RIDING WITH BLIND SIGHT
by Susan "Sam" Madden, nationally recognized blind equestrian
Can you perform a 360 degree pivot to the right into a counter lope on the left lead, circling to the right, then rollback to the left into a jog? Could you do it with your eyes closed? That's what I had to do in my stock seat equitation pattern at the 1999 Pinto National Championship Horse Show in Tulsa, only I didn't have to close my eyes. I'm totally blind.
I'm not sure how to answer when people ask me, "How do you ride?" It's really a four-member team effort among my trainer, my coach, my horse, and me, with trust and communication being paramount.
After a long hiatus from horses when I went blind from diabetes at 29, I took up riding again at Camelot Therapeutic Horsemanship in Scottsdale, Arizona, a program for equestrians with physical challenges. My potential was revealed to me as I performed flying lead changes and flying dismounts, encouraged by the Camelot staff.
For the first six months I had Tomy (Kenos Tomy tutone, my buckskin Pinto/Paint), I rode him in a round pen. I wanted to establish trust. I wanted to know everything that horse was going to think and do, and I wanted to do it in a controlled environment. A round pen was small enough that if I ever fell off, all I'd have to do was walk until I bumped into the rail and follow it to the gate, where Tomy would no doubt be standing. In a round pen I could get to know his responses and work on his transitions and cadence without having to worry about steering other than to keep him on the rail. I used a dressage whip in my outside hand to feel the fence, and I used my inside leg and weight on my outside hip to keep him over.
I also rode bareback for those first six months. Without visual input, I needed to feel everything that was going on underneath me; I needed to feel my horse's every quiver. I also wanted to work on my seat and balance to become a very quiet, effective rider.
I was "forced into action" in rodeos and parades as the reigning Ms. Country Western Arizona to test Tomy's reactions away from home. If a four-ton street sweeper at close range or the complete chaos of 50 people and horses doing a serpentine at a lope in a grand entry didn't bother him, he'd probably be fine under any circumstances.
A simpler way to try a horse is to give him the "umbrella test:" pop open an umbrella in his face and see if he is just startled or if he panics. Tomy doesn't even flinch. He lets me open and close the umbrella, twirl it, attach it to his halter, and run it all over his body.
In parades I always had someone walk next to me in case of an emergency. In grand entries I followed the voice of the rider in front of me or had Tomy ponied to another horse. I wore a small earpiece while performing hot laps, and my coach stood outside the arena directing me with a walkie-talkie.
My first showing experience as a blind rider was in a western pleasure walk-trot class in December 1998. It was a huge arena, and there were only three of us in there. The other two riders, both sighted, ran into each other, and I won the class by default!
I started working with trainer John Campbell just before the 1999 Pinto Nationals; so, with only a month to prepare, he worked with Tomy five mornings a week perfecting his responses and headset and gave me a lesson twice a week. If I didn't get the same response from Tomy that John did, he helped me correct it. My boyfriend Ralph stepped in as coach, observing my lessons and also watching me ride five evenings a week. Both he and John told me things like if Tomy was above or below the bit, what lead he was on, and if his side-passes were straight so I could learn to trust what I was feeling going on underneath me.
Ralph gives me directions in the show arena with a radio transmitter. There he tells me things that other people have the benefit of seeing like how close I am to other horses and if my horse is coming off the rail. He has to be very precise. "Left" means nothing to me. I need to know how far left and at what angle. Do I bump left, turn left, cut left, yield left, pivot left, side-pass left, rollback left, or pass another horse to the left? He has to communicate that to me in a timely fashion without engaging in a whole conversation. Because time is of the essence, we have worked out a special vocabulary where each word means something very specific.
Although we use two-way radios, I prefer not to have the ability to talk back in the arena. (I do reserve this right in other situations!) If I were to speak, I might override some vital information that Ralph needs to convey immediately. I usually clip my radio (about the size of a bar of soap) under my jacket where it is barely perceptible. A tiny wire attaches to the speaker in my ear.
In my "show-stopping"final class at the 1999 Pinto Nationals, the wire broke, and I couldn't hear a thing. Rather than panic and just stop, which would have been dangerous, I relied on only the announced gait changes. I knew Tomy didn't want to rear-end another horse's rear end as much as I didn't! Most collisions are rider error where the rider is subconsciously giving the horse cues to run into another horse. Left on his own, I knew Tomy would keep me safe. I pointed to my ear, and Ralph, who keeps his eyes on me every second, knew what happened. He had the ring steward stop the class; and Ralph ran into the arena, stuck his hand up my shirt, and fixed the radio. What a finale! And we even got a seventh out of 17 in the class - Ideal Pinto, Western (judged on performance, manners, conformation, and color). What more ideal Pinto could there be than one who kept his cool with his blind rider in that situation?
Communication with a horse through an intermediary slows things down. While I can rely only on feel, Ralph must rely only on sight when he is directing me. He has to keep ahead of the action and anticipate what my horse will do by sight alone. Imagine blindfolding your best friend and directing him to drive a car. (Only this car has no doors or a seatbelt, with the seats five feet off the ground!) Now imagine that the car has a mind of its own and is on ice. It can move not only forward and backward but sideways at any angle. It can spin around and not respond to anything you are telling it to do. It takes a lot of practice to predict what might happen at any given moment.
Sometimes Tomy comes off the rail because my split reins get pulled through my fingers and become uneven. When I bump him, I pull him to the inside and thus unconsciously ask him to move in. Using rommels makes it much easier to keep his head, and thus his entire body, straight.
People always marvel at how I always get the correct diagonal. The secret is not to concentrate on what the horse's legs are doing but to concentrate on what your own legs are doing. At the trot your body gently rocks left and right. When you feel your outside leg going down, the horse's outside foreleg is coming back; so you should be sitting at that point to be on the correct diagonal.
To help me with jumping, Ralph modified a motion sensor that emits a sound when I am 30 feet in front of a jump. This helps me judge not only my distance but also where the center of the fence is. When I hear the chime I don't have time to do math and count strides, but I can hear when I am close enough to the jump for Tomy to take off.
We are also trying our hand at dressage. The first step was to teach Tomy that it is NOT all right to side-step OVER the arena perimeter or make an impromptu exit at A! Once he was going pretty well on a track INSIDE the fence, Ralph would call out when I was passing each letter so I could feel my distances as Tomy was walking, trotting, and cantering. I learned to feel how tight a 20 meter circle is and at what angle I need to turn to do a diagonal m-x-k across the arena. Sometimes it seems overwhelming to try to respond to the directional commands Ralph is giving me while also trying to ride deep into my corners and keep Tomy rounded and collected and bent correctly, all the while worrying that if I use too much inside leg he'll leap out of the arena!
A straight line is sometimes the most difficult maneuver for me. I have no reference for what is "straight." Ralph must be very astute in judging "straight" for me, and my corrections must be very subtle or Tomy will look like a drunken sailor! Straight forward is hard enough, but straight sideways is even more challenging. In movements like a side-pass I have to concentrate on feeling if my horse is moving his forehand or haunches at any given time. It takes a lot of practice, with a sighted person telling me how Tomy is responding every step of the way.
I can't rely on visual stimuli, so I have to pay more attention to other inputs. I am especially more conscious of how the slightest shift in my weight impacts my horse's performance. One way I work on this is to bridle Tomy by tying draw reins to the horn, forcing me to use my weight to stop, turn, back, keep him on the rail, and perform gait transitions without touching his mouth.
Dismounting is sometimes as difficult as riding. The first time I got off of Tomy I had been taking lessons on a 16.2 hand Thoroughbred at Camelot. Tomy is only 15 hands, and the ground came a lot quicker than I had anticipated. I landed flat on my butt! I didn't attempt a flying dismount from him until I knew exactly how far away terra firma was. Tomy is trained to stop as soon as I hit the ground, so there's no chance of me being trampled by him, even if I do a belly flop! And, no matter how much I know and trust my horse, I always ride with a helmet.
When people ask me, "How do you ride?" they are really wondering, "Aren't you afraid to ride?" And my answer is: Not in the least! I have done my homework, incurring an implicit trust and perfecting communication among all the members of my team.