Calm in the Eye of the Storm I’m a take charge kind of person and have always been good in a crisis. I think quickly on my feet, am not afraid to give orders and expect that people will respond appropriately when I do. That being said, I have been known to lose my temper when the people around me are being more hindrance than help and can bark out commands with enough authority to bring most grown men quickly to heel. This tendency has served me well in any number of situations. At the first University of Delaware football game after 9/11, an argument broke out between the Delaware fans sitting in front of me and some fans of the opposing team sitting two rows down. Fueled by too much beer and the tension everyone was feeling, the situation quickly got out of hand and was about to erupt into a fight. I jumped into the fray and pulling myself up to my full 5’6’’hight, grabbed and practically lifted a burly 6 footer off his feet. “We are not doing this. Not today”, I growled. “Now sit down! All of you!” The fans around me came to a complete stop and the fellow who had started the brouhaha dropped his head and mumbled “I’m sorry man. I wasn’t thinking.” Years of working with horses, however, has taught me that what works well with people in a crisis seldom works well with horses. Getting angry and growling will send most horses running, either physical or mentally, for cover and I’ve had to work hard on myself to develop the ability to maintain an inner calm when things around me are going to hell in a hand basket. This was put to the test last week by a horse in our barn named Rafalco. Rafalco, or Ralphie as we all call him, is the one horse at our barn training to be a big time show horse. A chestnut Adonis of a horse, Ralph is a 17.2 hand Hanoverian that reminds me of Linda Parelli’s late horse West Point. Ralph shares a pasture with my horse, Sonny, and I have developed a great fondness for him. Raised mostly by hand after his mother died when he was young, Ralph has a playful disposition and is people oriented. He is always the first horse to greet me when I come into the field and will follow me around like a puppy. Because he is so big (when he puts his head on my chest it covers me from chin to crotch) I have spent some time playing with him at liberty in the field teaching him to respect my space and can get him to back away from me by wagging my finger. But I always carry a cookie for him and never fail to stop and give him a good scratch, so we have developed a pretty good relationship. The last couple of months have been tough ones for Ralph. He was shipped off to the New Bolton Center to have two benign tumors removed from his neck. The tumors were more extensive than were anticipated and although the surgery was a success, the wound opened up after surgery leaving a puckered and unsightly scar along his beautiful neck. Then he came up with a mysterious and difficult to diagnose lameness. Between the operation and the lameness, Ralph has been relegated to stall rest for the past six weeks and the only time he gets out of his stall is if someone hand grazes him while his stall is being cleaned. Because I felt bad that Ralph has been so confined, I had taken to arriving at the barn in the morning just as stalls were being cleaned so I could give him a little break. Despite that fact that he has been stuck in his stall day after day, he’s never tried to break away from me, being much more interested in getting a few mouthfuls of grass. I don’t have a rope halter big enough to fit Ralph’s huge head and I usually grab my 12 foot line before I take him out of his stall but last Tuesday, I was in a bit of a hurry and I just used the line attached to his leather halter. Almost as soon as we were out of the barn, I realized I had made a mistake. The line was very short and also very rough so it was difficult for me to allow Ralph any drift as he was grazing. Rather than drag him back into the barn so that I could retrieve my 12 foot line, I decided to let him graze toward the other end of the barn since Sonny’s stall is by the far door. Unfortunately, just as we rounded the corner, Bree, our barn manager, rounded the other corner dragging the manure wagon, startling Ralph. Ralph’s horsenality is definitely extroverted, and although I think it is mostly LBE he can go right brained pretty quickly. With incredible athletic ability and the reflexes of a cat, he launched himself into the air, twisted 90 degrees and landed on his hind feet. Faced with this display of airs above the ground and holding only the shortest and roughest of leads, I had no choice by to release the line. Ralph took off running and my heart sank into my stomach. All I could think of at that point was that he would hurt himself and it would be my fault. Fortunately, he ran directly toward our back fence that boarders on the thoroughbred farm next door and he came to a stop right in front of the open gate to a long narrow paddock that we use for isolating new horses. By this time Bree and I, along with a half dozen young thoroughbreds from the farm next door, were all sprinting in Ralph’s direction. As the thoroughbreds flashed by, Ralph dashed through the paddock gate and chased them down the fence line to the end of the paddock, where he pulled up short, wild eyed and snorting. Then he started back toward us, head up, tail in a classic “j”, ripping along in an elevated, extended trot that would make most Grand Prix dressage riders drool. He looked to me like Alexander the Great’s massive stallion, Bucephalas, charging into battle. I took a deep breath, stepped into the paddock and closed the gate as he thundered toward me. “Do you really want to be in there with him?” Bree asked as this fire breathing dragon of a horse bore down on me. “I’ll be OK”, I answered, and staying close to the fence, I walked a little further out into the paddock. It was clear to both of us that Ralph’s adrenaline was flowing. He skidded to a stop at the fence and whirled around and called to the young thoroughbreds. He didn’t even look at me when I offered him the back of my hand, then he took off again for the far end of the paddock. “I better go get a bucket of grain”, Bree said turning toward the barn, “or we are never going to catch him.” “Wait a minute” I called after her. “I think he’ll come to me”. I was breathing deeply and trying to center myself into a calm space. I was sure that if I could project calm energy, Ralph would feel it and come to me. He thundered back toward me and stopped, head up, blowing hard. This time, when I extended the back of my hand, he stretched his nose toward me. He was still a couple of body lengths away from me but his ears were pinned forward toward me, so holding my hand out, I took three steps in his direction, muttering to him softly, “It’s OK, Bub, you’re OK.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly in a sigh. He stretched his beautiful, long neck, touched his nose to my hand and then he sighed. The thoroughbreds in our neighbor’s field continued to race around but despite Ralph’s energy still being up, he chose to stay with me. He dropped his head and started to graze but ever four or five bites he would pick up his head and touch me with his nose. It was like he was saying, “Hey, not sure what came over me there a minute ago, but I’m back in our herd of two.” He continue to blow and shake his head, but I as I stroked his neck and back, I could feel the excitement drain out of him. By the time Bree was finished cleaning and rebedding his stall, Ralph walked quietly back to the barn none the worse for wear. There are any number of lessons to be learned from this little adventure. For example, it is yet another demonstration of how important it is to have the right tools (rope halter and appropriate line) for the job even when the job is something as insignificant as hand grazing a horse. I’m sure that I would have been able to allow Ralph enough drift and not lost the line when first launched himself into the air. It also reminded me of the responsibility you take on when you touch someone else’s horse. Fortunately, Ralph wasn’t injured during his bid for freedom but he could have been and it would have been my fault. I think the most important lesson, however, is one about emotional fitness or how important it is to keep your head in the game when all about you are losing theirs. If I had panicked when Ralph took off, I would never have gotten him to come to me. Right brained as he was at that moment, Ralph needed calm in the eye of his mental storm. Because I was able to take myself to a calm place inside of me, he was able to see me as a safe port and I was able to catch him before he aggravated this mysterious injury that has kept him stall bound for the past 6 weeks. Ralph has an appointment for an MRI this week and hopefully his owner will finally discover the cause of his lameness. In the meantime, I’m happy to be able to give him a little break each morning. It’s doing us both a world of good.