Meditations on Equestrian Art

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range

One trainer

No tools

Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

Rules of Engagement

I am sitting down to write this on Wednesday, exactly one week into the project. One week ago we pulled in the drive, big red truck and a trailer full of mustangs. Deliriously tired, we unloaded them into their new home and the year’s challenge had commenced. I blogged on Friday still running high on the new thrill, and then the exhaustion set in for real- no matter how much I rested it seemed almost impossible to catch up.

It is hard for me to imagine how Myrnah feels. Rounded up by helicopter on Saturday, loaded into a trailer with her herd and driven three hours to the corrals in Burns, Oregon on Sunday. Monday, watched by strange people with binoculars and cameras, the herd constantly moving back and forth along the fence line as far away as they could manage, searching for an escape. Tuesday, herded through the chutes, branded, vaccinated, wormed, separated off into a paddock by herself, and then, in a chaos of galloping hooves, run into a small trailer with a horse she had never met. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning demanded a constant shifting of weight to stay balanced as we traveled through an onslaught of lights, sounds, and traffic- a general bombardment of the senses with all things new.

Tired as I was, I am sure it was nothing compared to the exhaustion Myrnah was recovering from this week.

I don’t know if that exhaustion helped or hindered us. Regardless, I am surprised and pleased by how quickly everything is evolving.

Wednesday: I spent three hours with the horses building advance and retreat of eye contact, sharing space and allowing them to touch me. Myrnah progressed to letting me approach and reach out to her, her nose reaching out to me in return. Cleo was less interested so I thought here was the perfect opportunity to treat them differently: Myrnah, the horse for the experimental project (no tools) and Cleo, the horse to train with the usual tools. So, when Cleo was not interested in me, instead of taking the time to go slow with advance and retreat of eye contact, I chose to move her around using the fences to help her feel the pressure I wanted her to associate with avoiding me. It is a big space with lots for her to hide behind, so I only moved her around slowly. Mostly walk, some trot unintentionally. Turning her and moving her again and again until she was willing to look at me, repeating when she looked away. It worked, I got the desired result of her firmly focused on me any time I requested it… but it felt an empty victory. I didn’t like the degree of force I had used to get her to that point. I liked they way I got there with Myrnah, which lead me to the decision to treat them the same, at least until it was time to put a halter on Cleo.

So here are the rules.

1. The horses always have an exit route open.

Any time they feel too much pressure, they can walk away. When I approach, I do my best to never block their escape. Have I gotten it wrong sometimes? Unfortunately yes. The first day I got kicked at once by Myrnah when I approached and she felt trapped between me and Cleo. Sure, it wasn’t a fence I pushed her into but without an exit route available; flight turns into fight. I wasn’t very close- no harm done- but it reminded me to stay tuned into the rules I had set myself.

2. Anytime the horse wants a rest all they have to do is reach out with their nose.

I started developing this communication the first time I reached out to the horses. All they needed to do was reach toward me in return, and I would walk away, or turn away, or sit down. They reach toward me, and all pressure comes off. If I want them to be willing partners, they need to feel like they have some control of their situation. They need a positive way to say NO. If I don’t give them a way to say no, their only choices, when they get overwhelmed, are to run or fight. When they reach out to me, I stop everything, take a deep breath, and then, when they are unconcerned, I start again.

Thursday: Cleo started getting curious, still very hesitant about me though. I kept our interactions brief and frequent, either her choosing to come touch me followed by me walking away, or me reaching out to her and walking away after we touched- the back of my hand to the front of her nose. Myrnah was happy to be stroked over most of her body, only rarely reaching back to stop me with her nose.

Friday: They both seemed completely at ease stomping in and out of the trailer to clean up the hay from the trip, even with me sitting only a few feet away. Myrnah seemed comfortable being stroked all over her body, ears, eyes, legs and tail… I even think I may have found a few itchy spots, though her response is very subtle. Cleo kept walking over to me, sniffing me all over and then shaking her head like I smelled bad… only to do it again and again. It is awesome to see that curiosity.

Saturday: Myrnah started walking away sometimes, not like she didn’t want to be with me, just like she had some other places she wanted to go. I would just rest my hand on her withers and walk with her; eventually we are going to travel together, we might as well start playing with the idea now. Interestingly, she took me right into the trailer, all the way to the back, where we hung out as she cleaned up the last bits of hay. I can’t believe she was wild one week ago- I know domestic horses that are not that trusting! Cleo definitely wants to be part of the action, and got right between Myrnah and me to let me know it was her turn at one point. She really only trusts me when I stay in front of her, though she did let me stroke her neck and take the number tag off.

Sunday: I walked in the trailer to hang out with Myrnah only to have Cleo tell her to get out because she wanted to get in with me. Cleo got in, and then Myrnah got in again with her front feet just behind Cleo. So there we were all together in the trailer, me thinking, This is awesome that they both feel so comfortable with me in a very tight space. Then I realized I didn’t want to move and scare them out, so I was essentially stuck there until they decided to go do something else. There was little hay left, they were just cleaning up bits left on the floor and occasionally nuzzling me; nonetheless we were in there for about forty-five minutes before a fox ran across the paddock and gave them something more interesting to investigate. By that time it was fully dark and I was glad to go in to bed.

Monday: Cleo let me stroke her neck and back as far as the top of her croup, and down her front legs as far as the knees. I am keeping our interactions brief and frequent so she doesn’t get overwhelmed. The wonderful side effect of this is that she doesn’t want me to leave when I do. She watches me with Myrnah keenly and often takes steps in our direction, as though her hesitance and interest are hanging in a balance. Myrnah is picking up all four feet for me now- at first just picking them up and putting them down, and then with practice holding them up a bit longer each time. Her nose she will turn toward me from fingertip pressure, and she thinks about following me as I walk away, but only sometimes and only for a couple of steps.

Tuesday: Cleo let me stroke the full length of her back and over her rump, as well as all the way down her front legs. Running my hands down her lower legs still brings her nose around often, asking me to pause as she adjusts to me being in her space. Sometimes she holds her nose against my hand for awhile and we sit there quietly together; sometimes she just reaches back for a brief check in. Touching her belly or tail still causes her to take a quick step away: she feels too much pressure from that and there is not time to communicate, she can only react. I am sure that will change soon. Every day sees her more confident.

Those are the highlights: Wednesday to Wednesday, week number one. I will give you more next week.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range, One trainer, No tools, Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

Meeting Myrnah

(pronounced Meer-nah)

It was 2 a.m. on Monday and I had woken yet again with a thrill of glee running through me. Today was the day the adventure really started. Sleeping on the couch at a good friends house in Seattle, I couldn’t believe that every time I woke up, eyes wide open ready to go, the clock would tell me to go back to sleep- it wasn’t time yet. Finally 3 a.m. rolled around and I was bouncing up and down like a kid on Christmas morning. A few minutes drive west to pick up Margaret, then we were off to Carnation to meet John and head south to Burns, Oregon.

Beautiful scenery driving down 395 through Pendleton and John Day. Great company and the drive went by in a flash. We checked into the hotel and then headed right out to the corrals. The wranglers were working on numbering, branding, vaccinating and worming the horses just in from Three Fingers and they said we were welcome to stay until they finished up for the day. It turned out the Three Fingers gather had finished early; half the horses were in the corrals, the rest were scheduled to arrive in trailers the next day. So John, Margaret, and I drove out around the pens, map and binoculars in hand. The first group was Three Fingers mares not yet sorted through the chutes. The second, Three Fingers mares and foals with numbers and brands freshly in place. Beyond that were the Jackies Butte dry mares, Jackies Butte mares with foals, Kiger dry mares, mares and foals who had been in the pens for a while, older dry mares in the trainer incentive program, Kiger stallions, geldings who had been there for a while, Jackies Butte stallions, and Kiger mares and foals.

Hundreds of horses, all of them temporarily there, waiting for adopters to find them and take them home to a new life. Being an adopter seemed like a huge responsibility- how would I know which horse to choose? The Three Fingers horses have the reputation of being flighty and hard to get close to, yet they were the group most recently brought in from the range and so the most appealing for my particular project. I watched them through my binoculars as they traveled back and forth at the far side of the pen, tightly packed and constantly moving they were difficult to observe. There was one mare though, with a lightning strike blaze on one side of her forehead, who kept looking right at us even when the others were looking desperately for some escape route. She was almost always on the side of the herd closest to us. I liked her herd placement and attitude, yet I dismissed her as being too long and rangy in build. I am usually drawn to a more compact body style. For two hours we watched the horses, and, while I caught glimpses of horses I thought I might be drawn to, they were only glimpses, fleeting and insubstantial. That night in our hotel room Margaret and I went through the video footage, and the mare with the lightning strike blaze kept jumping out at me as she seemed to own the camera, front and center.

The next day we were there at six thirty in the morning to continue the search. Even though there were hundreds of horses to choose from, our criteria narrowed it down to the geldings and mares with no foals. Thank goodness my trailer wasn’t bigger, otherwise it would have been mighty tempting to take a foal home as well.

Midmorning we found ourselves in the covered space watching the horses come through the chutes to have their numbers put on and shots and branding taken care of. It was the Three Fingers mares who were so difficult to see when they were way out in the corrals. This way we could see them up close and get a sense of them from a nearer perspective. They were wild, throwing themselves against the metal panels, trying to climb out, banging and clattering or dropping their noses to the ground to stand shaking in abject fear. Then the mare with the lightning strike blaze came through, quite a bit taller than all the others, and so much calmer. She didn’t try to hide in fear, and while she would shake and pull away as far as possible when you came close, when she had a little space again she would lick her lips and seem to digest all that was going on with a grace none of the other horses seemed to have. At that point I knew she was the mare who needed to come home with me.

Her teeth were checked and they thought she was about three years old. She didn’t have a foal on her, and, when she was separated out to a different pen, she took the change with an easy style. I was in love.

John was torn between three mares: all horses who had been in the pens for a while, beautiful horses, but over the age of three and less adoptable because of that. By the afternoon he had decided on a three-year-old mare from the Stinkingwater herd area- beautiful mare, yet missing the tip of one ear, which is probably the reason she had not been adopted out earlier.

Once we had our horses chosen we thought it would be a week before they were ready to process us out. When they offered to load us up and get us out of there that afternoon, we were surprised and thrilled. That meant John could help us with the drive home instead of flying home ahead of us, Margaret could make it home in time for her boyfriend’s birthday, and I could just get home and started on this project without delay!

We left Burns at four in the afternoon. Driving through the night, over to and up I-5 was fairly quiet. The horses would startle when we were passed and the first freeway experience definitely sent them dancing in the trailer for a bit, but after that all was quiet. We did have one traffic jam for an hour where they were repaving in the middle of the night; even so, we were at the Anacortes ferry landing just before four a.m. in time to catch the four fifteen boat to Friday Harbor and unload the horses in their new home at about six thirty.

The girls came out of the trailer quietly, one step at a time, beautiful, tired, and very alert.

Over the next two days I spent time with them and have been blown away by how quickly they trust me, relaxing into their new environment.

My mare’s name is Myrnah (pronounced Meer-nah) which means beloved. John’s mare is Cleopatra, or Cleo for short.  Myrnah, being fresh from the wild, is a clean slate and very quick to adjust, trusting me to pet her all over her body and take her neck tag off already. Cleo has a little more doubt about humans from her year unhandled in the pens living with all the other horses afraid of people. It is so thrilling to see her break through and reach out to me, her trust growing each day.

We began with advance and retreat of gaze. Looking at them when they were trying to avoid me, looking away when they were interested or curious about me. This led them to investigate me, nuzzle my coat, and taste my hair. Then we played with me approaching round about and without looking at them, spending time sharing space, then we played with me reaching out to them and retreating when they were willing to reach out to me in return. When Myrnah was ready for me to pet her, I felt honored to be given that kind of trust.

All of this is moving much faster than I expected. While I have spent more than three hours a day with them since we got home, the time goes by in a flash and I find I can’t wait to get back out there to play with them again.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next week. I will keep you posted.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

The Project:
One Mustang directly off the range, One trainer, No tools, Just body language

The Goal:
To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

Road Trip!

In a blinding flash, seven months have gone by, and the road trip is now: new tabs on the trailer and wheel bearings attended to, packing bags, checking cameras, hotel reservations, directions, and seemingly endless emails and phone calls working out details for the trip.

My daughter Cameron has decided to stay home with her Dad, leaving this traveling to the crazy adults: John, Margaret and myself. I will miss her youthful view of life and her intuitive advice helping me choose a horse. I understand though: the sixteen hours of traveling we did to get to the beach last week leaves a nine-year-old little girl less than enthusiastic about thirty-two more hours of driving over the next ten days. I leave San Juan Friday morning to work for the weekend, then we leave Seattle Monday morning bright and early, and aim to be back home again on San Juan Tuesday the 16th, new horses in tow. Keep your prayers out for us that everything goes that smoothly.

The first gather of August, Jackies Butte, was completed yesterday with 177 horses brought in and about 75 horses released back into the wild. There is a BLM facebook page (search for Bureau of Land Management – Oregon) if you want to look at more pictures and status updates of the gathers. Here is a page explaining about the current gathers of Jackies Butte and Three Fingers.

It looks like we may miss seeing the gather we were aiming for on Tuesday the 9th. Since Jackies Butte gather completed ahead of schedule, it seems they will be moving right on to gathering the Three Fingers herds, perhaps finishing before we get there. I am of mixed emotions about this. I did want to see the horses gathered in, watching their transition from freedom to captivity, however, I am told it is approximately another three hours drive southeast from Burns where they will set up the temporary pens to gather the Three Fingers herds. From there the horses will be trailered to the main corrals in Burns.

As I am working the weekend before we depart, leaving early is not in the cards for me, so we will let fate play it’s hand and roll with what opportunities are presented. If they are still gathering on Tuesday the 9th, I will be thrilled to go observe. If they are finished, I will be happy to just spend my time watching the horses in the corrals and getting on with the decision-making process.

I will do my best to post next Friday from the road and let you know how the trip is progressing.

Elsa Sinclair
EquineClarity.com

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range

One trainer

No tools

Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

Beach Time!

It’s Thursday evening as I sit here and write this, curled up on the couch in a cabin by the beach. All the students have packed their trailers and headed home with their horses leaving Cameron, Zak and me alone on Long Beach with our few remaining equine partners. Tomorrow we pack up and head north ourselves, leaving behind the romantic vistas of sand and surf.

Just outside the cabin, a brief walk over the dune, twenty-six miles of flat sandy beach stretching north and south graced with a perfect mix of sun and cloud and a light breeze, hosted a great group of people and made for a fabulous beach clinic.

As I am sure you all know by now. I love my job. I feel like the luckiest person on earth getting to spend my time watching horses and riders grow closer, clearer, stronger and happier together.

This week my horse Zohari was the best assistant teacher I ever could have asked for. From matching pace with any student traveling down the beach, to running around with me on the sand bars completely at liberty, strings and stick left behind on the sand, the two of us moved as one. To top it off today, I asked Zohari to lie down on the beach providing a good example of relaxation and an excellent back rest as I talked a student through the process of calming an adrenaline-charged, fearful horse, new and unfamiliar with the beach environment.

Zohari, my horse who has been often afraid of his own shadow bloomed into an amazing partner this weekend, with confidence I had no idea he was capable of.

So here is to the fun, the new, the unexpected, and the best of ourselves we are always becoming.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range, One trainer, No tools, Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

 Counting Down

We have an approved travel plan! We leave Seattle early Monday morning, August 8^th, and arrive in Burns, Oregon that evening. The gather happens Tuesday the 9^th, and we spend until Friday watching, assessing, and finally choosing the horses that will come home with us. John Parkey, Cameron Sinclair, Margaret Longley and myself will spend our hours staring through binoculars, taking pictures, and videoing the development of decision. One horse will be for my year of documented process, the driving force for this blog. The second will be a companion for the ride home, and a horse I will start, using methods of natural horsemanship known and loved by many. Once started this horse will go on to be someone else’s partner, leaving me to focus with my own horse. It will be interesting in the first months to compare the two horses and their developmental progress in relationship with humans.

Friday, August 12^th, John Parkey flies home; Margaret, Cameron and myself attend the Parelli Rendezvous in Redmond, then back to Burns where hopefully our horses have been sorted, freeze-branded and will be ready to come home with us Monday night the 15^th.  In order to catch a ferry to San Juan at the end of the trip, we will have to start our journey at the end of a working day for the corrals in Burns. After loading the horses we will drive through the night to catch the first ferry home Tuesday morning, the 16^th, if all goes as planned.

This morning the round pen panels went up, an initial home for the mustangs beside my house, leaving me pleasantly surprised by how much space we have. The rules state that we need 6 foot fences, and the ability to split the horses up into different pens. I would like the horses to feel as free as possible within those constraints. The more space the better.

For almost seven months now I have thought about, written up, and shared via my blog, ideas that might help me with the upcoming year developing a partnership with my new mustang. I delved into stories from my past remembering horses that have taught me, and people who have shaped the way I think. I have developed ideas from my experiences about the aspects of training that will be important to pay attention to. Now here I am counting down the days, and I must finally admit I don’t really know how this is all going to go. Regardless of how much I think I know, I am only human, and like everyone else, life is a process of trial and error, learning as we go.

Here is a great talk on letting go of being right, and letting the results we find guide us as we go.

I have done and will continue to do all I know how. I will also freely admit I am looking forward to developing this process one step at a time, and figuring what comes next when I get there.

So keep checking in each Friday and I will keep you posted as to the developments of the week.

Next week I spend teaching a clinic at the beach.

The following week will have me home packing and preparing for the trip.

The week after that is all about Mustangs coming in, fresh from the wild.

The week following will see us traveling north with the two new mustangs and settling us in home.

After that, who knows what happens.

Counting down into the unknown.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range, One trainer, No tools, Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

 A Year of Living Honestly

I find myself drawing closer to this challenge. Me, a Mustang fresh off the range, and a relationship based on honesty- no tools of force to muddy the waters between what the horse wants to do and what the horse is required to do. I gave myself seven months to get ready, and somehow six months later I am still teasing apart the knots in my mind of how this will all work. It’s time; I need to quit mucking about pretending this is happening sometime in the future. This project is happening now. I have one more month to get myself together, prepared for a process I believe will be unlike anything I have done before.

Honesty, integrity, and authenticity. Somehow I crave all these things from my relationship with my horse, and I also want our wants to develop on a shared and common path. I want my horse to honestly want what I want. When I want to travel left, I want my horse to want to travel left as well. When I want to stop, or speed up, or spin around I want my horse to be an extension of my intentions. A horse is not a machine though. A horse has honest desires than may have nothing to do with mine. When I want to run, my horse may want to nap, when I want to nap, my horse may want to play. This year is going to be a melding of honesty and integrity into a partnership that is hopefully stronger than simply one character yielding to another.

Yielding is important, perhaps even a vital component to relationship, but there is a large difference between choosing to yield to another versus yielding because there is no other choice. Each time we choose to yield, we choose to be part of something larger than ourselves. We bond, and connect, and become stronger. When we are forced to yield to another, the stress of that yielding creates a rift in our honesty. We wanted something other than the course we felt forced to take. That rift tears us apart. We learn to vacillate between helplessness and fighting to be heard.

Over the next year, I would like this horse to choose me- to choose to yield to my ideas honestly, with integrity and authenticity, to become part of me and gain a sense of strength and connection without losing any sense of self in the process.

If I expect that of my horse, I get to expect that of myself as well. Honestly yielding needs to become a way of life, not just a concept I expect from others. I need to experience the things I ask for.

When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself. ~ Louis Nizer

This project is fairly simple, yet surprisingly challenging. I need the horse to choose to go, stop, speed up, slow down, turn left and turn right in harmony with me. Sounds easy right?

So what do I need from myself that is fairly simple, yet surprisingly challenging? How about drinking enough water every day, feeding myself real food instead of living on stimulants that just make me feel good for a couple of hours, finding a balance of exercise, rest, work, play, quiet, and socialization. Simple, yet seemingly not easy for me.

What if I task myself to yield willingly for one year to living honestly up to my own standards? Sure, there is a catch-22 here. I am setting myself the task to yield honestly as I will ask my horse to yield to me, for one year. Will that one year challenge make me feel forced into action, or inspire me to positive change?

I don’t want to drink as much water as I know makes me feel better. I don’t feel like it. It’s inconvenient. If I force myself to do it I feel stressed- angry that the human body is so needy, helpless as I go through the motions of doing what’s good for me, fighting to be heard as I childishly stomp my foot and say I don’t want to!

My horse is going to go through that too. After four or five years of living independently, making all his own decisions as to when to go, stop, speed up, slow down, turn left or turn right, learning to consistently choose to yield and connect to another is going to be a challenge.

So here goes: what I ask of my horse, I will ask of myself.

Can I honestly and willingly yield to caring for myself in all the ways I believe I should? For one year. One year of living honestly.

Live connected and bonded within myself, my beliefs and my actions authentically aligned. So when I ask this horse to connect and bond with me, I know I am doing all I can to understand the leap of faith it takes to yield willingly and move forward.

One year of living honestly starts now. Wish me luck!

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range, One trainer, No tools, Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

Life is a conversation…

 Have you ever noticed, in order for there to be a plot to a story there has to be some form of miscommunication. Deceitful, accidental, or blatantly confrontational- no matter the form or style- to have a story we need two or more entities who misunderstand each other. As the human race it seems our entertainment is based on that conflict: how will the situation work out? TV, video games, movies, novels, theater all depend on exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution or catastrophe… we are hooked to the excitement of a story. We may say with all honesty we just want world peace, or whirled peas depending on the humor quotient. How much peace do we actually enjoy in our personal lives though? How addicted are we to finding a problem and working it out, or living vicariously through others working through some miscommunication. As we are hooked on the excitement of the unknown, how much space is left for the simple contemplative enjoyment of what is known and understood.

If we look at life as being a conversation, an exchange of ideas, we accept our need for misunderstanding to develop into clarity and understanding. I believe it is part of what makes us feel connected to the world around us. A good conversation will hold a rich mix of questions, answers, silences, and anecdotes of times past that shed light on times present. We seek to understand, be understood, and feel part of something greater than ourselves.

Life as a conversation sounds idyllic, but it is not always so. As humans we sometimes crave the idyllic, and we sometimes seem to crave intense, which is where it gets messy.

A conversation between two characters is fun until it isn’t. When a misunderstanding becomes overwhelming and no one can see a way through it, someone is going to look for a way out- basic instinct of fight or flight.

I face a quandary here. As a horse trainer, I have to admit there are days when I create problems with a horse so I can have the fun of fixing them. I get a little high on the intensity of conversation between me and the horse. Asking a question of the horse that he doesn’t understand the answer to, leads to a entertaining miscommunication, make it a big enough question with no option to escape and we get to tap into all the emotions of fear, love, hate, anger and then as we work through the mess there is relief, joy, exuberance and connection.

Now, I am about to begin a project in which the horse can walk away from me at any time. There is nothing holding him in the conversation with me, except his inclination. If I get too big, or dramatic, or augmentative for the high of riding that intensity, I will find myself having a conversation all by myself. Perhaps that will be the conversation I need to have that day- that, however, is not my goal. I would like to connect with this horse and develop the communication between horse and rider completely voluntarily on both sides.

The flip side of this dilemma is I am going to be filming this project and making a documentary of the evolution of our relationship. If this horse and I do keep the conversation beautiful, peaceful and easy, is there enough drama for a good story? Part of me hopes for no drama- just a simple artful development of understanding; the other part of me feels the irresistible draw of intensity- riding the emotions of working through the bigger questions that come up. Do we break the questions down into bite-size pieces and sort through them one manageable piece at a time? Or do we bite off more than we can chew, and surf the drama of sorting out the tangle of emotions that ensue. With no way to force the horse into holding up his side of the conversation, nothing to hold off the horse’s natural flight instinct, I think we will be leaning toward slow, peaceful and easy.

This is a wild horse, though, and I am not always good at quiet conversations, so we will film in the style of cinema verite, and see what story emerges throughout the course of the next year.

Regardless of whether this story holds enough drama for anyone else, it is a conversation that fascinates me. If I am lucky, it will be a conversation that intrigues my horse as well.

Elsa Sinclair,  EquineClarity.com

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range, One trainer, No tools, Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

Those Who Challenge the Norm

A few weeks back I went looking for video inspiration. I was hoping to find documentation of horse trainers working their horses without any tools of intimidation. No matter how we start, I imagine that is where all of us would like to end up? Horse and rider working together in harmony, no need for stick or rope or spurs. The closest I was able to find was Stacy Westfall and Pat Parelli doing beautiful things with their horses, but still wearing their spurs.

This week I want to write about two trainers who do have videos out, working horses with no tools. The videos are simple, however, I think the two of them get credit for being the only ones on video record to have done this. They are both men who are extreme and devoted to high ideals with horses. They bring to mind the quote:

All truth passes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer

I wonder if it is because of the characters who are willing to forge ahead, break new ground and do what is uncommon or unknown, that make everyone nod their heads in knowing agreement when they hear this saying.

Few people have such conviction in a new truth changing the world, that they are willing to throw themselves up against the norm and the expected. Their intensity can be something people do not know how to respond to, making the safest response ridicule and opposition.

I wrote about Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling back in February.

I love watching him work and have a great deal of respect for him. I also have to admit I am intimidated by his idealism. I am not sure anyone can be as perfect as he claims everyone needs to be in relationships with horses.

I see extremists in the horse world point out all the cruel injustices done to horses, point out all the things that should not be done to a horse, but I don’t think new truth can win over old in a battle of right and wrong. Only, when there become more examples of positivity and better ways to proceed will truth become self evident.

Chuck Mintzlaff of Friendship Training is another such horseman challenging the horse training norm.

I devoted myself completely to working through his system of training from April to August of 2007, then moved to Norway for six months. When I returned home, I began again and worked with this process from April to July of 2008.

I have enormous respect for Chuck Mintzlaff and you might even need to give him credit for putting this idea into my head years ago. I chose to discontinue working with him when I decided I wanted to take a broader view of training horses.

I would like to encourage, inspire and appreciate all who love horses and work with them, whether they train with a harsh clarity or a gentle persuasion, with a round pen or a dressage arena, with a leverage bit or a rope halter, or nothing at all. What we have in common in our love of horses is far more powerful than what training tools or methods we may choose.

Those on the leading edge of horse training change such as Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling and Chuck Mintzlaff are inspiring and I am grateful they are doing what they do. I also have no desire to attack horse training with a forceful morality of right and wrong. I may struggle with it in my own head, however, what I would like to show the world is all the clarity that leads to an idea being self evident.

What if I, a girl from the Northwest of the United States, not particularly different from any other girl in love with horses, can, over the course of a year, develop a relationship with a horse using positive reinforcement and only the corrections I can create with my own body- no sticks or ropes or pens, working through trial and error with no particular emphasis on a moral right or wrong. Just simplicity put to music, on film, with an aim to inspire. I don’t need to change the world, but if I do, I would like to escort truth gently into the self-evident stage, leaving the trail-blazing to characters like Chuck Mintzlaff and Klaus Hempfling, with all their fire and moral intensity.

I am here for quiet, beautiful simplicity.

We will see what happens…

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com