Finding the Missed Path. Mark Rashid
to him what was going on and asked if he could fix it. The mechanic said he could, and when asked how much it would cost, he said, “$150.”
“Are you sure you can fix it?” the man asked.
“Yup,” the mechanic said. “Bring it in and we’ll take care of it for you.”
The man limped his car into the mechanic’s shop. The mechanic opened the hood, and listened intently as the engine sputtered and coughed.
“No problem,” the mechanic said. “We’ll have you fixed up in a jiffy.”
He went over to his toolbox and brought back a small hammer. He bent in over the engine with his little hammer, turned his ear to the motor for a few seconds, hesitated for another second, and then lightly tapped the right side of the carburetor three times. The engine let out two big backfires, and then it began running as smooth as if it were new.
The mechanic stepped back, and wiping the hammer with a rag he took from his back pocket, said, “That’ll be $150, please.”
The man, shocked at how quickly and simply the mechanic was able to fix his car, reached in his pocket for his wallet.
“Don’t get me wrong here,” the man said as he pulled the money from his wallet. “I’m sure grateful that you were able to fix my car. But it seems a little pricey to charge $150 for just tapping the side of the carburetor three times with a hammer.”
“Oh,” the mechanic said. “I’m not charging you $150 for tapping the carburetor. I only charge $5 for that.”
“What’s the other $145 for?” the man asked.
“That’s for knowing where and when to tap.”
I like this story because it exemplifies the secret to ultimately being really good with horses. Everything boils down to simply knowing where and when to tap.
Tunnel Vision
There’s an old saying that goes: “When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
The trainer might say that because the horse is looking away from the camera that he obviously has a disrespectful attitude and he must be taught some respect through training. The farrier might say that all the horse needs is a good set of shoes, while the barefoot trim specialist might say what he really needs is to go barefoot. The chiropractor might say that because of the way the horse’s hind legs look, it’s clear he needs an adjustment, while the acupuncturist might say that his ting points are deficient. The massage therapist might say that his shoulders and neck are tight and what the horse really needs is a massage, while the saddle fitter might say that it is clear by the way the horse’s topline looks that he needs a properly fitting saddle.
Of course, the chances of any of these folks actually being accurate in their respective diagnosis just by looking at a photo of a horse standing in a pen are pretty slim. After all, a photo only captures a specific moment in time and seldom offers an overall view of the horse’s history, movement, or demeanor. But the point is, everybody who has spent time, effort, and resources learning how to get good in a certain aspect of equine care or training will more than likely look at every horse and every situation they come across through the filter of what they have been focusing on.
In and of itself this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless it blinds people to other possible options or causes for what they are seeing in the horse. Limiting our options almost never works out in our horse’s best interest. It has been my experience over the years that when it comes to working with or caring for horses, flexibility of thought and action is almost always the key to success. Time and time again I have run into horse owners who, because of a certain belief about horses or horsemanship, would completely discount trying something that a horse really needed simply because that thing didn’t fit into their belief system. It’s the sort of catch-22 of horsemanship. By eliminating viable options due to the well-meaning but possibly unrealistic ideals that we might have, solutions to chronic problems can, and often do, continue to elude us.
I think all of us, whether we’re talking about horses or just life in general, have at one time or another, gotten a little stuck. We buy into a certain technique, or system, or idea, or dogma about how things should be done, and then we follow it blindly to the exclusion of everything else. In the meantime, we begin to lose our ability to see the broader picture due to the fact that our thinking process has become more and more inflexible.
As far as horses go, it is almost always that inflexibility in our thinking process that gets us in trouble. Inflexibility creates tunnel vision, and tunnel vision seldom allows for the expansion of awareness. Yet it is that awareness—that lack of rigidity in our beliefs—that will allow us to try things we haven’t tried before, or will allow us to think outside the box when presented with an unfamiliar or problematic issue. It can also ultimately allow us to answer our own questions and question our own answers.
“Hello?” I said, answering my phone. It was a bit of an anomaly. I don’t like carrying my cell phone with me much, and when I do, I never have the ringer turned on. So even if someone does call, I almost never know it. But on this day, it happened that my phone jumped to life just as I took it from the console of the truck as I was heading in the house. I looked at the number on the screen but couldn’t place who it belonged to. Usually, when that happens, I let the call go to voicemail and pick up the message later. But for some reason, on this day, I decided to answer it.
“Hey Mark, it’s TJ,” the voice on the other end of the line said in an upbeat voice. “I’m not sure if you remember me. You helped me with a horse a few years back here at my place.”
I did remember. TJ was a professional truck driver who owned his own business south of Denver. He had a small fleet of over-the-road trucks and a half dozen or so drivers that worked for him. I had gone to TJ’s place several years earlier, before I was doing clinics full time, to help him with a horse he was having some trouble with, a big bay gelding named Swift. As it turned out, the problems the two of them were having had been relatively superficial and after just a couple of visits we had cleared things up enough to where the pair didn’t really need my help anymore. I had liked TJ. He was a big, kindhearted guy with a quick smile and a ready laugh who loved his horses and tried very hard to do the right thing by them.
“Well TJ,” I said, genuinely glad to hear from him. “It’s been a while! How have you been?”
“Good, good,” he replied. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Not at all. What’s up?”
There was obviously something on his mind, but instead of coming right out and saying it, he first asked how I had been, then he asked about the family, and finally he asked how the weather was up by us.
“I don’t mean to bother you,” he said, after we had finished with our small talk. “But I remember you saying if I ever had any questions about my horses that I should give you a call.”
“No problem,” I said. “What can I help you with?”
TJ went into an explanation about a horse he had gotten about a year before, a registered Quarter Horse he called Toby. According to TJ, Toby was a very well-trained and pretty expensive horse that he picked up from a ranch in Texas. Apparently, things between him and the horse had gone along very well