ABOUT SUSIE SOLOMON-MABE

Riding is a Dance for Me.

When I step on a youngster for the first time, I want them to enjoy this new chapter of their life.

I want to feel the beginning of a partnership and trust forming that will serve my horse and his owner for the rest of their journey together.

It isn't about the show. It isn't about the classes

It isn't about the breed of the horse, or its color.

However, it is always about the horse. From the beginning the horse and I learn why it is so important to stand, and be petted and to develop trust for the handler on the ground, from any angle and for any reason. From this perspective the horse can then learn to stand and accept the saddle as an offering, and not a heavy scary thing that can hurt him.

I ride equally in my roping saddles or my dressage saddle with the same emphasis on weight and balance.

The bridle is not a tool, but an aid to strengthen the connection between the horse and rider, so I want that accepted in the same good faith.
I use snaffle bits at all times.

I do a great deal of lunging work and long line work to prepare the horse for voice and balance and to determine how the horse is moving without the rider and his development towards respect and being happily submissive.
All of this is taught in the first weeks of the youngsters education before I begin saddle work.

The first session in the saddle will be the beginning of every session after. We learn to go forward and to halt from a weight aid. I try not to use the reins as a way to get my horse to stop. I want this ride to empower him to LISTEN. Over the next 3 months the work progresses through the gaits as the horse gets stronger physically and can work with in the new challenges.

*Work at the walk to include:
lateral flexion
turns on the haunches
turns on the forehand
leg yielding
shoulder in
1/4 turns pirouettes at the walk

*Trot work will introduce many transitions and movements from the work at the walk as well as:

spirals
figure 8's and beyond
flexion at the trot
moving at medium and bigger trot work at the same rhythm and with new found impulsion

It will also be at this time that the horse is urged to bring his power and balance back to his hind end for the start of self carriage thinking and movement.


*Canter work is introduced as the horse gets stronger.
He must be able to carry himself with a rider and not be worried.
Here I teach the proper use of the weight aids for correct leads,
maintaining straightness on a circle as well as traveling straight on a long side

Every bit of training the young horse is with emphasis on a happy and delighted youngster, who now has a real job to do for his owner.

Education is a process where the amount of information you give to the horse will allow him to grow under you.
There should never be a rush to train.
For advanced horses, we do the same thing but introduce medium and extended work as well as the art of collection.

Here the work can be taught for :
flying changes,
half pass
full pass
pirouettes
spins
rein back from a canter/gallop
reining patterns

Here's another little story about Susie...

My first real horse cost either $425 or $245.
I forget. (allthetimeers disease lol!)
I was 30 yrs old, and this was my first.... all mine- not leased or
borrowed, real horse!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He was a papered not named as yet appy, young, not handled much..
Indifferent, and really pretty with such dainty feet.
I was a schmuck.

G-d I adored Cactus Kilo, an appy x-tb who was chestnut; who bucked
me off only 10000000 times.....and he had a blanket and gorgeous
face with a blaze, and such cute size 00 front hooves
which were contracted,
and always hurting him
and he was prone to thrush
and had to have actual thrush surgery and he wore pads
and I had a farrier who raped me on the $120 to 140
he charged me every 6 weeks ( oh yeah back then he was so into coke
he needed to have some big money I suppose)
to cripple my horse a bit more......and I did not know anything and
it was 1980.
And yet we made it slowly to 4th level and won our medals and our
share of blues from kind judges.

Then in 1986 he contracted EPM.
A few sips of water on a long trail ride,
out of a standing little puddle at the Rockefeller Mansion Trail
Sanctuary in NY....... were all it took.
3 weeks later to the day.....he collapsed after another trail ride
in the trailer on the way home.
Treatment was different, back then of course. He was in a sling as he
could not walk or he would tip over..... and on a catheter,
and on 40 smz a day for 20 days - 800 bucks
and then 30 a day for 20 days - 600 bucks
then 20 for 20 days, and then 14 for another 20 days- and then there
was nothing generic, in this antibiotic., so it was like 100 bucks
for 100 pills.... and my bank account was a train wreck.
But he had been insured so a lot of it eventually was paid back....
(well if I remember they gave me 40% of his insured value and I kept
him alive....)

He never fully recovered.
I sent him to a standard bred farm for water therapy once he was
stable and he lived there for 4 months.
By 1989 he was being ridden on trails, his trot just G-d awful but
a good enough canter to rock my baby boy yearling ,Richie , asleep in
his front-back back as we rode daily.
He was the best horse ever. I vowed to learn more and more. I vowed
to make it easier for him and the next generation of Horses I would
have.

I went to the local horse auctions in NJ-
every Wednesday and bought one horse every six months or so,
for under 500 bucks...... nice horses- and back then horse meat and
killer were commonly seen AMFRAM was a big kill buyer and kept double
decker transports right at the yard so he could load them up and take
them to Canada.

And brought them back to life and work and health and gave them
proper care and then when they were ready I sold them.
Board in NJ was like $250 a month in the 1980's and at a dump, not
anything nearly like where my horses live now!

I went to school for 2 yrs at Cornell, a decision that was the best
of many. I wanted to be a vet so bad and work for a company like
Roehm Pollanc who was doing( what would eventually become ) legend or
hyauronic acid for horses in Canada, or Rohehm, or Fort Dodge and
become the one to find a miracle drug to fight these diseases.
I never finished. One decision I will always regret.

I got pregnant with my son, Richie.
But because of that first horse- I am proud to be a rider, and a
student and a trainer and a horse owner.
I may be considered a really first class bitch to some- but I would
never say no to a horse that was hurt or needed help- even if I had
differences with his owner-. That is a fact.
So tell me about your first horse, ok?

Susie

The future is endless......

But here is where it began ->