TRUE TALE Mutual benefits:
As I helped my rescue gelding Dorian overcome his spookiness, I found a path to a deep centeredness that I didn’t know I possessed.
As I helped my rescue gelding Dorian overcome his spookiness, I found a path to a deep centeredness that I didn’t know I possessed.
When I first laid eyes on Dorian, he was lying in his pasture and surveying the world on a cool, gray early spring afternoon. I glanced his way but didn’t pay much attention, to be honest. He was just another chestnut with a blaze, and we had plenty of those at Renaissance Rescue Ranch, a Farmingham, Missouri, operation that handles mainly off-the-track Thoroughbreds.
That day, like most others, I had a lot of work to do, helping to feed, water and train the nearly 60 horses we were preparing for a new life. Besides, I wasn’t really looking for a horse of my own.
And yet. I remember how I’d smile when potential adopters came to the ranch with a clear idea in mind of what sort of horse they wanted. They’d arrive determined to find, say, a tall black gelding, and instead, they’d become smitten with a little gray mare or some other horse. It happened time after time. When it comes to people and horses, a perfect match may be one you’d never have predicted. So it was with me and Dorian. Our relationship began when he dropped a lot of weight and developed a bad case of rainrot. I babied him through, trying senior feed, then alfalfa pellets, then a host of other weightgain remedies. His coat got scrubbed with a number of rainrot treatments. He was basically healthy, the veterinarian said, so I just kept at it, and by summer, he started looking better. He even got a little chubby.
I noticed that folks coming out to the ranch looking for horses to adopt never considered Dorian. He’s a bigboned, thick-bodied gelding, and people seemed to be looking for more typical ex-racehorses---sleek and long-legged. He has an odd mane, too---there’s a swirl in the middle so the front part of his mane grows forward---and he has a wispy tail, rather than the long, full, lustrous tail seen on so many Thoroughbreds.
I felt bad for him. Nursing him through his issues, I’d gotten to know him and I came to appreciate his bright, intelligent eye. He proved to be a little stubborn, which I felt was OK. I like a horse who has an opinion. But he was enormously spooky. In the end, I think that’s what brought us together. I had spent a lot of time with him in the round pen---longeing, grooming, hanging out---and he did fine. But when I started riding him, it seemed the whole world scared him. And why not? All he’d known as a racehorse was his stall, the training track, a horse trailer, the starting gate. There are no terrifying falling leaves or rotting devil logs in that life!
Many times we’d be trotting along in a straight line and in the blink of an eye, he’d jump three feet to the left. Sometimes I had no idea what had scared him. My heart went out to him--how awful to live a life where everything terrifies you.
It was very hard to get him to try anything new or to go anywhere he’d never been before on the property. Sometimes, I’d have to dismount and walk him up to a horse-eating clod of dirt in the middle of a trail. He’d balk, head high, the whites of his eyes showing. It’s amazing, though, what calmness and a few soft words can do for a spooky horse.
So we took it moment by moment. The whole world slowed down when we were together. If he made the slightest effort to do what I asked, I released pressure and we’d pause. By incremental steps he gained confidence in himself and in me. It took a long, long time for Dorian to get over his continual bout with the willies, but he’s a different horse now.
No, I take that back. He’s regained himself now.
And in the process, he’s helped me find myself, too.
The long, quiet pauses were hard for
me. I’m not a naturally patient person. I want my own way, and I can be just as stubborn as Dorian. I’m a bit highstrung, and my mind tends to go a hundred miles a minute pretty much all the time. Or it did. Working with Dorian helped me find a path to a deep authenticity and centeredness I didn’t know I possessed. I can be in the worst possible mood, but going out to the pasture and being with my horse allows me to find a place inside where a still serenity abides.
A good friend of mine says, “The slow way is the fast way with horses,” and I’ve found that to be true. Through our groundwork, our communing time and our rides, Dorian and I formed a partnership, a bond, that I don’t think words can completely articulate. Anyone who has a deep relationship with a horse will know exactly what I’m referring to---it’s a relationship that resides at the level of “being,” not at the level of “thinking.”
Today, I ride Dorian on trails often. He might stop at something new, but he’s now able to work through his fear and walk on by. We’ve traversed obstacles, waded into streams, trotted and cantered and galloped through woods, jumped a few crossbars, and had a staring contest with deer.
We’ve had a long journey together and along the way, somehow Dorian has restored me. That’s part of their power, I think---horses help us reclaim ourselves, if we let them. It’s as simple, and sometimes as difficult, as that.
About the author: Virginia Slachman, MSW, PhD, is a devoted supporter of OTTB rescue. A member of the Equine-Assisted Growth and Learning Association and certified by the Equine Experiential Education Association, she’s the president and founder of Stride, LLC, her equine-assisted experiential learning program in St. Louis, Missouri. She’s also the author of five books and has taught writing and literature at the college level for over 20 years.