It Depends… By Kris Garrett “It Depends…” are words that live in a world of gray. The left-brained, analytical side of me hates gray. Black and white makes sense and is easy to visualize. Black and white represents yes and no, good and bad, always and never. But gray? Well, it depends…. I asked Tom a lot of questions yesterday. Too often his answer was, “it depends.” It got to be somewhat of a joke, so a snicker and a grin often preceded his words. I found myself giggling just about the time my question left my lips, instantly knowing what two-word answer was about to be floated back across the arena dust. When the skills you’re hoping to learn depend on so many diverse factors, they can be tricky for the mind to grasp. I figure that’s why, after watching Tom work horses for several months, I’m just now starting to comprehend the big picture regarding what he’s been trying to get me and his other clients to understand about the minds of horses. A few dozen horses and a tall stack of videotapes later, I’m just starting to recognize the power of his work. And I really do mean just starting. The more I learn, the more I realize that I need to learn. I’m a novice, a baby, a slab of cold wet clay waiting to be molded. I humbly admit that hanging out with horses on a daily basis for the past 45 years has not made me a true horsewoman. But at least now I know that I don’t know. I grovel at my Master’s feet. My cup is empty. There is no better, and in reality - no other, place to begin. Predator and prey. Those words are fairly black and white. Horses are prey animals and humans are predators. No secret there. But how does a human predator step fully into the mind of the prey animal so we can understand what they are thinking? Many people believe they can do this through the intellect. Our big human brains have enough computing power to analyze the evidence and figure out, almost without fail, how a horse is going to react to the specific stimulus we offer. Many people call this “whispering,” and have hung their shingle on the doorway of understanding without fully entering the building. At my encouragement, a good friend agreed to let Tom help her with her lovely and very sensitive half-Andalusian mare. I could tell my buddy was a little hesitant, but she trusts me and let me set it up. I promised to film the event, no charge. Just let me be there. I figured her concern might be because Tom is not a dressage rider and has no “level” or fancy credential attached to his name. He doesn’t fit her usual mold of “horse trainer.” He’s a quiet, self-assured Eastern Plains rancher, usually found in a dusty feedstore baseball cap and blue jeans. He prefers the company of mules to that of horses. I assured her there was little chance that Tom would actually ride the horse so there was no worry that he didn’t understand her style of training. Riding was not the point. I’ve known this gal for over ten years, and I have always been impressed with her riding skills. She’s had tons of formal instruction in dressage and jumping, as well as the natural sensitivity that allows her to be light with her hands and kind to the horse. She rode my horses for many years, helping me keep them fit while her own were still at her folk’s ranch, a mountain range away. My Andalusian mare, Lumina, consistently trotted up to the gate whenever her car pulled into the driveway. This spoke volumes to me. If my horse liked to be ridden by her, she certainly had passed the hardest test I could offer. It ‘s clear to me now that good technical riding instruction and years in the saddle do not always equate to a good equestrian experience. The lovely and talented mare my friend recently purchased has had tons of training, but like so many Iberian horses, is incredibly sensitive. Educated hands and a quiet seat are not enough for a hyper-alert horse like this. More lunging or roundy-round the arena kicking up dust at an energetic trot is not going to make things better. Neither was sending the mare off to another trainer. No doubt, the horse would benefit and come back with more knowledge, but more of the same kind of training was not going to fix the dangerous crack in the foundation of their personal relationship. The first issue to be healed requires building a strong bridge between my friend and her mare’s very dissimilar minds. That bridge, that understanding, is the basis for everything else. It’s personal. Another trainer showing the horse what kind of horse/human relationship was possible was invaluable. But my friend also needed to reestablish her own position in the relationship. Without that, another trainer’s work would be almost useless. “She’s a piece of popcorn ready to pop,” Tom explained as he held the end of the long leadrope, the float of the rope lying quiet on the ground. His personal energy and his calm voice was as low and relaxed as he could make it. The mare was stock-still in her body, but her eyes were wide and concerned. She was frozen with tension. Tom knew she could blow at any minute, and in any direction. Tom had watched my friend handle her horse before touching the leadrope himself. She moved the horse’s feet, backed her up with a side-to-side shake of the rope, Parelli-game style, and calmly moved the mare’s hind-end away with a waving hand, pivoting around the front legs in a decent turn on the forehand. When she stopped, the mare walked up close and nuzzled her chest. My friend stroked the mare’s soft nose contentedly. Obviously they had great affection for each other. My heart swelled at the touching tableau, recalling my own moments of snuggly affection with my beloved horses. Tom praised my friend for her clarity of the requests. But I knew what was coming next. I’d seen I before. “Your horse just ran over you…” he’d begin. While he didn’t mean it literally, he did mean that the mare’s thoughts, her energy, had just figuratively trampled over my friend. When that mind-set was accompanied by a startle or spook, the horse’s thousand-pounds of flesh and bone most likely WOULD go right over the top of my pal. And for us fragile humans, that could mean severe injury and even death. Tom took the leadrope and began the process of establishing his own personal space. He didn’t do so by become overly protective of himself as much as making a clear decision in his own mind and indication to the mare where a good, quiet , safe place would be established for the horse be. When she was in that space, all pressure from him stopped. If she moved toward him and got in his space, he used just enough energy through his body and the leadrope to make it uncomfortable for her to stay. “She always has the option to leave…” he’d say, over and over again when the horse took a step toward him. “…but she must leave going AWAY from me. And I have to give her enough rope to do it.” Teaching the horse that he or she always has the option of leaving is one of the first foundational pillars of the mind-bridge. Knowing that there’s always an option of a way out that fits the prey animal’s innate need to flee, establishes that first keystone of trust. A hungry wolf would not give the struggling mustang, held tight in his bloody jaws, the option to leave. It would hold on tight and try to make the horse stay in one place until it was dead. If fight and flight are both denied the horse, he’s either going to have to shut down in shock and “die”, or explode beyond the predator’s ability to maintain control. Tom calls it the “door” in the “box.” We put our horses in the “box” when we ask them to let us ride them or otherwise control them. The simple act of picking up a foot to clean it out is a type of putting them in the “box.” We take away a leg, and therefore diminish their ability to flee. We confine them in a box with our reins and seat when we ride, asking them to give up control of their bodies to our every whim. To the horse’s mind, a “door” that allows him the ability to flee must be left open for him to tolerate and submit to our control. Once he realizes that his natural desire for flight is still an option, the beginnings of trust in the human handler take root. The presence of the door is the very thing that gives the horse the ability to not actually need to use the door at all. This perceived trustworthiness and leadership of the handler is what gives the horse the security to willingly stay in the box. Some horses live in the box easily. They rarely, if ever, challenge their rider or handler’s control. But sensitive, insecure horses, like the one my friend now owns, become worse and worse as the box tightens in around them. Harsher bits, tie downs, increased feelings of confinement, and abusive physical punishment only exacerbates the problem. These sensitive horses often end up being sold again and again, many times leaving a long line of injured and frustrated owners in their wake. The mare Tom had at the end of his rope HAD to know that she could leave, that she had the option to escape the human imposed box, or she would continue to escalate to her much more dangerous “fight” behavior. To her mind, she had no other options. Flight or fight. That’s it. Once she realized she could flee if she had to, her mind would then open to a third possibility. Only when she knew that she had the ability to escape, could she calm her own mind enough to confidently hand over leadership to a person who she believed would keep her out of harm's way. By letting her leave when she needed to, Tom assured the mare that she was not trapped. She was able to keep her mind working and make good choices. Leaving doesn’t mean running away and going back to the barn, it means leaving the immediate energy of the stressful situation. If a horse decides to leave, Tom lets him or her go. He couldn’t physically stop them anyway. If the horse continues to leave to the point he or she hits the end of the long leadrope, Tom does not let go of the rope, he simply redirects the horse’s body and changes the direction the horse is going. He may let the horse hit the end of the rope hard, but he doesn’t pull back and hold. This would create a brace or a fight. He may draw hard on the rope to turn the horse’s head so the horse changes direction, but then he releases the pressure and lets the do whatever it takes for the horse to satisfy his need for movement. This adrenaline release lets the horse calm down on his own terms. When he’s ready to look for another option, Tom is still there, quiet and consistent. Tom never snubs the horse tight or demands that he or she stay. He lets them out the “door.” There is one black and white rule to this door in the box. The horse can jump and kick and blow off adrenaline with as much activity as needed as long as the energy is going AWAY from Tom’s personal space. If the horse comes at Tom, he makes himself big by raising his hands and the flapping leadrope toward the animal to say, “Not toward ME!” He uses his own body language and energy as loud as necessary to change the horse’s direction. “I’ll be just as rude to the horse as he is to me,” Tom says. “It may look big and scary, but I have no interest in beating up on the horse, I just want to direct his energy away from my space. He can go any other direction, just not toward me. I make this very clear. I don’t lie to the horse and let him trample me one time but not the next. I’m honest with him. I never lie.” Eventually, the signal to the horses that says, “you’re in my space,” is as subtle as a blink of Tom’s eye or a raising of the energy in his body. Sometimes he lifts the leadrope an inch, changing the weight of the float in the rope. All of these messages are a type of “pressure” that require the horse to think about a response. The smaller the effective signal, the “lighter” the horse. Never does Tom take up contact with the halter and physically push the horse way. “The horse has to be responsible for the decision to move. I don’t move the horse. I give the smallest signal I can to tell the horse to move away from the pressure, and stop asking the moment he decides to do so.” In the beginning, it rarely looks “light.” The horse may not know what to do other than run away. And that’s okay as long as it’s away from Tom’s space. Once the horse uses up the flight adrenaline, Tom goes back to asking him to move his feet to reestablish leadership. He “speaks” in the horse’s own language, which is “he who causes the other guy’s feet to move, is the leader.” Of course, Tom doesn’t always get the answer he’s asking for. He doesn’t make a big deal about it, he calmly starts over wherever they left off. When he gets the answer he’s looking for, he stops asking and waits. It’s the magical moment of nothingness. This release of pressure is where learning really occurs. A lot of time is spent in quiet stillness as the horse “bakes” the new information in his mind. It doesn’t take long before the horse realizes that it feels safer and more comfortable to simply give leadership to the fellow at the other end of the leadrope than it does being hyper-alert and reactive. Tom teaches the horse to FEEL CONFIDENT in him, and therefore safe in letting that him fill the role of dependable leader. His directions are clear and consistent. It’s the very best kind of carrot one can offer a prey animal. A horse who’s trained though fear, force, and suppression of his fight or flight instincts will almost never become a true partner. We’ve all seen those numb, glassy-eyed horses who’ve been forced into submission by violence and domination. They may seem quiet and safe to the untrained eye, but the energy of fight or flight is never truly extinguished. Having submitted and shut down as a way to survive the intense pressure applied by humans is only temporary for most of these poor beasts. If they wake up enough to spot an opportunity that reignites their natural instincts to fight or flee, they can become the most dangerous horses of all. These numb, equine-robots just might be tightly packed kegs of dynamite, waiting for a match. Tom taught the mare that there was a good feeling place to be. Then he asked my friend to take over. The horse obviously liked my friend a great deal, but she just as obviously didn’t respect her as her leader. Not owning that respect caused the mare to lack confidence in her human partner’s ability to keep her safe. So she took on that role herself, becoming more and more hyper-vigilant to protect them both. This looks like spooking and overreacting to the human partner, but it was simple survival instinct to the horse. The realization that our horses don’t respect us tends to hurt us humans, as lack of respect equates to rejection to our human “predator” minds. But to a horse, it’s simply a matter of herd hierarchy and perceptions of safety. Someone needs to be the leader, and if the human is not up to the job, the horse is going to take over. I watched through my camera lens as Tom and my friend took turns “talking” to the mare through alternating requests of movement, and releases of quiet stillness. I could tell my friend was a bit overwhelmed by the shear volume of information she’d been challenged to understand in a short couple of hours. I felt her pain. That’s why I’m videoing Tom any chance I get. He’s not so sure this work will translate well to being shared in books or videos, because each situation and each horse is so different. There’s no pat answer or black and white response that fits every circumstance. “It depends…” is much more common a remark than, “this is what you do…” But after a lifetime of frustration that’s left me wondering where I went wrong with my own imperfect interactions with horses, I’m not about to let this information go unshared. Tom was very resistant at first, but my friend Melanie and I convinced him that not sharing his work was unfair to all the misunderstood horses in the world. Tom may hesitantly tolerate my desire to create media with which to share this work, but he’s certain he’s not interested in being put in a box. I make sure I leave a door wide open where he can stop my camera from rolling at any time. And that open door is why he continues to let me follow him from horse to horse, watching, filming, and learning. Will this collection of “Tom” videos I have stacked on my desk be available to everyone someday? Well, that depends… .