Horses Never Lie by Mark Rashid

Author:Mark Rashid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2011-01-21T16:00:00+00:00

Finding the Try

“Dang you,” I muttered under my breath. “What the heck’s your problem?”

It had been nearly forty-five minutes since I’d mounted up, and things were not going well. I was on a young mare named Lacey, and we were working quietly in the round pen when I got the notion to teach the mare how to back up. I started by asking her to stop from a walk, which she did readily. Then I did what everyone knows they’re supposed to do when backing a horse—I pulled on the reins. At first, I used what I considered to be pretty light pressure, but she didn’t back. I applied a little more pressure. Still nothing.

Several minutes had passed and I continued to increase the pressure until I was not only pulling with my hands, but was also leaning backward in order to get more leverage. If I had to guess, I’d say I was applying just under my total body weight—all seventy pounds of it—to the bit, and she was applying just under seventy-one pounds of pressure back.

This had gone on for quite some time before I started to get tired and my hands began to hurt. I finally had to give in and release the pressure. I laid the reins over the saddle horn and looked at the creases in both hands that the reins had caused.

“Dang,” I said, as I began rubbing my hands together to smooth out the creases. “You are one hard-mouthed son-of-a- . . .”

“How’s it going?” I suddenly heard the old man say from behind me.

Startled, I quickly stopped rubbing my hands together, picked up the reins, and turned the mare in his direction.

“Fine,” I blurted. “It’s going good.”

“How’s she working for you?”

“No problems,” I said, as I forced a smile and reached down to pet the mare on the neck.

“I see,” he nodded. “Whatcha working on?”

“Working on?” I caught myself unconsciously rubbing my hands together, trying to get rid of the ever-growing burning sensation in my palms. “Oh, we’re just . . . I thought I’d try and . . .”

“Get her to stand still?”

“Huh?”

“Stand still,” he said, as he lifted his foot and propped it on the bottom rail. “I noticed that the two of you have been standing in one spot for quite a while. Are you working on getting her to stand still?”

“Well, yeah. I guess. Kind of.”

The old man slowly nodded his head and seemed to be thinking about something. He ran his hand slowly across his chin and finally leaned both elbows on the top rail of the round pen.

“I believe she’s got it,” he said, with a slow nod of his head.

“Huh?”

“Standing still.” He pointed nonchalantly at the mare. “I believe she’s standing pretty well.”

“Oh, yeah,” I agreed knowingly. “She’s doing that pretty well now.”

“Probably should think about working on something else then,” he said. “Seeing as how she’s standing so well for you and all.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I guess I’ll work on some transitions.”

“You could do that, I suppose.

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