By: Matthew M. Brendal
Seldom Herd About Horses (Part 5)
There is an old truism in the horse world: When knowledge ends, violence usually begins. Will Rogers said my favorite quote about horses, “Whoever said a horse was dumb, was dumb.” When somebody is outsmarted by a horse they usually blame the horse for being dumb. The sign of a real horseman and leader is making the difficult look easy. That of course is much easier said than done. It takes years of hard work and dedication to become a good horseman. Another old saying in the horse world: It takes a lot of sweat wet saddle blankets to make a good horse. It takes a lot of hard work to train a horse. There really is no such thing as horsewhisperers, just like there is no magic knowledge of being a leader. It takes study and hard work to master horsemanship leadership skills.
Learning good leadership skills is exactly the same thing as learning to properly train a horse. Lots of hard work and lots of old school modern day T.L.C. No T.L.C. doesn’t mean what you might think it means. T.L.C. to me means Trust, Leadership & Communication. If one of these principles is lacking too much or is concentrated too much you will have problems with your horse. All three must be in close balance for you to have a good horse. Trust is when the person or the horse knows that you will be fair and safe to be around. Leadership is when the person or horse knows you have a clear direction to where you are taking them. Communication is a two way street of understanding and in agreement as to what has been said. There is no quick answer to training a horse. It takes time, skill and commitment to train a horse to do great things.
As of writing this article I have been a serious student of the horse for more than ten years. I can say nothing has taught me more about myself and authentic leadership than training a horse. The task of getting a one thousand pound plus animal to do something with the lightest touch or using an invisible cue will teach you real life leadership lessons. The remarkable task being accomplished all the while knowing that the horse can easily kill or out run you. Yet when your horse becomes a willing and responsive partner; then you have true and honest to goodness leadership. I know that it is a difficult, but not impossible task to get a horse to be a willing responsive partner. This book is designed to give you ideas on leadership. It won’t have all the answers, but then again it will in a Zen sort of way. Some things you will just have to discover on your own. You are the only one who can discover the strengths and weaknesses inside you. Your horse will too.
Most people in today’s world have the image of training a horse to be a simple minded but a difficult physical task. There is still also a lot of mystery and confusion about how to properly train a horse. The hardest part of training a horse most people think is the initial breaking of the horse. To people unfamiliar or uninitiated in breaking a horse, that image usually congers up the idea of snubbing a wild and untamed horse to a post with a lariat. That event is immediately followed by a rough looking cowboy who thrusts a saddle on the horse. The same weathered cowboy then forcibly mugs the horse to put a bridle on him. A fellow cowboy sometimes blindfolds the horse or bites down on the horse’s ear. Our brave hero cowboy then puts his foot into the stirrup and throws himself on the wild bronc that only a great rider could stay on. The blindfold or ear bite is released and the wild horse bucks out of control while the seasoned bronc busting cowboy rides the horse until he is gentle as a day old kitten. The horse has just learned who is boss. Then by some unknown secret magic that only the cowboy knows, the horse will just instinctively know what to do from then on. I hate to interrupt that frontier fantasy, but in that scenario, the horse has not been mastered just because it has been ridden. I would also venture to say with 100% certainty that NO horse that has been ridden for just a few minutes is trained or entirely convinced of who is boss. It takes hundreds of hours to properly train a horse by even the best of horse trainers. Some master horse trainers consider a horse “green” until he has been trained/ridden over 1,000 hours! That is over 3 years if you ride/train your horse one hour each day and every day.
The cowboy way of breaking a horse is really just a metaphor for taming the Wild West. The movies like all the action, rough tough characters and drama building. I am also going to use the horse as my real life metaphor example of how to train a horse for you to understand authentic leadership of people. Let’s talk terminology, breaking horses is a bygone term that no self respecting horseman uses. Starting a horse is the more common phrase to training this wonderful, sensitive, noble and intelligent animal. To be a great leader you must also maintain those same qualities when you approach training a horse.
I must add one more thing that I would like you think about to understand my mindset. I am a fairly fast learner. The numerous schools I attended in the military were usually conducted in a standard predictable way each time. The schools would consistently start with the attitude that a student knew nothing of the subject matter. That is the way I look at things when I start to learn a new skill. I know that by starting with the idea I know nothing of the subject matter I will keep an open mind. I also know that the instructor who is the subject mater expert, started the same way I did, knowing nothing. That gives me the inspiration that I can become an expert if I start at the beginning and study by breaking the tasks down into pieces or stages. I also have to “see” what they are really saying, not what I want them to say. You should also seek a good teacher. Some people can be superb subject matter experts, but unfortunately they also could be poor teachers.
Aesop was a great teacher who was probably the first to use animals to tell a parable story. I am going to use that technique slightly. I am going use the wisdom of the horse’s natural instincts to teach my ideals of leadership.
I will leave my introduction with the words of wisdom that I hope you will always carry with you. Galileo once said, “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” The horse is the great teacher and will help a man or a woman find their real selves.
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“I was at a match calf roping, and this man came up to me and said, ‘Boy, I wish I could rope like you.’ I said, No you don’t. And he said, ‘Yeah. I really do. I’d give anything if I could rope like you.’ I told him, ‘No you wouldn’t stay out there, under a floodlight and rope a dummy until there were blisters on your hands. You wouldn’t do that day after day. And you wouldn’t give up your family life to be on the road 200 days a year. So you don’t wish you could rope like me.”
Roy Cooper, Eight-time World Champion, excerpt from “Why We Win”
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Horses naturally want and need to be part of the herd.
Each horse has a responsibility to all of the others in the herd.
