he rips free bringing your fingers around the horn along with the rope. Your smoking, rope-burned fingers become the glorious aftermath of the session. You followin' my arithmetic?
On the other hand, you have different fingers. With one hand on the rein, you are now free to do your job with the other, which is to manage the scene. As the brains of the operation, you need to keep the unbroke respectful to the pony horse. I never allow the unbroke to put his lips on me or the horse I’m riding. I call it the “bridge of respect”—don’t cross it.
When I say David is the star of the show, he’s no GQ. He’s more the unbrushed, brute and bolo type—a marlboro man. Unfortunately, that means while he’s all posin’ and smiles, you could hold a fencepost up next to him to see which one is moving faster. Yes, he is maddeningly slow; a garden tractor wide open at his best. The unbrokes walk faster that he does. “David, lets go!” my TMJ twitches because I’m usually on the unbroke, so at David’s mercy. But the beauty here is truly in the fact that David is so nonreactive. The unbrokes feed off his snoozer mode temperament, bringing everything down to a calm tenor amazingly fast. They become content to let David be the leader and make all decisions, secure by just following. If he doesn’t react, neither will they. David’s level of composure I trust because I’ve seen him react at his worst through countless situations on hundreds of rides (he’d rather halt). He’s very calm and gentle, with a disposition that came “right” out from the factory as a default. Hard to train something in that’s not there originally. When you’re the team anchor, this one has to be solid.
Well knock me down and steal muh tooth, this is the last bit to share with you! A leadership mindset in your horse is important as you head
up the trail. Some horses do not like to lead, chicken-hearted at best about heading the trail ride. They become
Jeff Wilson and his pony horse, David
Photo by Andrew Wilson
I'd like to stress how valuable a reliable pony horse can be to the success of your training ventures. My pal David is my $100,000 secret weapon when it comes to horse training. It’s the reason I accomplish a lot, and steer clear of vertical 180’s while riding.