Apache’s Lesson ~ Eye-Opening

 

Apache had her ground lesson today with my instructor/trainer, Jessica. It was an eye-opener experience for me and filled with a few surprises, too.

When Jessica arrived I invited her to go into Apache’s paddock to get her haltered.

I rarely ever have problems catching and haltering Apache when I’m by myself. Even if she isn’t thrilled about being haltered, like when she knows I’m going to trailer her for the Vet, she might walk away, but once I turn my back to her, she is walking right up to me before I can count to 10 and sticking her head right into the halter, ready to go.

Except for some reason, whenever I have someone else with me, Apache tends to look at the new person with distrust and will avoid being caught. If I didn’t know any better I’d say her behavior is caused by her worrying that a stranger is going to take her away. Do horses think that way? Or is the horse that breaks away from the evil horse thieves, to gallop back to her owner a reality? Or is it just movie magic?

In the end, Jessica had to spend about 20 minutes working with Apache to get a join-up and earn enough trust that Apache would allow Jessica to get her haltered. A couple times Apache ran up the hill straight to me, but Jessica’s assistant chased her back down to Jessica. I knew I could have easily gotten Apache haltered myself, but that wasn’t the point. Jessica wanted to earn Apache’s trust before working on desensitization with her. So I let them be and watched a master at work. I learned a lot by watching and Jessica learned a lot about Apache, too.

After she was haltered and had begun doing some simple desensitization work, like tossing the lead all over her body, lifting up each foot with the lead rope around her pastern or hock, lunging her, disengaging the hip, etc, Jessica was keeping a mental count of all of Apache’s interesting and unusual little quirks, and she asked me if I knew of Apache’s parentage and I said, no. I thought early on that Apache might have some Morgan in her background, and Jessica said she did notice some gaited-ness, but she believes whole-heartedly that Apache is a Mustang because her behavior is not like a typical domesticated horse.

Jessica thinks that Apache was probably born in the wild and taken away as an older filly, to be domesticated. I thought all Mustangs had a BLM brand but Apache doesn’t have one. Jessica said that doesn’t mean she’s not a Mustang. Many Mustangs that come off the Navajo Reservation don’t have brands because they are property of the Navajo Nation and not the U.S Government. Jessica shared with me that she’s had the pleasure of working with and training some of those Indian Reservation Mustangs, and in fact owns her own Mustang, a gelding, that she gentled and trained herself. It was quickly apparent that Jessica has a soft spot for Mustangs and thinks they make some of the best trail and all-around horses you can find.

But Jessica is the 4th or 5th person who has told me or suggested to me that Apache could be a Mustang, so I wasn’t being told anything new, but it was the way that Jessica spoke firmly about it, as if it were fact, that has me now pretty convinced. And it was the way that she explained how a Mustang reacts to things in it’s environment, how it approaches new things and people (always with a way out, but not overly spooky, just cautious and wary), and the amount of time it takes for a typical wild-born Mustang to trust a human, but also how loyal, hard-working and willing they tend to be once that trust is earned.

And finally, when she spoke about Mustangs having a high level of self-perseverance, it all made sense and described Apache perfectly.

I’d love my sweet Apache mare whether or not she was a Mustang or a fancy Friesian, or a lovely spirited Arabian, or just a plain old grade horse. But it does kind of tickle me to think my mare could be a Mustang. And in fact just a day ago, I was updating my personal info on the ACTHA website in preparation for next weekend’s CTC Ride, and noticed that there was no breed listed for my mare. I had listed her as a Morgan/Grade mare last Spring, but for some strange reason that space was blank this year. So I sent ACTHA a message requesting they add in a breed for my beautiful mare and typed in: Mustang/Grade. Oddly enough when I went to check my horse’s profile a few hours later, ACTHA had left out: Grade. Hmmm. Far be it from me to complain about that. I think I’ll just take it.

Anyway, the ground lesson went great and I learned some new techniques to handle Apache on the ground and how to understand her body language, too.

After I removed her halter, Apache placed her head in my arms for a full-head hug and then she wandered off down the hill of her paddock. But as soon as Jessica and her assistant left, she came right back up and hung out with me, licking my arm, nuzzling my neck, and trying to remove my hat, or just standing patiently, while I was cleaning out her water bucket.

                                   

                                               It was a good day.