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I Ride Ponies

The sorrel stallion charged down the runway and slid to a stop with the rails of the auction pit only inches from his nose. With eyes wide-open and nostrils flaring, he tossed his head and threw his flowing mane to the side. He eyed the audience, stomped, snorted and then did something that I did not know horses could do—he seemed to propel himself straight up, turn himself in the air, land, and tear back up that same runway at top speed. He disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. He was, then he was not—there was nothing in between.

This little stallion was the first moving mustang I had ever seen. I have been around horses all my life but I have never observed such athletic ability. A few hours earlier, I watched an experienced mustang gentler lead this young stud around the ring only minutes after he was first roped. Surely he would sell quite high in the ensuing Bureau of Land Management wild horse auction.

He did not sell high. He did not sell at all. No one even bid on him. For all his ability, for all his willingness to learn, for all his stunning beauty, he was not a horse. He was a pony and modern American adults do not ride ponies.

I ride ponies and I am an adult. I ride ponies and I am a large adult. I ride ponies and I ride them long and hard.

I ride because they give me what I want, which is to ride for hours on end on woods trails with my family. I have no need to pull a beer wagon. I do not fox hunt. I will never ride in the Kentucky Derby. In short, I do nothing with my ponies that would require me to feed an extra 400 pounds and two hands of horseflesh. My Indian Horses range from about 13.1 to 14.2 hands. They have heavy bones and iron-hard hooves. I doubt if any of them weigh over nine hundred pounds. Each carries my two hundred pound frame with grace and ease.

I ride ponies because they are healthy, easy keepers. My Indian Horses do not need grain. Indeed, it often takes quite a while before a mustang will even try the taste of grain. They live wonderfully on grass and hay. On such a diet, I have never had a coliced horse. With the help of mineral block supplement, they grow tough, dense hooves that have yet to require a shoe.

I ride ponies because they are easier to handle than tall heavy horses. I do not need a cherry picker to saddle up. I do not need an elevator to mount up. When I fall off, I only have a short descent to make. When they step on my feet, I do not end up lame.

Even with all these advantages, I am still asked why I ride those poor little things that are, after all, “only ponies.” Americans love big things. We are the only nation that feels the need to super-size a meal containing a three-layered hamburger. We drive SUV’s and root for 7ft tall basketball players and 300-pound football players. To make matters worse, children often start out on ponies and then graduate to horses. Ponies are viewed as the equine equivalent of training pants and horses, especially big horses, are the big boy pants of the properly potty-trained equestrian. Many riders are self-conscious of their own weight problems and feel that they call attention to their weight by riding the smaller equines. Worst of all, many riders are simply unaware of the carrying capacity of a well-built, well-conditioned pony. I will never forget being told by a woman with life-long equestrian experience that my 14-hand Indian Horse could never carry her because he was “just a pony.” She looked to weigh about fifty pounds less than me.

Not all cultures have shared our silly prejudices against ponies. Gall was one of the top four leaders of the Sioux and Cheyenne forces at the Little Big Horn. As a young man, he weighed around 240 pounds. When Custer’s men looked up to see Gall riding over the hill to them they did not see him astride a Clydesdale. Nor was he even riding a Warm-blood. Like all the victorious warriors on that day, he rode in on a mustang, likely one that was “just a pony.”

Aside from all of their other advantages, I ride ponies because of the sense of history that they project. I ride ponies because DeSoto invaded America on ponies. I ride ponies because Crazy Horse defended his America on ponies. I ride ponies because there was a Pony Express but there never was a Horse Express. I ride ponies because Quannah Parker lived on a pony and I ride ponies because Roman Nose died on a pony.

I ride ponies because heart is not measured in hands.
(This brief essay is an excerpt from my book, And A Little Child Shall Lead Them:  Learning From Wild Horses and Small Children)
For more provocative insights, check in regularly with our blog:

Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views


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For more provocative insights, check in regularly with our blog:

Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views
 

The Trouble With Wildness

Equine marketing is a complex field. Many supporters of the various mustang associations are frustrated at the resistance that they receive in their efforts to demonstrate the versatility, athleticism, and gentle nature of their horses. Many such supporters seek new breed names for their horses because they perceive resistance to the term “mustang.” While one can understand the frustration of mustang owners, focus on the name alone is of little value. Many BLM mustangs descend from draft horse or have race horse roots. These stout little horses could accurately lay claim to the name “Western Warmblood”; but would doing so make them any more acceptable in the show ring? Will experienced riders trade in their Quarter Horses or Holsteiners to buy a Spanish mustang if only they can learn that a Spanish mustang is not to be confused with a BLM mustang? I fear not.

The problem of marketing mustangs is much more complex. Mustang promoters must recognize that their efforts fly in the face of 1,000 years of northern European horsemanship and 2,000 years of Western civilization. Our horses represent wildness and savagery in America-just as their ancestors in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East did to the Anglo-Saxons of Northern Europe. From time of the Renaissance, upper-class Englishmen rode large, solid colored horses. Ponies were ridden by those whom the English considered barbarians such as the Mongols, the Turks, the Irish, the Moors, and even the Spanish Conquistadors. Henry VIII ordered the slaughter of the ponies of England, and two generations later, King James prohibited the importation of Arabians or Barbs for fear that they would corrupt the bloodlines of the “pure” horses of England.

Today’s silly belief that a horse’s carrying capacity is only 20 percent of his weight is not based on horsemanship or biophysics. Instead, it is rooted in the xenophobic fears of Northern Europe. The 20 percent rule eliminates smaller mustangs from being ridden by many women and most men. And what of the smaller gaited horses? Should Paso Fino breeders develop a new AARP (Anorexic Adults Riding Pasos)?

The same prejudices led to the conclusion that brightly colored horses were inferior to the bays and sorrels. People of color rode horses of color and that was all the proof that white Europe needed to demonize the “pie-bald” or the “skew-bald.” In the American west, the cowboy preferred the blander-colored horses because Indians loved flashy horses. Only after Americans had begun to accept a bit of diversity in our culture were Pintos and Paints able to take their rightful place in the show ring.

Even if our horses were all 16-hand bays, they would still face deeply ingrained cultural hostility that goes at least as far back as the ancient Greeks who viewed the “polis,” the city-state, as the perfect habitat for humans. The Greeks described the purpose of society as being to “tame the savage nature of man and to make gentle the life of this world.” While their poets may have admired the beauty of nature, their philosophers aspired to live in moderation in the “polis.”

The ancient Romans were even more hostile to nature. Unfortunately, early Christian Church fathers, such as Augustine, took the next logical step. They vilified nature as the birthplace of evil. By emphasizing the portion of the Creation story that dealt with the fall of man, Christian theologians absolutely missed the essential point in the ancient Hebrew story-that God looked down on His creation and said that it was “good”. For many such thinkers, the purpose of Christianity was to teach men to restrain their passions, to become tame and civilized.

The natural environment also had to be tamed, refined and made to serve the needs of man. To Western civilization, Creation was not “good” until it was changed by man. Even today, our legal terminology reflects this point of view. Any structure built on even the most beautiful and pristine landscape is described as an “improvement”. There is a legal presumption to grant the “highest and best use” of property subject to legal condemnation. The “highest and best use” of property is generally that use which produces the greatest income.

The horse, more than any other animal, had to be tamed. The horse had been worshipped by some pagan cults and played a role in most European pagan cults. The horse could, and did, live quite well without man’s control. Tarpans and Konics had once roamed Europe wild. Feral stallions with uncontrolled sexuality were viewed as threats to domestic herds. Their very existence offended European elites who lived off of the labor of serfs. Those serfs had never tasted the freedom that the feral herds enjoyed. The wild horse was a threat to those most precious of European values-stability and order.

America’s fundamental social tension remains the conflict between our European roots and values and the radical values of freedom and equality expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Quite bluntly, the 17-hand warmblood represents the aristocratic values of old Europe, and the still wild mustang is the perfect symbol for our more radical underpinnings.

Unfortunately for those who seek to market mustangs to the established horse world, that world—especially its competitive component—is made up predominantly of those who adhere tightly, albeit subconsciously, to those European values.

This will be a very tough market to crack. Some, including Sharon Sluss of Rainbows End Spanish Mustangs, are making a strong effort to do just that. Such efforts should be strongly supported by all those who care about mustangs. Of course, the analysis set forth above paints with a very broad brush. The establishment also includes free spirits and original thinkers. Those people are open to considering our horses, and they would never learn about them were it not for the efforts of people like Sharon Sluss.

The other market also presents its challenges. Those who adhere most strongly to American values of freedom and equality are drawn to our horses because of the association of mustangs with wildness. Few of these people are part of the competitive horse world. Many of them either have never owned a horse or have been without a horse for many years. These people will evaluate our horses on their merits if they are given the opportunity to do so.

At Mill Swamp Indian Horses, we have the largest herd of registered American Indian Horses on the entire east coast. We have a Spanish mustang stallion colt, many wild mustangs and their offspring along with pintos, Paints and an Appaloosa. The Virginia American Indian Horse Festival is held in our pastures. During the summer, we hold many open house sessions to allow people to observe natural horsemanship in action. We teach introduction to natural horsemanship to children as young as five. Last summer we had over 1,000 visitors to our pastures.

Only a handful of these visitors could remotely be considered part of the competitive horse world, either English or Western. My students and those who purchase my colts come exclusively from those outside the competitive horse world. They learn how to train colts to saddle before they even learn to be successful riders. Horsemanship comes first, then they learn to ride.

Many children have not yet acquired the European hostility to wildness and they represent a solid potential market for us. The key is the educational component. Children have to be taught proper techniques of natural horsemanship before it is safe for them to ride, much less purchase, green colts.

There is more than one market. To promote the various mustang breeds, we need to expose all facets of those markets to our horses. I hope that we do not try to change our horses to make them suit the prejudices of a misinformed majority. We do not need to raise bigger horses. Our horses are big enough. We do not need to raise blander-colored horses. Our horses are beautiful. We do not need to try to open the minds of the closed-minded. We need to educate the minds of the open-minded.


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