Last week saw the SICAB ‘98 in Sevilla. Dedicated to the Pura Raza Española, (pure-bred Spanish horse) this is an annual event. Drawing enthusiasts not only from Spain, but from around the world, all of whom share in common the love of the Iberian horse.
Regular visitors to Sicab include, the Infanta Elena, the Duquesa de Alba, Daryll Hannah, Norma Duvall, Bo Derrick, Manual Diaz “El Cordobes”, Manual Chaves and Charlton Heston (a lover of the Spanish horse since he made the movie El Cid), to mention but a few.
This year, invited by Jose Sureda, to demonstrate her training methods was Lucy Rees, well known British horse behaviourist and author of several books including “The Horses Mind” her best known and highly profiled work used as standard for many equine study courses .
Three young colts were brought in for Lucy to work with in a specially made round “Bull Pen”. She had four days to demonstrate these natural training methods.
The first and wildest of the three colts proceeded to destroy most of the pen on its first outing.
By the third day we could hardly believe that this was the same animal as it followed her around the pen, ear cocked towards her. She proceeded to pick up his feet, cover him with ropes and blankets, long rein him, saddle him up and finally mount him much to the amazement of the crowds of onlookers.
Afterwards I heard a television interviewer ask Lucy
'And what exactly do you whisper in the horses ear ?'
Her reply was:
'Oh, it’s not what I whisper in the horses ear, its what he whispers in mine!'
Did I forget to mention that the film of The Horse Whisperer starring Robert Redford has been recently released in Spain!
A few days earlier I had the opportunity to ask Lucy a few questions.
-Question - What demonstrations will you be doing at Sicab?
-The demonstrations that I am doing here in Sicab, and I also do them quite a lot in Britain, will show a natural way of training which uses the instinct of the horse instead of fighting it, accomplishing rapid results, without fear or stress. Horses are attracted by company, leadership and calmness. They reject dominance, aggression and restrictions. They are immensely communicative and perceptive, so we establish a dialogue of body language that they can understand, and that shows we understand them. I work in a round pen. Cowboys have traditionally used the round or Bull-Pen for many years but they use it in a different way. But they are very good at putting the horse in a situation where he works out the answer for himself. They have a lot of respect for the horses intelligence. The Dorrance Brothers worked with wild Mustangs that had been wrongly trained. They realised that those horses voluntarily looked for contact with us if you let them in peace. Ray Hunt further developed this technique.
If you can set things up right the horse can work out the solution for himself and he doesn’t feel under restraint.
With this particular method I allow the horse to run away just as much as he wants until he senses he’s ready to stop, and then I handle him and show him that as long as he is with me no harm can come to him. And actually the things that I do with him may seem a bit weird at first. - I tie ropes around him then dangle blankets over his head and all sorts of different things. The work I do with each horse depends on him, how I feel and all sorts of different things. Any time the horse wants to he is free to run away. But when he starts to run I say 'O.k. that’s your choice but run', and I send him away until he feels ready to stop again.
When he is inattentive I push him on and I use the turning to catch his attention. You’ll see him cocking an ear at me. When you see him relax his paces, he will start to stretch his neck down, although the Andalucians don’t do this as much as other breeds because their backs are much stronger and they therefore carry much less tension in the back and therefore they don’t need to stretch so much. And you see the mouth movements too.
The first few times when they start to relax they usually get distracted and think to themselves -'Whoa this is a doddle, I think I´ll go and have a look at that Mare over there'. I go wham! and turn them, and start to get their attention again. The ear will cock to me much more that the first time. They relax, they are mouthing, their paces are better, they stretch down and they are still attending to me. Then I step backwards and slightly away and they stop and immediately turn towards me. If they don’t stop I send them off again. Its fascinating. It seems so weird that to get a horse to come to you actually have to chase it away, buy actually it is showing the horse very clearly, that he has the choice.
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-Question - How did you start working with horses?
- I started working in the fairly traditional British way. Although I didn’t have any tuition or anything. In my early twenties I started working with very wild Welsh ponies .They were to be used as children’s ponies. They were extremely sparkly! For me the most important thing was that they be calm. ( it’s a child’s life in your hands.) Also that they should love you and that you should be able to go into a field and they would come right up to you. I didn’t try to catch them, but tried to get them to come to me. I learnt from the ponies also from the bigger ones that I could ride. I didn’t have a school or anything like that. I used to break them by walking them and that was when I discovered how important leadership is to them and that they should look to you through all sorts of difficult situations to be the calm one, and be able to lean on you.
-Question - What do you see as the long term differences between the traditional breaking methods and your natural methods?
- First of all with this method you get a much more relaxed horse. Therefore his paces are much better and he is much more responsive. Secondly, you get a horse that when the pressure is on he comes towards you instead of going away from you. He does this even when you are riding him. He refers back to you as opposed to running away. He will stop rather than run.
It is interesting that the British Army horse trainer who has been training horses for thirty years now uses my way of training horses in the round pen. He says that the huge difference between the traditional method ( which he is obviously very good at), and this way is that although using either method you are looking at about a month before the horses go out, the main difference is , he says, that the horses trained this way can go out to the front of a parade with flags, crowds, noise and be totally unpeturbed by anything. The traditionally trained horses, on the other hand, have to be put in the middle of the parade surrounded on all sides by the other horses because they are afraid.
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I spoke to Lucy again on the third day at Sicab.
-Question - How are things going?
- I think you saw how difficult it is . I have got three and four years old colts. They’re entire. I’ve got people going past with the pen with loads of mares, other horses, flapping ribbon around the top of the pen. I’ve got the most incredible situation in which to train a horse in a very short time. Very often they seem to be inattentive but actually the more pressure I put on them the more frightening ( you would think frightening ) things I do with them, the more they stick to me. And they are realising quite quickly and clearly, even in all this chaos that it all calms down and is really quite nice when they are with me. When they run away it tends to get a lot worse for them. And this gives them a lot of trust in me.
One of them I got on within about twenty-five minutes of the first meeting. The second horse has taken me two sessions because he obviously knew less and the third one is really wild. He was halter broken when he was six months old and then turned out and running wild with his brother ever since. He hasn’t been handled at all. He’s never been in a stable . The first day he destroyed the pen but after some adjustments to the pen on the second day at the end of forty minutes he was very relaxed with me and quite cheerful. You could see him licking his lips.
-Question - What kind of horses do you work with?
- Anything really! But mostly early breaking and training and I work a lot with problem horses, ( although there is no such thing, only problem owners!)
Horses that are not getting it right with their owners . Sometimes the fault lies further back in the horses history. Sometimes the horse has been traumatised by an awful accident or by a earlier trainer, mistreated.
Sometimes the owner is not quite understanding what the horse is seeing in a situation and I have to untangle both of them.
Lucy Rees has been living in Portugal with her Lusitano stallion, Iberico and dog Caddi for some years . She breaks, schools and prepares Lusitano horses in the Alentejo region. She is also working at present with three Welsh ponies and regularly goes to Britain to gives lecture tours at universities and colleges.
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