A Horse Education at Zaytuna Farm

The author with Star
Photos: Erik Klockemann

Ever since the rise of the combustion engine, horses have had less and less utility on the modern farm. Anything a horse can do, a tractor, car or ATV can do and many will argue that they can do it faster and better. So the existence of the horse in our modern world has mostly dwindled to a romantic symbol. Now horses are trained for horse shows, rides on the beach and mock rodeos. So why keep horses?

In a conventional production based system, power tools may always win out, but in a holistic permaculture system, I would argue that horses still have their advantages. Although machines might win at straight competition, a horse has certain plasticity to it that I find desirable. You can have a horse perform multiple functions such as pulling carts or plows, taking you for a ride to town or herding cattle; whatever you train them for. Plus they can do it all fueled off of grass, which they leave behind as manure. This is opposed to machines that burn fossil fuels and leave behind toxic fumes. In general, they are cheaper as well; you can raise your own if you want. And if you had to choose, which would you rather spend the day with: a noisy, stinking tractor or a horse? I would choose the horse. Of course, this all depends on how you’ve trained your horse, which is an art that few know today. For this reason, I jumped at the opportunity to help train the two horses at Zaytuna Farm.

Training a horse isn’t as easy as buying a car, which is another reason people don’t choose to work with them. It is not instant gratification and it is not convenient. It’s like growing a garden; it takes time but once you’ve got it going, it will give back tenfold. But the art of training these animals, like the horse itself, has been reduced to tales of horse whispering for most. Even people who work with horses everyday don’t always have the understanding to train those horses properly. Many just focus on riding, but in actuality, “riding is only ten per cent of the equation, and learning to be a true horseman or horsewoman is ninety per cent” (38)*. Then more just don’t care to understand the horse, which leads to training being twisted into breaking, which is very different — just like how conventional farmers prefer to spend copious amounts of energy breaking the natural systems. However, if we work with these natural systems, it not only becomes easier, your relationship will become more productive. And what you are really dealing with when training a horse is your relationship with it.

I come from a small cattle town on the Big Island of Hawaii. From a young age I have interacted with horses and cattle. I also took riding lessons for many years. So I was pretty comfortable around horses, but I had no knowledge or experience training horses when I got to Zaytuna Farm. I was also working with a WWOOFer named Zach, whose family trained horses when he was young. Zach was much more prepared. However, neither of us were fully ready. So Geoff Lawton gave us a book to read called Through the Eyes of The Horse, by Carlos Tabernaberri. This book was the greatest influence on our training of the horses.

Tabernaberri has developed a ”philosophy of working with horses, instead of a method” (31). This philosophy can be likened to that of Permaculture. Relationship is of utmost importance; how one element interacts with another. This decides every decision we make. How does a dam effect a water flow or how does a chicken interact with a garden? Perhaps the most important is our own relationship with these natural elements. Likewise, Tabernaberri believes, “…the best tool you can have is your relationship with your horse.” (83)

To have an effective relationship you must be an effective leader for your horse to follow. This does not mean ‘show the horse whose boss’. It’s about gaining the trust, obedience and respect needed to guide your horse effectively. Carlos has an acronym for it: CCKL = TOR; Confidence, Consistency and Kindness makes an effective Leader, which will gain Trust, Obedience and Respect from the horse.

Confidence is the ability to act without hesitation; consistency is the predictable delivery of the confidence and kindness; and kindness is giving the horse what it needs to figure things out. When I read this concise description of leadership, I immediately saw it to be true. Every great leader I have ever interacted with has had these traits; and I have given them, without exception, TOR. But you need all three. Who is going to follow someone who is noticeably scared or someone who doesn’t reward you for your efforts or someone who lets you do something one day but then yells at you the next? So I quickly adopted the development of this kind of relationship as my goal.

This understanding of leadership has to be discovered through observation, which is in itself a crucial part of horsemanship. We must take the time to understand what is happening before we attempt to change it. “Before you can get a horse to recognize and understand your requests, you must first understand how a horse learns,” Tabernaberri says. Tabernaberri teaches the reader general traits of how horses learn. The first, of which I have already mentioned, is leadership. Horses learn through the pecking order of the herd. Dominant horses will also utilize CCKL to teach other horses. The other three are conditioning, visual learning, and pressure and release.

Like all animals, horses also learn through conditioning. If you’re mounting a horse and he starts walking off and you let him, you have just began to condition that response in him (19). Horses also learn from seeing other horses doing something. They will become more comfortable after seeing another do it first. The most important of these three, though, is pressure and release, “…horses do not learn through pressure, but through the release of pressure,” which is seen by the approach and retreat habits that horses exhibit when investigating a new object (14). This means that you should never make your horse feel trapped. They need the freedom to learn in their own time.

I learned a lot from just reading Tabernaberri’s book, but without the practical experience of training a horse, this knowledge would mean little. Luckily, we had two horses to train. This required us to observe the specifics of these horses’ personalities. The first was a speckled grey Arabian half breed pony named Shadia and the second was a chestnut mare named Star. It is important to realize that these are two very different horses. Shadia is young (about 4 years of age), friendly and energetic, whereas Star is old, shy, nervous and reserved. Clearly, Shadia is the dominant one in this group and was actually much easier to work; however, she had no previous training. It was a great opportunity to start from scratch. Therefore, our goal was to train her to the best of our ability. Star had been trained, but due to a bad experience, she became unrideable. Apparently this was why she was given to Zaytuna Farm. Since there was no person familiar with horses, she was left pretty much alone. With her, our goal was merely to rehabilitate her to human interactions.

Star is an old horse and although she may never be ridden again, it is our responsibility to take care of her. For us to do this, she needs to be comfortable with us, so we spent time working with her. Whenever Shadia was being lunged, Star was being groomed. We started with grooming for two reasons: she needed to get a major clean (her coat was very matted and unkempt) and it was an easy first step for her to become used to us. It may seem small and insignificant, but as Carlos says, “reduce the stress, and increase the learning, by breaking your training into small segments” (31). And these must be steps that your horse is ready for because “it’s the horse that matters” (10). Star was ready to be groomed, but not ready for much more, so we groomed her. Plus it is, actually, an important part of working with a horse; you need to be able to touch them everywhere. For example, Star had two big ticks on her nose. We needed to get them out, but she wouldn’t let us touch her nose. This was a problem that needed to be amended. After a couple of weeks she finally became comfortable enough to let us pull them out. In the end, I was very pleased with our progress with Star. We were able to fully bathe her and we even got a saddle on her. I also worked with her a little bit with flexing her neck and lowering her head. She did both fairly well. But above all, she now trusted Zach and me and that was a huge improvement.

Shadia

Shadia, as I said before, was very friendly from the start and definitely wasn’t afraid of us. She did have her issues, though, as all horses do. She had trouble focusing on us and didn’t like being told what to do. The first issue was just a matter of grabbing her attention anytime she became distracted via swinging or tossing the lead rope or just raising one’s energy level as Tabernaberri instructs. The latter had more potential for disaster as her responses sometimes came in the form of a bite or a kick. Since Zach mostly worked with Shadia, he was on the receiving end of these responses; luckily no kick ever landed on him. In this situation, a quick response from the trainer is crucial. One time Shadia nipped Zach’s hand and he immediately tapped her chin; a quick cause and effect, making it easy for her to relate the bite to the tap. We never would retaliate to the point of causing her pain. According to Tabernaberri, this is important because we look like predators. By causing the horse pain, “we only prove to the horse that we are as dangerous as we appear, and can’t be trusted” (20). Sometimes this can be difficult, however. So again, Tabernaberri suggests raising your energy. I learned the effectiveness of this strategy first hand with Shadia. Although Zach did most of the work with Shadia, there was a week where he was needed elsewhere, and so I was mostly on my own. I was trying to get Shadia to yield her forequarters, something she is notably bad at, and not having her on a lead, she started walking away. I raised my energy level, which I did by making myself larger, putting out a hand and walking with vigor to block her off (you can do this in a number of ways including making noise or twirling a rope, but the most important part is that you feel energized). Suddenly, she took off on a voluntary lunge around me. This taught me a vital lesson about horses’ sensitivity to our energy.

We managed to teach Shadia a good amount of the basic groundwork. Zach even managed to desensitize her to the saddle pad, which took a while. I would also say she trusted and obeyed us. She would always come running up to me when I went to bring her in for training. However, we never did finish with her groundwork as the decision was made to have her taken to a trainer who lived nearby. At first, this was not to my liking. I had become attached to Shadia and I was concerned about the new trainer’s methods. When she came to pick up Shadia, which required desensitizing Shadia to the trailer, I thought she relied too heavily on her whip; a tool that Tabernaberri does not like. It wasn’t until after I had left Zaytuna Farm that I was able to go and visit Shadia. At that point, I revised my judgement of the trainer, whose name is Cathy Ryan.

Besides the use of a bit and whip, Cathy’s style is based on much the same philosophy as Tabernaberri’s, leadership being of the utmost importance. Cathy has been to one of Tabernaberri’s workshops but she follows Pat Parelli primarily, who is another great horse trainer. I can see that she has had quite good success with Shadia, who now demonstrates thorough trust, obedience and respect for Cathy. Zaytuna Farm is lucky to have someone nearby that knows what they are doing. Now Shadia is able to be ridden. She is very responsive and can be easily led without a halter. She can flex her neck perfectly and hold it. Like Cathy says “she is as light as a feather,” moving to every command without hesitation. From what I saw on that day the whip was used in the most effective of ways. I can see what Tabernaberri means that when used too heavily, “instead of the horse giving the right response he gives a reaction,” based on instinct. However, with Shadia, who could handle a heavier hand, it worked out well. Also, Cathy barely used it when I was there and Shadia can be guided easily without it. Shadia will progress far with Cathy. She will remain there for another two months. Visiting Cathy and Shadia was also another great learning experience for me. It exposed me to another trainer’s methods and I learned some new techniques.

I have had a good beginning to my horse education at Zaytuna Farm, but that is all it was; a beginning. I can’t wait to have my own horses. In the meantime, I have learned skills that I can apply to any relationship. I feel far more capable of confidence, consistency and kindness than ever. Whereas I was nervous before about working with people and animals, I now feel I have gained a strength. Not only does the horse offer an alternative to our fossil fuel burning machines, it also offers to teach us about our interpersonal relationships with all creatures, including people. This is very important because now more than ever, we need effective relationships.

*Reference numbers correlate to pages in the following book:

• Tabernaberri, Carlos. Through the Eyes of the Horse. West Footscray, Victoria, Australia: Moonrise Media, 2006.