by Dan Rosenberg

At the age of 12, I finally badgered my father into buying me a horse. We opened the Yellow Pages and called the first listing, Fantasy Farm Stables. Ordinarily, that would be a recipe for disaster, but in this case it was the luckiest break I ever got.

A woman named Dawn Atlas was the owner, teacher, and coach. Now, after having worked for and been around people considered to be among the best horsemen in the world, I can say Dawn is up there with all of them. (In fact, I was privileged to be present for her induction into the Indiana Horsemen's Hall of Fame last year—a long overdue and well deserved honor for her.)   Long before any of us heard the term "horse whisperer," Dawn was one and taught it. To this day, I hear her voice and her words echoing in my head. Dawn's only fault, if you could call it that, is that she cared far more about the horses than she did about her customers. I learned some of my most important lessons from her.

There are three ways to do everything. The right way, the wrong way, and my way. And, as long as you're working for me, by God you're going to do it my way.  Dawn's way was very specific. For example, she was a stickler for not only how to clean a stall but even down to how to hold a pitchfork. The smallest details mattered to Dawn. So I learned about attention to detail, which has served me well over the years.

But I also learned to roll with it as I worked for people who wanted things done differently than I had been taught. Sometimes I thought what they wanted was bonehead stupid, and sometimes I was right. But I never balked at doing it their way and usually learned that their way worked and might even have some advantages. Over the years, as I worked for different people, I began to pick and choose and borrow from each of them, developing "my" way.

The horse is bigger than you are, stronger than you are, and faster than you are

The only chance we have is to be smarter than the horse. I see supposedly experienced horsemen trying to outmuscle a horse, or grabbing for a horse, or hanging on them for all they're worth. Dawn taught us to be kind and quiet, to understand the nature of the horse and its mind, and to use that knowledge to get the horse to do what we want. You want the action to be the horse's idea to do something, not because you make it do so.

It's never the horse's fault

It's easy to lose your temper at a horse. People frequently do, and it is always wrong. Whether you are stepped on, kicked, bitten, run off with. When you can't catch them or when they won't load on a van. When they won't stand still and when they won't move forward. No matter what stupid thing they did, Dawn had no patience with anyone who lost their temper at a horse.

The horse comes first

Before we were allowed to ride, before we were allowed to get a drink, and before we were allowed to rest, the horses had to have feed, hay, and clean water; stalls had to be mucked out; horses had to be groomed; horses had to be cooled out; and tack had to be cleaned. Riding was the reward for all that work.

Safety

Horses are dangerous. They can break you like an eggshell without even trying. Dawn was a stickler for safety and would correct us strongly for standing in front of a horse, for going underneath a horse, for going behind a horse without staying close and speaking to the horse. We would protest that this horse was so good and so quiet that it was safe. "It's never the dangerous horse that hurts you. It's the one you don't ever expect. Safety rules are all the time for every horse!" Over the years I've seen people injured again and again, some of them quite seriously, because they were careless and did not follow standard safety rules.

Leave the price tag on the van

Working with hunters and jumpers at Nimrod Farm in Weston, Connecticut, was my first exposure to seriously valuable horses. But along with the expensive show horses were the "hacks," school horses of no particular breed used for lessons. Jack Adams was the manager there, and he taught me another important lesson.

"When you bring a horse in the barn, leave the price tag on the van. We take care of every horse in this stable as well as we can. We don't take special care of special horses." Years later, I was reminded of this lesson when the cover story in a trade journal was about two champion fillies retiring at the same time to the same Kentucky farm.

In the interview, the manager was asked if they gave special attention to these two fillies. His answer was yes, they were in the choice paddocks and under constant observation.

If I were a client of that farm, I would be thinking: "What about my mares? Are they turned out on the back 40 somewhere?" And some years later when we became responsible for Seattle Slew, friends frequently asked, "How do you sleep at night?" and I would remember Jack.

Learning to notice

My next job was with Glade Valley Farm in Frederick, Maryland. My boss was a man named John Barr. John was not an educated man, but he had grown up on a Thoroughbred breeding farm in Virginia and was a skilled horseman.

Early on in my time with him, John said to me: "Boy, it ain't no good to just look at these horses. You've got to learn to notice." John could look at a foal across a field, and say, "That foal's not right." Sure enough, the next day that foal would have a temperature or a cough or quit nursing.

Under John's tutelage, I learned to look at horses with a new eye. At first it was a conscious effort to go over them systematically from nose to tail, overall demeanor in addition to nostrils (runny? breathing normally? bloody?), eyes (bright and alert? sunken? dull? runny?), coat, belly, flanks, stance, demeanor. Then the legs and feet, for swelling, lumps, bumps, scrapes. After a while, what was wrong just started jumping out at me like it was in neon.

Where there is life, there is hope

The owner and manager of Glade Valley was a veterinarian, Dr. Robert Leonard. I always had questions for him about what we were doing and why, and he always answered in detail. He was a great teacher. He taught me about reproduction, anatomy, physiology, disease, and injury. Most importantly, he encouraged me to pursue my career. But there is one particular lesson I have never forgotten: Where there is life, there is hope.

It was my first breeding season on a breeding farm and one of the foals developed serious diarrhea. This was before it was possible to ship them off to a clinic, and I was assigned to 24-hour nursing duty. For several days and nights, we ran fluids into him round the clock and administered oral and injectable medications, also round the clock.

The foal got weaker and weaker until at last he was as limp as a dish rag, unable to hold his head up even for a second, eyes dull, unresponsive. Dr. Leonard came to the barn to administer more fluids, and I asked him: "Why are you letting this foal suffer? He's dying. Why don't you put him out of his misery?" His answer was simple. "When there's life, there's hope." The foal lived and thrived.

Be on time

I came to Kentucky from Maryland and had another stroke of good fortune being hired by Lars la Cour, a master horseman and farm manager who became my mentor, my surrogate father, and my friend. I learned myriad lessons from Lars. Lars sent me to the breeding shed with the mares, which exposed me to all the major farms in Kentucky and to grooms and van drivers from all over Central Kentucky.  He sent me to the pathology lab to watch postmortems so I could learn more about anatomy and the disease process. He taught me how to motivate and handle personnel. And he gave me exposure to every part of the farm, from cutting weeds and picking up rocks, to broodmares and yearlings, and to the office. Some of his lessons were particularly valuable.

By this time, I thought I had a lot of experience and that I was a pretty good horseman. Starting time at Clovelly Farm was 7 a.m. I would roll into the parking lot at 7 or 7:01 or 7:02. After a few days of this, Lars came to me and said: "We start work at 7. That doesn't mean you arrive at 7. It means at 7 you are in a stall with a pitchfork in your hand. No matter how good you are, if you can't be on time I can't use you. If you are one minute late tomorrow, just turn your car around and go home." I got the message.

Keep a teasing chart

I had been teasing at Glade Valley for three seasons, but Lars told me I was to keep my own teasing chart. He showed me how he kept his, and he would go over my chart with me every day. While some mares are obviously in or out of heat, it was Lars who helped me recognize very subtle changes in a mare's behavior.  We had a maiden mare that had been off the racetrack for a while. When teased, she would spin around the stall kicking at all four walls. This had gone on for some time, and she had never shown signs of heat.

Going over our teasing charts one day, Lars, said: "You've got that mare marked as 'out,' but I think she's 'in.' I'm going to add her to the vet list today." I said: "Lars, she's kicking like crazy, just like she always does." To which he responded: "I think she has a gleam in her eye." And sure enough, she was in heat. We bred her, and she got in foal.

There is only one thing for sure

This brings me to another important lesson I learned from Lars. If you breed a mare, she may or not get in foal. The only thing you know for sure is that if you do not breed her, she will not get in foal. When in doubt, breed. Over the years, Lars's words often came back to me while standing in the aisle with the veterinarian debating about whether or not, or when, to breed.

Dan Rosenberg, owner of Rosenberg Thoroughbred Consulting, is a consultant to "Farm Management News" and a regular columnist