The Ponies
This project is
as much about ponies, as about people. Those who use the service,
give the ponies a purpose and a future. So the ponies we want are the
ones, almost by definition, which the horsey world don't want, ie the
ones who need us.
Traditional
equestrian activities all want ponies to go out boldly on their own.
Forward going is their description of an animal that is always ready
to accelerate. We want ponies who feel safer being led, whose default
position is stop, or more likely graze. We don't care about high
stepping, bouncy, snorting, lunatics. The concept of a fiery steed is
an anathema to us. We want the boring, the slow, the halt and the
lame, the ones everyone else sends for catmeat are just what we need.
And with a bit of love and affection, quite a few of them become
quite keen, handsome and enthusiastic, which suits our braver, more
adventurous users.
If you have
twenty ponies and a competition, you have 19 losers. But if you have
twenty ponies and this project, you have twenty winners, and loads of
happy people. Some ponies will be young, tough and bouncy and will
have a whale of a time taking injured army veterans at stupid speeds
across impossible terrain. Some ponies will be old, or weak, or
disabled and will be happier being scratched behind the ears by
children in wheelchairs, and taking people for gentle walks round the
park.
People with
mobility issues don't fall into neat categories, therefore a bunch of
ponies that don't fit into neat categories will be just what we need.
As the ponies mature, they will change, and their job can change to
suit them.
I like working
with small ponies because they are more inclusive. Even big tough
hairy bikers like small ponies. But not everybody feels comfortable
with large horses. I know they scare me.
Ponies will not
be excluded from the project on the basis of race, breed, colour,
sex, shape, or who their parents may or may not be. We will treat
people the same way.
Training Ponies
Training
ponies is easy if you want them to do something useful. The ponies
strength is strength. If I want a pony to take a person in a
wheelchair up a mountain, or across a soft sandy beach, it is because
I have no intention of trying to push the wheelchair myself. The pony
is there to save me effort. So all I need to do is to lead it while
it does the hard work.
Leading
animals is easy, people with dogs do it all the time. With a herd
animal it is even easier. Herd animals follow a leader, because the
lead is the place of danger from surprises. Lions ambush from in
front, because ambushing doesn't work from behind.
Leadership and
ambushing are both positional. They are done from in front. Lots of
things can be done from behind a horse, but leadership and ambushing
aren't in the list. When you walk in front you are leading, and when
you walk into an ambush, you, not the pony, are the lion's lunch.
This is the simple explanation of why a pony follows a leader. The
pony isn't stupid.
Training a
pony to be safe is easy in some ways, impossible in others. Ponies
are placid herd living vegetarians. They don't stalk their prey and
kill with a savage twist of the victim's neck, unlike man's best
friend. To turn a pony or horse into a killer takes work but being
kind to it, keeping it happy and active does the opposite.
Ponies and
horses are a prey species. Their response to anything strange is to
get ready to run. If it gets too close, or is too strange, they run.
Evolving on open plains, they don't run to safety, but from danger,
so destination isn't factored in. They just run away.
No form of
training will remove this behaviour. You can reduce it, but
in extremis a pony or horse will run. Imagine someone shoots the pony
in the backside with an air rifle, unlikely, but possible. Try
working out a training scheme to cope with the scenario that does not
involve shooting the pony to get it used to being shot, (to which the
RSPCA would quite reasonably object), or training it that the
punishment for running is totally savage.
Not only is
this cruel, I can prove it doesn't work. In war, horses had their
lower jaws shot off and didn't stop running. No bit, however savage
is more vicious than a bullet through the bone, which demonstrably
doesn't stop them. Only loss of blood stops a terrified running
horse.
The iBex can't
stop a scared pony running, it can stop it being a problem. The iBex
has an instant pony release system. If the pony is scared, release
it. The iBex is no longer a wheelchair enabled pony drawn vehicle, it
is a wheelchair enabled bit of garden furniture, and consequently
safe. The user in the iBex is safe, and in control because the user
can release the pony when the user is worried.
Training to
make the Project go smoothly is an ongoing process and the longer you
work with a pony, the safer the team becomes as you learn to trust
each other, but when things go pear shaped, as inevitably they do,
pull the release cord and watch the problem run away. That is safety.
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