I’m not sure whether it was the drastic change in the weather, from intense heat to drizzly fog, or whether the mares were really tired or if they were just too concentrated on me. I couldn’t believe it! Then, I couldn’t believe no one else had been around to see it, let alone film it.
I took two mares out at the ranch to work with yesterday. One is a young, grey mustang whom I love to bits. The other, is a mare I have just started to work with. She’s a bit older, but equally adorable.
So I rode one while the other rolled around and ate grass and vice versa. Then I had them both on a line and decided to ride the mustang and ask the other mare to do things like go on a pedestal or do transitions in a circle.
This is where it happened, so try to picture it. They were facing me, standing next to each other, and I was facing them – the pedestal was behind them. To get to the pedestal, I walked right in between them and figured they would cooperate and turn to follow without too much trouble.
Didn’t happen. Both mares turned to follow me at the same time and *BAM* bonked heads. It was a loud, head-on-head collision between the two. I had turned around just in time to see it happen. Heads banged together and confused looks and a few steps backward followed.
I was speechless for a second there. Never have I seen horses so uncoordinated! Where was the graceful, harmonious unison and awareness of others that horses are known for? After a moment of gawking at them, I stood and laughed. Just laughed at them. As weird as it sounds, they had embarrassed expressions on their faces and just walked over to me like, “Yeah, okay, whatever. Let’s just get on with the rest of the session and forget all about this… please?”
These mares work oddly well together. Both are essentially very calm ladies. What makes them different is that the mustang is so calm that nothing phases her, and she isn’t afraid of anything. She’s a “make my day” kinda girl. The other mare, while still calm and sweet, has odd moments of fear over silly things, like horse hair falling off a curry comb, that she gets over very quickly. She’s rarely spooked by things another horse would find terrifying.
Have you worked with or owned a horse, or horses, that has done something this uncoordinated?