Woman broke.  It’s a term I came across while reading sale pages by lamplight at long births, delivering babies for the Amish.  They have the most interesting magazines and classifieds to read.  “Woman broke” means a horse that can be easily driven by a woman.  Some horses are family broke (which means your six year old can plow with them), some are women broke, and some are for men only.  

We have a new horse, his name is Blue.  The children pointed out to me what a fantastic name this is for a horse.  The horse in “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See” is a blue horse, and now we have that very same horse.  It’s pretty special.  I’m not completely clear on Blue’s history, but I believe he was a therapy horse for special needs children until one day he just snapped.  It could probably happen to any of us.

I feel he and I have been developing a special relationship.  I give him grain, and he lets me hug him for a while.  So I asked the husband to ride him for me just so we could make sure that he was good for me to ride on my own.  The wonderful husband is exceptionally good at training horses.  It turns out Blue is not woman broke, not yet at least.

So we go back to the beginning.  Everyday Blue and I go for a walk where we practice going, and stoping.  Backing up, and not walking on me.  We find scary things and practice looking at them calmly, without causing chaos.  Yesterday we found a stump, it was very frightening.  

I’m sure he is going to be a lovely woman broke horse soon enough.  In the meantime we are enjoying the lovely walking weather.