All pharmed up

In keeping with my blog title Aramat Pharm, I will admit what I did this week. I went to the doctor and demanded a prescription for anti-anxiety medications. Well, actually, I demanded anti-depressants, anti-anxiolytics, uppers, downers and whatever else he would give me.

"Why?"you ask.
According to Facebook I have it all together. I have a great career, a wonderful man, a few beautiful horses and I live in Hawaii. Why the anxiety?

 Well, if truth be known, I was at my

I have been feeling stressed out due to my recent financial suicide stemming from our move across an ocean for my new job and my partner leaving a steady paycheck to start his own business. Not to mention a new foal, a leaking house, struggling to find new friends and my parent's divorce after 42 years of marriage which has rocked my moral foundation. Needless to say, I have been a psycho-somatic wreck. My insides were trying to become outsides every time I went to the bathroom. My hair was falling out. My migraines were back. I was grinding my teeth in my sleep and biting everyone's head off when I was awake. I could keep it together at work because I had to, but my personal life was suffering. I was taking it out on those I love the most.

It was my recent bought of spinal meningitis that really got me over thinking things. I realized I was literally making myself sick. Worrying about everything. Planning for every possible scenario. Taking everything so personally. The insecurities that I found self-motivating as a twenty-something had grown into a cancer.  Feeling inadequate was becoming an obsession.
I'm am of the GYPSY Generation and I wanted a Unicorn. I have no idea how to be content. I have no idea how to live in the moment. I was starting to realize my dreams might not become realities and I wanted a pill to help my brain accept the bad news.

So I went to the doctor. If Michael Jackson could get a doctor to give him Propofol to help him sleep, surely I could get something to help me shut my nagging brain off.
I was wrong. My doctor listened to me for two hours and then refused to fill the prescription. Apparently I am not unstable enough. This should be taken as good news. It was not.
I went to the doctor anxious. Now I was anxious, mad and disappointed.
His medical opinion of me was bigoted and belittling. He stated that I, and I quote: "should have a child so my life would have purpose, find Jesus and drink Chamomile tea."
I kid you not.

I proceeded to tell him that if I wanted advice from a hippie cashier at the natural food store I would have gone to Whole Foods. And then I stormed out of his office.
I made it all the way to my car before I started laughing.
He was right. Well, kind of. I was being ridiculous. Of course I didn't need medication. I was working myself up into a full blown frenzy. I was doing it. So I could stop doing it.
So I sat in my car and thought about his advice.
1) Have a kid. Well at my age, this could go poorly. My ovaries are almost raisins and having a child with a missing chromosome probably wouldn't boost my morale too much. So with human offspring off the table, I figured I could count my new foal as a kid. He was giving my life purpose. He may not be a Unicorn but he is awfully cute and he needed me.
2) Find Jesus. I looked out the window just in time to see a rainbow burst from the clouds. I thought about all the magical places Hawaii has to offer. And I smiled. Jesus shouldn't be too hard to find here.
And 3) Drink Chamomile tea. I suppose I could replace the occasional latte with tea. God knows I don't really need the caffeine.
So, it turns out, I got the prescription I needed after all.

Go With Your Gut

I recently attended a “natural” horsemanship clinic here on the Big Island with a big name horse trainer from Texas who has a show on TV. 

I was hoping to learn something new. While I may not drink the Kool-Aid of the “Natural” Horsemanship cult, I value the “feel” of my horses. I respect their individuality. I am aware of my body language and the baggage I bring to the barn and try to suppress my inner dervish. I do ground work with my horses regularly. I may not recite the mantra of the seven games or wiggle my lead line for hours, but I have watched all of Parelli’s videos and Clinton’s Road to the Thoroughbred, and read books by Bill Dorance, Robert Miller and Buck Branaman to name a few. I believe I can learn something from everyone, good or bad. 

In this case, it was bad.

Groundwork with Miznah

I took my sister-in-law and niece to audit the clinic with me as they were new to horses and interested in learning the basics. What we witnessed was basically cruel disguised as “natural”. There were two horses in the clinic: a pushy orphaned QH mare and a frantic terrified 10 year old Arabian gelding. Let me start by saying it took me almost 30 years to appreciate Arabians. I, like many, thought they were crazy! When a client told me they had an Arabian I immediately thought of Scottsdale and the freak show of baby oiled, bug-eyed lunacy that they call Halter Classes. Until I vetted Endurance rides in the mountains of Oregon I did not see the value, the brilliance, the determination and the affection of the Arabian breed. After seeing them doing what they were meant to do, trotting a hundred miles confidently carrying their riders in the dark along mountain precipices, I had a newfound respect for this misunderstood breed. 

Oman - Shagya Arabian

With this recent admiration in heart, I looked forward to seeing how this clinician could help this gelding. This horse clearly needed a leader. He was screaming to the other horses outside the arena, trying to bond with the Quarter horse mare despite her bullying of him. While many hot blooded horses need to move their feet to think, this clinician used this horse’s energy as a form of punishment not a release. He did not help him find a better answer to his anxiety. Instead he crashed him into the round pen panels, he chased him, he whipped at him. He tied his front leg up and whipped him forward until he fell to his knees. After two hours, the horse finally stopped moving out of sheer exhaustion and fear. At that point the “trainer” called for a lunch break and the crowd broke into applause. I was dumbfounded. This was barbaric. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a push-over. I believe in discipline. My horses respect my space. I carry a whip and ride with spurs but these are tools to encourage not punish. 

We did not come back after lunch. I took my shocked sister-in-law and my niece away from the scene of the crime and felt sick to my stomach that I was not able to rescue the horse from this “professional”. 

I found out two weeks later that the Arabian died on the second day of the clinic. He ran head first into a corner post of the round pen and fell over dead. I was not there to see the events leading up to this tragedy but I am sure they were no different than the day prior. This horse needed time, patience, a willing partner, a benevolent leader. Instead he was publicly tortured and no one did anything to stop it because we were the students and we had all paid to learn from this respected trainer. 

When I left that day, I was confused. I wondered if everything I knew about training horses was wrong. If this guy was “right” and had trained thousands of young horses who was I to question his methods? But deep down, I knew it was wrong. And Day Two proved that. 

So back to why I study so many different methods of horse training, why I audit so many clinics, why I read so many books, why I spend so much time with my horses... Because nobody has all the answers and if they say they do, they are probably a charlatan. There is no recipe. Horsemanship is an art. Sure there are guidelines but most of what makes the great riders great is their finesse, their judgement and their compassion and that takes a lifetime to perfect. In my life, I hope to glean one or two things from each person I meet along the way so by the time I am 80 I will feel wise and full. In this case I learned more than a couple of things. Unfortunately for the little bay Arabian, they were things never to do. 

Miznah - My two year old Shagya Arabian cross mare

Reservations and Resolutions

My biggest reservation about living in Hawaii is that I no longer have the access to facilities, trainers, courses and clinics that I had on the mainland. Here I am responsible for my own education and the education of my animals.  These past few months I had been caught up  worrying that I didn’t learn enough from Meika at Polestar, from Connie at Windfall or from John at Aspen... that I’m not good enough to bring along my young horses. Recently though I have been trying to focus on what I did learn and how my foundation is so much stronger than it was one year ago.

My time as a working student may not have been sufficient to transform me into great rider but at least now I am able to say: “Ok, I know what I did wrong and what I should do to fix it.” Instead of my usual outburst “Holy $^&! What the ^&%$ happened?!” 

       I now have a repertoire of exercises in my proverbial toolbox. I know what is my responsibility as the rider and what is expected of my horse. I finally get it that it is not my job to jump the fence! 

        I now know I can micromanage through the corners and the approach but not at take-off. Now I know the difference between riding backwards to a fence versus balancing and compressing the stride to give my horse more options for take off. I know how to ride with my elbows at my side without leaning forward or lengthening my reins. I know how to accept the smallest of tries. I know how to recognize if my horse is not light, balanced and straight. While this all may seem basic, overlooking theses details is what made me such an average rider for so many years. 

And I now know it is ok for me to be wrong. Sometimes.  I have been so afraid of being wrong that I have been wishy-washy. It is better to demand a certain distance and commit to a bad idea, than confuse the horse by bailing out, throwing the reins away and taking my leg off. 

I now know how to warm up a horse. Duh! But seriously. I used to warm up by walking, then long trotting, then circling, then cantering one lap each direction. Brainless. I didn’t supple my horse at all. Now I spend at least 20 minutes in the walk, working my horse off my seat bones, stretching their rib cages, swinging their hips, relaxing mine, practicing half halt without touching the reins. 

I still get confused with my aids for lateral work and that will just require homework and reading. I have a lot of catching up to do with my dressage. I still need to reference books and back issues of Practical Horseman to set up my own grid work.  I still need eyes on the ground. I just don't need someone every moment of every ride anymore. 

I know a lot more about myself now. I am kind and fair most of the time so I can trust myself to push my horses. I also know to get off and take a walk when I feel like I have hit a wall because it turns out I am a tea kettle that takes awhile to heat up but even longer to cool down. 

While I may not have won any ribbons during my stay at Polestar, I did receive a compliment from Meika that I will always remember. My fellow working student had suffered an injury that prohibited her from competing on her green mare at the Aspen Horse Trial. As she had already paid her entry fees, she asked me to catch-ride her mare. During our warm up, I tried to get to know the mare gradually and build her confidence in the predictably crowded warm-up arena. She had never been to a show and was excusably nervous. I took my time and presented her with jumps that would not overface her. We circled and walked and rubber necked and trotted Xs and got huge pats and praise. I did everything I could in that ring to make her understand we were a team, even if just for the day. When I was leaving Polestar Meika commented what a great job I had done with that mare that day. No, we didn’t win, but I helped her have a positive show experience that is so important to a young horse. I was so proud. That’s the kind of rider I want to be. That’s the kind of rider that will bring along my young horses.

I may not get it right every time and that’s ok because now I have friends and professionals to call up when I am out of ideas. Meika has said I can send her videos of me riding and she will offer critique digitally. Not the same as real time but it is a start. And I’m pretty sure I can rope a few trainers into a free week in Hawaii when the weather turns gray in the Northwest. 

My goals of riding Preliminary are on the shelf for now. I have a pregnant mare and a two year old and I live in Hawaii where Eventing is barely club level. But the great thing about horses is that riding is only the icing on the cake. I love being with my horses. I love breathing my horses. While I may not be jumping big fences any time soon, I will be having fun. 
      My resolutions this year reflect my new found confidence and satisfaction with where I am as a rider. In 2014 I intend to put my agenda aside, cut myself some slack, follow Miznah's lead and just have fun. 

The Poorly Qualified Ruminant Rescuer

In my line of work, a phone ringing in the wee hours of the morning is never a good thing. It results in me rushing out the door with morning breath, bed head, and an inside-out shirt to calm someone’s personal chaos. On this particular morning, the caller was the owner of a dwarf goat that had a swollen, cold fetal leg sticking out of her nether regions. The goat had passed one kid on her own yesterday but the second had decided to do The Sprinkler out into the world and had gotten wedged. 

Unfortunately when the owner found him 15 hours later, he was no longer alive and she was unable to rearrange him to get him out. 

Despite my attempts to inform the owner that I, as an equine doctor, may not be the best qualified, I was unable to convince her to let me off the hook. She pragmatically replied that she appreciated my candor about my inexperience but if I did nothing the goats would all die. Well, with the bar set that low, how could I not try? I had made my disclaimer so, without guilt, but with a medical text open on the tailgate next to me, I proceeded to prove my ignorance of ruminant medicine (starting with not knowing the term for a female goat (____)). 

In my ten years as an equine doctor I had assisted in the delivery of many foals. I was accustomed to reaching into a rather cavernous opening and feeling, at the most, 4 legs and one head. What greeted me that morning, was 12 limbs, 3 heads and absolutely no room to maneuver any of them around. What a tangled mess of feti!!!! 

I needed to find two forelegs and one head and pull. But identifying what was what and what belonged to whom, was tricky. The last thing I needed to be doing was pulling on one foreleg from two different goats. 

Once I finally got everything lined up, it was obvious that the fetus was too swollen to pass. I had to make him smaller and that required the grisly task of dismantling the fetus inside his mom (fetotomy). On days like this, I was glad I hadn’t had time for breakfast. But it needed to be done. There were more kids inside and there was a chance they were still alive. 

Once the traffic jam was removed, I reached in and found another still, slimy kid. Damn.  I placed this one aside and reached back in for the last one, a tiny runt that never had a chance. Just when the disappointment of not being able to save any of the babies began to flood over me, I heard a “BLLAAAAAAHHHHHHHH” from behind me! Number 3 was not only still alive but very pissed off that I had tossed him into a pile of discarded big brother bits. Yeahhhhhh!!!!! I shook him by his crooked back legs to clear out his lungs, dried him off then held him up to my face for inspection. My nose apparently looked sufficiently like a teat as he latched on and started nursing away. Success!

Shame on me...

The first day I brought Phaolan home there were foreshadows stretching from every solid object. Had I opened my eyes more that day, I might have saved myself a lot of money, pain and heartbreak down the road. 

On that first day after turning Phaolan loose in the round pen I witnessed his defiant self-righteousness. When his nose bumped the hot wire stretched across the top board he did not startle, snort and spook like the mares on the other side. Instead he threw his head and hooves to the sky and obliterated the fence with violent, enraged strikes. He then calmly backed away from the ruins, turned and walked towards me. His motives were perfectly clear. He had been assaulted for no reason he could conceive and the fence paid a dear price for its insolence. Pity me for making a similar mistake.

And mistakes I made. Mistakes that left me injured, humbled and scared of this horse. For months I clung to the belief that inside this little brat, there was a willing partner. With determination and patience I would tame the beast. And if I wasn’t skilled enough, I would find a trainer who could. I would give Phaolan as many opportunities as it took to develop into the horse I knew he could be. 

When I left Polestar I took Phaolan to a well respected gentle cowboy I had known for years. In his hands, my evil genius would have a fresh start at a slow pace. After a week of equine expletives, Phaolan seemed to resign to the fact that he was a domesticated animal and should act accordingly. And in the next few weeks before he exploded and hospitalized that trainer, he had seemed to be making progress. And it was this progress that made me still have faith in him. So despite the fact that he had severely injured yet another person, I gave him another chance. 

I turned him out to pasture for the winter in the hopes that he would mature mentally.  I found another willing talented trainer in Hawaii to help me with him despite full disclosure of his previous behavior. I planned to continue spending good money after bad flying him to Hawaii for yet another chance. 

But absence did not make the heart grow fonder. When I returned to Portland after five months of not seeing my little horse, I was shocked and then terrified of him. The horse  with potential I bought one year ago was nowhere to be found. In his place was a monster. I don’t know if he truly got that much worse while turned out to pasture or if I was finally able to see what had been so apparent to others. But he was not a horse that could safely be flown to Hawaii, or a horse that could be ethically re-homed. 

This horse drove me to do something I, as a veterinarian, had done before for clients, but never thought I would do for myself. I put him down. Not because he disappointed me. Not because I was hemorrhaging money bribing people to help me with him. Not because four professional trainers all had told me to euthanize him. Not because he had been evicted from four barns, but because he scared me and was polluting my love for horses. 

Sure I had other options. I had a naive, innocent young rider willing to take on the challenge. I am sure she thought, like I had mistakenly thought, that no one had tried hard enough and that Phaolan was just misunderstood. I could have had her sign  away liability, take some money from her and make myself feel better that I gave him another chance. But the truth is, he didn’t deserve another chance. There are so many wonderful Thoroughbreds out there that deserve the kind of forever loving home that I was trying to provide Phaolan. Horses that have run their hearts out and ruptured ligaments along the way trying to please. These horses deserve homes and second chances. Not Phaolan. 

I was wrong about what Phaolan would become and for days I have been crying and beating myself up. At first I was concerned that my “gut instinct” was no longer reliable and I would never be able to pick out another diamond in the rough. But then I remembered what my gut instinct had told me about this horse. My first impression of Phaolan was “Yuck, why did I drive all the way out here?” He was ugly, mean, untouchable behind the shoulder with upright stifles that most surely would lock up on him. He had a bad reputation already and he was only three. But I ignored my gut. I told myself “But he is your favorite horse’s brother. What if he turns out like her?” So I bought him. 

Well, shame on me. 

Why can't I be Smart?

I thought that the only reason I wasn't an Amazing rider was lack of time and commitment. And all I had to do to become Amazing was quit my job, clean out my savings and ride horses all day long. While this has improved my riding, I should have had a realistic definition of what "Amazing" was prior to starting out on this journey. Is Amazing riding at Training Level this season? Is it jumping ditches without landing in them? Is Amazing winning ribbons? What is Amazing, really?

At some point in my life I had been taught that goals should be SMART.

But I seemed to have forgotten that when I loaded my horses into the trailer to come to Polestar. After two months here, I wasn't feeling any closer to being Amazing than when I started. Two months may not seem like a lot of time to be expecting dramatic results, but when you are living on credit cards and borrowed time it's hard to be patient. Meika was even regretting not establishing a penalty for falling off because by now I would owe her at least a dozen bottles of wine or a thousand push-ups. I was beginning to think I should switch from eventing to vaulting as I seem to spend more time catapulting off horses than riding them.

Making my young horse Amazing is also taking longer than I thought (see Is it worth it?). Having a green horse with a "dramatic" personality has been humbling. I have had to revise and lower my expectations. Instead of trying to achieve a certain level by a certain date, I am working to improve my relationship with my horse. I am trying to understand his thresholds so that I can finesse him towards them without pushing him over. It seems Amazing for Phaolan at this point is finishing a session without a full blown violent temper tantrum.  But trotting over poles and working on ground manners doesn't feel like the education I was hoping to receive as a working student.

So instead of reveling in frustration, I decided to look back at pictures of me jumping two years ago to remind me that I AM learning and improving and getting to closer to someday... maybe... being Amazing.

Not Amazing!
bless her heart, that mare learned to jump despite me...

Once I could see see that I was making progress I was ready to admit that becoming Amazing wasn't a smart goal.  Neither is aspiring to compete at Training level this season when my "trained" horse is currently lame and my young horse is feral. So here is my list of specific, measurable, action-oriented, relevant goals I hope to accomplish while I am at Polestar:

Achieve a stronger lower leg by trotting in two point for 10 minutes 4x/week
Make sure Phena's rehab goes smoothly so that she is jumping again by November
Audit or attend at least one dressage lesson per week
Zero tolerance for sloppy transitions by focusing on maintaining energy into the bridle.
Improve Phaolan's tolerance of pressure.
Notice the small improvements by watching video of myself riding
Gain confidence with ditches (my Achilles heel) by riding a schooled horse over BN ditches.

So if I follow my own smart goals, then one day I can say:

 I got

and

Is it worth it?

So I might have sugar-coated my relationship with my new horse Phaolan in my previous blogs.

Words like “dramatic” and “easily offended” actually mean “dangerous” and “unpredictable.” Meika has taken to calling me “Saint Kelleyerin” because I am so committed to making my new horse less of a Shit-Show. But while I don’t mind being a Saint, I sure don’t want to be a martyr. 

Phaolan has kicked and struck me three times so far and all occasions seemed very premeditated. He is all too eager to fight and if I take the bait I will either: 1) die or 2) ruin him trying to win. He has proven he is faster and stronger than me. Now I need to prove to him that that doesn’t matter. I have to make him want to work with me. So how do I do that? I admit I am out of my comfort zone with this horse and I have had to ask myself:

“Is it worth it?”

So far the answer is yes. 

It isn’t just because I think he is cute and has talent. It is because I like who he is making me be as a horse person. He makes me have more self-awareness and control than any horse I have ever been around. My mare forgives me. She tolerates me and she tries because she is a trier. Phaolan will never just try for me.  I have to earn everything. He has revealed to me that I have a temper. I may not explode and yell or hit, but I seethe inside and he can see it. I get rigid and think evil thoughts. Meika calls it my poker face but I can’t mask my emotions from Phaolan. Around him I have to legitimately not feel mad or he uses it against me. I have to make sure I am out of range then laugh when he snakes his head and kicks out at me. He is making me be creative and clear, and patient and fun and forgiving - and none of that is bad. I should be thanking him. When we emerge from this long dark tunnel we are traveling through, I believe I will be a better person and a much better horse person. 

Had I bought Phaolan to train and resell, he would have been a terrible investment. Had I wanted a trustworthy horse for kids to ride, I would have wasted my money. But I wanted a partner that I could grow with for the next twenty years. I think he is just that partner. 

Will he always challenge me? Probably. But the battles will become skirmishes, then disputes, then discussions. Each day we will decide who is alpha for that afternoon. And as I learn more about myself I will become the leader that he may not want but desperately needs. 

So, at least for now, I wouldn’t trade him for any horse in the barn.