Whoa

Non-horse people naively assume that "whoa" is one of the most important words in a horse person's vocabulary. In reality, "whoa" has little significance in the horse world. Unfortunately, the word's lack of directive power is almost comical. It's as if horse people use it just to see what might happen.


I've seen terrified veterinary assistants tethered to the end of a chain shank holding a snorting, leaping stallion uttering "whoa" incessantly in barely audible tones with blank stares and obviously zero conviction that "whoa" is actually going to STOP the menacing beast from his antics. Likewise, I've seen owners trying to groom their antsy, dancing horses at a tie post, chasing the steeds around in circles with their brushes and muttering 'whoa,' 'whoa,' 'whoa.' Now, if they intended that word to actually mean something, they'd be darn sure to get a response when they said it, rather than continuing to chase their four-legged friends around to brush mud off their hocks.

I've lived a long time in the horse world and mostly what I've seen is that the word 'whoa' is used with zero purpose other than to fill silent air and give our busy human minds something to work over and repeat incessantly. Here's a perfect example. We've all witnessed moments at a barn where something really awful is happening, like a horse starts panicking while in the trailer or rearing on wet slippery concrete, etc. And how do their humans react? By screaming-- and I do mean screaming-- WHOA! at decibels that could rupture ear drums. Now why, I ask you, would a panicking and terrified animal suddenly calm down by being hollered at, especially by a word that he has been trained to ignore? Why would a whole bunch of yelling and shrieking settle the horse down? Well, obviously it doesn't. Yet, we horse people keep doing it. It proves that we have no intention that 'whoa' is going to do anything, but it makes our frantic minds feel better. And that's what counts, right?

I've ridden frequently in Portugal over the past 10 years and the horses there are completely bombproof... except for Guinea hens. One year, the riding school's neighbor bought a flock of those clucking hens and deposited them across the arena fence. When riding past that particular spot in the arena, our normally stalwart stallions bolted at the speed of light. It didn't matter how skilled a rider you were. The sheer speed alone ejected you from your seat and you could only hope to hang onto the stallion's mane until he ran out of oxygen. Of course, the flurry of bolting, charging stallions only excited the Guinea hens more, which elevated their clucking, which in turn accelerated our respective runaways.

Meanwhile, my dear trainer stood in the center of the arena quietly telling our group "whoa. whoa, Ladies." He said it so unassumingly, as if it were our ideas to have a white-knuckled ride and we needed a reminder to rein things back in. Our cries for help, our cursing at the stallions and the hens-- it all passed him by. Whoa.

Those years of Portuguese horses and clucking Guinea really confirmed for me how little punch the word "whoa" packs. So, you might say that like most riders, I had become programmed to say whoa only when I expected positively nothing to happen.

Then one night I was riding my buddie Mark's young stallion. I don't recall how the circumstances aligned for me to be in the dark arena at 9pm with about a dozen 4-H kids but there I was. The air was chilly, Mark's horse was frisky, and children on ponies darted around like air hockey pieces. I was just thinking to myself "This can't get any worse..." when the young stallion under me shook his head so vigorously that his bridle flew off. Now I sat holding reins attached to nothing. In its launch, the bridle flew towards the ground and the bit smacked my horse's knee hard, which startled him. So, he started running. I of course pulled on the reins out of habit, but the bridle was now dragging along in the sand next to me. Likely mystified by his sudden lack of restraint, the young horse kept running and 4-h children scattered.

I froze in the saddle, then quickly realized I'd need to be more proactive. "What should I DO?" I yelled over to Mark who casually watched the scene without concern. He gave me a look that confirmed I had asked the stupidest question in history. In his slow Texan drawl, he said "Well, tell him whoa."

I, in turn, thought this reply was the stupidest one in history. Why say "whoa"-- a tactic proven NOT to stop a bolting stallion? Well, apparently, 'whoa' actually means something in the Western world Mark hails from. Convinced that once again nothing would happen, I whispered "um...whoa?"

Upon hearing my feeble mutter, that young stallion screeched on the brakes so rapidly that I flew onto his neck, toppled over his shoulder, and landed on the ground beside him. He stood like a statue while I composed myself and even while kids on ponies crashed into his backside. So this is what WHOA looked like! The word did mean something! Granted, I've decided since then that "whoa" is like a Holy Grail and only precious few know its real identity.

The Kiss

I tend to think that all of us in the horse world are pretty similar even if we participate in different disciplines. Surely, we're birds of a feather and all that, regardless of the fact I ride English but you might ride Western, right?

Well, sometimes this rosy picture of oneness crumbles apart as I realize that there are indeed vast differences that accompany individuals from other disciplines. Last week, I bumped into this realization yet again while schooling a dressage horse in our arena while a Western lesson took place. The Western rider and I stayed out of each other's way no problem. But I couldn't help being distracted by her trainer's instructions for schooling her horse. To be polite, they sounded far too simple. Almost easy, in fact.

You see, in the dressage world, giving your horse a cue to do something (which happens at minimum every half-second), nearly requires a Graduate degree in Physics. For instance, a dressage trainer would tell you to make your horse canter like this:

"Half-halt-on-your-outside-rein-and-then-step lightly-into-your-inside stirrup-and-lift-your-ribcage-on-that-side-and-now-deepen-your-outside-sitting bone-and-draw-your-hips-forward-and-count 1,2,1,2-and-and give a squeeze-with-outside-leg-at-2."

Whew.

It's no wonder dressage riders carry around the stereotype of being too serious and slightly uptight. Constantly wrestling with that much data input and output would be enough to give someone an anxiety disorder. Interestingly, though, after a while we all get used to it. Until I observed the Western lesson, that is.

The Western trainer told her student to get her horse to pick up the canter by making a kissing noise. If you've ever hung around Western trainers, you'll notice quickly that they use a kissing sound for pretty much everything. Want your horse to step over a pole? Kiss to him. Want your horse to turn through a gait? Kiss. Pick up a right lead canter? Kiss. Left lead canter? Ditto.

Admittedly, when I first encountered this Kiss phenomenon a few years back, I struck an uppity high-brow dressage attitude. Where were the nuances of training and riding? I asked. How was a horse supposed to tell from one slurpy wet kiss whether he was supposed to a.)canter, b.)go backwards, or c.) get in a horse trailer? Where was the micro-managing and hair-splitting of signals that we dressage riders had perfected? Surely, no horse could rightly perform without this impressive library of cues such as when, where, and how often the rider should contract her right inner thigh. And yet there were all those Western horses doing all kinds of things with just the prompting of their riders' lips pressed together.

Huh?

I won't hide that my uppity attitude towards this Western riding came from a big dose of envy. Yes, my belief that the myriad of dressage cues ranked superior to Western training came from the simple fact that I had tried the Kiss... and failed miserably.

Several years ago, I was helping my lovable cowboy friend Mark compete some of his horses. I was doing very well with them except for one large problem: I couldn't make them canter. Despite my years and years of training and instruction all over the world, I could not make his horses canter even one stride. I used the most sophisticated signals that my butt and legs could muster and still nothing happened. Embarrassed, I asked Mark for help.

His horses only responded to a Kiss, he explained. A what? Were we talking about training horses here? Mark got a good chuckle that I'd not only never heard of such a thing but likely could not pull it off. A quick note: Mark's perception of New Englanders like myself is that we are, in his words, "frosty." That's his polite way of saying we're tight-lipped and rigid. I prefer to think we're simply reserved and cautious, but Mark had his own ideas, thus dubbing me the "Ice Princess," which I guess for a dressage trainer is pretty suitable.

After demonstrating several rounds of an appropriate Kiss, Mark told me to ride off on his handsome stallion and give it a try myself. Already deeply humbled that I, the well-heeled dressage trainer, was taking advice from someone with a Texas drawl in blue jeans, I was determined to nail this thing. I launched into a big ground-covering trot with his Arabian stallion, aimed for the corner where I wanted to canter, and then squeezed my lips together. And made a sound like spitting out a cherry pit. I tried again quickly and this time sounded like I was sucking food from my teeth. The horse kept trotting. I pursed, blew spit. We never cantered.

Mark told me if I were ever going to nail that Kiss, I'd need to be a whole lot less "frosty." That meant, of course, I needed to act like less of a dressage rider. Like not sitting stone-faced with a broomstick stuck down my jacket. Like not trying to cue his horses with one-hundred fidgety nuances of cues at once. Just relax a little... and Kiss. And don't Kiss with that tight-lipped uptight look on your face, he said in his slow drawl. Maybe practice at home with a mirror like a teenager, he smirked, or read some romantic novels.

Of course, I'm reticent to admit this, but I did go home and practice. And I just never got any better than that sour cherry pit noise. I never managed any well-articulated slurpy sounds that even remotely resembled what I heard in Western arenas. Damn! Maybe what I previously thought was the world's easiest riding cue would be forever elusive to me. I, however, prefer to think that my tight-lipped failure at the Kiss simply means I belong in a dressage saddle giving mind-boggling cues to my horses. So, nowadays whenever a Western trainer asks me to ride his or her horse, I politely decline because I'm still at home practicing that Kiss with a mirror.

Monkey See Monkey Do

I’ve often heard that people choose pets that look like them. And while I’ve never actually decided whether my friends’ dogs look like them, I can attest that their pets do eventually act like them. With enough time, a pet will take on the characteristics of its owner, for better or for worse. Horses have proven this repeatedly to me over the years.

I’ve seen perfectly well-mannered horses under everyday circumstances turn into basket cases the moment they hear their owner’s car in the driveway. Suddenly, they’re pawing at the wall, pacing circles, chewing the wood from their stall doors. It’s as if the presence of their owner unleashes a spoiled personality that is otherwise dormant.

Likewise, I’ve witnessed stolid and steadfast mounts turn into spooky freaks once their owners mount up for a ride. It never fails to amaze me, though I should have become quite used to it by now. Like it or not, our animals mirror us. They take on our neuroses, our strengths, our weaknesses, and everything in between.

And sometimes it’s uncanny how little we want to admit that. I recall a few years ago riding a client’s young mare and having a productive schooling session when the client raced in the driveway, kicking up clouds of dust behind her sports car. She spilled out of the car, eyes bulging from a day of stress at the office, clutching a cell phone in one hand and a large extra-caffeinated mocha from Starbucks in the other.

She was using the speaker function of her phone to have a conversation with her ex-husband that used volumes of profanity I hadn’t heard since high school.

Anyway, before I knew it, she was in the arena with me (having put the ex-husband on mute) and wanted to ride her horse. Mentally, I came up with a dozen immediate reasons that amounted to a bad idea. Against my better judgment, I told her that would be fine if she could take five minutes and settle herself down. To her, that meant finishing her mocha and setting down her keys.

Before I knew it, I was giving this stressed-out, hyped-up woman a leg up on her young unsuspecting horse. Needless to say, within moments, the horse mirrored the woman, even without the ingestion of a 16-ounce mocha. It began darting around the arena, jumping out of its skin, and—I’m not kidding—its eyes bulged, just like its owner’s.

The woman wanted to know what was wrong. I gently pointed out that the horse had picked up on her frenzied state and was absorbing that energy, causing it to be unsettled. Of course this made no sense to Ms. Starbucks. Horses are horses, she said. As if they are completely dead to sensory input. No, I reminded her, horses are like their owners.

Fortunately, this can work favorably. My trainer friend Mark Schuerman is one of the calmest, unflappable people I’ve ever met. After two months in his barn, any horse takes on his quiet nature. It’s like a magical transformation, an osmosis of sorts. I was deeply grateful for this fact six years ago when I had just moved to California.

I shared a barn with Mark, who trained exclusively Arabians at the time. For some reason he had a fondness for these otherwise high-strung animals that became docile puppies under his hand. Being reputable in the Arabian world, he was invited to give a short riding performance at the Western States Horse Expo, the largest horse exposition on the West Coast that regularly attracts 65,000 or more spectators over one weekend in June. Mark was honored. He would ride one of his most prancing, gorgeous, bay Arabs under spotlights in the late-night ticketed show. He agreed to it with enthusiasm.

Then he got a hot date for that same night. But he didn’t want to let down his fans from the Arabian community, so he held his commitment to do the Expo gig by recruiting yours truly to ride his horse. I agreed without further thought because, first of all, I had no idea what I had gotten into and secondly, I knew Mark really wanted to go out with this attractive blonde woman. So, there you have it.

A few weeks later, I found myself mounted atop an increasingly nervous Arabian gelding squeezed into a crowd of roughly 100 other demonstration riders on equally nervous horses in the pitch black scrambling around on pavement while we each awaited our turn to blast into the main arena for five minutes of glory.

There’s much I don’t remember about that evening. What I do remember is that the act preceding my ride was a mounted shooting demonstration, which meant that while I waited with my snorting Arabian outside the arena’s main gate, a dozen or more out-of-control riders galloped around inside shooting pistols at balloons until they all popped. I’m not sure if it was the gunfire, my sudden nausea, or all the yelling and screaming, but my horse was quickly coming unglued.

I tried dialing Mark on my cell phone to tell him not only was I not going into that arena, but this night marked the end of our friendship, too. Before the call went through, though, a rearing giant Friesian stallion streaked across the pavement towards me, slid on his shoes, and rammed into my horse’s backside. That itself would have been startling enough. But the horse and his rider, a wanna-be—eighteenth century knight, were entirely decked out in chain mail armor. The more the horse reared, the more his armor clanked and rattled, which added further mayhem to the gunfire in the arena.

It was at this point that I realized I’d not ever drawn up a will. It became clear that I would not survive the evening alive and I was chanting to myself “huh, so this is how it ends…” when I remembered that the only thing in my favor was the fact that I was on top of a horse Mark had trained.

This meant that even with the Friesian stallion attacking us from behind and gunfire in front of us that things might turn out fine if I just acted like Mark. So, in spite of my chattering teeth and trembling bones, I did just that. And my horse reflected it. Albeit a little nervous, the horse kept himself composed. Someone swung open the arena gait, and we cantered in under huge spotlights in front of a crowd of a couple thousand people. We floated as if on air, as if my life hadn’t just passed before me moments earlier.

Part of me thanked Mark for being such an exceptional horseman. The other part wanted to hunt him down on his date and tell him I would never again ride at an event with both gunfire and horses.

Will Work for Free...

Someone asked me last week what I would do now that my groom was moving out of the area. I scoffed at the person because without giving it much thought, I reacted with a startled sense of "What do you mean? I'll be just fine, just like I always am!"

Then I gave it some thought. With my groom moving away, I was now solely in charge of the daily operations of my business, the horses, and myself. Whoa. The last part of that sentence hit me hard. I made a quick mental list of my groom's duties and stopped after the list exceeded several pages. Chief among her duties was keeping me in line. I now faced the grim reality of being an adult without a little helper to clean up my mistakes, answer my calls at midnight, drive me around, and in some cases remind me to change my clothes.

You see, we horse trainers are fragile folks. We like to pretend that we are plenty tough, emotionally devoid, and self-sufficient. But in reality, we need a lot of ego-stroking. We are emotionally volatile and most of the time, we get in our own way. We need someone there to remind us what day it is, what our clients' phone numbers are, where the horse drugs are stored. Stuff like this. On occasion, we also need someone to point out that our eyes are bloodshot from way too many cups of coffee or that we're getting crabby from too little rest. Imagine the strain put upon a marriage to expect this of a spouse. Most of us are wise enough to realize a smarter bet is to hire someone who needs to be polite to us but doesn't have to share a home with us. Someone who won't complain when her duties include not only horse care, but also Christmas shopping for our mothers, cooking for us, picking up our dry cleaning, washing our cars, etc.

My good friend Mark, with whom I shared a barn for a few years, always had a groom around and after watching me exhaust myself by caring for-- and training-- a whole lineup of horses alone, he recommended I follow his lead. Somewhat persnickety and possessing too much puritanical work ethic, I waved him off. I could do this all by myself, I assured him, dragging my weary limbs home at the end of the day. Then, one day I drove up to the barn and observed the scene in front of me.

Mark strolled around the arena on a handsome Arabian stallion while a U2 CD blared, telling his groom in a single sentence to 1.) remember to wax his truck after washing, 2.) answer his ringing cell phone, and 3.) switch the U2 CD with a Dave Mathews. The groom accomplished the orders within a blink, and happily. You see, the opportunity to work around horses and to get a foothold in the industry can be tough to come by. So, young women line up enthusiastically, hoping for a chance to work for pittance in exchange for learning the ropes. They are energetic, responsible, and flawless. In sum, we don't deserve them.

I wised up to Mark's sense and got myself a groom. I've never looked back. Who else but some kind young woman who works for me, would put up with my rantings, my meltdowns, my pipe dreams for horses? Who else would listen to my grandiose plans and not dispel them? Who else would shop for barn supplies because she recognizes my phobias for retail stores? And who else would possibly share a hotel room with me and never complain about my snoring?

Grooms are priceless, I tell you, truly priceless. I can only hope these young girls get the footholds they seek, because the industry will surely benefit from them. Meanwhile, I want to assure them that their efforts do not go unappreciated. Now, they may not be valued as much for the horse skills as they eagerly hope, but we trainers sure are thankful for efforts in keeping us in line!