A good rider can get along with just about any horse they step in the arena with.  They know horses well enough, been on and around enough not much will surprise them.  They get along.  But they “get along” about as well as you and your co-workers, the person behind the counter at the store, the lady at the bank, people at your husbands work party.  You don’t have to really know them, to be their best friend.  Shoot, you don’t even have to like them.  You could even despise some of them, but you still know how to “get along” like a civilized human being.  Much the same for a skilled rider and a strange horse.  If she is a skilled rider, she can “get along” with any horse.

If you take it one step further, every now and then a horse and rider will just “click”.  We have all seen it, some have even felt it.  A person steps onto a horse for the first time, and they just jive.  Their aura’s are in sync or something.  Again, much like that person at your husbands work party, that you make small talk with and then you find something in common and you “click”.  You’re great-full you found each other.  But unless that relationship is pursued, you will never become besties, because relationships take time.  True, real, natural, raw relationships take time, nurturing, conscious attendance to caring, learning, loving.  Weather it’s your significant other, your best friend or your horse.

I’ve loved and enjoyed and had good relationships with many horses.  I’ve gotten along with even more than that.  But there are two, and only two, that I have truly had a partnership with.  Partnerships are not 50/50, they are 100/100.  (Wait am I writing about horses or marriage?)  These two very special horses came to me a different times in their lives and mine and have both since passed away.  It took years to build the relationship I’m talking about.  Both went through a short spell where I considered selling.  Boy I’m glad I stuck them out.  Sally was my first horse, my first Mustang and Henry was the horse I got by chance when I entered the Mustang Makeover in 2007.  Each were totally different animals and after I had had a horse like Sally for so long, I thought there might be something wrong with Henry, because, well he just wasn’t her so how could he possibly be a good horse?

When I look back it took about 3 years with each horse, before we really began to feel close.  Familiar starts to set in at about a year.  At about two years you feel like your gaining, and at year three you feel confident there isn’t anything you cant accomplish together.  When I look back at students and their horses it seems about the same timeline.  A year of struggle and frustration, a year of getting the hang of each other and then a year of bonding and the partnership.  The teammate.  The other half really.  You truly begin to feel a part of each other.  Once that bond is there, nothing can break it.  This is when that sixth sense about each other develops.  You wake up in the middle of the night because you just “feel” something is wrong with your horse.  You instinctively know where they hurt when the vet asks.  The horse knows when your energy is wrong and compensates.  You walk to their stall, tears in your eyes over something that happened that day, and the hottest of hot horses will stand quiet, head low, soft eye, quiet breath while you cry in their mane.  You have become a codependent being.  When you feel good, so does he.  When you feel bad, he reciprocates.  You truly have become one and the bond gets stronger and more fine tuned as the years pass.  You truly know each other.

These are the horses that bring their A game every time you step in the saddle.  They want to do what you ask and you have succeed at convincing them how important it is.  Now that we all know what horse we’re talking about, how do you get over them?  How do you move on?  My A game horses have passed away.  I have not had the luxury of a true partner since.  I’ve had my current mare for about six months and I have to keep reminding myself that it will come.  It’s brutal.  I know what that relationship feels like and I know what it feels like when it’s just not there.  And when it’s just not there, it sucks.  She’s wonderful, quirky, full of energy, not a mean bone in her body, but she drives me nuts sometimes and I just flat don’t get her yet.  And it is so hard to remind myself that that is okay and that it doesn’t mean it’s a lost cause.  It just means we haven’t spent enough time nurturing our relationship.  We clicked for sure.  There are things about her I just like and visa versa.  They day I went to try her the previous owner even remarked “she’s never been that good for me and I’ve had her 13 years!”.  We “clicked”.  But like that person at the party you found a few things in common with, it’s not enough.  Trust.  Love.  Those things take time.

I have a wonderful friend who is a great rider.  She has been on a lot of horses.  She can “get along” with the best of them.  She has recently in the last couple years lost both of her A game horses, her loves, her partners, to lameness.  Each for different lameness issues, both freak incidences, but none the less she has had to let them go.  She is trying to move on.  She has a couple horses now, that I dare say she has even “clicked” with.  But they are far from partners.  They are still just horses and she is still just a rider.  They are merely acquaintances with some things in common.  How maddening.  After the loss of love, taking the time and patience to learn to love again is so hard.  So, well, heartbreaking.  It is a constant battle between not wanting to betray your love of the past, wanting love again and feeling like it is just not in your cards with your current partner.  (One more time, we’re talking about horses right?).  It is hard for me to console her and tell her to keep her chin up and that it will happen when I have days of doubt for me and my own horse.  But it will.  Time heals all wounds.

I’ve joked about human relationships a few times in this piece because it sounds so familiar.  But the truth is, a good rider, truly sees this relationship with their horse as THAT IMPORTANT.  It is not something that can be half hearted.  People who aren’t horse crazy will never understand that but it is true.  It really, truly is that important.  Love and relationships are hard, no matter the facet.  But I have to believe that once love is lost, it can be gained again.  Never the same, never replacing another, just adding to the strength and abundance of your heart.  And what better thing to teach us that, that the ultimate teacher?  What other creature has ever taught us more about our own capabilities and humanity, than the horse?  I dare to say, none can compare.