Training by the Book

I am not as funny as Carl was but the stories bring back many memories. During my early years when Carl was trying to teach me the basics of horse training it was a riot because I would buy books and then at night read them to Carl so he could provide his comments on how the book would say to do certain things. Carl was legally blind and couldn't read nor did he know Braille. Few people ever knew how little he could see but his uncanny ability to tell when a person was doing something wrong was phenomenal. We had some grand discussions and even though he told me to throw some of the books away, he knew I would have to try it and when things went wrong, he would help pick up the pieces.

I wanted to learn to work a horse on a lounge line and Carl had never done that because he preferred to ground drive a young horse. Well let me tell you that I had read the book, which told just what to do and note that I said “what to do “not” how to do it, and the illustrations were out in an open field. With my newfound knowledge I told Carl I was going to teach my white TWH gelding to lounge and Carl quietly said "I wouldn't do that but I know you have to try it for yourself".

He fixed me a lounge line about 25 feet long and warned against getting caught in the coiled line. Nothing to it says the author of the book. There was just one small glitch, the horse hadn't read the book and therein was the problem. I took him out in the field and started him walking and moved away letting out line so he can circle around me. Easy as a breeze and things are going fine just like the book said until the horse speeds up and he is 20 feet away when he decides not to play this game and so turns straight away from me with the line laying against his neck and he now has the leverage and unless I plan to be dragged across the field I have to turn him loose. Does he let me catch him so we can try again, no way!! Does he stay on the far side so Carl can't see what happened, no way again and so he takes off at a dead run and with the line flying he goes right up to Carl and stops.

I didn't let these small problems stop me from my pursuit of being a great trainer and Carl patiently let me try new ideas and as the years went by I added my own touches and techniques to my training program.

The greatest time of my life with Carl was the nightly discussions on training ideas. We would take a section at a time and Carl would point out the parts that weren't mentioned and made the books not useful to a novice because the book never pointed out what could go wrong and what to do to fix it. I loved the European writers because they always assumed there were at least one or more other people to assist and it is a perfect world.

Books are great as a reference and you have to pick and choose what will work for each horse. During our 28 year marriage, I trained, rode and sometimes showed, Tennessee Walking Horses, American Saddlebreds, Morgans, Fox trotters, Arabians, Quarter Horses, Appaloosas, Standardbreds, Thoroughbreds Hackneys, Paso Finos, Peruvian Pasos and lots of grade mixed breeds. I have had driving horses and I have ridden with the foxhunters. There were always TWHs there but also other gaited horses in the barn. I have never been without a TWH.

Elsie

Last Chance Farm 10267 206th Road   Nortonville, KS 66060   Phone: (913) 886-6481   Fax: (913) 886-2713 darrah5015@yahoo.com