But does it QUACK?! Heard this lovely phrase when listening to the news about the Higgs Boson. As always I thought it had an application in horsemanship. When I'm asked to go and work with a horse for starting and I am assured the horse is ready, I want to know whether the horse looks like it is ready and is in fact ready. When I visit, it's almost feels like a job interview for 'A Starter' and in the Job Specification, there's a list of must haves and preferences. The must haves include a medical check, ground manners, a calm acceptance of new and novel items, acceptance of being touched all over and preferably the horse will have been long-reined rather than lunged. If anything is missing however, we can fill in the gaps.
Yesterday I went out to a lovely horse for this sort of interview and she met all of the criteria. We were able to end that session with the owner leaning over her saddle while we took a few steps around the school. This is the new height in her education and from now on it will have to be slowly slowly as we introduce new things. Of course I'm effectively interviewing the owner too - if they want to be the first person to sit on their horse they need to be able to co-operate with me, to really listen and work together as a team, so that we trust each other and reduce the risk of anything going wrong.
p.s. And today we backed her and she was fine...
"Yes very happy and feel very lucky to have you with me on this part of our story. Still a bit in la la land at the moment as can't quite believe it but I'm sure it will sink in soon!" Happy owner
