The Art of Horsemanship

The Art of Horsemanship

ByBrooke Taylor

I remember well my first summer of riding. While most kids my age were relishing in late nights and later mornings, I was up with the sun, lunch packed, paddock boots on waiting for mom or dad to drive me to the barn for horse camp. I had taken a few lessons, but never been to horse camp before. I pictured hours of trail riding, lounging in grassy fields, eating picnic lunches under the shade of a tree, and perhaps taking a dip in the pond in the middle of a sweltering Georgia summer day.

While some of those things did happen, what horse camp actually resembled looked a lot more like a much less comfortable school classroom. About 5 or 6, 8-10- year-old little girls would be huddled together on my trainer’s living room floor with binders full of handouts. There were quizzes on types of horses and their markings, bit identification, tack cleaning, and grooming tools and their uses. There were handouts about proper equitation and turn out. There were lists of warning signs and things to look out for if a horse should be in distress. Practically, there were hands on lessons on grooming, bathing, wrapping, mucking stalls and taking apart and reassembling tack until you could do it in your sleep. We were like Marines, but our weapons were bridles.

Age was never a reason to not understand fully the responsibility of horse care. And, much like any teacher in any classroom across America, the expectations were high from our trainer. A wrong answer was an invitation to clean more, quiz more, work more. In fact, riding was the very last thing I recall being allowed to do, unless all of the other lessons for the day had been learned. It was a reward for getting the answers right to caring for our partners. Despite all of the dirt and the sweat and the frustrations of getting piebalds and pintos straight, there is nowhere else I would have rather spent those summer days.

I wonder if my parents realize that those summers taught me ingrained behaviors, I think I’ve carried with me into a very successful career. At the risk of sounded a little too “back in my day”, the art of good horsemanship is timeless. And while it took me most of my life thus far to call myself a first-time horse owner, those lessons in horsemanship have stuck in many more ways than a summer at camp. Just last week, in fact, at the ripe old age of 37 I scheduled a ground lesson with my trainer to dust off the cobwebs of my summer camp days on the topic of wrapping legs correctly.

As I drive through the prosperous areas of Milton/Alpharetta on a daily basis, I wonder, too, sometimes if kids still spend their summers this way or if things have changed so much that the horse comes second to the “stuff”. All too often in a more affluent part of the world I see big show programs where grooms do it all for the kids at a show, and sometimes at home as well. I don’t have kids; but if I did, and they were riding, I would seek out the trainers and the programs which place a heavy importance on horsemanship first. Not just because caring for your partner is essential, but because what this world really needs is more kids growing up to be independent, capable and caring adults. Horsemanship is more than just learning what a hoof pick looks like. It’s problem solving, teamwork, fine motor skills, cleanliness, attention to detail, compassion, physical labor, and curiosity. In what other sport can you say you’ve taught your child nearly every skill life requires? Horsemanship is the test, riding is the reward.