Mark Rashid - A Journey to Softness: In Search of Feel and Connection with the Horse

Journey to Softness

Also by Mark Rashid

Considering the Horse

A Good Horse Is Never a Bad Color

Horses Never Lie

Life Lessons from a Ranch Horse

Horsemanship Through Life

Big Horses, Good Dogs, and Straight Fences

A Life with Horses

Whole Heart, Whole Horse

Out of the Wild

First published in 2016 by

Trafalgar Square Books

North Pomfret, Vermont 05053

Copyright 2016 Mark Rashid

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, by any means, without written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer quoting brief excerpts for a review in a magazine, newspaper, or website.

Disclaimer of Liability

The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book. While the book is as accurate as the author can make it, there may be errors, omissions, and inaccuracies.

Trafalgar Square Books encourages the use of approved safety helmets in all equestrian sports and activities.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rashid, Mark, author.

Title: A journey to softness : in search of feel and connection with the

horse / Mark Rashid ; foreword by Skip Ewing.

Description: North Pomfret, Vermont : Trafalgar Square Books, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015031434 | ISBN 9781570767586 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Horses--Training. | Horses--Behavior. | Horses--Psychology. | Human-animal relationships. | BISAC: SPORTS & RECREATION / Equestrian.

Classification: LCC SF287 .R2825 2016 | DDC 636.1/0835--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015031434

Cover photograph by Fall River Productions

Book design by Laury Eddlemon

Cover design by RM Didier

Typefaces: Gotham, Helvetica Neue

Printed in Canada

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Declan, Jack, and Brinley

Gratitude.

For the fact that youre reading this. For the fact that you may have chosen to ask the question, How can I be even more skillful for my horse, any horse, every horse? or perhaps What might be here that opens the door of greater understanding, not just of horses, but of others... of myself?

Gratitude.

For the journey youve already taken and the myriad decisions that may have led you to pick up this book; to watch, listen, learn, practice, care, try, refine, try again, teach, train, try yet again, and perhaps even transform habits and ways of thinking that no longer serve your relationships well, including the relationship you have with yourself.

Gratitude.

For the long history of effort leading to the heart and intention behind the words in this book and the many others my friend Mark Rashid has written.

Friend? I meant brother.

Gratitude.

For the offer to be involved with so many hearts, so many horses, and so many humans on so many levels.

Gratitude.

To all of you, for your willingness to reconsider the horse, again, and again, and again.

Gratitude.

I believe its the best place to begin, an even better place to end, and a good way to assure that every ending is an even more skillful beginning.

As a friend of mine once wrote with me, If you got it right more times than you got it wrong... you got it right.

Friend? I meant brother.

With great confidence that you know the spirit in which this was written,

Skip Ewing , Singer and Songwriter

____________

You Got It Right (Skip Ewing, Mark Rashid) 2013 Write! Music (BMI)/Rocking 5 R (BMI). Lyrics used by permission.

V ery early on, as I began working on the outline for this book, I realized that one of the main concepts I wanted to share was the fact that the development of softness truly is a journeyone with a beginning and a middle, but not necessarily an end. One of the other concepts I wanted to try to impart is the fact that if were not working on softness in everything we do, achieving it when we are with our horses is going to be considerably more difficult.

I asked a few friends, all with different backgrounds, from different walks of life, and from different parts of the country, if they would be willing to share some thoughts on how the practice of softness has helped them in their respective occupations, as well as with their horsemanship. Many of them were kind enough to jot down their ideas on the subject, and these can be found throughout this book as Reflections from My Friends. My thanks to all who contributed!

Mark Rashid

Estes Park, Colorado

There is strength
in muscle, but
power in softness.

Mark Rashid

D wight and I hadnt been on horseback very long when we reached the top of a small mesa and looked down into the valley below, green with new spring grass and bathed in the yellow glow of sunrise. The valley was maybe a half-mile long and two hundred yards wide, and in it were a handful of horses. One looked to be black or very dark brown, one was an Appaloosa, two were gray, and three were sorrel. One of the sorrels had what appeared to be a new foal running at its side.

Is that her? I asked.

Dwight shifted in his saddle. I dont think so.

No? I asked. Shes got a foal, and I doubt there were any other pregnant mares out here.

He tipped his weathered cowboy hat back and scratched his forehead. No. He readjusted his hat. I think she was a bay.

A bay?

Or brown.

You dont know what color she was?

It was dark.

The horse?

I think so. But the sale was at night, so it was dark out.

He squinted down into the valley and watched the sorrel with the baby. And it was over a week ago. Im pretty sure she werent no sorrel.

Pretty sure?

Well, I did buy two sorrels, he said, still looking at the small herd below us. But they was geldings. The mare was a bay... or brown... I think.

Satisfied, at least to some extent, that the mare we had come to find (and that, at Dwights suggestion, we would take off the 3,500-acre pasture on which our ranch horses had wintered) was not with the band we were currently gazing upon, we turned our horses and continued on our way.

The excursion that morning had begun a couple of days earlier when I received a call from Dwight about some horses he had bought the weekend before. Dwight had made a trip up to Minnesota that weekend to visit friends and family, and while there, took a little side trip to a horse sale. Saddle horses were going pretty cheap, so he had taken it upon himself to buy a few head that he figured I might be able to use at the guest ranch where I was foreman.

Dwight, an excellent and lifelong stockman, had a good eye for both cattle and horses. He also had a heart as big as Montana; if there were a way to help someone, especially a friend, he would do it without hesitation. In this case, he knew I was going to be short some horses for the upcoming season and so had decided to help by picking up a few for me. Detailswhere the horses would go once he bought them, were they rideable, did they have some kind of communicable disease that could possibly infect every horse on the placejust werent that important.

So, when he called to tell me he had bought a few horses for the ranch, and then told me he thought they were all healthy and had turned them in with our herd out on the pasture, I wasnt too concerned. Of course, I hadnt actually asked him to buy any horses for us