The Bag Lady - Part II of III

Pepsicap Mountain

A distinct butte, identified as hill 3291 on modern topographical maps, thrusts up half a mile northeast of where I stood. In archeological terms, it is a fortified hilltop with Hohokam ruins dating from the 10th through 13th Centuries perched defensively on its crown. The country around these parts contains numerous reminders of the earlier inhabitants from the ancient indigenous peoples to the rugged Spanish and Anglos of the 19th Century.

The monograph mentioned earlier, has a hand drawn map showing a peak to the southeast of Table Mountain called Pepsicap Mountain. Modern topographic maps show Table Mountain as Table Mesa, an arrogant redundancy of the Spanish by ignorant Anglos. The settlers of the 1930's, when this area was first opened to homesteading, referred to hill 3291 as Pepsicap. The cracked and fissured rim rock "cap" of this old volcanic cone does look very much like a bottle cap.

The indigenous inhabitants and early settlers of the West were straightforward about naming places, as a review of the historic literature will reflect. Their prose was more literate and expressive than what we are used to seeing today and they were less pompous about giving names to the landmarks of this harsh and beautiful land. Contrast that approach with the grandiose names given the endless ticky-tack subdivisions scarring the urban landscape. It is another example of corporate mentality "progress" where the market rhetoric of shallow and artificial descriptions has replaced a true connection to the land.

I climbed a small rise fifty yards from Tassi. I sat and listened to the wind in the palo verde trees watching the cloud shadows play hide and seek in the canyons of the surrounding mountains. The contrast of light and shadow gives the desert its most striking character. A Harris hawk silently drifted past, cottontails hopped about, and deer and javalina had left their script printed in the sand of the creek bottoms.

After a few moments, Tassi unclamped her tail and stood hipshot and relaxed enjoying the meager warmth of the afternoon sun. She had passed another lesson. It was not a lesson completely learned by any means, but successful nevertheless. I walked back to her speaking softly as I checked my equipment and untied her. Carrying my rifle, I led her across the slippery bedrock to a place where she could drink. Ever the opportunist, she opted for a snack of some tender grass shoots growing nearby instead.

Young horses getting started under saddle need practice being led in rough country, especially where the footing is loose and steep. Over the years I have seen more riders run over leading a horse uphill than downhill. It all goes back to training. Horses do what they know. If horses are allowed to speed up every time they come to an incline while being ridden, why expect them to know the difference when they are being led?

My training philosophy begins with the concept of teaching a horse to “follow” rather than be “led.” It is a crucial distinction. Just now, I needed to get up a steep ten foot bank on the edge of the draw without getting run over, or worse, having the horse run around me and get into cactus or loose footing and tumble back down the slope on top of me. It has all happened to me many times over the years and I didn't need any more practice.

I am a traditionalist. In some circles, that is a euphemism for being outdated. I train "practical" horses for use in rough country. The traditional methods and philosophies of handling horses have been developed over the centuries because they work. Born and raised in the land of the Nevada and Idaho buckaroo, where the California Bridle Horse tradition was followed, I am a hackamore man. Whether I'm riding a horse in a hackamore or a bridle, my horses wear a bosal and neck rope with a twelve to fifteen foot mecate or "get down" line attached. My horses are trained to be led cavalry style with their nose about two feet behind my shoulder and to increase the distance when going up and down steep slopes. They are taught to stand and hold their position while I negotiate an obstacle first and to come to me on command guided by the lead line. This method saves a lot of wrecks and reinforces the transference of leadership and trust from horse to rider. This is not accomplished without some exciting moments now and again. But that is why I train horses. I like the excitement and I'm less likely to get hurt or to injure the horse in the process than someone less experienced.

I chose a spot with reasonably good footing and no serious obstacles. In this country, cactus and large rocks are some of what I consider serious obstacles for young horses. I turned to face the mare and gently waggled the mecate back and forth. The action causes the bosal to tap her on both sides of her jaw. Her ears pricked forward and her head came up in a full alert posture as she shifted her weight slightly to the rear. If I were to keep this up, she would back up. It is a handy way to get a horse to move backwards by remote control and continue to face you at the same time.

I scrambled up the incline making sure Tassi did not attempt to follow me until invited. Once I reached the top, I asked her to join me by slapping my chaps once and speaking encouragingly. She quickly began her ascent. Horses see the world differently than we do. With her athletic ability and a very determined sense of independence, she veered sharply to her right up a steeper but shorter portion of the cutbank. I corrected her with the mecate, timing the correction to create a minor loss of balance and footing for her. To regain her footing, she had to reenter the path I wished her to take. It's not that she couldn't handle the route she chose with ease. The purpose of this exercise is to teach her to do exactly what I ask. In her career, this obedience may save her life and that of her rider.

I do not advocate this kind of exacting performance for all of her ride time. Horses need to be able to make their own decisions and be allowed to relax and enjoy their rides. Most trail riding is best done under "general orders". But, on demand, the horse must do precisely what is asked of them.

Most folks just sit on a horse. They don't ride them. It is only the generous, kind and gentle nature of horses that prevents more people from getting hurt. My experience teaching traditional western horsemanship classes is that most people sitting on a horse think they are riding if they can keep the horse between the ditches. This underachieving approach to horsemanship is because a large number of horse enthusiasts have no idea just how sensitive and capable of precision the horse is.

Tassi and I repeated the slope a couple more times and she quickly understood what she needed to do. I patted her neck affectionately and blew in her nostrils. She nuzzled me in return, raised her head and gave me a haughty glance very clearly stating "I knew that".

Many people have a romanticized view of what horse training is all about. Few of them realize it is tedious and repetitive work. It is this fundamental nature of horse training that accounts for why so many horses are under-trained. The repetitive nature of horse training can be extremely boring and physically demanding. Take the last drill of scrambling up and down the slope for instance. Pleasure riding is supposed to be exactly that, "pleasure." Repeatedly negotiating a steep bank on loose footing wearing boots and chaps is not much fun, at least not after the first time. But, that is what a horse trainer is paid to do. They will repeat the necessary drills, no matter how tiring, for as long as it takes to get the point across. The backyard trainer will often get a horse through a situation and then congratulate themselves and the horse for a job well done believing the horse now knows all about it. Usually, they won't ask the horse to repeat the drill again, or, they will avoid teaching the horse to deal with the obstacle and instead, teach the horse to refuse. Ergo, an untrained horse, or worse, a horse trained to resist.

I carefully slid my rifle back into the scabbard on the off side and dug a small coil of parachute 550 cord out of my saddlebags. I attached one end to the mecate guide loop on the fiadore and looped the mecate around the saddle horn.

I want my horse to follow me rather than be led. The definition of terms is necessary to understanding the concept of “follow” vs. “lead. Follow: "to come or occur after." Lead: "to guide, or cause to follow one, by physical contact." The essential distinction between these two terms turns on the voluntariness of the action. To "follow" implies a self-directed, voluntary act. To be "led" means some sort of physical connection with its subtle threat of coercion.

As a young wrangler and apprentice trainer I had to occasionally ride and repair fence. I didn't have to build them, you understand. The code of the western cowboy still meant something even back in the 1960s. One of the elements of that code was that if it couldn't be done from horseback, cowboys didn't do it. We had "rosinjaw's" or "hired help" to do such undignified work. Cowboys, rough string riders, and wranglers rode. None of this running errands for the boss in a pickup, and, perish the thought, nothing to do with a shovel or hammer. Times have changed, and not for the better. As the horse wrangler and rough string apprentice, I was low man on the totem pole of the rigid aristocracy of cow country. "Hired help" wasn't even on the pole.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that when I had to do chores I wasn’t getting much done working one-handed -- the other being employed in holding my horse. Hobbling took too long and I still had to retrace my steps. Tying a horse to a barbed wire fence wasn't an option. I wanted to train horses and the sooner I got my chores done, the sooner I could get back to working colts.

These circumstances demonstrated the importance of “liberty training.” A horse that is not easily caught or one that will run off is one of the most irritating habits a horse can possess. In the remoteness of western cow country, such a habit can be life threatening. It should be obvious that two-legged drive is no match for four-legged drive. Yet, it just amazes me how many folks will chase a horse. Like they think they're actually going to catch it. If a horse will not voluntarily come to you, you better have hold of him, or corralled where you can corner him. Riding fence, checking and doctoring stock, putting out salt, or other range work often times two days ride or more from the barn is no place to be afoot. Horses need to come to you of their own free will.

Parachute cord is so light compared to the mecate that it creates the illusion of no direct connection to the rider and the horse thinks they are actually free. As long as the horse stays within two paces of me, I make no corrections. This business of "correction" is a whole lot more complicated than it seems. Training horses, like anything else, is a matter of technique and timing. I've learned lots of technique in my forty odd years of starting and riding horses. I'm still working on timing.

The Bag Lady - Part I of III

Tassie, "The Bag Lady" and Far Rider

Strands of rusted and broken barbed wire sagged in tangled confusion from rotting mesquite posts staggering like so many drunks across the rocky soil. Abandoned vehicles and dead appliances decorated the beaten ground around the hard worn dwellings scattered among the greasewood and palo verde trees. The area reminded me of some of the country I had seen in the mountains of West Virginia during military training. It was hard to believe that white folks would live like that. An occasional neatly kept cottage or mobile home stood in stark contrast to the harshness of the rough country lying hard against the southern flanks of the New River Mountains.

Fig Springs Road is a rough, rutted and potholed track following an old wagon road lazing eastward away from the usually dry course of the Agua Fria River. I drove slowly to ease the ride on my horse standing spraddle legged in the trailer behind my rig. I had become interested in the area near Fig Springs after reading a privately published monograph by Pauline Grimes (1987), A Land of Our Own. The work is a biographical account of the first permanent Anglo settlers in the Fig Springs area after the turn of the century. Fig Springs lies roughly five miles, as a hawk flies, northeast of the old New River Stage Station along the banks of the Agua Fria River north of Phoenix, Arizona.

I am an avid historian of the Southwest, circa 1873-1911. I also raise and train horses, specializing in working trail horses. As soon as the young horses I am starting under saddle or those that I am re-schooling quit trying to stick my head in the dirt, I get them out into rough country. It works out all around. I have found that horses learn a whole lot quicker when they have a reason to do something on demand and I use the opportunity to explore the out of the way sites of yesteryear in the same manner as those who came before. That is how I happened to be rattling along the old wagon road to Fig Springs. About a half a mile east of Soda Springs across a very beat up and narrow cattle guard, I off-loaded a spirited Morgan mare and saddled up. Tassie is a horseman’s horse. You cannot just sit on her. You have to ride her. She is quick, agile and intelligent with an extraordinary presence about her.

The cool February air was clear with an intermittent breeze blowing from the west. A gray, broken weather front stretched from the Bradshaws eastward across the New River Mountains. The clouds thickened to the north and rain appeared to be falling where they collided with Red Mountain. The dampness and scattered clouds occasionally drifting across an anemic winter sun gave the breeze enough of a bite to be grateful for my split-leather riding jacket.
To the northeast, New River Mesa rises some 1700 feet above the surrounding desert. Local Old Timers have told me that there is a hidden trail that negotiates its massive, lava strewn slopes from the New River side. I've ridden most of this country and glassed the mesa looking for some sign of a trail, but without any luck. There are a couple of places near West Point that look like a working cowboy on a rock-wise horse might make it. Riding other folks' horses for a living, I don't take the kind of chances I used to have to take as a working cowboy pushing range cattle. I didn't like it much then, and I sure don't like it now. I have never seen a cow or a trail worth crippling a horse for.

In addition to working horses, I guide folks into the remote and not so remote areas of Arizona and the Southwest where evidence of the Old West is still to be seen. I call these excursions Ghost Rides. Along the old wagon roads and outlaw trails lie the relics of yesteryear -- mining camps, stage stops, ghost towns and the long dried bloody ground of gun fights, robberies, massacres and other events that we call "adventure.” Life-threatening trouble is a more accurate description of such events. Seeing these places in the often harsh and beautiful country in which they occurred from the back of a horse, just as the participants did over a hundred years ago, brings history alive and makes for a great ride. Today's pre-ride was in search of the first Anglo homestead in the New River area.

Zulu, my big Rhodesian Ridgeback and trail companion, trotted ahead of as we headed east towards Skunk Creek. We crossed a dry wash and turned north paralleling the creek bed along a worn cattle trail. A mile later we swung east skirting a small hill and turned off the trail easing down into an arroyo where several clear, shallow pools fed by a seep reflected the branches of the mesquite trees along the banks.

Training horses is a conditioning process and every ride or handling session with a horse is a training session - good or bad. Horses are creatures of habit if they are anything and consistency is central to the training process. Horses are most secure when their lives are filled with constants. In my experience, horses, like kids, don't learn anything by having it defined to them. They learn by trial and error. Whatever produces not so much the greatest pleasure, but the least amount of discomfort is how a horse prioritizes it's responses to the environment and the events within it. During the training process, horses must learn that when they do the things we ask of them they will not be hurt.

There are a number of fundamental activities a horse must learn in order to have a safe and successful partnership with humans. Among the first things a horse must learn to accept is being tied to something. As a young man back in the sixties, I was privileged to have apprenticed under three of the finest horsemen to ever fork a horse; Ed Connell, the last of the old time Reindores, Del Combs, a 1900's era cowboy, stunt man and head horse trainer for Universal Studios, and Ramon Banuelos, a true Mexican vaquero with hands “as fine as a dealer in Reno.” All of these extraordinary horsemen agreed that three things modern, back yard horses don't get enough of is "walkin', rough country and standin' tied." After forty-five years of riding I couldn't agree more. How many times have you seen horses digging a hole deep enough to bury themselves in when left tied? Horses that paw when tied to a trailer or on hard surfaces run the risk of injury from this annoying habit.

Horses do what they know. If they don't know patience, they will, as often as not, paw the ground when tied. Even with a rider up they will often paw and be foolish. Rather like a kid in church. Most problems with a horse are not the fault of the horse, but rather the ignorance and incompetence of the people handling the animal.

Tassi knows how to stand tied at the rail or to a horse trailer because she has been taught to do so, but that does not mean that she will also quietly stand tied out in the middle of nowhere, on uneven ground with leaves and branches scraping against her and her rigging. Whenever possible, I use any opportunity to help a horse learn something. After first making sure that all sharp projections upon which she might hurt herself were broken off, I tied her to a mesquite branch above the height of her withers in such a fashion to insure that if she moved small limbs and leaves would touch her.

The perfect horse has never been foaled. Emory Henderson, an old-time local horseman once remarked to me "every horse has a hole in it." This little mare's problem is a violent pathological response to certain sounds, most notably the rustle of plastic bags and such. In her early training, I had tied bags and bits of plastic all over her. She had resisted mightily and I had taken to affectionately calling her The Bag Lady. She would strike and kick at the plastic no matter where it might be. This made for a very dangerous situation and we had worked long and hard to change her behavior.

I carefully eased my Winchester model 1873 lever action rifle out of the saddle scabbard and walked off. The sound of steel brushing against leather, while perhaps pleasing to anachronistic ears such as mine, could, if I were not careful, cause this powerful little mare to blow up. She humped up a bit and I gingerly stepped away. She fiddled and fidgeted, as young horses do, and every time a branch would scrape against the saddle, she'd clamp her tail, scoot her hind legs up under herself and stand poised to launch herself into the branches of the mesquite.

She is a sensible little horse and soon realized that there just wasn't any place to go. This good sense cannot be taken for granted. It must first be a genetic characteristic of a particular horse and then it must be developed through training. Horses, dogs, men. I have found there is not much difference when it comes to genetics and conditioning. Her reactions were a study in competing inclinations. Her instinctive reaction, which I will define as reflexive, was to flee from the unusual touching and rustling of the leaves and branches in this unfamiliar place. Her trained reaction, which I will define as a controlled, specific response to a stimulus, and predicated upon her previously reinforced learning experiences, was restraint. She has learned to respect a lead rope, in this case the hackamore’s mecate tied to the tree limb.

Unfortunately, in today’s modern world, most people are far removed from the natural order more commonly found in pre-WWII America. The only interaction with non-human species for most urban and city dwellers is with a domestic pet dog or cat. Horses do not learn like dogs, nor do they possess the same degree of reasoning ability. Reason, as we use it in everyday discourse, means the ability to draw inferences. However, noted California horse trainer Frank Evans says that after fifty years of training, he is convinced that a horse does not possess any ability to reason. In my experience, horses learn through association and pattern development as evidenced by Tassi's reflexive reaction to the strange circumstances but overridden by her respect of the mecate'. For our purposes here, we will take that as evidence of a primitive reasoning ability, at least in the colloquial sense.

Horses worry, and with good reason given their evolutionary history, about being eaten. After a several minutes of trembling, snorting and general wild eyed looking about, she figured out that standing absolutely still was the best way to keep whatever it was that was scraping and rattling from devouring her. Such has been her previous learning experience conducted in the controlled environment of a training arena. She firmly set her ears at a forty-five degree angle, tucked her tail and waited for what she was sure was her impending doom. I chuckled at her interpretation of her state of affairs and reflected on how much pleasure horses and their antics provide for me. I wandered off where I could survey the country and still keep an eye on her.