You will often read these days a description of a particular horse person as a “true horseman”. I realize it is supposed to be a compliment, but sometimes in my view, the subject of the compliment is a mediocre or even horrible horse person. It seems the term “true horseman” is very subjective and means different things to different people. What does “true horseman” really mean?
A friend advertised a clinic she was hosting for me on a forum. Somebody (who had no firsthand knowledge of my work) asked on her post why would she waste her time organizing a clinic for Ross Jacobs because I was not the “real deal”. My friend asked what did he mean? The fellow replied that I was not the real deal because I have never worked with his favourite mentors who were true horsemen.
Anyway, it started me thinking about how we judge people and what characteristics are common among true horsemen and women. However, it might be easier beginning with features that have become mythical in the labeling of a true horse person and which I don’t think hold true when you look at different true horse people.
1. Humility – I hear a lot about how a true horse person is humble, quiet, and not self-promoting. I don’t agree with this at all. I see some talented horse people that are like this and some are the opposite. Some great horse people have huge egos. Having an ego is a feature of being human and we all have one. Some talented (and not-so-talented) horse people have some of the biggest egos.
2. The Horse Comes First – this is rarely true despite the legend. For most of us, we come first and the horse is second. However, sometimes it is that we come first, the business comes second and the horse comes third.
3. True Horsemen Learn From The Horse – this is such a common epithet. I’ve come across so many people giving all credit for their abilities to listening to horses. While I agree it is essential to listen and learn from horses, very few people have developed their skills without learning from other horse people. I think this is part of the ego thing again.
4. True Horsemen Are Born With Feel – few things raise my blood pressure quicker than this nonsense. We are all born with feel. That’s how we know to be gentle with babies or how to steer a shopping trolley. I know some really good horse people who have worked hard to develop excellent feel and continue to do so. A person does need brilliant feel to be a brilliant horse person, but one does not have to be born with it. With time and commitment, we can all learn to have great feel.
Those are the round pen myths that pop into my head when people talk about a true horseman. But what are the things I believe are true when I think about a true horseman? This is my off the cuff list (in no particular order) of the characteristics I find in the true horse people I admire.
1. Love Of Horses – a true horse person must love horses. The time and commitment needed to be good with horses is bloody hard work and the financial rewards are small. Very few horse people make a lot of money. For a true horse person, I think the reward is helping troubled horses be less troubled – there is no greater kick than that in my opinion.
2. Smart And Imaginative – a true horse person needs to be a thinker. They need to find solutions to horse problems they have never encountered before.
3. Curious And Ambitious – a true horse person needs to be curious about why things work or don’t work or how they could work better. It’s an ambition to be a better horse person and not be satisfied with what you know.
4. Be Emotionless – a true horse person can suppress their emotions when working with horses. This means they approach the work with patience and without anger, joy, frustration, excitement, or whatever. It also means that issues that belong outside of the arena remain outside of the arena.
5. Feel, Timing, Balance – it goes without saying that a true horse person has learned to have feel, timing, and balance in bucket loads.
6. Confidence – confidence is vital to be a true horse person. A person must have confidence in their abilities to see it through when things are not working according to plan. You must have confidence in yourself to experiment, try something new and abandoned tried and true approaches. Confidence is needed to ignore the critics. Sometimes a true horse person can even be cocky, but not so cocky that they believe there isn’t more to learn or that others (including horses) have something to teach them.
7. Awareness – every good horse person I know has a keen sense of being aware of multiple things simultaneously. Even without knowing that they see things, they see things and interpret almost unconsciously their meaning.
That’s about all I can think of right now. I am sure you can come up with your list of traits for either the first or second list. I’m equally sure I missed some out, but it doesn’t matter.
The thing I want people to appreciate is that being a true horse person just means being good with horses. True horse people still embody the desirable and undesirable traits that we all have. They are just people that are good with horses.
A couple of my favourite “true horse people” – Michèle Jedlicka and Harry Whitney.