Strange title, good insight.
When Hurricane Sandy hit the New Jersey coast, Staten Island, and Long Island, (New York doesn’t have any beaches except Brooklyn) it caused major changes to the landscape. Since I was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Staten Island, and New Jersey, the pictures and stories really hit home. I love Florida, I live here, and will be buried across the street from my farm here, but when they attacked the World Trade Center, I took it personal. I used to work a couple of blocks from there.
Hurricane Sandy shifted the sands and made inlets that were never there before. Other storms have closed inlets to form solid land. Simply a little bit of intense water, with wind, and the whole topography of the land is forever changed.
Extreme tides can do the same thing. We think of a simple tide coming in, covering a little more beach, and when it goes out we look for sea shells, and sharks teeth. But look at the tsunami a while back. It took people, animals, and buildings, forever changing lives, and a country.
As uncomplicated as these things are, they can have devastating effects on people, and properties. So can horses.
What brought all this to mind? Actually I was wrapping Friday’s leg. Being a typical horse she wacked it somewhere. No lameness, no cut, just a lump. As I was putting the wrap back on, she shifted her weight. Red Flag Alert!!!! Yes it can be just a simple shift of weight to make her more comfortable, but what if it wasn’t. Here I am squatting down by her back leg. I don’t move as quickly as I used to, so I pay more attention to when I may need to move out-of-the-way. She could have been just taking a step forward, she could have been placing her foot on more level ground, or she could have been readying herself to kick at a fly on her belly, or at me who may have been annoying her.
That’s just my point. You don’t really know at first, what the intention might be.
Being a thinking, and hopefully, reacting horseman/woman, you should always be alert for a shift in weight. It may not be anything, or it may create a new inlet in your forehead. It is so important to be aware, at all times, of your horses body language, and muscle movements.
Today I was shaving the Clydesdale’s legs, and as I was poised under her belly I thought of the same consequences. Clydes do have better brains and slower motions, but they also have bigger feet.
The first week you break a baby they are usually well-behaved. At that point they are trying to figure out what is going on. Once they get the balance thing going with a rider on board, they start testing you. Usually you feel them tense their muscles and get ready to buck, bolt, rear, and you prepare to ride it out. Zoey was different. She’d be all on the muscle, and you’d think, ready to rumble. I’d be ready for anything she could throw at me. Nothing. Then comes the Zoey logic. Mostly when a horse has been poised and ready to do whatever, and they don’t, they will take a big breath and let it out and relax. You in turn do the same. That’s a Zoey got-you moment. I learned a long time ago with babies to always be on the alert. We were walking, I got that deep relaxing breath from Zoey and Bam! she took off. To this day, twelve years later, when you think she’s ready to blow, she doesn’t. When she relaxes and exhales, all hell can break loose. Got to love her. Hasn’t pulled it with me in years, but if I put someone else on her she does. She still keeps me wide awake and on my toes. I like that in a horse. She, and the others I have owned, make me the rider that I am.
So my thought for today is: Whether it’s a shifting of weight, or muscle movement – always be ready for the unexpected, it may not just be shifting sands. It may be the tidal wave from hell.