Earning trust

I went riding over the long weekend (as I do most of the time when I have a moment!). And I decided that the reason we ride, is because horses help us feel alive. Not for the reason you may think – but actually, they make us feel alive by delivering regular near-death experiences!

The horse I’m riding at the moment is very green and has only been under saddle for about 5 months, so she is doing very well, really, for the level she is at and she surprises me every day. After only about two months, we went to our first event. She boxed like a dream, travelled alone and at the venue, she acted like she had been doing this thing for years. She takes everything in her stride – for the most part. A short few weeks later, we did our first multi-day ride and aside from me having to fly a horse-shaped kite along the beach on the first day, again, she handled herself like a pro! (And to be fair, the sea was rough and loud and it was the first time she had ever seen such a monster, so I don’t even mind the fact that I had to walk beside her on day one.) By day two she decided it was okay, as long as she didn’t have to get her feet wet and I didn’t blame her because I wasn’t putting my toes into the icy Atlantic either!

My daughter and I had a lovely ride together a while back and on it we had a long discussion on whether it was better to get off your horse when they are frightened by something, or to stay on. Her argument was that if you get off, you teach the horse that whenever he gets silly you will get off. I used to think along similar lines 20 years ago when I had something to prove but these days I have a different philosophy: If you are not on the horse, you can’t fall off! (I didn’t come up with this nugget of knowledge by myself, but I am sorry to say that I cannot remember where I first read it.) I have also learnt that if you simply get off, walk up to whatever is trying to eat your horse, they can see for themselves it’s not really that scary. But the caveat is that you have to have built a relationship of trust with your equine partner first, or it simply won’t matter to them what you say.

So, anyway. The weekend. There I was, riding along the stubble fields, dry and dusty around me, a big stupid grin on my face because I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my morning. All my worries melted away for this one hour. I’m listening to the grit crunch-crunching under my horse’s hooves enjoying the tiniest of breezes that would have cooled us down had we worked hard enough to actually break a sweat. And then we spot them. A herd of cattle. A really big herd of cattle. And I seriously hope that these are not the curious kind of cows who are going to wander closer to us because even I am a little nervous of their massive horns and sudden visions of impalement enter my mind.

The little horse underneath me stops dead in her tracks. Her nostrils are wide and her whole body quivers. I decide this is my moment to dismount willingly because anyone who has been in this situation before will know that the next move will be for said horse to run as fast as it can in the opposite direction. It’s just how they are wired. They are the prey and anything and everything is trying to eat them. I get off, despite the statistics also saying that most horse-related injuries happen on the ground, and walk next to her. I don’t try and hold her or make her stand and look. I let her run in circles around me because it allows her to keep moving her feet. I think that a lot of people make a mistake by trying to make a horse stand still when they are really frightened. Their instinct tells them to run and by simply allowing them to keep moving their feet, it gives them some stress release. She stops and starts and gives a few loud snorts but luckily the cows are not too interested and slowly make their way past us. She snorts a few more times, runs a few more circles and then decides maybe they won’t eat her after all. I pat her, talk to her and within a minute or two I get back on her and we are on our merry way home.

But trust only takes you so far. The next day, our adventures continue. Riding along a different route this time, as we crest a hill, a herd of rogue fallow deer (That some idiot European brought over. Not sure what they were thinking, honestly – this is Africa – we have THOUSANDS of antelope to hunt for God’s sake!) leap up from where they were lying behind a bush and start running. This time there is no stopping, no looking and no snorting. My little horse does an about-turn and makes a run for it in the opposite direction. For a split second, I can feel her back arch as she thinks that if she bucks me off, it would allow her to get away faster. Luckily she abandons that thought as quickly as it enters her mind, but she has no intention of stopping either. I am strangely calm. I sit up and try to stay in balance with her while wondering whether I will be able to stop her before we reach the fence. It takes a good 400m before I finally convince her that we will not die on this day, in the jaws of a few feral deer.

When she does finally stop, I get off and to her dismay, we start walking back to where we just came from. I can spot the deer running at the far end of the next field – they have no intention of coming back. As we come over the hill again, her eyes are on stalks. She doesn’t fully believe me when I tell her the danger is gone. But we hang about for a bit and I let her have a good look. Lucky for me, she is not one of those horses that hangs on to her fear. Even after a big fright like this one, she calms down fairly quickly and I feel it safe to get back on. We ride home without further incident, although she is a little more wary of what might lie in wait behind the next bush. I’m lucky with this one. I know where she grew up and how she was handled. I know she has no reason to mistrust people because she has never known abuse from them. She is a very brave little horse and although she does have opinions and voices them regularly, we have a bond of trust. This didn’t come without work though. It didn’t just happen. I worked on it. I took the time to earn her trust. I took the time to get to know her. I know because of what type of horse she is, how far I can push and how much I can ask. It is my job to not break that trust she has in me and we will go a long way.