A horse is a horse

Summer holidays have finally started. For one of us, at least. On Saturday we took our horse out to his summer grazing. He's been going to the same property for 4 years now, and just loves it there. He's become quite a fixture at the place and has become firm friends with several of the other horses who have also travelled from around the region during the same times. It's always a lot of fun sitting and watching the other horses as they arrive one at a time. Usually there's some recognition of a familiar face or smell and they'll often move off in groups formed from previous summers. Any new arrival gets the rules explained to them before figuring out which group is the smart one to be allied with. We've been very fortunate with the nature of the horse that we brought to Sweden with us from New Zealand. He was born and raised on a country station where there were 70+ horses running. As such, he understands exactly the dynamics of the herd and horse interactions. He's not an openly dominant horse, you won't find him prancing around at the head of the pack. But he's a strong horse, knows what is reasonable behaviour and what isn't, and will not take a step backwards if challenged by some young upstart who ought to know better. Because of that, other horses feel safe around him, so usually ends up being the centre of the main group at summer camp. He's also very good at showing other horses how to behave in a group. This is not a trait that all Swedish born horses have as many are raised on small properties with only one or 2 other horses. Group dynamics are a bit foreign to them and they need some guidance.

The only downside to his summer vacation, is the journey there and back. Horses in New Zealand live quite different lives to those in the north of Sweden. The biggest difference is that they live outside 12 months of the year. They are rarely, if at all, stabled. In the 4 or so years that he lived in NZ, our horse had never once been inside a building. So he's had to learn that. I guess that old habits die hard because, as much I think he rather likes sleeping on nice soft straw at night, he's always the most anxious to go outside in the morning. The other key difference is that horses don't travel by road as much as they do in Sweden. That's possibly because the Swedish equestrian community is highly organised with competitions and specialised facilities to travel to and use. In New Zealand, people mostly rode where they lived. Before he left his home paddock in NZ, our horse had probably been on a horse transporter maybe 4 times, and one of those was in getting to our property. He didn't have a lot of experience being transported anywhere. That being said, we did so once or twice with a friend and her horse. While he was a bit cautious about the whole thing, it didn't take very much convincing to get him loaded on.

The first time we tried to load him onto a horse transporter in Sweden, it was clear that something had changed. He had become quite fearful of transporters. Loading him could take up to a couple of hours and involved a lot of stress from all parties. We figure there are likely a couple of reasons behind this. Firstly, the journey itself to Sweden must have been quite traumatic for him. Starting out with a large truck for 2 days, then a boat, truck again for another 2 days, 3 plane trips, another 2 day truck journey, yet another boat, and then finally a long haul up the length of Sweden. Not all at once, I should point out, the journey was spread over 3 weeks. But it must have been scarey for a young horse not knowing what was going to happen next. I can also imagine that he probably didn't get any extra loving care along the way. The horse transporter people are not horrible people, but they do this for a living and probably don't offer up a lot of emotional support. They have timetables to keep to and a hesitant horse can cost them time and money. I'm guessing. Something obviously happened along the way to scare him.

The other aspect we consider is the nature of the horse himself. As I said earlier, he's a strong horse who backs himself. However, he's also a "one person horse". Always had been from the moment we saw him as a scrawny baby. It was he who selected us. Other people ride him on occasion and he does everything that is asked of him without fuss. But that's all they get from him. He is, and will likely always be, a Mamma's Boy. He loves his Mum and would move the heavens for her. A few years ago my wife had an accident and fell from the horse, knocking herself out severely. Most horses would not appreciate the situation and would simply hang around the general area quietly eating grass. Not so with this boy. Knowing immediately that something was wrong, he raced through several closed neighbouring paddocks to find the nearest person, broken reins flapping in front of his face the whole time. Intentional or not, he likely saved her life. For that alone, he scored enough extra points to keep him with us for a long time to come. You have to do something special in life to get a free trip across the world. Anyway, everytime he ever went anywhere, or did anything, his "Mum" was with him. Except for this time. For 3 weeks, everytime they opened the door, he was somewhere new, and his Mum wasn't there. And I think there's still that fear in the back of his mind that he's going to be sent somewhere strange and that his Mum won't be there when he gets there. I think he's slowly coming to peace with the idea that this time we all travel together. The loading has become a little easier, Saturday was possibly a new record at around 15 minutes. Hopefully it's a sign of things to come and of unwanted memories forgotten.