Starting Sakima the Brumby

Exhilaration is not enough to describe how I feel at the moment. I truly have achieved a relationship with my wild brumby Sakima that we all dream of as young girls and never achieve. The big difference is I am doing it with my wild brumby Sakima that has never accepted being handled by a person.

When Sakima, as a wild horse took his chance for freedom several weeks ago and then decided to return to our farm and our mob of horses I knew that he trusted me and had bonded with me. Having him follow me down the mountain will always bring a lump in my throat.

His trust to come home gave me the confidence to decide that it was time to start Sakima. Wow, was I apprehensive? Yes. Did I know what I was doing? No.

This is something Sakima and I will do together. We will learn what to do together. My work with my various coaches gave me the confidence that Sakima would show me when I made mistakes and when I got it right.

How right my thoughts proved to be! Sakima has been my best coach in this journey together. When I don’t do a request correctly he clearly tells me by leaving me or tensing up his muscles so much that I can’t help but observe his apprehension.

I have made mistakes and yes, listened to others when doubts crept into my human brain. One said I should try Join Up to move him into the yard where we would work together. Well, I did but I stopped it immediately, too much pressure and energy. Sakima sent me a clear message, “I will do this but I don’t need you to do it this way”.

Sakima was far more comfortable with no pressure, no huge energy I simply get up from my chair and start leading from behind and he does the rest. It does not give the instant results of other methods but the results are achieved with no stress and no flight response.

I still spend hours doing nothing and saying hullo and just being with him.

I threw away my diary and forgot work and yes it has taken 10 days to start to achieve what others would have done in one or two days. But now the progress is so rapid I come back from each session with him amazed

Now, while taking time with him I can rub the halter over his head and ask him to put his nose in the halter and he lets me tie it around his neck. Just doing this can take an hour but the exhilaration you feel when he drops his head into the halter and allows me to clip the lead rope proves time should not be considered when starting a horse.

Sakima adores the mutual grooming that we do together. Not the rubbing of his withers – but me untangling his mane. His entire mane was long dreadlocks. It takes 30 minutes to untangled each dreadlock. He stands head down and eyes drooped as his magnificent, long mane takes shape. Each day I brush what I have untangled to keep him looking the best horse in the paddock.

Today Sakima has given me the greatest trust a horse can give. I picked up his front feet, held them and picked them out with a hoof pick. No dramas, no kicking no fear. This is the ultimate statement of trust as a brumby has no life without his legs.

Sakima is such a clever boy and knows the pecking order of apples and carrots. When he has done something that I think is super hard for him he gets apples and the rest of the time it is carrots. Apples are his all time favourite and his tongue literally smothers my hand as he gets his apple. His success in allowing me to hold his front feet has earned him many apples. Next week the bare foot trimmer is coming so there will be a bag of apples after he has his feet trimmed.

Then I asked my brumby to tie and to accept that he would be tied to a post and no choice to move. For 15 minutes he stood motionless with head calmly relaxed. No dramas, no pull back just complete trust that what I asked him to do he knew it would not hurt him or endanger him. I repeated the exercise again today thinking yesterday was just a fluke. No, it was the same again, a quiet brumby standing tied with me beside him.

Sakima leads with the halter on and turns and it is the softness that I have always heard about but never thought I would have a horse so soft and responsive. I just have to give the slightest gesture and he responds.

It is an amazing experience to be trained by a brumby and it is truly a sharing learning experience. I lead and decide the moves but he is refining my horse skills to a level I have never achieved before.