Such a Good Horse Earlier this spring, I invited my closest friend’s granddaughter over to meet my horse Sonny. I was planning to give her a pony ride, continuing a tradition that started many years ago when her father had ridden my first horse, Max. Max was pretty much the perfect horse for pony rides. An RBI who wanted to please, he would patiently plod around in a circle all day taking care of any child who was on his back. I once watched him stand quietly, head lowered for over five minutes while the daughter of a friend of mine tried to put his halter on upside down and backwards. Max never moved a muscle as the child tried repeatedly to slip the halter over his head. At one point she had the chin strap over his eyes but he stood patiently until she figured it out. When she finally had it on and clipped, he blew, shook his head and then followed her quietly into the barn. He was, by definition, a good horse. Sonny is something else again. He has a lot of good qualities. He is steady, friendly, calm and not easily alarmed but his personality is definitely LBI and he is not crazy about being told (as opposed to asked) what to do. Because I have been treating him for an ongoing lameness, I haven’t been riding him or even playing with him very much and I decided that it might be a good idea to do that before Elizabeth came down. It turned out to be a good thing that I did because Sonny was full of himself. He was fine until I asked him to circle and then he gave me that look and I knew he was going to take off. When I play with Sonny on line, I usually use a 22’ feather light and it isn’t a line you can grab hold of without losing the skin on your hands if your horse decides he’s outa there. After a couple of escapes, I went to a heavier line and we worked through our differences until I was pretty sure that Sonny had ‘partnered up’! The next morning before Elizabeth and her parents arrived at the barn, I cinched up Sonny’s bareback pad. Elizabeth is such a little mite of a six year old, barely 40 pounds, and I knew there wasn’t any sense trying to use my saddle. Besides the handle on the bareback pad would give her something to hold on to if she needed some extra security. I played with Sonny a bit to make sure I had a partner and not a prey animal on the other end of the line and then took him to the indoor arena. Elizabeth arrived with a bag full of carrots, making her Sonny’s new best friend. After introductions were completed, and several carrots had been consumed, I gave Elizabeth a quick tutorial on staying safe around horse and then taught her to back him away from her by wiggling the lead line. Sonny, being the trooper that he is, dutifully backed away, leaving Elizabeth giggling. After playing on the ground for a few minutes, she was eager to ride so I swung her up on Sonny’s back and off we went. My intention had been to do nothing more than lead Sonny around but after I watched Elizabeth sitting so fearlessly atop my big red horse as we negotiated poles on the ground, I thought perhaps she might be able to learn to guide him herself. So I looped the feather light line around for to make a set of reins, still leaving me 12’ or so of line for a lead. Then I started to show Elizabeth how to guide Sonny. Pretty soon, she was able to get him to go forward and stop, back up and turn by using the makeshift reins. After a few minutes, I looped the remaining line up, tied it to the handle on the bareback pad, turned Sonny loose and off they went, meandering around the indoor arena with Elizabeth looking like a natural. “What a good horse” cooed Elizabeth’s mother Trish, as she positioned herself to take some pictures, “He is such a good horse!” That got me to thinking about what makes a good horse. Before I began to study Parelli Natural Horsemanship, I actually thought there were good horses and bad horses. My first horse, Max, had been a good horse. My second horse, Ready, an off the track thoroughbred who was the grandson of Seattle Slew and just about put me off horses forever, was not such a good horse. He wasn’t mean or vicious, although he had bitten me several times, once rather badly, and I would never have put a child anywhere near him. He just wasn’t that kind of horse. Had I known anything about Horsenality when I was looking at Ready, I never would have brought him home. He was an extreme RBE and frightened of his own shadow. You could ride him past a barrel 10 times and on the 11th trip, he would practically jump out of his skin at the sight of it. He wasn’t a bad horse but he wasn’t the right horse for me. I was pretty down on him by the time I gave him away and I told anyone who asked me that he was just plain crazy. I guess at that point, I would have told you he was a bad horse. Happily, my outlook about horses has been transformed by understanding more about horsenality and horse psychology. I know now, there aren’t really any bad horses; there are just inappropriate matches between horse and human. A horse that would never make a good partner for me could be just fine for someone else. In the end, most any horse can become a better partner. Sonny is a good example. Although I always felt reasonably comfortable riding him, seven year ago when I bought him, I never would have put a six year old up on his back and turned him loose. He wasn’t the natural babysitter that my first horse, Max, was. But as our partnership has developed and we have gained confidence in each other, he has developed into a horse I can trust with my best friend’s grandchild. He is, after all, such a good horse!