Horse Topics

In this month’s column, I want to talk about what you do when one spouse is horse crazy and the other one thinks they are just plain crazy!

We’ve all met those couples. The wife is horse crazy and the husband thinks the whole sport is nutty or it is the husband who spends all his free time in the barn and the wife doesn’t understand the attraction to smelly animals that slobber on you every chance they get!

When I first met my husband, I knew that he had no experience around horses and didn’t have any particular feelings about them, one way or the other. I saw that as an advantage because he didn’t hate them yet. In order to encourage his interest, I invested in a secret weapon (mint flavored Tic Tacs). I had little boxes of those things all over my house so that when he came for a visit, I was ready. I would invite him down to the fence line and ask him to shake the plastic box that the tic tacs come in. Since all the horses knew what that was, he could stand safely outside the field fence, shake the little plastic container and a whole herd of horses would come charging to see him and they would happily stay at that fence line as long as he was willing to provide the little mint treats. Of course, I taught him first how to feed with a flat hand (last thing you want to do is have him lose some fingers!)

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For starters, they’re beautiful and graceful and a bit mysterious. But there’s more to it than that.

Riding a horse is freedom, power, and speed. It’s sitting high above the world, looking down. And when a girl has a special horse who thinks she’s special too, it’s a friendship and a bond that no human relationship can match.

Some people feel power and freedom by driving a fast car - or a huge truck. But to control a powerful animal who has a mind of its own and can choose to obey or not obey, is a feeling beyond description. You know that the key to success is your trust in the horse, and his trust in you.

When you learn to communicate with a horse and gain his willing cooperating, you’ve accomplished something not everyone can do.

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