Horse Crazy (5 page)

All the grooming techniques are pretty
standard and vary only slightly from horse to horse depending on
their personalities. Try not to puncture their vulnerable little
frogs when you're learning to scrape crud and debris from their
feet. (It is an accepted law of nature, by the way, that if you
wash your hair the day you go to the stables to see your horse,
then as you are cleaning out your horse's back feet, he will fart
in your hair.)

Applying a showsheen to your horse's coat
after a shampoo will make him glisten and sparkle; perfect when you
want to show him off at a show or horsy-gathering. It's not,
however, advisable to showsheen his back if you have any attention
of riding him bareback within the next week.

Mane pulling is a primitive bit of torture
that is essential to perform unless you want your horse to look
like a wild escape from a horse refugee camp...or like he belongs
to a western rider. It involves combing the mane, then back-combing
or teasing a part of it, wrapping the remnant mane around the comb
and then yanking it out by the roots. The horses love this! Would
ask for it specifically if they could talk! In fact, it ranks right
up there with scrotum scouring--another particularly delicate
little task loved by horse person and horse alike.

It sounds incredible, but when a horse
suffers a laceration, and it begins to heal, one needs, it seems,
to then pull the scab off the wound to encourage it to form yet
another, if smaller, scab.

Unfortunately, all horses who need this
particular service performed, and depend on me to perform it, would
no doubt lose the afflicted area of gangrene. I'd quite happily eat
dog food first. Or pay some mercenary, horse-loving child to do it.
(It's widely known that the horse-crazy children that hang around
horse barns will due literally anything and for a horse--especially
for a buck.) Scab-pulling can prompt the skin to crawl at only a
little faster rate than the need to peel off a horse's chestnuts.
(Those crusty knobs of skin that form on the inside of a horse's
legs.)

There is an oft-asked question (and I often
ask it) that wonders how horses in the wild get their feet cleaned
out with nobody to pick them, how they worm themselves, scrape off
their assorted scabs and skin crusts, and maintain the correct
nutritional balance without the vitamin supplements every horse
person has crammed in his/her tack trunk.

The reason, I believe, it's often asked, is
because it's usually incompletely and vaguely answered each time.
There is a good argument for cleaning out a horse's feet. In the
wild, horses obviously don't war shoes and don't need to have their
hooves picked out. The rock and uneven terrain of their turf help
to file down their feet and keep them trim.

As far as the scabs and the chestnuts, there
are probably more infections, and some pretty hefty-kneed horses
wobbling around out there.

Grooming a horse can be a true joy. It makes
you feel close to your horse; to rub it, inspect it, tidy it. It's
part of the whole horse-loving experience; and although I often
feel like I envy the pictures of the rider coming in from her
evening hack who just tosses the reins to her stable boy, I know
I'd miss the satisfaction of putting my horse to bed for the night.
Of personally rubbing him down, and watching him enjoy a
well-deserved dinner.

Being able to climb on his back in order to
trot aimlessly around big pastures and circular trails isn't the
only reason we love horses. Seeing that they're the best they can
be: healthy, shiny, alert and happy is as much a goal, and probably
more so, than any riding challenge or skill.

Chapter Four

Horses Are People Too

Horses are not as smart as Trigger.

In truth, horses are not as smart as some
pasture rocks. This all came as a big surprise to me. My perception
of the horse was based on the Saturday morning television shows "My
Friend Flicka" and "Fury" as well as Trigger and Velvet's mighty
King; all perfectly capable of going for the sheriff when the ranch
began to burn. So what happened?

The horses I knew had some polished tricks,
true. They responded to riding commands and were fairly adept at
being ridden--something I assumed horses did fairly naturally from
all the Westerns I'd watched as a kid.

When brought in from the pasture, they knew
which stalls were theirs.

Not exactly horse calculus.

They knew that a bucket hanging on a hook or
even left forlornly on the ground inevitably meant that they were
to stick their noses into it in anticipation of food. They will
usually not run away from you if you approach them in the pasture
waving a carrot. All confirmed skills in The Horse
Bag-Of-Tricks.

But desperate news for someone who expected,
if not to be saved from a rock slide now and then by her horse, at
least that the creature would have equal the intelligence of her
pet cockatiel. The more time I spent around horses, the more
respect I began to have for the cleverness my friends' pet dogs and
cats.

"My God! Look at your dog! He's fetching his
leash!!"

"He always does that when he wants to be
walked."

"But that's incredible! It's like he's
communicating with you!"

"Stick around, you can watch him sniff a
tree."

In comparison to horses, even my pet
Cockatiel--a bird who is literally a pea-brain--began to show
heightened intelligence. Although it's true a horse wasn't terribly
blessed in the brains department (his brain, in relation to this
body, is about the size of a grape), he does have a pretty good
memory and very highly developed senses.

He can see behind him and in the dark, has
incredible hearing, can supposedly smell when you're uptight or
tense and has a pretty sensitive hide, enabling him to feel, (if
not respond) to the slightest touch.

In addition, a horse will quite often have
heaps of personality. Which is another important lesson horses have
helped us learn about life in general: just because you have
trouble remembering all the mechanics involved in chewing, (which,
I must say, is a problem a horse never has,) doesn't mean you're
not a fascinating character. Stupid is not always dull.

This doesn't mean that there are not dull
horses. There are stupid, dull horses. But even with dull horses
there is one thing you can count on, and that is that they are
unpredictable. Even horses that are sweet, gentle, dormant,
comatose, and sedated are always capable of surprising you.

The horse is a prey species. It is used to
being picked on, chased, eaten and generally harassed. As a result,
the horse has always been a little edgy. Since prehistoric days,
the horse has run even before he knows why he's afraid. This
initial paranoia is probably why the horse is became a herd animal.
Horses assemble not for companionship, but because several sets of
ears are always better than one.

In the 1983 movie
Ghandi
, there is a
scene where a crowd of people are confronted with an army of
charging soldiers on horseback. A resourceful leader in the crowd
instructs the people to lie down and when they do, they discover
that the horses will not step on them.

A horse will go to great lengths to avoid
stepping on anything except terra extremely firma. This goes for
water, leaves, snow, mud, sticks and even some grass, as well as
people's bodies. It's all due to an innate protection plan: long
ago, the primordial horse must have figured out that if anything
happened to hurt one of his feet, he'd be defenseless. Lunch on the
hoof, so to speak, for some marauding saber-tooth. This natural
equine aversion can be quite a pain when you're toodling along a
trail with all the natural debris one finds on a trail, not to
mention all the unnatural debris one finds from Man's
contribution.

Of all the studies done on equine behavior,
it's been established that horses live within a pecking order (or,
more accurately, a kicking order) in the herd. The top horse,
called Alpha Horse by animal psychologists, more or less lords it
over the rest of the flock, going out the gate first, eating first,
pinning his ears back at the least provocation and generally acting
like a real swine. Then, there's his lieutenant or Beta Horse and
so on down the line until every horse has a rank and a place in the
herd.

When Alpha is out being ridden or otherwise
indisposed, Beta takes over, much like the vice-president in the
democracy of horse-government; he hones his nipping and ear-pinning
skills, and generally makes himself unpopular with the other
horses. This equine hierarchy will seem particularly cruel to you
if your horse, Stardust (alias Omega) displays permanently embedded
hoof and tooth prints in his hide every time you come out to ride
him.

It's common to say that horses are much like
people. I'm not sure they're much like people, but they do tend to
have some moods and characteristics like people. In the little
pasture herd at the boarding farm in Georgia where my friends kept
their horses, it would be accurate to say there's a representative
microcosm of horse relationships and behavior.

Shadow, a ten-year old black Anglo-Arab with
a white star, stands around 15 hands, (a "hand" is a unit of equine
measurement that is, quite literally, the height of a man's hand.
So, stacking 15 man-size hands on top of each other, would give you
the height of Shadow.) He had a tendency toward chubbiness, and
although a very handsome horse, he was one requiring an experienced
and patient rider, Shadow was, unlike most horses, gelded late in
his career. This was generally looked upon as the reason why, in a
pasture of mares and geldings, he's the undoubted Alpha horse.

It's hard to separate Shadow's aggressive
personality from his sexuality by suggesting that if he'd been
gelded earlier, he'd be easier to manage and more docile. To look
at him, tossing his glossy head, or flattening his ears menacingly,
it would be hard to imagine him as anything but forceful and
irritable with the other horses.

Little Dancer, on the other hand, is a 14'2
hand chestnut pony with sweet doe eyes and the lovely face of a
thoroughbred. As Shadow's owner also owns Dancer, the two are
always brought in from the pasture together, ridden together, fed
together and released together.

As a result, they have become good friends.
They are inseparable in the pasture which allows the little pony to
enjoy special pasture privileges he would otherwise be denied. He
may not be Beta, exactly, but none of the other horses will bother
him. Interestingly, after a few years in this favored position,
Dancer began to become more aggressive toward some of the other
horses--as if realizing his invulnerability and capitalizing on it.
One of the horses he decided to wage a one-horse war against
happened to be Beta himself. In fact, there is some debate as to
whether Dancer didn't eventually knock Beta from his hierarchical
slot.

Beta Horse. Called Lightning by his human
acquaintances, the (perhaps) erstwhile Beta horse is an eight-year
old registered Appaloosa, about 15'2 hands and a fine specimen of
some of the most incredibly ugly horseflesh on the hoof. Lightning
features pale, distended lips and pink, wrinkled eyelids that
protect watery, red eyes.

This horse does, however, come the closest to
having a human-like personality. Unlike the other horses, his
relationship with people comes nearer to the fantasy than the
reality. He's capable of devising and participating in games with
his owner, from tag to hide and seek (although admittedly,
Lightning doesn't hide very quietly), to grabbing up a crop in his
teeth and conducting imaginary orchestras. He also tends to be a
more involved riding companion; nudging the rider gently,
inquisitively on the shoulder if she dismounts for any reason, as
if to say: "Hey, what's the story here?"

Further down the line of the Equine Who's Who
and Who's A Pasture-Patty is Traveler, a fourteen-year old, half
quarter horse, half Arabian chestnut. 15 Hands with a grass belly
not unlike that of a portly old gent, Traveler has four white socks
and a white face with very intelligent eyes.

Traveler is sweet, slow, lazy and passive. A
definite Omega in the hierarchy of pasture horses. He hangs out
with an old outcast hunter-jumper named appropriately enough: "Old
Guy."

These two huddle closely together--missing
each other whenever they're parted and usually keep well away from
the rest of the herd. When I first knew Traveler, he was pretty
much left to himself by his owner, a fourteen year old girl who was
often on restriction or otherwise prohibited from coming out to
ride and care for the animal. It seemed a shame that Traveler would
be penalized too whenever the girl's grades would dip, but such is
often the logic of a non-horse parent.

As a result, pretty Traveler was often
covered with bots (tiny fly eggs that gather on the lower
extremities of a horse in late summer), his hair matted, missing
shoes, hobbling around on too-long feet and otherwise a mess. The
general barn consensus is that he'd even foundered at least
once.

Foundering, or laminitis, is a curious
disease and vets don't know a whole lot about it. They do know that
it can come about by running a horse on too-hard surfaces, by over
feeding or by allowing him to drink large quantities of cold water
after a hard workout. The laminae tissue on the foot, and it's
usually the front ones, becomes inflamed and the horse goes lame
and is very uncomfortable as a result. Traveler was getting a good
deal of love from his young owner, but not the care he needed to
stay sound.

The horses as a herd (or gang, as they often
appear to the newcomer) have a fascinating corporate personality.
They'd almost always rather be together with their horse buddies
than anywhere else. Oh, they'll come along peacefully enough for
the most part when you traipse out, carrot and halter in hand, to
bring them in for a ride and dinner. But if they could dispense
with you and just go straight to the dinner so they could return to
their horsy chums, they would, gladly.