A HORSE NAMED MELANIE by Shea Stewart

I once met a horse named Bonnie. She was a five year old Arab mare I met at a horsemanship clinic. This mare was trained for halter shows, and her owner knew only how to ask her to stand parked out with her head up. I have to give a lot of credit to this woman for even being at this clinic because she was there in search of a better way to be with horses.

Bonnie was very smart. When the woman led Bonnie to the round pen and took off her halter, neither one of them knew what to do. The horse just ran around with her thought still with her buddy, and the woman threw her rope at her every once in a while.

With the clinician’s guidance, they finally decided to work Bonnie on the line and teach her some ground work other than what she knew for the halter shows.

The woman had no feel for the horse, and Bonnie had no connection with the woman. The clinician walked in, took the lead rope, and we all witnessed Bonnie take a deep breath, relax her neck, and follow the clinician’s hand on the lead line.

Within 10 minutes he had the mare walking in a soft circle, doing forehand yields and hind quarter yields,
lining up on the fence, and leading softly. He handed the lead rope back to the woman,
and within seconds, Bonnie’s head was in the air, she was pushing on to the woman, and
she was becoming less and less present.

The next day, we saw the same thing. When the clinician took the rope, Bonnie instantly relaxed, and the clinician did more ground work in 10 minutes then most of us can do in a day.

Then, when he handed the rope back to the woman, the mare almost looked aggressive. She pushed harder, resisted more, and was locking up to the woman.

We started to feel sorry for the clinician and the woman, and Bonnie, because the clinician was trying his hardest to coach the woman through a simple exercise of stepping her horse’s shoulder over.

But nothing was happening except that Bonnie and the woman were falling apart. The clinician had the woman take the halter off and try to work on just getting Bonnie’s attention.

I think Bonnie glanced at the woman once, at which point they were all happy to end with that.

The third day, they tried more liberty work. The woman really struggled with getting Bonnie’s attention. Bonnie ran the fence line on one side of the round pen while the clinician coached the woman on which steps to take.

The woman did exactly what the clinician was suggesting, but no changes were happening. The clinician walked into the pen, smacked the ground once with the rope, and Bonnie came right over and took a deep breath.

The clinician worked her at liberty and it looked as if they had known each other forever. He then put her lead rope on and worked her on the line.

She softened to the point where we would not have recognized her. You would have thought that he changed horses when nobody was looking! I started to wonder what was going to happen after the
horse went home.

After that session, the woman led her horse to the stall. She stood next to her horse and groomed her.

The horse grew more and more agitated. The next thing we knew, there was a scream and the woman was crying.

Bonnie decided to turn around and take a chunk out of the woman’s arm. The woman stormed out and declared to us that she hated this horse and didn’t want her anymore.

The clinician now has an Arab mare named Melanie. Mel for short.

We were all very eager to discuss this, but we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. So, as soon as the woman went home, we had some interesting conversations and share our observations about what took place.

This by no means implies that we felt the woman was inadequate. For us it was a very enlightening learning experience.

We came to the conclusion that the horse had lived a life of darkness. She was highly intelligent and
figured out that people had nothing good to offer her.

So she just checked out to people and ran around as she was being asked to do with her head in the air. When the horse met the clinician, she found that there was a better way to be.

She found out that she can let down in the presence of a human and that it felt good to be listened to and relax some. Once Bonnie saw the light, she had no intentions of stepping into that darkness again.

And she made that point loud and clear.

This was a very profound experience to witness. It showed me that a horse is only as “good” as their handler. As the clinician that day is fond of saying, “horses know when you know, and they know when you don’t.” That quote sank in at this clinic.

I saw a troubled horse who came from what I consider an abusive training method (A high head
and tight backed body posture in a horse represents a fearful emotional state. That is what
their body does when they get worried before they flee.

To train a horse to go into that body posture that represents a worried state of mind is not fair or kind to the horse. But, some people think it looks pretty.

I think if they understood what the horse was feeling then their minds would change. ). But within minutes the horse transformed. So we can’t blame past experiences for a present circumstance, I guess.

I have an Arab who came from the halter show world, and ground work has always been a struggle for us. I blamed that struggle on the halter training, which is a legitimate explanation.

However, the real truth to the matter is that I simply wasn’t quite offering my Arab a better place to be. We are all only as “good” as we are, and we are all on different levels of understanding.

Each year as I improve, my Arab finds a better place to be. As long as we are committed to learning and trying to do what is right, our horse will be better for it.

I truly believe that they understand our intentions. But with Bonnie and her woman, unfortunately the
woman wasn’t at the point in her horsemanship where she could help a horse like Bonnie. I know Melanie will have a happier life.