Episode 237: How capable is your horse…really?

Episode 237_ How capable is your horse…really_.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 237_ How capable is your horse…really_.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
For many of us, myself included, we are involved with horses because we love them. We love the lifestyle, we love feeding them, We love cleaning up after them. We love hearing them chew grass. We love hearing them chew hay. There are family members in our life that think we are crazy. We love them. And many times when we approach from love and kindness and the viewpoint that they're dependent on us because they are, you still have to feed them on Thanksgiving and on Christmas and on all the birthdays and holidays. They are dependent on us. But just because they're dependent on us doesn't mean they're like small children.

Speaker2:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Speaker1:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy, and successfully train your own horses. In today's podcast, I'm talking about foals how horses test you asking the question Could you be underestimating your horse? And I'm going to wrap it all together by answering a listener question about working around feeding time. So first, let's start with the full. If you are on my email list, you will have seen some recent pictures and videos of my mini mare's foal. The mare is Latte and the baby is Chai. And it's been a few years since we had a foal. And what it has done is reminded me how amazing horses are. Baby Chai was born and stood up without falling and stood for three hours straight. Baby Chai instantly sees patterns. She explores. She was exploring the entire stall. She was exploring her mom. She was exploring us. It is so fascinating to watch how much they explore immediately. How they see patterns so quickly. She is less than a month old and she tests or explores what her mother will let her do. She tests me. She has laid down the rules with the dog. The dog likes to lick her nose, but if the dog gets too close behind her, the foal has kicked the dog. She tests the cats. She tests other humans. Much like a human child. She puts everything in her mouth.

Speaker1:
Unlike a human child, she's capable of running faster than her mother already. I like to use the word test or testing, but if you like the word explore, go ahead and use that. She explores a lot. Now, listen to this. She does the baby talk with her mouth, The opening and closing that most of the time makes all the other horses say, oh, look, it's a baby and they are less likely to be aggressive. In the beginning, she did the baby talk when she was around me and then would push into my space. It's a contradiction. She's saying I'm a baby and then she's pushing the edge of what is then allowed. She doesn't do the baby. Talk to me anymore. But I'll talk about that in a moment. Why? She loves to be scratched. She tries to mutually groom. And while mutually grooming, she bites. She loves to be scratched and she'll walk forward to get scratched and she'll walk sideways to get scratched and she'll walk backwards to get scratched. And then she'll try pushing with her butt to move you pushing, pushing, threatening to kick, pushing. Because she's exploring. She's exploring her world, her boundaries, the rules all the time. She finds me more interesting than her mom. She beats her mom to the stall door and to the pasture gate. Because I am a worthy chess opponent.

Speaker1:
She no longer does the baby talk with me because she now is engaging with me fully as a worthy opponent. The reason I'm more interesting than mom is because I have rules. But I'm also constantly changing and asking more and more of her. Her mom's rules are somewhat basic. Don't jump on me. Don't bite me. The rest of it. She leaves a lot alone when the foal comes running to me. I am firm, but kind. I'm showing her. She's allowed to move over here and get scratched. But if she moves over here, pushes into me, I'm going to stop scratching. If she comes to me and puts her head to me, I will scratch your head. If I put the halter over her nose, I will scratch her neck. She comes and puts the halter on because she knows that the scratching is part of the game. I'm interesting. I'm the one that comes into the stall, plays all the scratching games, puts the halters on, and then leads them to far away pastures where there's lots of grass. I am very interesting. And I'm very interesting because I believe she can figure these things out. I believe that when I'm walking and I'm leading the mare and the foal, I believe that when the foal starts walking up behind me and pushing on me, I believe it's fair to walk and do buck kicks.

Speaker1:
Because if I'm walking and I'm doing buck kicks, I'm not kicking the baby. The baby might be walking into my feet, but I'm firm and kind. I'm interesting and I believe she can figure it out. It is amazing how fully capable foals are. It breaks most of our preconceived ideas about babies. Human babies are slow to develop. I have a puppy that's a year old now, so I've almost got a dog. Puppies and kittens. They spend weeks stumbling around. Baby. She stood up without even falling and stayed up for three hours straight. This is not our default assumption of what a baby is capable of. Baby Chai is physically in preschool. She'll go into elementary school and then high school and then college. But her mind can already see patterns much higher than what you might assume. Why does this matter? Most of you listening probably don't have foals. So why am I bringing this up? I bring it up for two reasons. Number one, you're probably underestimating your horse. Number two, just because they constantly test doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Let's talk a little bit more about underestimating. One of the best things I ever did with horses was getting involved in competition with horses. I personally did not grow up competing in any human sport. If you did, you will be able to see it through that lens.

Speaker1:
I did not. So getting involved in competition with horses was how I learned about competition. And this is the reason I recorded the show season of the podcast so that I could explain some of the lessons that I learned. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to Season 18, where I talked about lessons I've learned from showing one of the reasons why showing was so valuable to me is because of the impact it had on my thinking. It showed me that horses are so capable. And when I say that. Double check. Are you thinking that showing just showed me how capable the horses were physically? Because I think sometimes when we think about athletes, if you don't slow down or if you haven't been really involved yourself, it's easy to think about the physical side of being an athlete. But think about the mental side of being an athlete. So many inspirational quotes come from athletes and coaches because to succeed requires both the mental as well as the physical development of the athlete. Where this often short circuits people is because for many of us, myself included, we are involved with horses because we love them, we love the lifestyle, we love feeding them, we love cleaning up after them. We love hearing them chew grass. We love hearing them chew. Hey, there are family members in our life that think we are crazy.

Speaker1:
We love them. And many times when we approach from love and kindness and the viewpoint that they're dependent on us because they are, you still have to feed them on Thanksgiving and on Christmas and on all the birthdays and holidays. They are dependent on us. But just because they're dependent on us doesn't mean they're like small children mentally and physically. They are so much more developed the day they first get ridden, they better be thinking at least like a mature 16 year old child that you're going to give the keys to the car, to whether you think it's appropriate for them to first be ridden as two year olds, three year olds, four year olds, whatever it is, it's a lot faster than the 16 year old development of the human child. Why does this matter to you? Because there's a good chance you're underestimating your horse and it's coming from your thinking. Think back to one of your favorite movies where the underdog overcame great odds, where the coach revealed to the player what they were truly capable of. Have you ever thought about what level of belief? The coach. Had to have in order to ask that much of the athlete. You're the coach with your horse. Do you have that level of belief with your horse? Now, let's talk about that testing and the idea that just because the horse is testing doesn't necessarily mean you're doing something wrong.

Speaker1:
In a recent Zoom call inside my program, I was reviewing a new students video and watching her horse, I said, He's throwing spaghetti at the wall. And that is just another phrase for testing. Because if you think about where the phrase throwing spaghetti against the wall came from, it came from the idea that when the spaghetti is done, it will stick to the wall. So seeing her horse throwing out all kinds of ideas about left Bend, right bend. Slow down, turn here, go forward. This is the horse testing, throwing spaghetti against the wall, experimenting to see what works. This doesn't have to be a problem. If you believe your horse is capable of more. And if you're willing to learn how to stay steady. As the horse is testing. This goes back to what I talked about in episode 233. Are you writing reactively or proactively? When a horse throws spaghetti at the wall, whether that is in groundwork or whether that is writing, your job is to believe they are capable of more and to stay steady so that the horse can search through your releases and find the consistency that you are providing. That's what shifts when you change from being a reactive rider to a planned and responsive rider when you ride reactively and the horse is making a circle and they take their head to the inside and then they take their head to the outside and then they speed up and then they slow down.

Speaker1:
You need a plan for how you're going to stay steady and evaluate what you need to do, because otherwise you're going to be very tempted to react. And when the horse swings here, you're going to do something. And when the horse swings there, you're going to do something else. And very quickly, we will not be able to tell who is leading who. Now, I want to put this all together for you. I want to anchor it in with a real life question from a listener. This lens that you view your horse through, it is impacting every decision you make. And you have these thoughts and beliefs around humans like the human child and what should be asked of them. And the 16 year old that's going to get the keys to the car and what should be asked of them. And adults. You have these ideas in your world already in places like humans, like other humans. But what I want you to think about is what are you viewing your horse as capable of and where would that relate? So let's listen to this question and then discuss how these lenses impact how you make your decisions.

Speaker3:
Hi Stacy. I'm so glad I found your podcast a few years ago. It is amazing to have your wisdom in my ear imparting all your insight when working with my horses. I love to goof around with the horses when they're eating. Maybe do some desensitizing, just be silly or try new things and lifting feet, doing just poking around. However, my question today is specifically around when you find is the best time or maybe an incorrect if you want to phrase it that way, time to pull them out and saddle them up, ride them, train them, work with them in a round pen. Et cetera. I used to board them and I didn't have this question, but we have recently brought them to our new home with acreage, and it's phenomenal. They're here all the time. I love it. It's a dream. But I find myself questioning if I'm not supposed to go work with them in the morning before feeding because it's going to have a mental emotional impact on them while they're waiting for their food one way or another. Or if I do wait to feed them, then how long after feeding them should I wait? I would love to hear your thoughts on this and what you have noticed over the years. Thank you so much, Stacy.

Speaker1:
Thanks for the question. I'm going to answer this in three different stages. Number one, my question for you would be, what do you believe around this topic already as it applies to humans? How long do you wait after eating? And do you limit yourself before eating? Times. So I want you to look for your beliefs in the human world that you already have fully ingrained in you. And then that way you'll be able to compare that with the other answers that you come up with for your horse. For number two. When you think about how much they eat and how hard you're going to work them after they eat, what I want you to do is approach it thinking a little bit like you would with yourself, how much you eat and how hard you work and for how long are all related. So for me, I like to think of it like I wouldn't eat a huge Thanksgiving dinner and then go jogging. But with my horse, they're not typically eating this huge Thanksgiving dinner. I feed something that's a low amount of concentrate, so they're not eating a large volume of grain. And I am perfectly fine with going out and working them as they've been eating hay for hours leading up to even showing them. So I let them have free choice hay even when I'm going to go show them. And then I move into the riding. So this part you can research a little bit more. You can ask your vet if you want to, but my general guideline is how hard are you going to be working them and what are you counting as the this meal that you're judging? Because if it's mostly forage, then there's not as many restrictions unless you're working extremely hard.

Speaker1:
Then you could do some research around like thoroughbreds and racing. But for most of us, that's not going to be the case. For number three. I want to swing you all the way to a completely different thinking around feeding. And for you to do this, I want you to put on the lens of athletics. So when I take my horses to a horse show, there will be hundreds of other horses there and I could be getting ready to show. And the person behind me in another aisle way could decide this is feeding time. So they may be feeding their horse's grain right as I'm leaving the barn. There is no rhyme or reason when you bring together hundreds of horses and horse people as to somebody's going to stay up and they're going to be riding until 3 a.m. and somebody else is going to get up at 4 a.m. So there's no matching schedule when you go to a horse show. And what this does is it exposes all the horses to this beautiful chaos of there is no one feeding time and there is no one workout time and there is no one show time. You might be showing at 8 a.m. and you might be showing at 8 p.m. And what this makes you do is it makes you realize how flexible you'll need to be to go out in the world and do these things with horses, but also how flexible horses can be even when they're around what could be considered a challenging situation.

Speaker1:
But these horses are all operating at college level, high school or college level thinking. So you think about high school or college and eating and humans, and you realize that by the time you get to high school and college and adults, you get pretty flexible. There's things you would like to have happen, but then you have life happening and you have mentally, emotionally figured out how to deal with life happening and being flexible. And again, this circles back to number one. What do you believe around this topic in your human life? Because for me, even when I was raising my kids and they were traveling with us in the truck and we were hauling a trailer and we're going to horse shows and we're going to expose our schedules were not very set because we were staying up late, riding horses, getting up early, doing things with the horses, hauling for multiple days in a truck and trailer, reading books in the car. There were lots of different variables, but I just viewed that as okay with my own children. So it's consistent for me across the board how I'm viewing my own children when they were young, as capable of going out to a restaurant late at night and behaving even though they've had a long day doing whatever we've been doing. And so I think more than you may realize, you get a lot of flexibility around this because horses are amazing. As I wrap this up, I'm very aware that the majority of listeners and even the majority of my own time is not spent in the pursuit of high athletics with my horses.

Speaker1:
But the reason it's so valuable to understand the thinking and the performance capabilities of the horses is because I think it makes us view them through a lens where they're more capable. When I'm working with Baby Chai, I'm not thinking about pushing the edges of her physical limits right now. She's a month old. But what I am very aware of is how unique horses are in their mental processing capabilities at a month old. And that thinking process that can be used by a coach who is coaching an athlete to be their best. The mindset of the coach who is coaching the athlete to be the best version of themselves. That is the piece I want you to anchor into. I want you to anchor into full belief of what this horse is capable of, even if you just want to trail, ride, just want to ride for pleasure. Because at the end of the day, remember the thing that's making me so interesting to Baby Chai that she leaves her mother and runs to the gate to meet me is that I view her as a worthy chess opponent. We are making a game of learning. She is the friendliest cuddliest little Chia pet thing ever because she knows that I view her as also fully capable. That's what I have for you today. If you have questions about this, send me an email. If you're not on my email list, sign up so you can see updates on Little Baby Chai and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Speaker2:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy westfall.com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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