Catch the Horse and Get Back On: Metaphor for Life

By Jan Butler Loveless, PhD

In recent years, I’ve acquired three Quarter Horse mares from my father’s estate. They’ve produced foals, and our herd has grown. I enjoyed horseback riding with my dad while growing up, but I’d never before had complete responsibility for the care of any horse, much less pregnant mares. I had to learn, and learn fast, if I wanted to become a successful horse owner—or, as my husband might say, a person owned by horses.

In my current work, which I enjoy, I run the J-Bar Ranch Center for Experiential Learning, employing equine-facilitated learning to reach at-risk kids failing in school and adults in transition. In my previous “day job,” I taught English at a community college, specializing in the “developmental” courses that prepare students to succeed in higher ed. My students were immigrants new to the language, mid-lifers back in school after dead ends in work or love, teenage mothers struggling to get off welfare.

What do horses have to do with teaching of English, academic success, and my learning in other aspects of life? Everything.

Since September 15, 2001, when my dad’s first Texas-bred mare stepped off the van onto California soil, I have immersed myself in reading books about horses, watching videos, e-mailing my network of equine contacts. I’ve discovered equine-facilitated learning, and I’ve soaked up HEAL, Epona and Adventures in Awareness workshops. I’ve joined NARHA and the Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association; I’ve served on their board and continue to help edit their newsletter.

My favorite activity is taking a horse to the round pen for a mutual learning session. As trainer Mark Rashid advises, even when I have specific horse-training goals, I’ve learned to “reward the try,” in the horses and in myself. I model this philosophy for my students, who are as green at academic pursuits as I am, reconnecting with horses as a mid-life novice.

I know I can trust my horses to have lessons for me, and that fairly frequently, I’ll learn through failure. These lessons invariably apply to the rest of my life, outside the round pen. One lesson from my past that rings newly true is that much-maligned old saw…“Catch the horse and get back on.” Admittedly, to those of us who want to bond with horses, this advice smacks of breaking horses, of that era in which too many horses were treated cruelly. It calls up the image of horses “rid hard and put away wet,” in Texas vernacular. Or it suggests ignoring the fear that invariably comes from falling or being thrown.

Yet I hear my father’s voice in my mind. My dad, head of the Animal Science Department at Texas A&M University during my formative years, was both my riding instructor and my mentor as an active learner across the disciplines. When I was a fifth grader, light enough so that I wouldn’t hurt the backs of young horses, but skilled enough to ride with a smidgen of confidence, he began to have me ride his young horses early in their training. He hadn’t been schooled natural horsemanship-fashion, but he was a good and intuitive horseman, with pragmatic ways. He’d ride beside me in the pasture on Cindy, an older, steadier mount, while I rode a two-year-old, maybe our sorrel Quarter Horse filly, Red Jo Dexter, whom we called “Charm.” My dad knew I was nervous that a jackrabbit would pop out of the mesquite underbrush, or that something else would startle my filly. He’d coach continuously: “Keep your heels down and your horse’s head up; remember, a horse has to get its head down to buck.” Then, if my horse did spook and buck, he’d advise calmly, while I attempted to stay on: “If you’re going to bail out, fall to the side, so your horse won’t run over you. Relax when you fall. That way you won’t get hurt. Then dust yourself off, catch your horse, and get back on. If you don’t, you’ll always be afraid.”

I remember being thrown many times. The falls did frighten me. More often than not, after I’d picked the goat-heads and cockleburs out of my jeans, I had to choke back tears to see my mount clearly enough to catch it. But once I had, I was proud if I completed the next part of the ride. And my dad was right. If I took some deep breaths, stood beside and stroked the horse, centered myself (not terminology we’d have used in those days), tightened the cinch, then remounted and rode, communicating better with my mount–I didn’t nurture fear.

My calm young gelding unloaded me on a recent summer morning, surprising me with a spooking-and-bucking episode an hour into a trail ride. I sustained a concussion, a couple of broken ribs, and I just wasn’t able to catch my horse and get back on. I was lucky, in fact, that my husband, who was riding with me, could help me into the house and tend the horses. Sure enough, I felt afraid of riding afterwards. I needed to heal my mind as well as my body before I could climb back on. Today, in my early sixties, I know I need to use fear as a message, the way Leigh Shambo teaches, to dialogue with it. I don’t rush the next ride, as my dad used to encourage me to do.

Meanwhile, though, I’m keenly aware of the kernels of wisdom in my dad’s advice. How true it has been for me, figuratively. “Catching the horse and getting back on” is an essential component of mastering anything new. Persistence requires acknowledging fear, honoring and grasping its meaning. Then, when one is ready, it calls for going ahead, no matter what failure or hesitation a dedicated learner needs to “dust off.”

That’s why the “horse catching” lesson sang so loudly to me, as I faced realities of a different sort. Thirty faculty members hired over the previous three years were told that January that we might be pink-slipped on March 15, then terminated on May 15 because of the looming California state/college budget crisis. The decision was beyond my control, and would have nothing to do with my performance. My “day job” fed our horses and my penchant for workshop-taking. How could I nourish my own dreams without it?

The afternoon I heard that news, I pulled into the driveway of our small ranch with a heavy heart, bullying myself for credit card debts in such tenuous times. As I turned off the motor, my gaze fell on the back pasture, where I saw a strange and beautiful sight. Stealth, the tall gray Quarter Horse gelding with whom I’d been doing groundwork for weeks, was actually waiting for me in the round pen, by choice. It was about the time we had our daily session, so he’d interrupted his grazing in the pasture to nose open the round pen gate. I wouldn’t need to catch him that day. He’d caught me.

Stealth stood in the center of the round pen, relaxed and dozing, one hind foot cocked. He was just a few minutes early for our appointment. I knew when I saw him that I sorely needed his lesson. I wondered how he’d known I needed him—and if he understood how grateful I felt for his presence.

I rushed into the house, slipped into my jeans, then joined Stealth. He nickered and nuzzled me in greeting; we played for an hour in the spring sunshine. I realized that afternoon, as I interacted with Stealth, how rich I was, outside my job. I had Stealth and our other magical horses. I had my spouse of more than 40 years, supporting my dreams. I had my health. And I had our ranch. These were the things that mattered.

I’d always found a way to fund true priorities, and surely, with divine help, I could still do that. I remembered the title of a book I’d read years earlier, We Are All Self-Employed. If I opened myself to possibilities, I didn’t need to be defined by or dependent on any employer. If I lost my teaching position, I would follow my father’s advice and my horses’ inspiration. I’d “catch the horse” (or allow myself to be caught), center myself, and “get back on.” Equine-facilitated learning would continue to be my new lifework.
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Jan Butler Loveless, PhD, offers equine-facilitated learning workshops and school-year courses at J-Bar Ranch, LLC (www.jbar.com) in Visalia, CA. “Horse and Reader,” her pilot course for Native American 3rd through 5th graders failing to pass CA state tests in language arts, won praise from external evaluators last spring. With her Lakota colleague Tracy Easter, Jan will do a presentation on “Horse and Reader” at the 2010 Equine Guided Education Association conference in late January.