THE HORSE LISTENER

THE HORSE LISTENER

Will Sapphire turn out to be a Jewel?

A new journey unfolds for a little grey horse who got herself into some big trouble, writes CANDIDA BAKER.

At first Eva and Tyra hazed the new girl, but now Sapphy is one of the gang, and so they kept an eye on her while Candy worked with her.

One thing I’ve learned to trust on my horse journey is that the next horse in need of some TLC or rehabilitation, or rescue, or even just a holiday, will find me.

In Sapphire’s case, the last horse who was with me for four months, Aztec, was not even on the truck - due that morning - when a friend rang me.

“Candy,” she said. “There’s this horse.” (Words of course that any sane person runs away from by the way.) It turned out that my friend, who lives on Mount Tamborine, knew a family who had bought a 14.3hh seven-yearold Stockhorse Arabian cross for their 11-year-old beginner rider daughter. The little mare, although quiet, hadn’t taken long to figure out that if she made nasty faces at her young owner, or swung her back end around to her, the girl didn’t know what to do and backed off. Horse 1, owner 0.

But Sapphire was nevertheless, once she’d been caught - an event she was also beginning to turn into a major drama - quiet to ride.

One day, however, when the girl was riding her bareback at a walk, a friend who was with her told her to trot. I’m assuming she was probably sitting far too far forward on Sapphy’s wither, because as soon as she broke into a trot, she also did a pig-root, unseating her young rider, who landed unceremoniously on the ground, burst into tears and announced she was never riding her again.

She did, of course, but unfortunately with non-horsey parents, she had nobody – except my friend – to help her, and it was quickly obvious that the girl had got so scared of Sapphy it wasn’t going to work. Whereupon the father announced that there was only one place for the horse to go, and it wasn’t a place from which there was any return. This is even though he had spent

Picture: Sapphire watching Candy warily.

some thousands on this pretty mare, who would not look out of place in a showring if that was your druthers.

Hence the call to me. So the following week I went up to Mount Tamborine to meet Sapphire, my friend, and her young owner. The first thing I noticed was that Sapphire wasn’t the least bit interested in any of us. They’d coaxed her into a large yard with a shelter in with the dint of food the night before, and now she simply stood there as if to say, why don’t you just all go away?

They warned me that she might be difficult to catch, and I assured young Lilly that I had a few tricks up my sleeve. So I wandered into the yard in a very casual fashion, only to have Sapphire immediately glance at me out of the corner of her eye, and equally casually place her body so her rear end was facing me. Hmmm, I thought. Time for the carrot stick and a bit of the catching game. So I raised my arms and lightly held the stick in the air just to see what she would do. Well, she proved that a) she was sensitive b) she wasn’t dangerous c) she was clever, by simply scooting off. So we began our little dance of me asking her to move away, move away, move out of the shelter, don’t rest, go away, don’t come near me, until finally she stopped, licked and chewed, and walked straight up to me.

Lesson one. Don’t try and catch a horse that doesn’t want to be caught, get it to catch YOU. No horse wants to be

‘Once you establish that you are a ‘ horse’s leader by making it move away from you, its greatest desire is to be with you.

away from its leader, or its herd for too long. Once you establish that you are a horse’s leader by making it move away from you, its greatest desire is to be with you. You absolutely can’t over-estimate the importance of reverse psychology with horses! Just don’t try it in a massive paddock.

Once I’d caught her, she was a sweetie. We took her rug off, and she revealed herself as a pretty, well-conformed Galloway. I noticed, though, that she was very nervous when I was around her head, and when I asked Lilly about it, she told me that the breeder they’d bought her from, who had also started her, told her that if Sapphire didn’t do what she wanted she should hit her in the head. I was flabbergasted. “And did you?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I couldn’t bring myself to do that, but I think he did it quite a lot.” (I think he did, because this is an ongoing unravelling for Sapphy, to not startle when someone approaches her.)

But what I also noticed was that she was incredibly responsive, now that she’d decided to be with me. She backed away in the space of a nano-second, came in, turned on the hind-quarter and yielded on the fore-hand as if to say, “Like this? Or, like this?” I was impressed. I also ran my hands all over her and noticed that she was a bit out in the pelvis, stiff in her shoulders and, I thought, a little locked in her near rear stifle. Of the three things, the only one that bothered me was the last. Stifle lock can be a major pain for both horse and owner, but she moved freely at all three paces, and she had everything else going for her, so I decided – of course I did – that Sapphy would come home to join Tyra, my beloved adopted Save a Horse Australia horse, and Eva, my young off-the-track who had managed to injure herself some months ago, and is still recovering (more of that in another column).

So in due course, Sapphy arrived. She showed her little marey colours straight away, and tried to tell me that there was no way she was going to let me near her. But, to be honest, I’ve dealt with horses with way worse behavioural problems, so I just laughed, and told her she had plenty of time and that all we would do to start off with is I would stroke her a bit while she was eating.

So a month into the journey, she’s had four or five groundwork sessions, and shown herself to be remarkably easy to do join up with – choosing to stay with me even when I let her back out in the paddock with the other horses. She still makes marey faces, and I still laugh at her.

She’s had the chiro, she’s had her hooves trimmed, she’s on some supplements and we’re getting to the end of the ground-work, with riding next on the agenda. She’s become a pleasure to be around remarkably quickly – she’s also fine with dogs, children and motorbikes in her paddock, and she shows signs, when I separate her from her friends of feeling comfortable after only a few moments anxiety.

I’m looking forward to the next stage of Sapphy’s journey, and to her letting me know what kind of horse she wants to be, and what kind of life she wants to live. If you’re a Horse Listener, then you’re honour-bound to Listen to the Horse. Sapphy has a poll release from chiropractor Matt Butler.

Candida Baker runs a Facebook page, The Horse Listener. She is also the President of Equus Alliance