After the Move, Now What? And the Farrier's Apprentice (Chapter 4)

It was time to leave Rocking S Ranch. One of the gals I had met during our stay there offered to trailer my horse over to our new place a few miles away. I chose a small private ranch with just a few boarders, mostly Team Ropers, which made for a huge arena with excellent footing. The people were nice, the set up for Maddie was perfect – a box stall inside a newer MD Bar, with a run out to a covered paddock and then another gate leading out to a small pasture. The best of all worlds! We had access to the Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park, and lots and lots of peace and quiet to get to know each other better. Of course the irony of my choice doesn't escape me; a woman who knows nothing and a funny looking horse, setting out on a California/Pacific Slope Vaquero horsemanship adventure, surrounds herself with Team Ropers and Texas cowboys on awesome athletic Quarter Horses. There had to be a reason for that, perhaps. But that’s for another chapter….


I probably shouldn’t go on without mentioning the person I alluded to in my last blog post who helped set the wheels in motion for the journey we were about to embark upon. His name is Eddie and he was apprenticing to Maddie’s farrier when I met him at Rocking S. We didn’t really acknowledge each other much the first few times he was out. I thought he seemed quiet, not wanting to be bothered. He later told me he thought I was quiet. It turned out that neither one of us were all that quiet once we got to talking about horses!

One day, as I was riding Maddie around Rocking S before our move, we walked by Eddie and he said “That’s a nice hackamore.” Really? I was hopeful that he could give me a clue. I started asking questions, does it fit properly? How do I use it? What is it, exactly? Why is it used? Of course I had seen people riding horses in hackamores before, but I didn’t know much about them. I didn’t know anything about them actually, other than sometimes young horses were started in them. But I liked how it felt, how it looked; unobtrusive. The older horses I had seen in the hackamore seemed really confident, the riders seemed calm and quiet. I marveled at how a 1000+ pound animal could be ridden and “controlled” without a bit in his mouth (I learned later that this concept of “control” is a bit of an illusion anyway – bit or no bit).

In talking with Eddie, I told him I would be moving Maddie soon, and that I would like to learn more about the hackamore and in particular, the Vaquero way of training. He had been studying and applying Vaquero horsemanship for some time and was training his horse in a bosal. As luck (or fate?) would have it, we were moving right next door to him! He offered to help us get started in the hackamore. I could come over and ride with him anytime and he would show me a few things to get us started. So that’s what we did! Eddie taught me some basic things to work on like lateral flexion, moving the hindquarters, etc. I didn’t know any of this. For as many years as I had been riding, I just hopped on and went. My horse did what I asked and moved where I wanted her to move, but only because we had been together so long, we spoke the same language. I never thought about it or “learned” how to develop this language and so that was my task here.

I had also been on line trying to find out as much information as possible. I couldn’t really find the information I was looking for, mostly because I didn’t know what I was looking for. I knew I liked riding my horse in a hackamore and I wasn’t in a big hurry to move on to anything else. One day, I posted a question in a horse forum asking if I couldn’t just keep my horse in a hackamore forever. A person on the forum, Mike Zimmerman, sent me a message with a link to a Facebook group. He said “Eline, this is where you want to be. You will learn a lot!” Well, I found an entire village in this group! I have learned SO much from these people in the last 18 months. The more I learned, the stronger my conviction to continue became. There were many frustrating evenings when I would come home from the ranch, ready to throw in the towel, sometimes in tears. My husband would say “Go ask the group.” And so I did (and still do, of course). My questions are so basic, so “beginner”, I should be embarrassed, but you really can’t have any pride at all when you’re on a journey like this. That is the quickest way to become derailed.

Of course I love trail riding. My horse excels at trail riding. I’m sure our chosen path has caused some people a bit of confusion, or consternation even. Why would I take a perfectly good trail horse and try to train her to do something that may be difficult for her? For both of us, for that matter? We don't live or work on a cattle ranch. What's the point? I found out later, when I became a little more “horse-educated” that we really do have our work cut out for us. Maddie is built a little bit “upside down”. She is half Appaloosa, which is a stock horse breed, but she is also half Tennessee Walker, which is not a stock horse breed. She is overly developed in the front, under developed through her back and loin, and her hind end is almost non-existent. This is the opposite of what you would want in a working cow horse. But I felt that letting her continue to pull herself around by her front end, hollowing out her back, not developing her hind end (motor) was not going to do her any favors. If I could teach her how to carry herself a little better, she could be a healthier, happier horse for much longer. More years on the trail! (and checking fences and moving cattle on our imaginary ranch). Training a horse using the Vaquero tradition is perfect. It takes a long time. There is nothing that is going to be too hard for her to accomplish that several months or years working on it won’t fix. We can do this slowly. Allowing me the time to learn, and her the time to develop the best that she can.

With Eddie’s help, the help of my Vaquero friends, some clinics I’ve hosted (if I couldn’t get to the help, I had to find a way to bring the help to us!) as well as a little help from some unlikely sources, we have gotten started!

I could tell you what I’ve taught Maddie in our first year and half together, but to be honest it is secondary to what she has taught me. So I think that is where I will go next in the story.