Back to Beginning: Part 1

If you’ve followed the ongoing saga (first introduced in my book, The Smart Woman’s Guide To Midlife Horses) with my midlife horse, Trace, you know this trail has been one of many ups, downs, twists, turns, and a couple of doozy cliffhangers. If I’d have followed the advice of all who said “get a different horse,” I would have missed this past year entirely. Now there’s a new story to tell.

To continue the Story of Trace, this past year, with the help of a salty and sage old horse trainer named Karl Black, we peeled back years of mistrust, pain, fear, and plain old stubbornness to reveal good, old-fashioned SQUARE ONE.

And we worked with my horse, some, too!

Seriously, it’s true what they say that when you think you’re having horse problems, what you’re most likely having is people problems — and if you’ll look in the mirror, you’re almost certain to find the person to start working with. As it so happens, my mirror was a 1000-pound snorty, bug-eyed ball of frustrated mistrust that had made up his mind, pure and simple, that we were DONE with the riding thing. FOREVER.

As for me, I had pretty much reconciled myself to keeping this enormous pet because we were connected at the heart — and I knew I could no more sell that horse than one of my kids. So what does that say about me? Well that’s another story for another blog — this is about my horse, remember?

So apparently despite my protests to the contrary, Trace DID need a visit to the chiropractor . . . that was the first thing Karl laid down as a prerequisite. As it turned out, Karl had a lot of rules. (We’ll get into some of the stranger ones a little later on) I balked at first, but when I saw how my horse was responding to him, I followed suit.

After watching Trace move around the round pen that first day, Karl ran his hands up and down my horse’s head, neck, shoulders, and back. Then he looked at me and said, “He’s out somewhere, but I can’t tell where. Before we do anything else, we’re going to take him to see my chiropractor.”

Were we? Like my horse, I was skeptical and a little bit afraid. I had gone the holistic vet route, had a human chiropractor use a cold laser and a clicky electronic stimulation device on him (that was less than fun), and even massage and cranial-sacral therapy on this horse, but to no avail. I had also read the horror stories and even my own vet’s cautionary observations of the damage a bad chiropractor can do to a horse. And the one Karl was recommending was also not a vet, which is another big no-no, but something made me book the appointment anyway. Karl trusted this guy — and I was beginning to trust Karl.

Want to know what happened next? Stop back by here on Friday, any time after noon, and I’ll tell you! Meanwhile, do you have any chiropractic miracle stories of your own to share? Guidelines or questions to help sort the good ones from the not-so-good ones? I’d love to hear hear from you!

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