ridecamp@endurance.net: Bonding, Sacking Out, Etc.

Bonding, Sacking Out, Etc.

Ruth Bourgeois (ruthb@tdsi.net)
Sat, 08 Feb 1997 09:04:32 -0600

Jane - your story about bonding with your horse was terrific. What an inspiration! Thanks for sharing it.
Re: training and sacking out. Seems we all have lots of tales to tell about horrible experiences and/or things
we have seen others do to horses in the guise of "training" them.
When I was much younger, I had a beautiful purebred Arabian mare that I trained myself. At that time, I was
working for a Quarter horse trainer. I'd watch him working the reining horses and observe his training methods.
When one of these horses didn't spin or turn fast enough to suit him, he'd kick it in the shoulder with his
spurs. One day when I was riding my young Arab mare out in the pasture, I tried turning her. She ignored me.
So, I reached up with my heel and bumped her on the shoulder. No spurs, just my heel. Well, she came totally
unglued - spooked so hard and fast that I went flying off, but I caught my foot in the roping rein (I was
REALLY smart in those days!), and dragged me across the field at a gallop. (No helmet either in those days.)
Just before a huge tree, she came to a stop. I picked myself up, luckily was not hurt bad, just pretty sore
from bouncing off the ground as I was being dragged along. My poor horse was shaking worse than I was. That
lesson taught me that there's a world of difference in what you can do with a Quarter horse versus an Arab. To
this day, I've learned to treat each horse with respect and as an individual.
This same mare, when she was just a couple years old, I used to tie out in the yard so she could eat grass in
the summer. I'd tie her to a cement block with a soft cotton rope. The first time she snagged the rope on a
bush and uprooted it, she bolted, dragging the bush and block behind her. She didn't go far, though, before she
realized it was nothing to get that upset over, and I tied her out a lot after that. This paid off one time
when I was riding her through a field and all of a sudden she came to a halt and wouldn't move. I looked down,
and saw coiled barb wire around her ankles. I got off very carefully and picked up one foot up at a time,
untangling her. Thank goodness for that earlier rope training.
I've seen nothing but problems when people try to teach a horse something when it is afraid. I'm a firm
believer in the TTEAM training methods, and to this day have never had any serious mishaps since I adopted the
"no fear" techniques. It's sad how many horses are ruined (often unintentionally) by people who call themselves
trainers. I think the most exciting thing in the horse world today is the growing awareness of gentle training,
and the methods taught by Pat Parelli, John Lyons, Linda Tellington-Jones, etc. These methods are so superior
to many of the old time ways, it would be nice if every horse was fortunate enough to be trained in these ways.
A wonderful thing about this is that even when we do screw up (and we all do from time to time), usually our
horses are very forgiving animals and while they never forget a bad experience, they don't seem to hold it
against us. That little Arab mare in the stories above was my first horse. I made about every mistake in the
book with her, but I adored her and she trusted me, time after time. Somewhere along the line I realized that I
was not the teacher in this relationship - she was. It's very humbling to come to that realization.

Ruth Bourgeois

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