here to train and learn according to the system they had adhered to.

     It was now my turn in the arena.  Bobbie joined Ruthie up on the platform looking down on me.  I think I had a small inkling what the gladiators felt like when they entered the coliseum or maybe it was more like Daniel in the lions den.  Just relax Vern, how bad can this be.  You've trained horses that were prepared to stomp, bite, kick and throw you.  These were friendly gentle animals.  All you have to do is relax and remember the lessons.
 
"raise your hand, higher, no higher, like a stop sign, take two steps to the left, not one, crouch and point, No, crouch more, your not crouching enough, now turn, lower your other arm, no talking, we don't give verbal cues, now relax, backup, crouch and back up!  Came the shrill voice from the podium.  I'm not sure if she was in fact shouting or if the walls acted like an amplifier with me in the center of the speaker.  After a lifetime of my own gentle horse training method there will be a learning process to adapt to the new methods. I felt like a rookie athlete as Bobbie shouted commands my way Oh boy what have I gotten into?  Yup, I had chosen a very good name for her I can just see Bobby Knight shouting those very words to a rookie basketball player just before he threw a chair across the court at him.  Very tough first day however with a warning to not get hurt or harm the colts I continued on.  When ever I had an opportunity Ruthie and I watched the horse training disc showing the goal for the next lesson this way Bobbie figured she could coach me from the podium.  And so the first week went, I would water and rake the arena, wrap the colts front legs to protect them (I found out later that I should have wrapped mine). And head to the bull pen.  Ruthie took her place in the coach's box and I got to know the colts and the training method.  "raise your hand, higher, no higher, like a stop sign, take ...........  Was that Bobbie or Ruthie?  What have they done to her?  With the sun rising behind the bull pen I had to squint to see if it wasn't Bobbie back in the box, nope, its the new Ruthie she is liking this new role of coach way to well.
      Bobbie asked me to give a mare a bath in preparation for foaling.  I remember thinking this would be an easy task after the tension of training.  Wrong again!  Evidently my horse bathing actions didn't jive with the mental picture Bobbie carried in her mind of the proper horse bathing technique.  She stepped in to ask if I had bathed a horse before?   The next word out of my mouth might just have well have been "FIRE". I don't think it would have evoked a larger reaction.  This time I know she was shouting, I was only three feet away.  "you've never bathed a horse before she shouted, you call your self a horse trainer and you've never bathed a horse?  And on and on....  throwing in a few words I remember from my days as a sailor.   I think I mentioned that much of the year if you wash your horse in Minnesota you will be chipping ice off of it and that in the summer it rained twice a week.  Didn't seem to help,   Later you always come up with the reply you wanted to say, like "I said I was a horse trainer, not a horse bather".   Probably wouldn't have helped but it would have made me feel better.  Anyway Ruthie and I learned to bathe the horses.  Ruthie soon became quite comfortable with the horses and was a big help with them. 

     In preparation for our Friday ride back to Jaime's to work with her and her horses we had ordered a new front tire at a Honda shop in Banning.  We checked with our California employers to see if we should come back or stay in Glendale.  I think Bobbie was agreeable however The Don said they would like to try it for another week.   Unfortunately a miscommunication at the Honda dealership made it necessary to make the trip with our leaking front tire.
     That was pretty much it for the week and the ride back to Glendale gave us a chance to reflect on our first week in the desert.  It had been a hard week, work, tension and trying to figure out this couple so different from us.  Could we do it?  Did we want to do it?