ESCAPE FROM WINTER

Escape from Winter                                                                 

Originally published in Horse Directory, May, 2014

By Tom Gumbrecht

It felt like something of a shock to the system: that first ride of the season after an unusually

The snow seemed endless and was our sole focus
for weeks on end

severe and repressively long winter, mercifully interrupted by a teasing, late spring.

It had been many months since I had climbed into the saddle, many months of non-stop mucking of stalls, chopping ice from feet, endless plowing and shoveling of snow, and thawing pipes that were electrically heated but froze anyway.  Chipping away at sheets of ice so that the cart could get the manure to the dumpster and the manure truck could take it away. Digging out gates, multiple blanket changes, pulling icicles from manes and huge electric bills to get water in front of the horses and keep it from freezing.

Now, I am one of those people who can honestly say that I have never minded walking down to the barn to take care of my horses, but I will admit that I came close this winter.  Not that I wanted to skip caring for them, but fighting a fever and chills, bracing each step against the wind while shielding my face from cutting shards of ice and blowing snow, feeling the thousand knives of crystallized breath inside my nostrils …. I did think, once or twice, “Can someone please come and do this for me, just tonight?”

Then the barn door opens and the air is filled with welcoming nickers and the comforting relative warmth of the hay-fueled, hooved, barn heating system.  The horses know that it’s cold, but they

A few moments recalling the racetrack on the longeline
make for a more productive first ride

place no value judgment on it.  It’s not horribly cold; it’s just cold.

The first few warmer days are a cruel tease; a little thawing of the arena footing followed by more snow and freezing temperatures.  But one afternoon the arena looks perfect, the sweatshirt comes off, the shirtsleeves get rolled up, and…. It is time.  I still second-guess myself after a winter’s hiatus from riding.  Can I still do it? Can my recently senior-citizen qualified body still take it?  I really only wonder about such things when I’m not actually on my horse; when idle periods let thoughts of “what if?” permeate my generally positive resolve.   

Fifteen minutes on a longeline dull Lola’s memories of the racetrack and I am awestruck once again at the poetry of a Thoroughbred horse in motion.  Then a boot finds an iron, a leg swings over a horse and everything finds its familiar place. Reins fall perfectly into place between gloved fingers.  Boots fall into irons at the right depth and angle, all by themselves.  I feel tall, physically and spiritually.  We walk the freshly groomed arena and get comfortable with all of the sensations again.  The rhythm of the rising trot takes hold, her ears go forward and the partnership has been renewed for another season.  I wasn’t going to canter but we both silently agreed to alter that plan. A slight leg pressure behind the girth and we take wing.  I love where I am, and I love who I am here with.  I love who I am when I am one with my horse. 

The  girls enjoy a long awaited spring day.

Spring is a time of renewal and I am again renewed.  More accurately, perhaps, I am born anew.  Why is this so?  Perhaps, as expressed in the words of horsewoman/ writer Pam Brown,

“A horse is the projection of peoples’ dreams about themselves – strong, powerful, beautiful – and has the capability of lending escape from our mundane existence.”

This winter, we existed.  This spring, we soar…

Ciao, Bella!

Ciao, Bella!    

                                                                                                                     

Originally published in Horse Directory,  August 2012

By Tom Gumbrecht

 I have, it seems, been blessed with a love for all horses.  Some, however, have at times been difficult to get along with.  For me, Bella had fallen into that category. Like many strained relationships, it was born of a lack of communication. Although in my barn, on and off, for quite a few years, I really didn’t know her.

Bella was Samantha’s second horse, purchased after her first horse, Magic, passed away as a senior.  She came from a farm in northern Connecticut, the fruit of Samantha’s exhaustive internet searches. She was as beautiful as she was young, only three years old when we met her.  Sam was 15 then, but we had both put in seven years with packers and schoolmasters, so with the help of a trainer, I believed her to be up to the challenge.

Bella, a buckskin pinto half-Arabian, half-Saddlebred mare, turned heads wherever she went. She proved a bit difficult to handle, but her speed and Sam’s keen eye and unshakable demeanor allowed her to do quite well in the local jumper shows.  At college, however, the instructors there were not as amused by Bella’s antics as we were, resulting in switching disciplines, and ultimately ending up in her not being used as much as we had hoped.  At one point, she sustained an unexplained lower forelimb injury and she ultimately came back home to recuperate.

She was given time off to heal, and during that time Sam had begun training with my Paint gelding, DannyBoy, who had just come off of a two year layup from his own injury.  During that time, I had been working with my recently rehabbed OTTB mare Lola, and our horse calendars were pretty much full.  Where Bella was concerned, the picture I had in my mind when I thought of her was with her ears perpetually pinned flat back, and teeth frequently bared.  She was a cranky mare.  I had a soft spot for her, but I never felt that my feelings were reciprocated.

Out of necessity, I had gained some experience in the years previous, rehabilitating orthopedic injuries in my horses.  The time had come to begin that with Bella.  In my back yard for seven years, save the four semesters at college in Ohio, I had nonetheless never ridden her.  I got on her in our ring and she seemed fine and offered no surprises.  So, I loaded her on the trailer and we drove to Blydenburgh Park in Smithtown for some light walk-therapy.

With a tiny bit of trepidation, I mounted up and we hit the trail.  She was a natural, blazing through overgrowth with ears forward and alert, cupping backward in acknowledgement of the slightest of aids.  She was reluctant to get her feet wet or muddy, so at first the puddles proved a challenge.  But she was otherwise brave, willing and interested.  Not wanting to overdo things on the first day, we headed back to the trailer after about a half hour of walking.  And then a crazy thing happened…

I untacked her and gave her a cool bath with a sponge and a bucket, scraping the excess water off so the remaining moisture could evaporate.  I noticed that unlike most horses, she seemed to want her face washed and actively encouraged it.  As is my routine, I brought out my little picnic lunch and let her graze peacefully as I enjoyed it.  She came over to investigate and gave me a look with such love in her eyes that was so intense and so unexpected that it gave me shivers.  She licked the side of my face and went back to grazing.  I didn’t see her ears pinned once during our excursion.  In subsequent days, the increased attention she paid me was at first curious, then disarming.  I was used to her being one way, and now she was acting another.

In one afternoon, a new friendship was formed.  We had only needed some one-on-one time to forge it.  The love had always been there; it was the “like” that we needed to work on.  That can be hard when someone seems to not like you.

 Sometimes, a little adversity forces us to work together.  And we discover something brand new, that has been there all along..