The Tao of Spartacus Jones: An Apple A Day

I don’t know much about much when it comes to horses, but I KNOW I don't know much, and I’m trying to learn all I can.
However, when I first met my friend Kelsey, I knew NOTHING about horses, although if you gave me a good hint and enough time I could usually figure out which end was the front.

Trucked him out to this place I would board him and when he came out of the trailer, he was like a hungry challenger launching himself out of his corner, pretty sure he could knock the champ out with one punch. It was a concerto of dance-prance-snort, mane tossing and tail-flagging and I immediately asked myself, “What the HELL do you think you’re DOING?????”

Lee, who had given me some lessons and had helped me look at a few horses in the selection process, had suggested I give him a little time to settle in. So into a paddock he went, where he jogged up and down the fence line announcing to all within earshot that there was a new sheriff in town.

I decided on four days.
The Old People considered four a sacred number and advised taking four days to contemplate a problem before making a decision and taking action. Good advice.
Has probably saved my life once or twice.
Maybe a few others, too.

So for four days all I did was visit his paddock, give him apples and hand-groom him. Of course, I did this about a hundred times a day. I also spent a lot of time just sitting on the fence, watching him eat grass. And sometimes I’d sing to us. “The Wayward Wind.”
Little did I know that the Wind was his first cousin.

After four days, it was time to do something.
I just didn’t know what.
So I decided I’d just get a lead rope and show him around the place.
I thought we’d be going for a walk; he thought it was a rodeo event.
What I asked of him was that he walk when I walked and stop when I stopped, and, if it wasn’t too much trouble, would he mind not walking ON me. It was not a thing of beauty and many a moment I wished I’d bought steel-toed shoes. When we paused to give my arm a rest, we’d share a bite of apple or carrot. I’d take a bite and give him a bite.
It was something we could agree on.

I did this for four days, too.
Then, because I didn’t know anything else, I figured it was time to put him in the cross-ties and do a real grooming. I quickly learned that he didn’t have a high opinion of cross-ties, and he demonstrated that he could do his dancing-prancing as easily with them as without.
Today, although I know he’d tolerate them, I wouldn’t cross-tie him without a particularly good reason for doing so. It always seemed a little awkward to me. Like inviting someone to come over for a drink, offering them a chair and then tying them to it.


I discovered that Kelsey of Arabia must’ve thought I was Claude Rains because he sure acted at times like I was invisible. His presumed his way into my space like a Jehovah’s Witness and stayed as long as he pleased, with no regard for me subtly looking at my watch. Sure wish I had those boots….

In his continued fence pacing, he’d managed to rub a spot on his chest raw. It was hardly life-threatening, but it did look nasty and my inclination was to put something on it to head infection off at the pass. So I brought over a magic salve to apply to it, with no great confidence that he wouldn’t wind up sticking it in my ear.
Into the cross-ties we went, with the usual ensuing ritual dance.
I’d just try to get some salve on his abrasion.
I bent down to look at it and opened the little jar.
Abruptly, he stood perfectly still.
It scared me.
But I took advantage of the moment.
And all the while I delicately dabbed the salve onto his little ouch, he didn’t move a muscle.
Then, when I put the salve away, he returned us to our regularly scheduled program. It began to dawn on me that, of the two of us, I might not be the clever one.


We had to come to some agreement about feet.
He’d walk on his and I’d walk on mine.
Which basically meant he had to give me a little space. I started treating him like I’d treat anyone else who pushed me; I let him know I didn’t like it.
I’d been watching how the horses expressed “Get the hell out of my way,” to each other, and had noticed that they weren’t one bit shy about putting a physical exclamation point on it. I’d felt hesitant to get physical with him because that’s loaded with real bad juju for me. But as Malcolm X said, if a guy asks you a question in Chinese, you don’t answer him in English. So if this was the language horses spoke with each other, it made sense for me to translate. After all, he out-weighed me by 800 lbs; it’s not like I was going to hurt him with a finger-poke.

And I chose finger-poking because it was the thing that I, myself, found highly irritating.
If he didn’t stop when I stopped and he bumped into me, I’d finger-poke his chest until he backed up a step. If he swung his hindquarters into my space, I’d finger-poke his flank until he move his butt out of my space, using as little or as much poke as that took. And so on.

I accompanied this with vocal cues in my native tongue, Chicago-ese.
There are relatively few books on horsemanship that recommend, “Hey, back the fuck up!” as a voice command. And people will tell you “Horses don’t speak English, anyway.”
Well, I don’t speak Hungarian, either. But I bet if a Hungarian came at me red-faced, yelling and finger-poking (or if a sweetie cooed in my ear in Romanian), I’d get the gist.
Even if you don’t get the words, you get the MEANING. And if a human could figure it out, a horse certainly could.

Oddly enough this approach seemed to work. Before too long, there came a moment when, after he’d rear-ended my shoulder on a halt, and I’d just managed to say “Hey...” and cock my hand for a finger-poke, he backed up a step before I had to fire. Amazed, I eased the hammer back down. After all, you don’t shoot a guy if he gives you his wallet.

All through this highly sophisticated process, I continued to lavish him with apples.
He obviously enjoyed them and that was reason enough to do it. I enjoyed that he enjoyed them. I like providing pleasure.

I also like ritual.
Maybe it’s from the long years I spent in “martial arts.” But I know ritual can set the stage for what comes next, can conjure up the right mindset.
It became my ritual to always greet my arab friend with an apple. As a tribute, so to speak. And I’d give him another when we parted, as a thank you, not for doing what I wanted him to do, but just for being my friend.
For a long time I was meticulous --- maybe obsessive – about this apple-thing.
I didn’t hesitate to go out of my way to be sure I had them for a visit. A couple of times, I missed and substituted a carrot or a peppermint. But the ritual was that I’d arrive and call his name, then go to him and offer the apple. While he was eating it, I’d stroke his neck and tell him what a fine horse he was – as if he didn’t know it. (I hated being “patted” on the head when I was a kid, so I never “pat” my horse or any other animal, also noting that they don’t do that with each other)

Somebody once said that what horses are best at is figuring out what happens before what happens happens. I guess that’s what my pal did with our ritual. It got to the point where, I’d show up and call his name and HE would come to ME to get his apple. And pretty soon, he was coming over without me calling him, as soon as he saw me. Apple-time.

But, strange as it may be, it went further. Many times, when I show up he’s there waiting for me. Don’t ask me how he does that. I don’t have an answer that fits into two dimensions.
In the 10 years we've been friends, I have now, on a handful of occasions, not had an apple handy when I arrived. Doesn't seem to make any difference.


Here’s the thing. Sometimes people ask, “How do you CATCH your horse?”
And when they ask that, what I hear is, “How do you get a woman into bed?”
How can I possibly answer that?
Where would I possibly start?

Sometimes I offer up my version of an old proverb: “You can lead a horse to water --- as long as that’s where he wants to go.”
But I realize that it’s also like what Satchmo said about the question “What’s jazz?” : “If you have to ask the question you won’t understand the answer.”

But maybe the best proverb in this case starts out, “An apple a day...”



sj