ANIMAL TALES & TAILS OF ANIMALS
THE 1% -R‘S
NATURE’S OWN VERSIONS
Before I start to tell the story, I want to point out something. Something in life where you see that nature throws in some surprises. Not the kind of that nature that takes different species and make up a new specie . No, it’s more a kind of when nature surprises you, and you, as co-creator, are being placed back. Or ”when nature “ with a big smile, sent you off on your way like …..HA think again. Back a while ago, the period where I started training young horses, stallions were chosen to match mares in order to perfect streamlined bodies with specific qualities. So dressage horses were perfected in their dance movements, the specific terms, more precisely is something like this, when one of the legs of these type of horses , leaves the ground , these floating cadence movements, would be accentuated. Picture then, the four legs moving in that same rhythmical movements, the backhand slightly being brought underneath and function as the engine to start the dance. It’s where in nature, you see that horses have the capability of ‘in a split of a second to shoots off’ . The sport of dressage starts off by the moment when the rider activates the back hand engine towards an assembling the forehand to uplift the forehand shoulders , while the neck & head seems to be in a up -rising position ready to accept the fine command codes of movements and directions. So people, who were involved in matching stallions and mares or the kinds of specifics were sought after, well they tried to perfect specific qualities. The same thing was going on in the sport of jumping. But there you want horses (because if you raise the bars the first logic that men had was to create a bigger horse or bigger leg’s) . Anyway, I can go on pointing out in every sport or every species or race of a horse being turned into something to better something or perfected versions. And that’s where I want to get at. A horse where nature throws in a little surprise. When nature creates a body that is not perfected the way humans would like to have it. And I am happy to say I was lucky to encounter three of those kind of horses while living my earthly existence. And that’s why I use the term the 1% r’s .
The first horse of the 1% r’s is the famous story of Jappeloup with Pierre Durand. You can find a lot of information on google. Just mention the name Jappeloup & Pierre Durand book & movie is available.
MEET HILTON ( Lugano-goldspring de Lauzelle) 2nd of a 1% r’s club.
How did we meet? Actually? I try to go back to the time where I first met Hilton. Every year I was eager to find out what kind of young horses would come my way. I usually found out a few weeks before when they told me. Usually they would give me some info about the breeding line, but it didn’t get much more than that. So it was fun to work with the unknown, and luckily for me, I was forced to get my own info about the young horse. It was necessary to first get to know him or her.
Have you ever seen one of those posters they make????? more specific that one poster where you see a magnificent horse standing in his box just sticking his head out over his wooden door, “by the way wooden door unspoiled, yep, no scratch in it, no horse teeth markers on it, no paint damage or graffiti some horses tend to leave behind” , like a message saying “ I want out” of that kind. . No, just a close-up of a horse standing behind a stable door with a close-up of his presence standing perfectly shaped looking out against a dark background. Well, my first encounter with Hilton was a bit like that. Once they told me “the new gang “ had arrived I was eager to go and look for them. They told me they were placed in the dark boxes. There was nothing wrong with these boxes not that they were much different from all the others, but these boxes were located were light could not enter so imagine this……. About three years, out in the prairies and then, boom, no green-no sunlight-no other buddies and no free space. My first contact was always on mutual basis. I would go and see them, and I decided to enter or to leave a piece of my clothing in the stable. When I turned the corner, my eyes fell immediately on him just like that poster capturing all of my attention, here with one difference there were bars fences in front of him. It didn’t diminish his presence at all. His red chestnut coat, you know, the kind of colour, that if you were walking in autumn season, on a sunsetting sky-line, you and this horse would merge into the fabric of natures wonders. I decided to enter his stable and at that time he gave me something. I didn’t understood it nor realised it at that time. He gave me.” Tolerance”. And it was this and loyalty that at the end of my training and period with him that would win him over into letting me ride him. The training seem to start off on a normal beginning. It was nothing like that at all. Tolerance is nothing like openness. No, it came with a fine line of…… now you have it and now you don’t. In the period of the “ don’t’s “ little by little I had to review almost everything. And then the fact that if he was tolerant, I still knew nothing about him.
The man “Nante” and “Fons” were the two men who worked in the riding school. And Nante told me something about the time when Hilton was still a foal . Apparently, when Nante, would enter the prairie to feed the horses, Hilton would jump out of the Prairie and when Nante left the Prairie Hilton would jump back over the fence into the Prairie again. Another peculiar thing was something the blacksmith told me. He said Anne, Hilton is a “pieff” . By this he meant; when Hilton was castrated, one testicle was not descendent into the pocket but stayed in his underbelly. Do you know what this mean? Anne?? …… I said no, what does this mean? Very quick the answer came….. well it means that his character is not to rely on. One day it is like this and another day he’s not. That sentence always stayed in the back of my head and bit by bit it started to sink in….. he’s not like all the other young horses at all. I decided to go slow with him and look attentively to every move or sign he would give me. I need to try to find out in what kind of category he would belong. Since a long time now, I categorise the horses under their sensitiveness & where the fight and flight would commence. Would he be a horse who is sensitive to enter their zone-approach on the sides ? Or perhaps sensitive by the weight on top of him ? Are it the movements of the saddle or the pressure of the saddle girth? …… I always would decide on how to continue the training, once I had seen the horse move with a girth only, or directly with the saddle. I would turn them loose and by the way they were dealing with it, I could place that in a kind of a category. Was he a horse that tried to run away from it?. Or would he go straight to fighting by bucking it off, or exploding giving pressure to all the sides through the pressure of the girth?. Time to find out. With Hilton, in a timeframe of a couple of minutes it was clear: he had all of them and I discovered another one, namely; accidentally a mistake happened and he wasn’t the horse that had the intention of letting me go with one. What happened was the following: I first placed a girth-belt and that went kind of normal, then after a few days I placed the saddle on him and here it went from wrong too bad and then to worst and ended in a dangerous situation. He started to run away and bucked so hard, it was a state where he would instead of giving in or getting used to it went worse. And then the stirrups ( that were tied-up came down. I should have taken the stirrups of the saddle. But mostly once tied up, they would not undo. Hilton kept fighting non-stop and by each buck the stirrups bounce back with getting him to fight harder and he was running free in the paddock. At one point I could see that this horse never forfeited a fight. It would not help me to make him stronger. I could lose him by letting this continue. I choose not to. From that moment his tolerance was gone, but that left me with a clear view of how he would behave towards the training. Every time I did something new, he had a kind of shutdown. Months went by, I adjusted my training in less “ black or white” situations: for instance, since the mistake happened at the moment that I went for ; from a girth-belt to saddle which was too much, so I created steps. Underneath the girth-belt I placed another kind of material and then another day, I would change that material in something else. He was not afraid of a different colour or tissue or leather or cotton, so that was not an issue. It was more a kind of ‘if I thought I could go on to the next level’ , then the shutdown came. Actually the whole picture on moving on ….didn’t change. Maybe the fact that his freedom was abruptly ended and during training, there were more days of training then being in the prairies again, So, one day, I started to ,when I could place the saddle (without the stirrups this time) I placed him in the prairie with the saddle and I kept doing that for at least a month. I did study him, with the saddle on him while he continued to grazing and being with another horse. I could see he was like he always has been, but that saddle on him still remains a separate part of his body. Was not an integration of that saddle in his movements. So I could see the horse and a saddle, but it was definitely separated , no integration, maybe I just created a cover-up for the history problem or maybe something else. Anyway, he wasn’t giving me the “go “ for getting on him and ride away. From the transition of placing the girth-belt with a saddle pad towards saddle something else he made obvious…… since I would go step-by-step by little step before a greater step et cetera I had some apple or carrots with me and I would cut them into pieces put them in my pocket and at that time, the daily exercise was as followed; I placed the saddle pad and then the saddle on him and I would give him a piece of apple. ( now this was not something I like to do or I agreed to do. I was months away in training and I didn’t get where I needed to be) Anyway Hilton his response towards this was clear. He took the piece of apple/carrot between his teeth and kept it there, his ears pointed to the back, his eyeball slightly to what I was doing. I took the saddle off and he started chewing his piece of apple. I repeated a few times each time was the same ……. Again, tolerance. This, for me, was the first encounter in my life about thinking quitting my job of training. I felt I wasn’t up to the task and maybe at that time I wasn’t it was not that I was second-guessing myself or that I was bringing the history into every new thing we did, no. On that subject, for me what happened, happened and that was where it stayed. From the mistake I learned that Hilton could put a frontier between steps, going from one step to the next step I had to be watchful. Also by looking on how he behaved told me that I stood nowhere. Concerning the piece of Apple, I experimented also. Meaning I gave a piece before any work done and he accepted. I placed a saddle on him gave him a piece of apple. He refused to take it.. then I placed that piece in his mouth and he would keep it there, he waited until I had taken the saddle off, and then he started to chew on it. So he was like that, all or nothing or better phrased with him or nothing at all. One thing he had and that was no fear and he trusted his guts. He would avoid specific situation, or men. Even though at some point I start to getting to know his movements and actions, I still wouldn’t have him. I learned not to take all of this personal because it had nothing to do with that. One day I set up some jumping exercise so he could deal with some thing different with the saddle though everything from here on was with the saddle. Prairie okay with the saddle, doing free exercises in the riding paddock ……with the saddle. Going out of the riding paddock, I put the saddle off, once in the corridor to go to his stable….I put the saddle back on. I was not going to give in. Everything from now on as a daily action me myself Hilton and a saddle. Three different pieces moving together separately. Then one day I build a jumping scenario. Since it was the first time I made sure there was enough distance before he would need to jump over the obstacle. Meaning; it’s about one gallop pace over the Cavalletti and then the next Gallup pace, he would encounter the obstacle. I build up a corridor so he could not get next to it. He had to jump it. So I sent him down the corridor leading him to the fence. He jumped all right not only the fence , no he took off before the Cavalletti I placed ‘like 6 meters before the obstacle’, and then he jumped over the post that was 1 m60; I was standing there next to that post, so his legs left the ground 6m before the fence (I was standing next to the fence pole,which is 1m60 in height ) he jumped over the fence pole, and my head……. but with the saddle. The thought of “Nante” words came to my mind. Jumping in and out the Prairie like it was a daily exercise. I surely believed Nante, because Hilton performed this jump with ease and elegance and know how of distance and height, more was it that he would deal with obstacles as “obstacles” ???? literally ???? and he would widen his borders in order to get him out of a situation??????. This could explain why I still had that feeling of not ‘having him with me’ That became clearer and clearer. Outsiders could see all of his potentials and if this comes with a presence, then this is a horse that people would like to have our own him. This eventually happened, but ended very nicely I must add. In training the young horses I held a kind of habit some people do stuff for good luck or don’t do stuff in order to avoid bad luck for me it was this.: normally all of the young horses in training came to the training facilities untouched, if I may use this term. So I understood what a shock it must have been for some of them to enter the structured way of living with their co-existing earthlings. So, I never cut their mane. At least I could leave their hair hanging down like wild horses that seemed enough dignity I would let them keep. And once the training was over, I would transform them to a civilised horse. A kind of horse, people were looking after. I could not change their future or future owners but I could respect their natural presence a way of saying to them yep it’s okay to let your hair hang down. With Hilton, this was different if I had my way I would never cut his mane and I never did at least not I, but I leave that for later…….. So… here I was four months later me Hilton the saddle the bridle, only ready to take some pictures but not much more then that.
My salvation came from a whole kind of different direction. I had an accident and burned my foot at a 3th degree. I was not able to work the horses for about six weeks. In that period somebody else would let Hilton out, but nobody worked him. I preferred that as long training was going on, only one person should do the job. I stood regularly on the side and looked while he was running free in the paddock during those six weeks. And then came a surprise: after those six weeks I picked up my training and looked if I could pick up where I left off. He was no longer Hilton moving and the saddle as a separate piece. His movement has changed. His body and movement were different then before. Before he looked like a body moving in pieces; each part of his body seems to take on a different angle. The saddle still would break him into pieces. To my surprise, he was moving like the saddle wasn’t on him, the fine curves , one movement merging into another, I was dazzled to see a nice wholeness. I couldn’t stop gazing into that moment of movement. It was so effortless and he was back present in his being with elegance that seems timeless. It was like the first encounter he had that presence. I forgot all about the goal we had to achieve, savored the moment and store the memory. I didn’t ask new things that day, I was happy with the change that he made. Anyway, my day couldn’t get any better, so I placed him outside on the Prairie and took some time off too. Later that day, I started to pounder, on how to proceed, now I had to move on and take him for a ride. Next day I saddled him up and when I stepped up, to my surprise, he bend his neck and made contact with my hand that was laying over his body. There was no time for second-guessing now. I placed my right leg over his back and gently sat down.. since he was okay with my weight and height on his back, I asked a friend with her horse the next day and we took off in the woods for a few hours. Since that day it was Hilton and me and I never did fall off him. What it was, that turned him over, I can guess, but never know for sure. One thing is certain he turned and made it happen. And I was just a person where he would “giving a chance to his tolerance” transformed into a go ahead with “ forget not I’m in here to “‘ kind of spirit. Once a young horse was trained into basics; saddle- bridle- longing- riding in forest & basics directions in left, right, go and coming to a stop. Then I left the rest of the training to the person that were to come in their life. My training was very basic and the kids people that took off the training after me, had still a lot to cover for there was a lot left to do, so thanks to the people who took over. I could connect to all of these horses and get something out of it. But none of these horses were mine to keep. Once they know their basics and being able to ride our doors, I would cut their mane and from here they would be ready for the next step in their human horse relationship. If somebody wanted to have a horse for dressage, jumping, or more technique related sports, then they would have to make the same connection I had to do. This because I thought that in finding each other it was better to leave the horse untouched in the domain the next rider would like to achieve something. There is a great difference between getting to know your horse and wanted to train a horse in the sport you have in mind for him. It seemed fairer to me to leave the horse having a say in what was lying ahead for him or her. For Hilton it went a different way: after six months of training him, I felt that he needed a vacation, and I’m grateful again for the trust that was placed in me. I asked if they could put Hilton for the rest of the year back to the prairies.. and that he may skip a year. They did agree. I went visiting him on the Prairie and for him I had a kind of whistle a specific kind of whistle like you know when you call Skippy the kangaroo that was my tune for Hilton and when I whistled, his friendship was so clear it had nothing romantic about it, but he would come in a gallop over to meet me. He stayed with me to my surprise when I went away he would accompany me to the gate. He was happy in the prairie and he was happy to see me it was clear. I was a part of his life now that left me with a kind of other worry. To whom and how should he go. I was thinking about my favourite rider and horse Jappeloup and Pierre Durand. If I remember well I did send a letter to Pierre Durand asking him if he would buy this horse because there was a lot of resemblance with Jappeloup character and especially his height. Jappeloup was 1 m 58 and Hilton also. And that he could jump that was a sure thing. Before I could find him a fitting rider, a young man would take him out for a walk and when he came back, Hilton had bucked so hard that he broak the saddle girth. So before I could find him a fitting rider from my point of view, well he was sold. I was made aware that somebody has cut his mane and I went in an impulse state of move, little by little they told me he was sold. But it was nice that they considered to break the news to me gently. In fact in that time period, nobody was good enough for a Hilton and honestly, I am glad now that I did not find somebody for him. Hilton lived up into his 30 years with the same people who bought him . I can imagine the stories they could write. I only met him for a year imagine 30 years with him.
Although I missed out on ‘being able in spending a whole life with these kind of horses’. It wouldn’t be anything else then , that the universe would provide me with another horse of the club 1 % r’s, which happened a third time. Such a horse came along. And this one is still now 26 years and counting with me. If all good or bad things exist out of 3, then this good thing made up for all the horses I needed to say goodbye to and I came to a conclusion: The 1% r’s are the horses that choose you. They pick you. The rest of that life with him is still going on and that story is for an another chapter.