Most people would not say this. Well, most horse people would not say this. Most therapy horses are donated to programs due to their flaws or their age (or both). The show ring and the hunter course aren't always forgiving on older bodies, nomatter how willing the spirit may be. Trots are no longer symmetrical. There might be a hitch here and there. They may have grown sluggish, or unwilling to move faster. They may not like to be saddled, they may have started cribbing on wood, they may have stopped eating, or become obsessed with eating.
So they come to us, sometimes a little overweight or underweight, or off on the right front at the canter. Some of them have forgotten how to bend and flex their backs, their hindquarters. Some of them never learned the fundamentals, some of them refuse to remember.
Cantering Bunny around the arena has been both a source of pain for me and a source of great pride. She had been sluggish and out of practice, unhappy with riders and riding. I figure, at the end of the day, all horses just need to move. They are built for that, it's in their blood. Like any natural athlete, when fitness falls to the wayside, they start to get sad.
Bunny's canter was hesitant. We started at a jog-trot, then I pushed for her to extend. I began to post (rise and fall with the leg on the wall) as she found a little more momentum. We rounded the south end of the outdoor arena, and I sat deep in the seat of the saddle. I lifted my inside rein, applied my outside leg, and made a kiss/hiss with my mouth.
My legs are long, which makes cueing relatively easy. When my leg moves slightly, horses really feel it, feel my weight shift or my seat engage. It's my own sort of advantage in a world of 5-foot nothing riders. So, when I asked once, I knew she'd know what I was telling her with all that body language. Bunny flicked her ears back at me, and her trot got lightning fast.
I asked again, and again, and again with my legs and my hands and my voice. Bunny was trotting so fast and breathing so hard trying to avoid cantering that I knew she had it in her. She was just out of practice, and feeling lazy.
I reached behind me, and slapped her rump and growled. That did it - quite literally, this fast-trotting mare bounded up into a nasty canter that threw my hips out of alignment as my seat, upperbody, and legs fought to keep her balanced. We went about 15 strides before she broke back down into the trot.
She's gotten better, I'll admit. Bunny canters now without a crop, a growl, or even a hard cue. She rushes into the transition a little bit, but I'm hard pressed to complain. My hips now sit level in the saddle, paralell to the horizon, and though I still have to really work to get her to bend around the corners without crashing into a fence or cutting straight across, she goes and goes and goes. Today we cantered 2 complete laps - her ears forward, her body pushing from behind.
I look at these angel horses and marvel as they tolerate screaming clients, balls being thrown at their faces by excited children, clumsy volunteers cinching up their girths too tightly. Some of them bite when a rider gets too wiggly - but they'd never buck or rear to put that person in danger. They have a voice, in their way. They have a look when they're scared, when they're relaxed, when they're unsure, when they're very happy. They wear it in their walk, their head carriage, their ease of transition from faster paces to slower paces to standstills.
When a horse is really happy, they listen.
Therapy horses taught me that the happiest souls are those with their ears always searching for input, and their bodies stretching, bending, and moving.
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