Is Your Horse Environment Supportive?

I started riding at a large farm which combined boarding, private lessons, training and home to a Therapeutic Riding Program. There was an ebb and flow of energy that coursed through it, the busyness that came in the evenings when families would show up and volunteers worked hard to keep their charges safe. The late nights that always ran overtime with young students taking “just one more lap?” aboard their favorite lesson horse while the instructor looked on and their parent checked their wristwatch. The excitement and noise from the horses during feeding, stall cleaning and turnout.

Even as the farm evolved and became a state of the art facility for boarding and training, and the Therapeutic Riding Program somehow became defunct, the ebb and flow never ended but took a new course. It was the kind of place that immediately drew me in and occupied my thoughts round the clock. I spent as much time as possible there, even when I had nothing to do I would dawdle around with my hands in my pockets feeling stupid, foolish, in the way somehow just standing around watching everyone else go about their unique rituals.

I volunteered, I took lessons and eventually leased a wonderful little palomino Paso Fino mare who was both forgiving and enough of a challenge for an 11 year old to learn from but never fear for their life. And then it happened, I fell in love with a cute bay Paso Fino gelding and somehow managed to talk my parents into buying him for me. With the purchase came my promise of working at the barn daily to help offset the cost of board. It was just another excuse for me to spend more time immersed in horses. I took my time doing chores, not out of laziness but rather to extend my usefulness throughout the day and avoid leaving until absolutely necessary. After bringing horses in for the night and feeding I would sweep the long aisleways of the barn with the small broom rather than using the leaf blower because it meant an extra couple of hours in the company of the horses. Most nights I didn't call for a ride home until nearly midnight.

Of course I got talked to about improving my speed, which at the time felt like a dire criticism and that I must be doing something horribly wrong. Now I realize that it wasn't obvious to everyone around me the intentions I had in going slowly through my rituals and chores. To them it was laziness but to me I was soaking up every moment with the horses.

A few years later we moved to our own little farm just a few miles away, bought a second horse and began a new set of rituals in an environment that was very quiet compared to the continual comings and goings before. Every evening the horses came into the barn, got fed and groomed and loved on. I spent hours with them in our very own barn. Often it was time spent doing a whole lot of nothing very important or pressing, but it added up over time to equal an amount of trust between me and those two (eventually three) horses that is hard to explain. It is different than spending training hours on a specific task.

That was my ritual every day with them; in the morning was a quick grooming, turnout and feeding, clean stalls, empty water buckets and sweep the aisle. In the evening bring everyone in, feed, fill water buckets, groom, sweep the aisles, give some more love and attention and tuck them in for the night.

Then I began collecting horses. Err, I mean I decided to start breeding horses and with that came purchasing breeding stock. My ritual changed and I moved away from this wonderfully intimate relationship I had with a few horses to juggling many more horses than one person's attention can really do justice to. Those three horses were switched to full time turnout and my stallion and foals received a stunted version of the original ritual. As the original barn on the property (an old dairy barn without the best foundation) began showing too much disrepair to safely keep horses in we made the decision to tear it down. It never got replaced.

I bred horses for several years before deciding that what I really love is riding and training and building a relationship with each one. Breeding was nice but not my real passion. I missed those long grooming sessions and my old ritual but I guess I never really connected with it consciously.

I've worked at other barns too since that time, and each had their own ebb and flow and with it a unique ritual, but they weren't the same. You don't always have the luxury of dawdling when you are on other people's time and expectations.

Today I am on the journey to recapture the ritual which nurtured my soul. I have this great riding arena (not a brag, rather a nod in appreciation for all the hard work my parents put into making my childhood dreams an adult reality) but it often feels like I've never really finished moving into it. The tack room exists but has not been finished. There is some kind of feng shui faux-pax in existence that keeps me from feeling comfortable dawdling in the space.

I want my ritual back so I can resume dawdling about with the horses I love.

My arena space needs stalls I've decided. As much as I know it is best for their hooves to roam about the pasture 24/7 at free will, I also know that it can benefit them to have the regular daily ritual of being stalled, groomed, fed; rinse and repeat in the morning then turnout. There is also a usefulness to teaching horses they can handle being confined in a stall periodically as well as being present during the training sessions of other horses.

The tack room needs to be finished, starting with the floor. A coat of paint besides primer would probably help add character too..

And seating if anyone feels like being comfortable observing a horse being worked or ridden.

That's where I'm at right now. I'm done fighting against a work environment that does not support or inspire me and instead I'm creating one that does. Now to begin collecting the

Join 3,000 Equestrians

Receive New Articles In Your Email

I consent to receive email communications from Writing of Riding.