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A BABE IN THE WOODS or Don't Be A Tree Hugger |
Another issue that might be faced is trees, now many horses are familiar with trees and people think it is perfectly natural for horses to handle them well. Now a thought.. all people in one time or another have had to deal with cold, but that doesn't mean they can handle it well. Some people that have lived in colder weather climates seasonally all their lives still can’t handle it. Horses in the wild can be seen in trees but are predominantly plains animals. They will enter trees for food, or at times the lesser of two evils, but they are limiting two tools, sight, and flight. A large tree or even a large brush within trees can hide large scary animals easily ( ask any backwoodsman ) and horses are aware of this. That is one issue.
Another issue...analogy time….Let us say that every time you leave the house you put on a belt, attached to back of this belt is a pole with an egg on top. Now at first you are very aware of it and take it off before entering the house. Now one time you forget and walk in with it on...oops forgot to duck...messy. So a step further you get used to ducking in doorways etc. but something comes along to spook you ( a wild dog, door to door salesman, etc.) and you run into the house, oops. You get more used to it so even things like that don’t make you forget, until you fall asleep in the chair and wake up thinking the house is on fire and run out...oops.
Pretty out there I know, but we are talking about a being that is smart..( or a least most of think we are ) and aware of all things..( we’ll let that one go for now ). Let’s just say more aware of more things and able to think things through better. ( we’ll let that one go for now as well ). However we are dealing with an animal that will bump his head on the same trailer they get into all the time, or just about anything more than an inch or two above their eye line. Or, even smarter ones than learn that they can duck. Remember though that when you are riding a horse when he ducks his head it just makes you a bigger target.
It is also funny that a horse that thinks two panels three or four feet apart is too tight for him to go through will have no issue squeezing through trees if the trail goes between them. There are many banged up knees to prove this, and not all funny walking cowboys are because of long hours on wide horses. If you think that pole bending or slalom skiers brings you close to objects you should watch a horse running uncontrolled through trees. I have seen a horse slip a branch between his side and the saddle fittings without a scratch ( to the horse that is ). Other common ones include hooking stirrups, reins, riders legs, etc. even at slow speeds. Being able to stop and back your horse up at these times are invaluable.
There are many ‘fixes’ out there. One is to attach a handle or such to a saddle pommel and let the horse ’try’ to go through low spots. Or putting a long handle under the horse through the stirrups and putting him into tight spots. The idea is that the handle would hit the branch and force the horse back via the saddle. This can have very detrimental effects to the saddle and the horse. Another was in the practice of driving horses through tight areas between bramble or thorn bushes. The idea here was after getting poked and scratched by the sticklers and thorns they would be leery of going into tight brush and trees.
