D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April 2010
Back in the Saddle
From a confidence-shattering scare to conquering the Extreme Cowboy Race, the long ride back for a Pinos Altos woman and her horse.
Story and photos by Scott Thomson
In the fall of 2008, Bettina Mills had no idea how much her passion for riding was about to change. Bettina, an award-winning artist and designer in Pinos Altos with a consuming passion for horses, had owned her young Haflinger horse, Janosh, for about a year. She had been riding or working with him almost daily — arena work, trail riding — and had handled the inevitable incidents that riding horses (especially young ones) can produce.
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Bettina Mills and Janosh practice
a long side pass over a pipe. |
The worst of these was getting bucked off for no apparent reason on a trail ride in the Gila National Forest, only to find out that Janosh had triggered a snare trap set for the mountain lion involved in a fatal attack in Pinos Altos. Bettina was wearing her helmet, which prevented a possible serious injury when she hit rocks. Just as important, she had been teaching her horse to "give to pressure" — so, after the initial reaction, Janosh immediately relaxed and stood rather than try to get free from the wire. This critical piece of natural horsemanship training saved him from a terrible injury. His natural instinct would have been to fight the snare until he got loose. Instead, he stood calmly while Bettina spent an hour cutting through the wire, and they both walked home, sore but unhurt.
Although just four years old, Janosh was proving to be true to the characteristics of his breed — calm, very smart and easy going. He was energetic and playful, but showed no signs of being anything but a great partner. As a trainer, I worked with Bettina on a regular basis to bring him along using natural horsemanship techniques; given Bettina's skill and experience, he was being given a solid base that would last a lifetime. Even simulating the snare trap by having Bettina ride Janosh with a rope around the same hind leg that had been caught produced no anxious behavior.
Most riding is now a purely recreational activity, but still involves inherent danger that could result in serious injury. A single event can trigger deep fear and a complete loss of confidence, even in someone who has ridden for years. Little did Bettina know that she was about to have just such an event.
In October 2008, while on a short ride on the dirt road where she lived and had been riding Janosh for a year, Bettina's riding life changed in an instant. Out of nowhere, another horse suddenly popped out of the bushes by the road. This kind of surprise means only one thing to a horse — run! In a split second, Janosh was running at full speed with such a high level of fear that Bettina could do nothing to safely stop or even slow him down. Fearing a major wreck as she headed downhill toward drainage ruts and rough road, or possibly oncoming cars, Bettina jumped off the horse at full speed. Janosh never broke stride and headed out of sight.
By some miracle, Bettina was not hurt physically in her jump. Janosh continued up the road until he saw some other horses. He stopped there, nearly a mile from where the incident started. He, too, escaped injury.
A lot of people involved with horses will tell you it's good to have a little scare with them every now and then because it keeps you on your toes. There is a saying that you should always "ride every stride" — that is, you need to be prepared at all times when you ride a prey animal with flight as its primary survival behavior. But, regardless of skill and experience, a full-blown bolt is always a possibility and there is very little you can do about it. From zero to 30 mph, a horse is faster than a motorcycle. Bettina knew what to do in this case, but the speed at which it happened left her little time to diffuse the bomb before it went off.
Although there were no physical injuries to horse or rider, the mental and emotional damages were significant. A year of great experiences with this young horse was wiped from memory. Within hours, Bettina had decided she could never trust the horse again and prepared to put him up for sale. The horse seemed more anxious and "spooky" about everyday things and activities. Bettina questioned if she ever wanted to ride again.
Many of my students have come to me after an experience similar to Bettina's. With many adult riders returning to horses after years of having to focus on jobs or families, or perhaps starting with horses because they now have the time and resources, people are often shocked into the reality of the risks of this activity by a single event. The fact is, riding is probably the most dangerous recreational activity. Unlike anything else we do for fun, this is the one activity where your well-being depends on the behavior of another living thing that happens to be a different species — a flight animal, with instincts unchanged even after millions of years of evolution, breeding and training.
Restoring a rider's confidence is a challenge because half the equation involves the horse, with a language and motivations far different from the human's. I've heard it described as a FAT cycle: Fear leads to Anxiety, which leads to Tension. Because the horse reads and reacts to body language, he senses the emotional and physical representations of these states in the human, and reacts with behavior that causes the cycle to repeat. The rider is scared, pulls harder on the reins, gets stiff and tense — then the horse gets nervous, does something to "protect" himself like a buck or shy, and the rider gets even more scared. The cycle continues. And most riders know the behavior that so scared them in the first place is always present in a horse, no matter how well trained.
I usually try to convince a rider to stick with a horse if I believe it's a relationship that can work. I felt Janosh was a special horse, and given Bettina's skills I felt this relationship could be saved. Fortunately, after many hours of discussion and a total commitment from me to help her through this, Bettina relented and put the sale on temporary hold.
Next, we had to figure out a way to get Bettina back on some horse, just not this one. As luck would have it, a horse that Bettina knew was made available to her on a trial basis with an option to buy. She'd watched him grow up at a guest ranch in Arizona. He was also a Haflinger. In a matter of weeks, Zip (named for one of Bettina's favorite animal movie characters) moved to New Mexico. He was small, not much more than pony size, and a sure-footed and reliable trail horse. He gave Bettina a sense of safety and control, and the confidence to get back in the saddle.
For me, the next step is the most challenging. Somehow, I need to shift the rider's focus away from the feelings that this is a "bad" horse that can't be trusted. The anger towards the horse is natural after such an event, as it shifts the blame and gives the human a reason for his or her feelings. But it isn't fair. If you want to ride horses, you have to understand and accept their nature. Horses only know how to be horses. It is up to us to teach them in ways that make sense to them, not necessarily to us. Too often I hear comments like, "that dumb horse tried to hurt me," or "that horse bucked me off on purpose," or "that horse has a screw loose." Truth is, horses don't do things on purpose. They don't have ulterior motives. They're reactive animals based on their perception of danger. It is up to us to teach them how to respond to things, which requires more thought and trust in our leadership.
In this particular case, Bettina did nothing to cause the accident. Even with all her skills and knowledge, she thought there was something wrong with Janosh and he couldn't be trusted. If we were going to repair this, I needed to change her mindset and get her back to thinking "like a horse." Janosh had told her in dramatic fashion that he had a problem with surprises in his right eye, and he needed her help to learn how to deal with it.
As a starting point, I saw three factors that may have contributed to the accident, which might make it easier to understand. A couple of months before, Bettina had made a change in Janosh's diet due to an allergic reaction to grass hay. We noticed some subtle changes in his behavior afterward — much higher energy levels, bigger reactions to new things. The bolt convinced me that his new feed was way too "hot" and that she should immediately go back to grass hay, giving him whatever allergy medication necessary to tolerate it. Feed that is inappropriate for the horse or the level of exercise is frequently at the root of behavioral issues. The immediate changes we saw in Janosh proved this was the case for him as well.
As a natural horsemanship trainer, I try to get riders to look at the horse's point of view and their unique needs as herd animals. To ignore these things can lead to all kinds of mental and physical issues for horses. It was completely unnatural for Janosh to be living alone. It can be stressful for a herd animal to live without the rules and hierarchy of a herd. Horses that live alone are often the ones that "blow up" when faced with new things or surprises in the outside world. Fortunately, Zip would be moving in soon and I felt Janosh would immediately benefit from a more natural living situation.