Grass

A widely held tenet of horsemanship is that your horse should regard you as the leader of your herd of two. This is a conversation I often have with Molly because she is so headstrong and I am really, I suppose, inherently democratic.

Still, I press on. The latest arena in which this dynamic is playing out is the grassy field. Molly gets plenty of good quality hay but she adores grass.

Many people who have horses will wait to feed them till after they work, both as a reward and to avoid digestive issues. But Molly had clearly often gone hungry by the time she came to Duane's, and she was anxious and ill tempered prior to feeding time. I used to get to the barn early enough before lessons to give her her morning hay. This way she was noticeably easier to work with. Then I would take her for grass afterwards.

Later, I took to letting her have grass while I groomed her and tacked her up, thinking this would make her even more amenable. At the new barn, there is a gorgeous grassy patch on the way to the tack room, so this summer I have been letting her eat grass while I groom her.

Experienced reader, you can see where this is heading. She recently began charging toward the grass as soon as we got out of her paddock. This is dangerous as well as rude and I clearly had to take her in hand. Connie and Duane had had to do something similar because early on, Molly was just unmanageable. So I learned from them how to correct her and insist that she mind. It is not easy, and requires absolute consistency in order to be effective. We are making progress again.

So much has been written about horsemanship. Mules seem to need both a firm hand and a certain sympathy. It is a journey to learn about all these things, and decide what to try, and see what works.