Human-Horse Communication
Wednesday, 25 October 2000
Today's lesson was pretty uneventful. There were three of us (all male class - you don't see that every day!). For a change there was a more advanced rider amongst us so I was not in front. Yeeesssss!
I was given Paloma again, I took her from her stall and into the arena. As I was waiting for the rest of the class I entertained myself by patting her. After a while she turned her head towards me and nudged me in way I interpreted as "You're really not that bad... You're a lousy rider but - deep down - you're an OK human!". Proving the pitfalls of trying to interpret the thinking of our fellow animals, the yellowish smudge on my t-shirt clearly demonstrated her thought process to be more of the kind of "Oh goodie! A white handkerchief to wipe this snot on... aaahhh, that felt good!".
When everybody was present and accounted for we started to work, mostly on the rising trot, a little on the sitting trot without stirrups and a bit of canter at the end. This time I was able to get about half of the posting smooth (wouldn't say it was exactly right, but I bet Fofinha was happier). I would lose the cadence after a while, get it back, loose it again and on and on... I'll get there, eventually! The trot without stirrups went just fine, I was able to kept my behind on the saddle just by relaxing (slow trot I guess), so it was easy to practice the movement of the lower back. The little canter we did was enough for me to realise that I still bitch endlessly with the stirrups when going from the trot to canter - probably something to do with the fact that my position is all over the place.
During all of the lesson the only problem was keeping Paloma from following the front horse all the time. The student in front had to stop a few times in the centre to adjust something (I was too busy arguing with Paloma to notice what it was). In the end my tactic was to make her leave the "track" and do the corners squarely, so I would keep her on her... I was going to say "toes", but it would be pretty good horsemanship to keep the horse on anything other than her toes 
. Each time we did the corners in a different way she became (for a few minutes) more attentive to the reins and would not follow the track (and the other horse) without my active guidance. But she was not the only one in autopilot. Once, after we had made one larger turn to show her "who the boss was", I got distracted with something - trusting she would carry on track by herself. Of course she didn't and we ended up facing the far wall! She might have thought I was testing her (I sure hope that that was what the other students thought I was doing! 
).
After the lesson we helped the instructor (and stable owner) to feed the horses (fifteen plus one pony). The lesson had started with some delay, so I guess the horses where happy there were four humans doing the rounds instead of just one. One of the last to be fed was a mare the instructor suspects might me pregnant. It seems she was serviced by a stallion - by "accident", according to the instructor. From the stallion's point of view "bloody miracle" might be a better description! I guess the human version of "accidental pregnancy" had nothing to do with it "Honey, do you remember last week when they let us into the paddock? And we fooled around when they were not looking? Well... I hadn't taken the pill then. Looks like you're going to be a daddy!... Honey, are you all right?".
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal
