How to Know if Your Horse is Honest

This may sound ludicrous, but you have to believe me. When I first graduated from college I worked for a detective who had a polygraph service. Yes, I was the assistant at a lie detection agency’s office. Sadly, I never got to sit in on a session–that would have been interesting. It was awkward when people came to sign in. No one was overly friendly as I recall.

There’s no way to hook a horse up to a polygraph machine, but this past week I accidentally discovered a way to determine my young Thoroughbred’s integrity. It had nothing to do with body language or whether or not he had shifty eyes and started to develop sweat beads on his forehead. It had everything to do with #BadSteering on my part as a rider.

All it took was a simple line, an X to a tiny vertical, to find out Knight’s true character.

We were in the middle of a spring break riding lesson. I’m not sure why it’s a million times better to ride in the morning–it just is. His transitions are getting soooo much smoother, we’re staying more connected trotting to the right, everything was golden. The sun was shining, the birds chirping, we had the arena to ourselves and all our flatwork was more than adequate.

Side Note: The problem with being a sensitive, mildly self-critical person with a green horse is that if I don’t ride like a champion, I’m convinced I’m going to ruin Knight. I believe I will teach him all sorts of bad habits and long-term he’ll be a spoiled jerk. I do a lot of apologizing during my riding lessons. So much to the point that my trainer said something to the effect, “It’s really hard to be a perfectionist with jumping–if you want perfection you probably should do dressage.”

So now for the embarrassing reveal about the whole honesty litmus test: it happened after our flatwork. Knight and I rounded our turn and did a bright trot right over the middle of our baby X and then I zoned out until about a stride from the vertical which was the second fence of the line.

I realized, “Crap! We’re going to buzz past the fence. I’m teaching my horse to run out. We’re GOING to jump this,” and I left legged, right reined my poor horse sharply back on path to the fence.

And do you know what happened next? As we jumped the fence, somehow we knocked over the standard! I think Knight actually cleared the standard because I remember feeling more airborne than normal and as we cantered away and my trainer asked, “Are you okay?” I said, “Yeah. Hey, at least I stayed on!”

I wish somebody had been videoing so we could see what actually happened. Knight didn’t panic upon landing, he just kept cantering. He was fine. We looked to see if I had paint on my left boot. Nothing. The only likely explanation is that my foot hit the standard and it fell over.

And although I was having heart palpitations, as my trainer set the standard back upright and said, “You’re doing that again,” I tried to channel a calmer Susan to do the same line again. Lots of times I start to get very talkative. In real life I’m not a nervous conversationalist (I have a friend who gets very chatty when she’s uncomfortable), but when I’m riding I start talking a lot so I am at least breathing.

For the second attempt the standard stayed up–we were a bit off to the left again, but not nearly as dramatic. We jumped it a few more times and Knight continued with the same demeanor which is, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

So there you have it. You’ll know your horse is honest when you fail to pilot him to a fence and then last-minute give sharp aids to force him to jump. If he jumps you’ll know you have a keeper. If he bails, just know it’s not his fault. You were the one to blame for riding like an moron in the first place.

I heart your fun comments, advice, and anecdotes. Do you have a horse honesty litmus test?

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