Sitting Deep

We were watching a 2006 YouTube meme of a deaf-mute girl, Stacy Westfall riding at a horse show sans saddle and bridle. It's pretty amazing piece of showmanship given the amount of time she had to work with the horse—only three weeks. (Plus her double handicap.)

The video highlights Stacy's integrity as a rider and a trainer, and her ability to get the horse to trust her. Pure obedience. Being at one with the horse. 

That got me to thinking. It seems I can't observe anything without analyzing it. Where most people would go OMG, OMG! I was analyzing it as a fellow rider. And weighing in. No sentimental claptrap here. 

Then it came to me that the particular skillset required to be an exceptional equestrian or trainer was the power of observation. Phillip (that lover of horses) was vexed that his prize Bucephalus was untamable. Phillip's son, Alexander the Great, noticed that the horse was afraid of his own shadow. So he turned the horse toward the sun, and was able to mount him. In order to be able to read horses, sometimes you just have to turn toward the sun.

The horse the deaf-mute girl's riding is a good, honest hard-working quarterhorse. Babydoll stops true and square on her slides—that makes the quarterhorse justly famous (think of when a cowboy ropes a cow and the horse sits back on its haunches and comes to a screeching halt). Babydoll is evenly spaced on her rollbacks in both directions. (I'll explain that term later). 

Babydoll switches her leads (changes her front legs from left to right at a gallop) like a dream—what we used to call a pushbutton horse. However, it's all done with the shifting of your weight and subtle leg commands, which are dressage signals that date back to before the founding of Rome—no voice commands are needed. 

What the audience also doesn't know, of course, is that the girl using the horse's mane like reins to signal the horse. You can see her gather the mane up like reins, and then pick it up. Those are rein signals. The horse is listening to those commands. Watch her ears.

However, the critical rider in me noted that Stacy's seat was a little off. A seat is how you physically sit on the horse, and balance is critical. Your posture (back) changes depending on the horse's gait. Like leaning into a curve on a bicycle. You can tell that Stacy usually rides in a saddle. No matter, it's all very impressive riding. 

Stacy needs to sit down a little deeper, drop her heels down, keep her toes pointed up and forward, not hanging loose like that, then she'll be truly at one with the horse. You can see she's a little off balance, leaning a little too forward. And if the horse ever decided to turn suddenly, of her own accord... Makes you hold your breath in fear.

Believe it or not, I used to do that sort of thing too—ride sans saddle or bridle. It wasn't particularly difficult if you grew up on horseback and had no saddle to begin with, let alone a foam and canvas saddlepad with hokey stirrups you couldn't trust as the pad would slip around the horse if you put more weight on one side versus the other. Riding at a right angle to the horse at half-mast always concluded with meeting the ground head-on. 

I also have a dent in my skull where my horse misinterpreted one voiceless command. Chiquita, a rescue horse, was my first horse. I spent all my free time on her bony back—she was older than dirt. I had no saddle. 

The siren call to a friend's barn, and she took a shortcut up the other unused driveway at a full gallop and I went sailing straight ahead as she turned right—I was doing a kneeling liberty spread with my knees cradled in the hollow of her withers and backbone (what was I thinking?) We'd done it many times before, but when she did an exit, stage right, well... I was cocky, oversure. Mistake. Talk about crossed wires. I was lucky I didn't get a concussion.

When I was young, I wanted to grow up to be a Lippizanner, or maybe Bucephalus. I knew were every Flying A gas station with the red flying horse was, I could recite Pegasus's lineage.  I knew all the stages of horses from eohippus to equus. I was that kind of horse-crazy for all things horses. 

Horses were my link to the world, to my emotions—my heart. I, who had been pawned off onto my grandmother after my grandfather's death by my mother who wanted to follow her dream of show biz. I was a fragile child but I hid it beneath a tough carapace. I became mute. Horses were my Beatrice, my way out of the seventh ring of hell. They offered me succor and solace. They are the ultimate empaths.

I used to work as a rider for Edie Lehman, at Rafter L Ranches training stable so I rode a lot of horses and Edie gave me lessons that were based on dressage and feeling the horse with your legs—thigh and calf communication to the front of the girth meant one thing, to the back of the girth, to turn or move sideways. 

The heel command was rarely used unless the horse was lazy or not "listening" to your leg commands. It was always a matter of body over voice. Every nuance of leg and shifting of weight, was a specific signal. Watch a dressage horse in action.

True, we used reins and saddle, sometimes the arena wall—especially in practicing rollbacks. I'd gallop full speed straight toward the corrigated wall, and signal with my legs for Bart, a big-boned bay horse from Minnesota, to suddenly switch gears and roll either right or left. It was always harrowing and exciting practicing rollbacks. 

Then, the real test was that I had to do it again for Edie, a rollback in the middle of the arena. No walls to help you. If Bart was lazy, he'd overshoot the mark. That's why we did a lot of wall practice, to teach him to slide into the wall, and rear left or right, twisting over his hind legs that were skidding toward the wall. He was a big horse. 

This is a maneuver better suited for dainty Arabians and chunky quarterhorses quick on their feet, not a Big Mack truck of a horse who stood 16 plus hands tall. But Bart was tough. He survived Minnesota winters. He didn't DO mollycoddling or barns. The first six years he was in California, be never even bothered to grow a winter coat.

 It's funny how dropping your heels and lifting your toes up and parallel improves your seat and balance—not at an angle like that (sure, when we rode our own horses dinkering around on fireroads we all slouched like that) but NEVER in the arena when riding professionally. I guess that's what it is, sitting deep. I like that idea. Sitting deep.

Horse Chestnuts

If I hadn't met Sweet Old Bob, if I hadn't gone to Europe for the summer of my 19th year, I would've been Edie Lehman's permanent rider. We were showing quite a bit locally and I was supposed to show horses for Rafter L Ranches at the California State fair in Sacramento.

But first love, and Europe beckoned. Edie said, Well, have a nice life. It didn't quite work out that way. But how was I to know?

I was always pretty good rider, having worked my way up via all sorts of sundry ungulates. Donkeys, ponies, Mr. Smits, the runty steer, and any ornery horse that no one else wanted to ride, as I didn't have one of my own—so I was the local charity case. 

When I was about 12, Nick Kobseff and my aunt Canice saved Chiquita, a bright bay horse with a long back, long enough for three skinny girls to climb aboard—from the glue factory. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven—no matter that my MOTHER used to ride her as a girl!

Chiquita was originally from the defunct Lagunitas livery stable at Speck McAuliffe's Lagunitas Lodge—my family used to winter-board their horses. Baby Snooks was another livery war veteran who lived down the road. I remember him, but never rode him—we've photos of my mom and aunt with him. Big temperamental fellah. Mean too. He’d grab your shoulder in his jaws and shake you like a rat. Like Brandy, the Tennessee saddlebred who lived at Rautio’s place.

My grannie said that her father, Michael Walsh in Bantry, was something of a horse whisperer. So I guess it runs in the family. Certainly the love of horses ran deep.

In those days, there were few people with horse trailers out in the valley, so the old horses tended to circulate from family to family like old coinage. Sometimes a neighbor needed to borrow a "lawnmower" to mow down the spring grass before it became a fire hazard. And if the horse decided he liked his new digs better, he often stayed on. That's how I wound up with an extra pony or two. Nobody in town wanted our old horses. No papers, long in tooth, not a prestige kind of thing.

Owning horses was a habit that died harder for some than for others. Old Pete, one of the last cowboys, who used to take care of all those livery horses when my aunts and uncles were kids, out of long habit, kept a strawberry roan named Lightfoot, in a lean-to on the old railroad bed next to the Tanzis in Lagunitas.

Old Pete'd slouch down on that even older roan gelding and ride into Forest Knolls to the local watering hole, the Forest Knolls Lodge. Pete could roll a cigarette one-handed. He must've been a rodeo cowboy at one point—he had a showy tooled saddle and bridle with reins trimmed with silver rings.

After the bars closed, the old horse always got Pete home to his shiny silver slipstream trailer parked in the greasewood behind Speck McAuliffe's bar—why he didn't drink at Speck's was a mystery. But that bar was within waking distance—not that Pete walked much—bis legs were too bowed. Maybe the ride was the thing.

Don't know if the old roan horse had to sleep in his saddle and bridle after he delivered Old Pete to his doorstep after a night on the town or if Pete took care of the horse on auto-pilot. You could say we grew up at the end of an era. Horsecrazy came with the turf.

I used to win all the trick riding at the local gymkhanas—spear rings with a lance at a full gallop, dollar race—you had to do all these maneuvers bareback with a dollar under your knee. Last one standing sort of thing. Piece a cake for me as I usually rode bareback as I couldn't afford a saddle.

We did slaloms with poles, barrel racing, and other odd things too—keyhole, relay races, Totally forgot about all that stuff. We were insane little kids. No fear.

One year, I got all fired up by the trick riders at the Grand National—my aunt Jane took me the first year, I saved up all my pennies to go each year—getting into as many events as possible. But, one small difference, they use saddles, saddlepads, or circingles for a reason! Something to grab onto. I didn't get that part. Couldn't afford it.

I was working my way up to a full liberty stand at a full gallop up the Stone’s driveway, sans saddlepad, of course. The horse made an exit, stage right, I went sailing forward. Trajectory became a real concept. It cut my trick riding career short. Also put a dent in my skull.

Supporting a horse on babysitting money at 25 cents an hour was a tough proposition—as things did go wrong. There was the annual worming, and shoeing—I rarely had enough money for that—my horses often went barefoot. Then you had to buy winter feed—horses couldn't survive on grass year round. It all added up. Colic was a real killer. I was in debt to my veterinarian until I was in my 20s—long after the last horse died.

My canny horses had overdeveloped upper lips—practically the same thing as opposable thumbs—they could untie ropes and slip padlock hinges with bolts too. The horses and ponies were regular little Houdinis—especially the ponies. They loved to go on midnight raids. Kept me busy. (At one point I had four ravenous ponies full of themselves).

They would get into my garbage cans that I had converted into feed bins—that's where I kept the oats and molasses pellets. Nothing excites a horse more than the tiny pitter-patter of oats falling into a bucket.

Even the deer joined in to raid my precious feed stash. Sometimes I'd find all my haybales gotten into during the night, turned into vast swirly nests—with all the grain at the epicenter, gone.

So I wrapped the hay in tarps laden with booby traps and stuck long spike nails through rims of the garbage cans but the critters would work the nails loose. It was clearly a challenge the were up to. Game on.

At least the rattling trashcans falling over in the middle of the night was an early warning signal. If the horses overate, I'd have to walk them a bit. Luckily nobody ever foundered—they'd get niacin flush sweats from eating too much grain, and became champion fartists from all the excess gas, but at least they didn't explode.

I finally moved the feed to our basement for safekeeping, That worked out swimmingly for a while—even if it meant it was a longer trek to the corral. Until Chiquita decided to help herself to a little early breakfast. Which meant she not only had escaped from the corral, she had gotten the basement door open too with those prehensile lips. The basement was a real mess, as she'd broken open several bales of hay and fluffed it all up into a billowing sea of hay.

Winky the cat loved to perch on Chiquita's back when she was grazing, so he thought this was an unusual opportunity to hang out with his friend. Well, he jumped up on her back, and she KNEW she wasn't supposed to be in the basement, so she started bucking. Busted by the cat.

I nearly peed my pants, I was laughing so hard. Winky was a little perplexed. He'd never been bucked off a horse before—so, of course, he held on with his claws like a champion bull rider, which merely upped the ante.

I thought the horse was going to kick the basement windows out. Shelves on books went flying this way and that as she squealed and took off for the corral with the cat on her back, clamped on tighter than a tick, his head weaving like a seasick bobble toy while he was planning his exit. He never dreamed he could travel that fast. It took them a long while to patch up their friendship.

What my grannie didn't know was that Chiquita loved coming in the house to say hello and maybe swipe a drink from the kitchen sink. Or browse the sugar bowl, or the fruit bowl on the table. So I guess the basement raid was an extension of that. My horse clearly made house calls.

She was a very curious horse, taking it all in. You could just see her gears working. So this is their corral. She walked cautiously, crouched down like a slinky cat. She picked up her hooves funny as if she was walking in a creekbed, as each step resounded like a hollow drum on the tiled floor. Kathump, thump, thump. She kept her head down with her ears splayed cautiously, as the ceiling was a little too low for her liking.

One time she popped her head into the front door, saw us on the couch and ambled in for a visit. She lipped the newspapers on the table, nosed the teapot, cursilory sniffed at the couches, and decided to explore the rest of the house. The bedrooms didn't interest her, but the bathroom, like the kitchen, was worthy of deeper exploration. She was on a mission.

It was late summer, we always saved our bathwater to dump it down the toilet as the spring ran low, come August. Of course, she thought that too was for her! Unfortunately it was the culmination of three people's conjoined weekly baths: My grannie, me, and my brother. Very brothy. She took a slurp and realized she couldn't back out. It took some negotiating as the bathroom was the size of a single horse trailer.

I don't think Chiquita quite knew she was a horse. She was very gentle and very curious about how we lived. It could've been because of her advance age, that she was so calm and we could do things with her that you wouldn't dream of doing with an any other horse. Or she was just unusual.

When I think back—she could've freaked out in the bathroom and done some real damage. How would I ever explain why there was a horse stuck in the tub? Or get her out if she broke a leg? No way to get a crane in the bathroom to hoist her out.

There just ain't any amount of creative lying strong enough to ameliorate that one. I eventually got busted when she stepped on the front doorstoop and it tore off. I tried nailing it back on with spikes but it was skewed at an angle.

My old friend, Chiquita eventually died at an advanced age—she must've been 35 or more. She just laid down in the middle of her dinner hay pile and went to sleep. Frost had settled on her during the night, and steam rose from in the morning but she was cold. No breath. No amount of nudging from Winky the cat would rouse her. The glue factory knackers got her after all. I was devastated. 

The old adage, if you get thrown from a horse, the only cure is to get back on the horse. In my case, a different horse. To ameliorate my grief, a neighbor bought me another horse from the Olema Stables. Becky Dart, a bright sorrel penny who was related to Dart Bar and the famous thoroughbred, Three Bars. She had Preakness and Derby winners on both sides. A real hotrod—not like Chiquita.

She was the fastest horse in the San Geronimo Valley at the quarter mile. We rode like the wind down the old railroad bed through Samuel P. Taylor Park. Always bareback. All that fire and muscles churning under my thighs.

My second horse died the summer before I went to Europe. It would've killed me to have to sell my mare. Selling the ponies was easy—they were such little monsters—always getting out and into trouble. But my mare was like a sister I never had.

Becky Dart was in spring pasture—at a neighbor's field. The Bianchi's. I checked on her after school and she was fine. But I had a hunch something was wrong and went back to check on her after dinner and found her down and sweating. Nothing should've gone wrong, but it did.

Becky Dart (my last horse)—she died of colic—that's how I hooked up as Edie Lehman's rider. She died in Edie's arena—after a long, violent struggle. 

I walked that horse for 18 hours straight, but she'd twisted her colon—most likely it had ruptured, peritonitis had set in, and she was going insane rearing up and throwing herself all over the place. Bashing into walls. Screaming uneathrly cries that tore you asunder. No way to save her. We had to put her down. A long needle to the heart. I couldn't watch. It devastated me.

Working with Edie at the training stables eased the pain and loss a bit. But I never got attached to them—except maybe Namûn, the Arab gelding. When you have so much horse, there's so much more to love. I never wanted to be that close to a horse again. 

Sweet Old Bob was a real SOB, but I didn't yet know it. It would take me nearly seven years to get the lesson right. I vowed to never let a man get between me and my horses again. Besides, horses are always a better ride.