Building a Relationship One Cookie at a Time My horse, Sonny, has been lame on an off all summer. It is a mysterious lameness, presenting with no heat or swelling and after hundreds of dollars in vet and farrier bills we seem to be no closer to resolving the issue. Sonny goes relatively sound in a straight line so he is OK for trail riding but the minute I put him on a circle he limps. Unfortunately this has put a big crimp in my progress toward passing my level 3 freestyle assessment so in order for me to continue making progress toward this goal, 2 Star Parelli instructor, Jane Bartsch, with whom I take a weekly lesson, offered to let me ride her levels horse, Lynn, for my lessons. Lynn, a 15 year old appaloosa mare, has a lot of good points as a lesson horse for me. She has lots of Parelli mileage on her and is well beyond the level 3 skills in her development. She is smaller than Sonny and has a nice rocking horse canter that Sonny lacks. She also has high obedience and I felt quite confident in riding her only six weeks after knee replacement surgery. In fact, the only drawback, from my perspective, was that she was a mare. I think it is important to explain here that I have a bit of prejudice against mares that comes from some early bad experiences. One of my very first horse riding experiences was on a mare owned by a classmate of mine in grade school. The mare was a pig eyed little bay that knew immediately I was a beginner. Almost as soon as my seat hit the saddle, she ran off with me, dumping me on the way back to the barn. Her owner was most apologetic, explaining to me that the mare was “in season”. I broke a wrist in the fall and while it didn’t put me off horses, it did sensitize me to mares and not in a good way. Through the years I’ve had more encounters that were less than pleasant. My first horse, Max, shared a pasture with a mare, who would charge me whenever I came in the field to get him. That was way before I had ever heard of Parelli and I took to carrying a lunge whip when I was around her. At the rescue where I worked, I was bitten several times by the director’s mare, an animal that seemed always to be trying to tell me there was only one head mare at the rescue and it wasn’t me! Maybe they sensed my prejudice as an uneasiness in my approach to them, but it had become clear to me that with mares, my relationship building skills were sorely lacking. So while I was extremely pleased that Jane offered to let me ride Lynn in lessons, I knew from the get go that if I was going to be successful, I would need to work really hard to build a positive relationship with her mare. Like Sonny, Lynn is LBI so at least I knew I had lots of experience working with the LBI horsenality. At our first lesson, Jane had Lynn all saddled and ready to go when I arrived. “You better get some cookies,” Jane said, indicating a bucket of treats inside of the tack room door. “Lynn also likes to be scratched, particularly on her belly and around her teats.” When I approached Lynn and offered her the back of my hand, she didn’t turn her head in my direction but just looked at me out of the side of her eye. I waited for her to sniff my hand before giving her a scratch on the neck and withers. She tolerated me but I could tell she wasn’t really pleased. I fed her a cookie. That resulted in a slight softening of her eye. It wasn’t much but it was something. Jane is always telling me what a beautiful expression Sonny has and after my first lesson with Lynn, I understood why. Sonny is a true LBI. He is argumentative and stubborn and easily bored but he has a sunny personality and when you are playing with him he almost always comes in to you with his ears forward, looking pleased, as if he had just spotted a long lost friend. Lynn on the other hand, reminded me of a crabby, spinster librarian, whose expression of disapproval was sure to silence the most boisterous of library patrons. Coming toward me, her ears weren’t pinned but they were back and the message was clear. You’re not the boss of me! After our first lesson, I decided that if I was going to build a relationship with Lynn, then I would need a strategy. I started carrying horse cookies in the car so that my pockets could be full for every lesson. I came to lessons early, so I could be the one to curry Lynn before she was saddled. I concentrated on finding all of those itchy spots where she loved to be scratched. I started each lesson by warming her up on line and I tried to be really pleased with her. I smiled at her. Remembering that it pays to have a sense of humor with an LBI, I laughed when she was doing something a little bit dominant or defiant. I made sure to let her rest occasionally. I tried never to let her come to me with her ears back. As the weeks went on, Lynn began to respond. She was having trouble maintaining her standoffish attitude when there were so many cookies involved. She actually began looking for a cookie after she had done something particularly difficult or clever. She let me hold her head and pet her muzzle whenever I switched her from halter to bridle. She began to lean into me when I stopped to give her a scratch. Most of the time, when I turned her out after our lesson, she would stand with me for a few moments before walking off to say hello to Jane’s half Arabian gelding with whom she shares a fence line. After one recent lesson I remarked to Jane that I was beginning to think maybe mares weren’t so bad after all! Jane tells me that she thinks I am doing really well in developing my relationship with Lynn, so well in fact, that she offered to let me take Lynn to Carol Coppinger’s upcoming clinic this October in Frederica, Delaware. I’m excited to have the opportunity and I’m looking forward to seeing what Carol thinks of our budding relationship. Horses, like people, are individuals and just like there is something to be learned from each person we meet, each horse also has the potential to provide a lesson if we are only receptive enough to perceive it. But the prejudices we hold cripple us by reducing our receptivity to these potentials in both horses and people. I had some early bad experiences with mares and I had used those experiences to paint all mares with the same message. Mares are difficult. I’ve even often told people that I would never own a mare. And yet this summer’s experiences with Lynn have finally opened my eyes to their potential. If, and I hope it is not the case, I cannot resolve Sonny’s lameness issues, I will need to look for a new horse with which to continue my Parelli journey. This time my search criteria will not exclude mares.