Matchmaking at the Rescue

My first experience with horse rescue was as an adopter and it was not altogether a positive experience. Looking back on it now, I think the lesson I learned was that one of the most important jobs of a rescue organization is to be a good matchmaker. A rescue needs to make sure that the horse and the potential adopter are well suited to one another and the key to doing this well is fundamentally understanding the concept of Horsenality™.
When my horse Max died, I knew I wanted to get another horse. Max was 32 years old when he died. He had been my partner for 23 years and during that time I seldom rode another horse. In the last few years of his life, I hadn’t ridden often and when I did, we mostly walked. I had never been an overly confident rider but I’d had Max so long that I could almost feel what his reactions would be in most situations. We trusted each other and it made both of us braver than either of us would have been alone.
I had recently seen an article about a local rescue organization that was dedicated to finding homes for retired thoroughbreds. Max was an appaloosa but he was 7/8ths thoroughbred and when he was younger, he could be a handful. So I thought I would be able to manage a rescued thoroughbred. I checked out the rescue’s website and called to discuss a potential adoption with one of the women who ran the organization. I told her about losing Max and wanting to adopt a horse to replace him. I made sure to tell her that while I had been a horse owner for a long time and was confident handling horses, I was not the most confident rider. She suggested that I come out to the farm and look at the horses.
During my first visit, I talked at great length about what kind of a horse Max had been and what I was looking for in a replacement. I wanted a quiet horse that I could trail ride. I wasn’t interested in showing or doing anything fancy. I looked at the horses that were there but didn’t think any of them would be suitable. She then asked me if I would be interested in a horse that was a little bit older. They had a 12 year old thoroughbred that was going to be available soon. This horse had been retired for about six years and was occasionally ridden out cross country. He wasn’t at the farm during that first visit but he would be there shortly. She thought he would be a good match.
I make a second visit to the farm to meet this thoroughbred. He was a big bay horse named Readytogo. A grandson of the race horse Seattle Slew, he was beautiful. She saddled him and rode him around a field to show me how he moved. Then I got on him and rode him a walk and trot. He was more forward, with a bigger stride than I was used to but he didn’t seem to be that hard to handle so I agreed to adopt him, arranged for the necessary vet check and completed the paperwork. Both of the women who worked at this rescue told me that they always followed up on their adoptions to make sure they were working out and they even agreed to transport the horse for me to the barn where I would stable him.
The following week, I returned to the farm to accompany my new thoroughbred to his new home. The farm we were moving him to was only a couple of miles away so I didn’t anticipate any real problems. Ready seemed a little anxious but loaded without any serious problems and we were off. When we unloaded him ten minutes later and he was a little lathered up, I didn’t think much of it. He circled me nervously at the end of his lead line and wouldn’t stand still to be brushed but I wasn’t too concerned. We had just moved him to a new barn and I thought he would settle down after he had settled into his new routine.
For the first couple of weeks that I had Ready, I only worked with him on the ground. I quickly discovered that while he was easy enough to catch, he didn’t really like to be handled or groomed. He particularly didn’t like to have his back legs touched and kicked at me more than once. I wrote that off to his having not been handled much for the past six years and tried not to force him to do things that made him uncomfortable. Everyday, I took him into the indoor arena and walked him around so he could get used to the unfamiliar smells and sights. I brought him treats. He liked the carrots but wouldn’t eat apples. I tried to make him comfortable and confident.
Finally, I saddled him up for our first ride. He stood by the mounting block but when I put my foot in the stirrup and started to mount he reached around and bit me hard on my thigh. The bite didn’t break any skin but it gave me a bruise that lasted for weeks. I was startled by this behavior but wrote it off as a bad habit left over from his racing days. The next time I went to mount I was prepared and had a better hold of his head so he couldn’t reach around to my leg.
Under saddle, Ready was completely unpredictable. He vacillated between wanting to run off with me and being reluctant to go forward. He over reacted to situations, coming completely unglued at times. He would walk by a barrel or jump standard in the ring a dozen times without giving it any notice and then on the thirteenth pass shy as if he’d never seen it before. With every ride, I was losing confidence in myself. I read everything I could find about retraining racehorses. I got a trainer for Ready and started taking lessons again. I sent updates to the rescue, trying to put a positive spin on the experience but in my heart I knew it wasn’t going well.
I wanted this adoption to work but no matter what I tried, I knew I wasn’t building a positive relationship with this horse. One evening I came to the barn to work with Ready. He had been particularly difficult in the ring and when we finished, I was frustrated and discouraged. After cleaning him up and putting him in his stall, I reached through the door to hand him a carrot. He struck at my hand and gave me a nasty bite, taking the skin off the end of two fingers. After washing my hand off in the bathroom, I sat down on the toilet and cried. During the seven months I had been working with this horse I had never been rough with him in any way. I didn’t know what I had done to provoke this kind of behavior.
The following day I was talking to my mother and venting my frustration with the situation. I told her that I had gotten to the point that I didn’t even want to go out to the barn any more. At that point she asked me what I wanted and blurted out, “This horse is going to kill me. I want Max back!” The minute the words were out of my mouth, I realized that I needed to stop trying to make this work. I didn’t have the capability to fix the situation with Ready and I had lost my confidence. Worse than that, I had gotten to the point where I was actually afraid of him.
The next day I called the rescue and told them this adoption wasn’t going to work. I told them I wasn’t interested in getting my adoption fee back, I just wanted them to take the horse back. He was too much horse for me and he was never going to be what I wanted and I was never going to be what he needed. Fortunately for me, they agreed and I started looking for a new horse.
In retrospect, there were plenty of clues in the first month that I had Ready that should have told me we were not a good match for each other. This was long before I had heard of Pat Parelli or natural horsemanship and long before I had heard of the concept of Horsenality™. Ready was a classic right brain extrovert. He was panicky and over reactive. He would shy at the drop of a hat. He needed a rider who was more confident that I was. The longer I worked with him, the less confident I became. The less confident I became the more reactive and nervous he became. Our relationship started into a downward spiral that I couldn’t reverse.
This was a difficult but important lesson for me to learn. Although I didn’t understand anything about horsenality, I did know that after my experience with Ready, I wanted my next horse to be quiet, calm, dependable and friendly. I looked carefully and finally bought a six year old paint who had been a “husband’s horse”. Without knowing anything about Horsenality™, I bought a left brain introvert. I’ve had Sonny now for four years and have been studying Parelli Natural Horsemanship for the last two. He is the perfect partner for me and we have made great progress, but that is another story.
I don’t blame anyone for the failure of my adoption. Certainly the women at the rescue were doing their best to find me a suitable match. They sincerely thought that this older horse would be a good match for me. But if they had understood the concept of Horsenality™, they wouldn’t have suggested this particular horse for a rider who told them over and over that she was not a confident rider. At our rescue, we try to understand each of our horse’s personalities. We listen carefully to what out potential adopters tell us and we observe them playing with the horses. We do our best to be good matchmakers. Not all of our matches work out, but the better we understand a horse’s innate characteristics and traits, the better able we are to find them a suitable partner.
If you would like to learn more about the concept of Horsenality™, visit the Parelli website at http://www.parellinaturalhorsetraining.com/horsenality-horses