Eddy
Above: Baby photos of Eddy taken by his breeders Thundering Valley Ranch Morgans.
TVR Victory’s Edition or Eddy, is a morgan gelding that I first met when I was 15 years old. He was only 3 then, with skewed proportions because of his age. He was about 90% leg and could eat for days without gaining any weight. He also had never learned the skills required to carry a rider on his back.
4 weeks later my family purchased Eddy and I began what would become the biggest learning adventure of my teenage years. Eddy was my first horse and if you are not a horse person then you should know that there is a saying in the horse world: “Green and Green makes Black and Blue”. What this means is a “green” or inexperienced rider (like myself) and a “green” or untrained horse (like Eddy), usually result in a lot of bruises and misery. Fortunately, Eddy was born with a great love for people and a very kind spirit and I had some amazing trainers of my own who helped us both learn together.
One of the first things I learned when training my new young horse is the amount of skill-building that needs to happen before the actual riding part. Some trainers may have a bold, heavy-handed approach but we chose a more scaffolded method that involved a lot of little steps. Eddy was too young for ridden work anyways and I wanted to let him physically develop and grow before I pushed him into something he was not ready for. We did a lot of walking, slowly introducing the ridden aids and vocal cues that he would need to know once I was on his back. We allowed him to build his confidence piece by piece and eventually, we reached the day where I finally tested our work and sat on his back for the first time. Our patience was greatly rewarded and he calmly and confidently accepted his new rider.
I learned so many important lessons in those first months. I learned the value of patience when teaching and adjusting your pace to meet the learner’s needs. I learned how to scaffold and slowly build on prior skills in a way that builds confidence for the learner. I also learned how important consistency is.
Through the next year, Eddy developed as a horse and I developed as a rider. Our trainer left town and so we went into a full summer of training with another riding instructor. We started training in more complicated skills and were faced with some challenges in our progress. As a 4-year-old, Eddy became more headstrong and “difficult”. At least, that was my view of him during that time. I still had a LOT of learning to do as a rider and when my methods didn’t work, I was quick to blame him and his response to my instruction. There were some wonderful times when we figured out a skill and had an “aha” moment, but for the most part, it was a lot of rider mistakes and eventually, a steady improvement in both my riding and his understanding. This time in our training continued to teach me patience but the most important thing I learned was self-reflection. I had to start asking “What am I doing wrong?”, and “How can I change my riding so that he understands better?”. I am also grateful for the instructor we had at that time who helped me work through my learning and provided excellent external feedback that helped me improve.
Teaching an animal is different than teaching humans. The cognitive function is significantly different and the goal of instruction is different as well. Working with animals does have its way of developing good teaching skills though. When you can not communicate with your learner through your familiar ways of speaking, it forces you to differentiate and think about what you are doing in a new way. You also must teach for the learner when working with a 1000 lb animal. These creatures hold your life on their backs and if you are not doing something that makes sense to them, they will respond with whatever natural response fits best. You truly can not blame an animal for being an animal and doing what is natural to them, it is wholly up to you and what you are doing in their training.
Through the years I learned the benefit of building relationships. As Eddy’s only primary rider throughout his entire life, we built a relationship that made some of the more difficult learning easier. For example, we went on an adventure to Burns Lake to visit our first trainer for a riding camp. It was his first long-distance trailer ride and a very big, scary experience. I am grateful for the many hours we spent together because I was able to lean on our relationship and the trust we had built. He did a wonderful job while we were there and I attribute much of our success to the relationship we had built.
I still have Eddy. I am afraid my years away from home pursuing education transformed his former 90% legs into 90% belly and his skills under saddle are a bit rusty. I look forward to living and working in my hometown so that I can more seriously continue my learning journey with him as I begin the learning journey my career takes me on.