Home > About Us > Siggi > Siggi’s Big Day

Siggi and Pete’s Big Day

Riding a horse for the first time is a special day in that animal’s life. December, 19, 2009, the day in which Pete rode Siggi for the first time, was a doubly special day because Pete was then an inexperienced rider.

Today Pete rode Siggi. This had to be one of my best days as a horseperson because it had been a long time in coming. The past year of Siggi’s life has been a series of ups and downs. However, our having to tend to a shoulder bite turned major wound turned laceration has had some benefits. First of all, Siggi has learned, when asked, to stand still. Secondly, having his training interrupted has given him much needed growing time. Icelandics are slow to mature both physically and mentally, which has been true of Siggi. The physical part could have something to do with his size – he is now close to 14 hands, which is large for an Icelandic.

The mental part could have something to do with the fact that he is the least dominant horse in a herd of three. Thirdly, he’s finally gotten Pete to take notice of him, which is something that he’s always wanted.

Pete joined me down at the pen as I was working with Raudi. The plan was to chase both her and Siggi around a bit so that Siggi would get his ya yas out before I rode him. (Because his shoulder is still not yet healed, he spends the better part of his day in the smaller shelter/enclosure area.) I snapped the lunge whip a few times, and both horses raced around. My attention quickly turned to Raudi, who trotted in a circle around me.

“Watch this!” I yelled to Pete.

Pete, standing by the gate, looked over at us.

“Raudi, who-o-o-o-a!”

Raudi slid to a stop. I asked her to turn, and then had her go the other way, walk, trot and again whoa.

I couldn’t tell if Pete was impressed or not. Pete’s fairly noncommittal. He’s also the kind of guy who always takes the side of the underdog. And there was his underdog, the neglected Siggi, standing by his side. It’s always been this way. I love Siggi, but Raudi is the apple of my eye, and she knows it.

“Let’s tack him up and take him out,” I said.

“It’s cold, let’s get going,” Pete replied.

Pete put the halter on Siggi and lead him out of the pen, and I saddled and bridled him. Pete then lead him out to the driveway’s edge. In my haste to get going, I left my gloves behind, so I could not lend them to Pete, who remarked that his fingers were cold.

I was to ride and Pete was to lead, but this changed as we both realized that it would be far easier for me, who has done the bulk of Siggi’s ground training, to lead Siggi. I was also the one with a plan. Siggi can be bargy, and I expected, with someone on his back, that he would be resistant to stopping. I’d ridden him a few times before he was injured, and getting him to come to a halt had been problematic. (This is the tactful way of saying that he twice bolted and headed in the direction of green grass.) I wanted to focus on walking and whoa-ing, and I would do the latter while stepping to the front of Siggi and tapping his chest with the wand. When he complied, I would occasionally click and reward – I say occasionally since we were now on an intermittent schedule of reinforcement.

For once, all went as planned. Siggi gummed the bit, but did not noodle. In fact, he was, for the first time ever, all business. And so was Pete. When Siggi sped up, I told Pete to squeeze on one rein with one hand. This, too, was nothing new to Siggi – I’d often walked him with his bridle on and practiced this from the side.

This was the way it should be, Pete riding Siggi. Siggi has always been fond of Pete. The two were both born under the sign of Taurus the Bull, and their birthdays are one day apart. Pete, who has an aversion to that habit of giving Icelandic horses Icelandic names, named him Ziggy Stardust, after the David Bowie character. I cringed, but was okay with the translation, which was a mouthful. Siggi Halastjarna fra Alaskastadir. The latter portion of Siggi’s name, something that all Icelandic horses have, is roughly translated, a nod to his breeder. (Siggi was bred by Virginia and Ben Crawford, their first farm was Alaskastadir, or place in Alaska.) I never pushed Siggi on Pete because I felt that this would be unfair to both of them, but I noticed that from the time he was small, Siggi was attentive to him, and would keep his eye on Pete when the latter was in the enclosure area. I also noticed that he would (as Raudi did with me) do whatever Pete asked him to do. And Pete’s having volunteered to flush out his wound, three times a day this past summer just endeared him all the more to Siggi.

I can only speculate on their relationship, since Siggi can’t, and Pete won’t, talk about it. But at its heart may be a matter of no expectations and taking each day as it comes. I had high hopes for Siggi when we bought him; I thought that he was going to accompany Raudi and me on our upcoming long trek. But as he matured, it became apparent that he did not have what it took to take on such a task, most notably, straight rear legs. In fact, for some time Pete and I wondered if Siggi would even be able to be used for light riding. We both grew used to the looks of dismay that crossed the faces of farriers and veterinarian alike.

I was, of course, disappointed, and suspect that I have passed my feelings on to Siggi. Even Mandy’s Pretty’s observation, that he had a great disposition, and would be a horse that anyone might take for a short ride, failed to change my attitude. Are horses intuitive? I think so, and further think that Siggi chose to bond with an individual who truly loves him for what he is, himself.

As we jogged along, I observed that Siggi was not at all concerned about the things that would cause Raudi considerable duress, some objects of which included an abandoned plywood table, a mother moose and her calf, or our neighbor Paul’s sailboat. Three-quarters of the way around the loop, I remarked to Pete that Siggi’s good behavior wasn’t happenstance. We’ve been working with him since the day he was born, doing ground training and taking him for walks, lots of walks. I have to attribute some of Siggi’s relaxed demeanor on his having attended Mandy Pretty’s TTeam clinic. He’s no longer head or neck shy, and in part, this is because of the connected groundwork exercises, which have enabled him to become better balanced.

I was even more proud of Pete than I was of Siggi. Horses and horse riding is a female dominated activity, and many men are bothered by their spousal equivalent’s interest in horses. This could be because it takes time away from them. Pete does not have much, if any interest in riding, and in this respect, Tinni has been a poor role model. (Tinni, the good old Steady Eddy horse) has twice taken off with Pete, and has not warmed up to him the way Siggi has.

Pete has never complained about having to do his share of my work. He has routinely assisted with barn building, fence construction, poop pick up, compost turning, and feeding. We live off the grid, and so we water the horses by hand, a task that requires us to fill buckets from the bathroom tap, heat the water over the wood stove, and then carry it down to the horses. This is a twice, and when its cold, thrice-daily chore. Pete has also designed and maintains the Alaska Icelandic Horse Association website.

We stopped a hundred yards from the driveway. Pete hopped off Siggi, and I loosened his girth. Together, we all walked back to the shelter. I was pleased to see, that Siggi, the horse who has been at the bottom of the Squalor Holler pecking order, had a bounce to his step, one that clearly said, “I am really something!”