Catching Crease

The first time I heard Pat Parelli playing the catching game with a horse and talk about how you should have your horse catch you, rather than you catching them, I thought it was interesting but I never suspected that it might one day become a matter of life or death at our rescue. Of course that was before I had met a big, bay thoroughbred mare named “In The Crease”.
Crease came to our rescue this summer. Part of a stable of thoroughbreds that was dispersed after the death of their owner, Crease had bowed a tendon while racing and then become a broodmare. A big girl, well over 16 hands, she was clearly skeptical of humans and we discovered quickly, very hard to catch.
I started to play with Crease as soon as she arrived. Crease was impulsive, hyper alert, fractious and high-headed. She would over react to things and had a hard time standing still. In other words, she was a lot of horse to handle and I’d not had much opportunity working with a horse with her personality. I spent a lot of time being friendly. She tolerated the training stick I used but would jump away if the attached string was tossed in her direction and she needed every inch of the 22 foot line whenever we played in the ring.
But right from the beginning, catching Crease was a real problem. We could usually catch her first thing in the morning at feeding time and if we were lucky and offering a bucket of grain we could sometime catch her in the middle of the day. I played the catching game with her in our round pen and while she would “catch me” in the confines of the round pen, if we moved to the larger riding arena, she wanted nothing to do with me most of the time.
Realizing that if Crease was ever going to be a candidate for adoption she needed to be ”catchable”, Meredith and I started playing the catching game with her in the riding ring. While one of us would chase her away, the other would keep walking at the other end of the ring. Eventually she began joining up with one or the other of us and soon she was “catching us” in the ring. We played this game enough that eventually we could approach Crease in the pasture most of the time without having her turn her back on us and walk away. I wasn’t one hundred percent with Crease but Meredith could catcher her all of the time and I was making definite progress.
I didn’t realize how important those catching game sessions were until the day we began putting winter blankets on the horses. We hadn’t blanketed Crease before and were a little worried about her reaction but she showed little concern when the volunteers approached with a blanket. They let her sniff it and rubbed it along her neck and sides before slipping it over her back. She stood quietly while they adjusted the straps and walked off quietly when her halter was removed. So the volunteers turned their attention to the next horse and I was surprised when I heard them call with alarm a short time later that we needed to catch Crease.
We’d had a lot of rain recently and Crease’s pasture had a wading pool size depression filled with muddy water. Apparently she had walked directly to this big puddle and rolled. As Crease stood up, the waterlogged blanket had slipped sideways and was now hanging under her belly. This apparently startled the horse who was now running full out, trailed by her pasture mates. The soggy blanket flapping under her belly was fueling her panic while the straps dangled loosely around her flying legs. We could see immediately that she was in danger of catching a leg and falling with potentially disastrous results.
Catching Crease in the pasture when she was calm was one thing but catching her when she was in full panicky flight was another. Grabbing a halter and lead, four of us vaulted the fence and set off in pursuit of the running band of horses. After circling the pasture several times, they headed as a group, into a distant corner when they eventually slowed into a milling herd. Heads high and blowing, they watched us approach. Crease looked ready to set off again at a moments notice. Knowing that she would feel too much pressure if we all tried to approach, Meredith walked up to her. Crease stood for a moment and then trotted off, so I started to play the catching game with Crease. I walked behind her, approaching from the rear. She walked nervously away several times, but she kept looking at me. Finally she stopped and let me approach and put a rope around her neck so we were able to remove the blanket.
Carrying the soggy blanket back across the pasture, I was relieved that this incident didn’t result in a serious injury to Crease. It was clear that all of the time we had spent playing the catching game had paid off in this situation. It was yet another example of how proper preparation with a horse on the ground is so fundamental to having a safe relationship.