On the Wings of a Storm
I paid less than $400 for Aaruba. His breeder wanted quiet Arabians and Pintabians, and Aaruba wasn’t. No, Aaruba was the plain gray, high-headed, wide-eyed, last straw that sent his sire to the vet for gelding.
I first saw him on the kind of windy, muddy day that whipped his mind to wildness. Still a leggy four-year-old, he flashed about the makeshift corral as if the storm were inside him, no buck but plenty of air, a whirl flat knees, good hooves, and that indefinable something that trumpets, “I’m the one!”
We made the deal.
Aaruba came home friendly but troubled, ravaged by a sea of emotions, in desperate need of a captain. Together we navigated the straits of training — he the ship and I the sail — to open waters and sunny days.
Nearly three years later, I can sometimes offer a bit of the captaincy to him. Yesterday, fresh from two weeks of bad weather and little work, he seemed nevertheless in a mental state to chart our course. And so, I settled into my new Stonewall and handed him the wheel.
He ran.
For most of sixteen miles, he ran, and a winter storm gave chase. A frozen landscape streamed past, pulled tears from my eyes and sweat from his neck. We cantered free as water, free as wind, our bodies long and loose as the reins between us.
I scarcely touched his face or sides but listened instead to his language pure as breathing. Our path looped wide, spun at last on a gust toward home. Winter nipped his flying heels. Naked tree limbs shuddered and the bellies of the clouds grew pregnant with snow.
And I? I clung astride that plain gray, high-headed, wild-eyed, will-o-the-wisp whose size and strength far outstripped my own, a creature more emotion than logic, more motion than matter, more worth than gold, and I was not afraid.
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Glory in Motion: Riding at the Speed of Delight
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Introduction: Equine Gastric Ulcer Series
If I had my way, I would not be writing this post. If I had my way, Aaruba’s gastric ulcers would have resolved with treatment and never recurred. If I had my way, I would not care about ulcer treatments, preventatives, or alternatives.
By the end of the day following our 55-mile ride at Owyhee Canyonlands in September, two weeks after Aaruba finished his month-long course of GastroGard, I knew the ulcers were back. Aaruba’s poor appetite and uncomfortable aspect led to a call to the vet, which led to another $500 GastroGard purchase and $100 in Doxycycline, in case the recurrence was due to an infected ulcer.
The antibiotic treatment went out the window after four doses. Poor Aaruba despised the stuff and lost every bit of appetite the GastroGard had so recently restored. So, I had to hope the GastroGard alone would do the trick…but what if it didn’t?
Time to do some homework.
Over the next couple weeks, I’ll provide a series of posts detailing the questions I asked and the answers I compiled from various resources both online and in print. My research focused particularly on gastric ulcers in endurance horses, which face some special concerns. Here are the questions I’ll address:
- What strategies can prevent equine gastric ulcer formation or recurrence?
- What medications and alternatives are available to combat equine gastric ulcers, and are there any problems associated with their long term use?
- How effective are ulcer preventative supplements, and are there any problems associated with their long term use?
- How do the costs and benefits of various supplements compare?
- What does the American Endurance Ride Conference say about ulcers and ulcer treatments in endurance horses?
- And finally, how will I apply this information for the benefit of my own herd?
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Pharmaceutical and Alternative Treatment Options for Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome
Equine Ulcer Supplement Options
EGUS, Endurance, and the AERC
A Fair Question: Equine Athletes, Equine Ulcers
Bringing it Home: EGUS Prevention at In the Night Farm
Upward In the Night
You would have bought it, too, that saddle in a stranger’s garage the day before the sale was to open.
Never mind that you shouldn’t have dropped the cash, that all five of your newly-acquired Barb horses were virtually wild. Never mind that you couldn’t halter any of them, let alone test for saddle fit. Never mind that, for you, endurance racing was merely a pile of library books and a dream.
It was an endurance saddle, a Stonewall with centerfire rigging and fenders burnished by the rub of breeches over countless miles. It was a step — one taken out of order, but a step nonetheless — toward a cherished goal. The saddle was hope.
So I bought it. Six months later, I bought an Arabian horse called Aaruba. He cost little more than the saddle, as his breeder was eager to dispense with the energetic gelding who’d proved a poor example of the mellow temperment characteristic of his herd. Aaruba featured patchy groundwork, about 20 rides under a hasty trainer, and a reputation for bolting when mounted. But, after some initial adjustments, the Stonewall fit him as well as the sport for which he was chosen. After eighteen months of remedial training, I cinched up that comfortable, old saddle and started conditioning.
I never imagined that Stonewall Saddle Company would one day make the gracious offer of a sponsorship. And yet, as of yesterday morning, Aaruba and I have the honor of being sponsored by Stonewall — and the special treat of a custom endurance saddle, complete with conformal foam over a tree specially made for Aaruba’s back.
Jerry Stoner, the saddle’s original designer, was both an endurance rider and a Space Program engineer. He knew that NASA had developed a material called conformal foam to line astronauts’ seats, protecting them from from pressure points even through the high g-forces of takeoff. Seeing an opportunity to offer his horse additional comfort on long rides, he designed a saddle reminicient of the old McClellan (but much more comfortable for the rider!), with a layer of conformal foam between the saddle’s bars and sheepskin lining. The result is a saddle that conforms to the horse’s back, evenly distributing weight along the panels and allowing painless freedom of movement.
Glory in Motion: Riding at the Speed of Delight
As I drove home from the office yesterday, steely rainclouds pelted my windshield with more water than the wipers could keep at bay. I toyed absentmindedly with the heater and radio knobs, debating whether to ride Aaruba, or just do a bit of liberty work with him, when I got home.
As I dashed from car to house, the idea of half an hour in the round corral seemed much more appealing than that of ninety minutes of trekking along the roadside, drenched with rain and tire spray. On the other hand, our forecast suggested that today might not be any better. So, I whipped up a quick snack, shimmied into my Patagonia’s, and grabbed my Wintec Aussie saddle instead of the usual Stonewall.
Light rain dotted the saddle as I tacked up, but by the time I swung astride, the band of clouds had blown eastward. Aaruba and I set off after them…and darn near caught them, too.
Aaruba was brimming with energy after two days spent resting and chowing down on a diet calculated to pack more pounds on his frame. Last fall, a serious impaction colic put him in the hospital for almost a week. He lost 250 pounds and gained a name for himself as one of the most unlikely survivors his team of vets had ever seen. Confined all winter by atrocious weather and worse footing, he regained a respectable amount of weight, but I couldn’t put as much food energy into him as I’d have liked to because everything I tried turned him into a frustrated, head-tossing, paddock-pacing beast.
Now that he’s on a conditioning program, however, it’s time to pad him out a bit more. Unlike human athletes, who perform best with as little body fat as possible, horses rely on stored fat to provide energy during prolonged exercise. Free choice oat hay, supplemental alfalfa, and several pounds of oats dressed with corn oil are doing the trick…but the first ride after a good rest period can be an adventure.
Sure enough, after a mile’s warm-up at a walk and jog, Aaruba turned on the turbo. Neck curved in that glorious Arabian arch, he charged along the gravel shoulder, shying at mailboxes and songbirds for the sheer amusement of it. Half laughing, half cursing, I jostled for balance in the unfamiliar saddle with its relatively forward seat, narrow leathers, and standard English irons. (Perhaps next time I want to test a new saddle, I’ll do it when the horse is a touch less fresh.)
Three miles down the road, we were still cruising along, all speed and suspension, far exceeding our prescribed 6 mph pace. A familiar mantra played in my mind: Ride the horse and not the plan. Usually, this admonition reminds me to slow down, give the horse time, scrap the plan if the horse isn’t ready to follow it. This, however, seemed a rare opportunity to exceed the constraints of my Training Tracker.
“Okay, fella,” I told Aaruba. “Let ‘er rip.”
Though Aaruba would gladly have offered a hand gallop, such an effort would be foolhardy at this stage of conditioning. We agreed instead upon a surging trot. Normally, we jog for miles on a slack rein, but today the lines between us sang with tension.
May I go faster? he said.
If you can do it at a trot, I said.
I can, he said, and pulled his hindquarters deep.
His shoulders pulsed beneath me and the road spun out behind. Heat rose from his skin, engulfing my hands and warming my calves. Having reached a truce with the new saddle, I posted low and steady, my grip firm on the reins, a conduit transmitting energy from haunch to head and back again.
You know the feeling: It’s acing the interview for your dream job, kissing someone you hardly know, traversing a high ropes course, rafting the Colorado. It’s being a child on the beach, ankle deep in riptide, wondering if it’s just you or the whole earth that moves.
It’s seeing thousands of training hours turn to gold.
Our sixth and seventh miles took us up a gradual incline. Slowly, Aaruba’s neck relaxed out of its arch. He even consented to walk the eighth and final mile, reducing our average speed to 7 mph. Back on the farm, I released him in a grassy pen. He rolled, took a few bites of grass, then leaped and spun on a gust of wind — clearly, as they say in the endurance world, “fit to continue.”
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A Moment of Silence: Communicating with Horses
After a sleepless night spent trying to save a newborn lamb, followed by a day of urging it to nurse, I was in no mood to train horses on Monday. Exhausted and achey, with frustration bubbling just below the surface, I didn’t trust myself with something so permeable as a horse’s mind.
The pressure was on. As of April 1, my training schedule hit full swing. Though Aaruba was enjoying a day off from conditioning, I was supposed to work with Consolation and Acey, preparing them to start under saddle. Time was ticking, consistency was key, goals tapped their fingers on my brain. Missing a day was not acceptable.
But, as Robert Painter told me many times, “Everything you do with a horse is training.”
Horses don’t come with an off switch. I can’t tell them I’m sorry to be snappish, it isn’t their fault, they shouldn’t be offended. Their sense of justice doesn’t evaporate because I am in a bad mood. An undeserved jerk of the leadrope could create a rift in our relationship that takes weeks to heal.
If I want to be trusted, I must be trustworthy.
Still, I couldn’t stay away from the horses entirely. Leaving all tack behind, I led Aaruba from his pen and let him graze while I groomed him. His coat, still fuzzy from winter, ruffled and gleamed in the sunset breeze. His ears flickered pleasantly, and the smell of spring grass wafted so sweet that I wished I could eat it, too.
I found myself sinking into Aaruba’s smaller world, his life that is just this moment. Swishing tail, smooth muscle, warm body, kind eye. Drifting tufts of winter hair. Stomping hoof muffled by earth. His pulse, soft as dusk, that bumps my hand upon his throat. His heartbeat, mine. Together. At peace.
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Call Me Crazy: A Word about Natural Horsemanship
While chatting with a non-horseperson several weeks ago, I mentioned that I do my own horse training.
Looking impressed, he said, “You must be a really good rider.”
I replied that while I’m certainly competent, there are plenty of better riders warming saddles in this county. It wasn’t until days later that I realized he thought I was a bronc buster…because isn’t bucking part of the process?
In a word, no. I may do many things, but running a private rodeo is not one of them. That style of training is so far from my own that it didn’t occur to me someone would make such an assumption. If I had to put a name to my training technique, I suppose I would — with great reluctance — call it natural horsemanship.
Why the reluctance? Well, for what is described as a gentle, logical training philosophy, natural horsemanship inspires very little polite conversation among horsemen. Next time you want to raise a ruckus in the barnyard, try this:
1) Stand in the middle of group of horsepeople.
2) Shout “Natural horsemanship!”
3) Watch the horsefeathers fly.
Participants in the brawl tend to view each other as being in one of two camps: The Devotees or the Ridiculers.
The Devotees range from pre-teen girls daydreaming about unbridled stallions and Steve Rother’s backside to serious trainers engaged in various certification programs. Some study the spectrum of approaches, while others align themselves as disciples of a particular trainer. Some spend thousands on name-brand tack. Others make a concept work with the equipment they already own.
Meanwhile, the Ridiculers point to seductive marketing of pricy training videos and clinics. They point out the personal failings of well-known trainers. They make YouTube videos like this one and snicker in online forums about attempts at natural horsemanship resulting in loose horses gallivanting around the barn owner’s tennis courts.
I can’t deny that the superstardom achieved by the likes of Monty Roberts, Pat Parelli, and Clinton Anderson — and the accompanying lingo and endorsed products — is irksome. A big ego, including the falsely humble variety, is a big turnoff for me, and I’m happy to steer clear of it.
That said, there is a reason these trainers and many others (Frank Bell, Charles Wilhelm, Chris Irwin, Sylvia Scott, Julie Goodnight, Linda Tellington-Jones, and the list goes on) succeed. It is the same reason I use a compilation of their techniques, which are as ancient as horsemanship itself, with my Barbs. We aren’t doing it because our heads have floated free of our shoulders, or because it’s the “in thing,” or because we were suckered by glitzy advertising.
We’re doing it for one reason: Natural horsemanship works.
Before you bring up the loose horse on the tennis courts again, let me qualify that statement. Natural horsemanship works if you understand the psychology behind it.
You see, natural horsemanship isn’t about tarps or round corrals or whips-by-any-other-name. No more is it about Western, English, New Age, or magical “horse whispering.”
Natural horsemanship is, at heart, nothing more than a way of being. It is expecting the horse to be a horse, not a human, and treating him thus. It is a choice to be the better creature, the wiser partner, the leader who listens. It is being what the horse needs you to be, so he can do what you ask him to do.
Attempted without understanding, the techniques promoted by many famous trainers are indeed silly or even dangerous. Skillfully applied, however, they can open cross-species communication with astonishing results.
Call it what you like, but it’s worth taking the time to understand how equines think and communicate. That’s how I see it.
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Tamara Baysinger
