Bernie Harberts, Author, Horseman, Trainer and Scholar

Bernie Harberts and Julia Carpenter recently sailed to Shackleford Banks to study and observe the wild horses. This is some of their extraordinary findings. 
 Bernie Harberts is a Long Rider, author, and filmmaker who has traveled twice across America by mule and sailed alone around the world. He is the subject of the Emmy Award-winning PBS  NC program "The Mule Rider" and the filmmaker behind the "Lost Sea Expedition" documentary (stream free on YouTube). One of the only people to ride over 10,000 miles with a mule, he is the author of Two Mules to Triumph.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

To be a horseman is defined as a person who is skilled in riding. A person to own a horse. A person who owns, breeds, trains, or takes the horses. But I believe it's so much more than that. The ability to communicate, build a relationship, a partnership with a horse, and work together as a result of understanding and each respect is no small feat. It changes lives. Transport ordinary life to an extraordinary place. Working together, achieving goals while building a deep bond of trust and respect. Learning from each other, while reaching place as you never thought were possible. Our country was largely discovered, settled, and prospered on the back of a horse. A good horse with a power to each other. Even today, 250 years later, horses are still a large part of our society. Census tells us that there are about eight many horses in the US. 80,000 wow. Their jobs include everything from recreational, athletics, showmanship to working class horses. We just can't live without a good man that may worry. Join us on this journey of discovery as we learn about these great horsemen. Allow their shared stories to feel like you've never failed before. Touch a place that you've all forgotten. Connect it with your soul in a new way. Because that's what horsemen does. Bernie Harberts and Julia Carpenter. And they are in their sailboat down at Shackelford Banks enjoying the wild horses. So guys, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Thanks, Rose.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

What made you guys decide to go see the wild horses at Shackelford and kind of study them? Um, Bernie, what what have I sure this was your your idea?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Well, well, you know, it's fascinating. It's a combination of my two passions. And my two big passions are sailing in sailboats and horses and mules. And so Julia uh is very involved with horses. She has the two-step way, helping people really see the being inside their horse. And so we were talking this winter, like, what you know, what could we do that combines these? Which is why right now Julie and I are sitting on our 20-foot, 24-foot sailboat. It's called Grit. It spent the winter in our hay barn, and now we're anchored off Shackled Banks, observing the wild ponies. We've been here two weeks and we've learned an extraordinary amount of stuff that we really look forward to sharing today.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

That is so exciting. And Julia, how did you decide to come on this excursion with Barney this time? I know a lot of times he goes out on his own.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah, that's right. Um, usually I won't leave my own animals for very long. I kind of have to be dragged away from them. And um, that's for two reasons. One, I miss them and I know they miss me. But secondly, I uh care so much about them that I can't really enjoy myself unless I know they have very good care. Um, and I was extraordinarily lucky to have just great friends helping me, uh people that my dogs love, that are staying with them, and they may even be having more fun than they do with me. Um and the horses are well cared for by a friend that really knows what he's doing with horses. So it's been one of those opportunities where I can come and really focus on my other passion, which is learning from horses, uh, so that I can help people be better with their horses, get along better with their horses, give the horses what they need in terms of regulating their nervous systems. Um, it's extraordinary. And I've learned that maybe I have to come here every year to learn from these horses. Learning from the wild horses is an amazing opportunity to see what we've put on upon our own horses and the demands that we ask of them. And it's not like I have already been insensitive to that, but I have realized to what degree their lives are really different without us, and um really has gotten me thinking uh more and more about the ways that I can um articulate and help these the domestic horses even more. Uh just a quick example is how important it is for horses to live in stable herds. Um I mean that that they are hugely social. And the fact that we expect after buying a new horse that is just gonna adjust in a couple of months is really silly to think. Um, because people can't do that, and there's no reason horses can when you see how deep and rich their real true social lives are.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Bernie, tell us a little bit about Shacklet Banks itself for the folks that've never been there.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, so imagine if you're looking at the map of North Carolina, you've got the mainland, and you've got the outer banks, which is like this little chain of islands. You got, of course, Hatteras, Oka Coke, um, at the kind of central and uh part of it, and then the the banks come down, and Shackelford is one of the southernmost islands. It's eight, roughly nine miles long, uninhabited, and home to about 103 wild ponies. So on the Atlantic Ocean side, it's rough sand dunes, you know, waves are pounding the beach depending on the wind. And then you've got the central part of the island, sand dunes, and then you've got the sound side, which you've got this amazing old maritime forest, gnarled live oak, cedar trees, jasmine, you know, blooming this time of year. And then you've got the sound, which is about we're about two miles across the water, two or three miles from Harker's Island. So that's the island where it is in relation to North Carolina. And the other thing that I just want to touch on very briefly, and we'll get into this more, is the ponies themselves. They are among America's most unique old ties to the old world and the world. And this is specifically Spain. They've been here over 400 years. A lot of people think, oh, they came on Spanish galleons that shipwrecked. Well, they probably didn't because the Spaniards, when they were bringing gold back to the New World, they wouldn't have brought their horses with them. They had plenty of horses in Spain. What they didn't have was gold or a lot of it. So the thought is a lot of these horses came up from the Caribbean hundreds of years ago. Uh, they were, you know, many were shipwrecked, some were turned loose here. And what happened is it gives us this incredibly unique in the United States band of wild horses or ponies. They're, you know, 12 and a half, 13 and a half inches tall. They're small, but they look unlike most any other feral horses. They don't look like quarter horses, they don't look like draft horses.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Can I add to that? They have this uh rare Q2 variant gene that is only seen in the Pryor Mountain horses, other than some of the Mustangs still in Spain, but even back in Spain, this is a rare genetically preserved strain that has been less polluted by other breeds than a lot of other places because it is an island. So and it is hard to bring a horse out here. So even though horses have been turned loose here, there was a settlement here, the amount of genes that were brought here uh is smaller. So in fact, this gene and the horses as far as preservation of the original Spanish Mustang is even important in Spain. I mean, it is important in this world, this particular group of ponies. And an interesting thing when we look at their heads, and we've also found a skull, yeah, it's very different looking than our modern horses. Instead of being elongated, it is shortened with a very deep jowl. Like the animal bone is very deep. Uh, and this beautiful skull we found of pictures on on the um boat on consideringanimals.com. Anyway, it's got a um a shortened um the the maxilla, the top bone is foreshortened, and they have uh they have an underbite from the top, the lower jaw sticks out in front. Um, and you see it in their faces. They look almost from a distance a little more like a cow structure of a of a head than uh than a than a horse.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

It's a direct adaptation to browsing off, they live off cordgrass, which is this really sharp grassy pull and it'll cut you. You know, there's centipede grass, very coarse. We've got amazing video footage on our websites considering animals in river earth of these banker ponies just taking their muzzles and pushing the sand aside around a little sprout and eating it. Wow, and so it's it's fascinating. And the the other thing we're really and this is what you and I get excited. The other thing I'd really like to touch on, you've talked about the physical uniqueness of a band that's left largely alone for hundreds of years, is the social order that we've observed. It's been incredible the past two weeks to observe a few bands, get to know them, understand the interplay within a band, and a band we're watching right now, which is just fascinating us, is roughly five horses, give or take one, a main stallion, lieutenant stallion, and three mayors. And what we're seeing is how horses, when left to themselves, are in air quotes supposed to live as a social order. They all know each other, we've seen them interact from different bands. There's no amount, not even near the amount of kicking and rearing, even between stallions of different bands that we would have imagined. And it's really helped us understand how horses, you know, are should live in the wild or have developed live in the wild versus how we keep them now, you know, whether we keep them single in a single pasture or put shoes on them and are afraid of you know them kicking another horse and getting hurt. That's not the way these horses evolved. So no wonder we have so many, or some people have so many problems with their horses.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

But another thing we we should we should point out that we're not suggesting that the herds, uh stallions don't fight out here and that there's no you know, kicking and rearing and biting. There's lots of them. From what we have observed, the we don't see a lot of scarring on the stallions that we've seen, and we've seen over 12 stallions, and that's about half, well, actually a little less than half of the band. There's 25 uh harem bands out here, which means a breeding stal, at least one breeding stallion or a breeding stallion and the mares. Um, and then there are single bands of bachelors. So there's seven bachelor bands right now, which means it's made up of mostly stallions that have not yet found mares, um, and also a few fillies that have not joined a band so far. So um there's seven of those, and there's 25 identifiable harem bands that they noticed of last year. This is every year they publish a um annual report. And so of the last knowledge of 2025, there's uh 25 um harem bands and uh seven bachelor bands on the island.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

That's really cool. I know that they um have gone to great lengths to keep the gene pool very pure and not you know, not integrated other wild horses, even from North Carolina, but on a very, very careful uh matter. One of the islands not too long ago needed a stallion, and I think a stallion from here went there to help so they could keep the gene pool diverse a little.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah, I I think they do that some. I know they had a uh sad incidents which everybody wanted to learn from and avoid, but they did try to capture a stallion from Shackelford Banks and bring him. I think they were trying to help uh maybe Corolla. They were gonna bring him down to somewhere to put some genes in, and and he died from the anesthesia on the boat on the on the way over, uh the way out. Um and I I know it was an incredibly sad moment for everyone, and they they love these ponies so much and try to take really good care of them.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

But I think that you know, that sad example of a horse being moved by boat and having a having an issue, I think that's a actually really good illustration of how remote Shackelford Banks is. Like it's hard to get to. There is a fairy to it, and we'll just we'll get to that in a moment. But one of the things that's I guess been one of the bigger challenges is staying here for two weeks in a small boat, anchored off the beach, which is the best way for us to observe these ponies as much as possible. But it's rough the tides come and go, the winds blow against the tide. Uh, three or four nights into our stay, we were anchored just off the beach. It was about 9:30 and it was dark. We Julie was just putting away the chocolate and we're gonna play a game of cards. The companion doors, which is the doors to the cockpit, were open, and a little breeze came in.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

And what did you do next? Oh, I copied it. I went because I'm I'm a not a sailor and I didn't know that that's a superstition that that I was actually teasing the wind.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

And bad news.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

And what happened next? We had a full-on gale that lasted 24 hours uh that we had not seen on any of the weather reports. Now it is March down here, um, which is early we were considering visiting in the sense that um you know you get some March weather, which is some northeast storms. Um, the temperature of the land and the ocean is getting quite different from one another. Um, so you expect more wind, but it's also excitingly the um breeding season, the start of the falling season here, just at the start of that. The reason we came then and balanced out the weather was from the bugs the flies can get so bad here, particularly the midges that you can be driven insane trying to sit still and watch the ponies, and the ponies get driven crazy by it and show less of their behavior because they're moving out to the beaches to get rid of the flies, and there the tourists are running down the beach to see the ponies, and then um, you know, it gets to be kind of a rock and roll crazy time with less natural, peaceful behavior going on. Um, so this is so exciting for us. So we have this balance between uh risking risk, a little bit of risk, and this just absolutely phenomenal time to be here almost completely alone with the ponies on most days. I mean, we've had a few beautiful days that people have showed up at the beach, um, but really, really feeling spectacularly alone with the ponies, which is amazing in today's world.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yes. So there, so the reason I'm being quiet is there's one there's one word Julia said that was peaceful. And there is some peace, there's a lot of peaceful, but I'm flashing back to that gale that hit us. That thing hit at dark in the night, 40 knot winds. I mean, that's over 40 miles an hour. We're in the dark, we are very close to a sandbar. The wind is blowing us towards. We have two big anchors set, and the boat is just crashing and roaring, and the wind is howling in the rigging, and the waves hit the boat, bam, and the boat has got a wood interior. It's a small boat.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

It was cracking noise.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

It was you could Rose, you could hear the wood fibers cracking and working and bam and slamming, and we it was fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

It was like being in a paint shaker, Rose.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

It was, and about the storm. I know the storm you're talking about because we had 60 mile an hour winds here, and I'm two hours inland. So I can only imagine.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah, so we rock and roll. We went through, and you know, the fascinating thing that we're learning from these ponies is they they you know get into this this state, and in our case, on the one hand, we're both lying in our berths, howling wind, waves crashing in the boat, and my biggest fear is the you know, the captain of the boat was the bra anchor breaks and we hit the shore. So I was waiting for this, and when the keel smashes into the ground, yeah and we break off the rudder or whatever end up on the shore. So that's that adrenaline on one side, and on the other side, you have to be calm. And so what was fascinating is Julie and I entered this, what I would call an animal state, in a in a balanced way, I would say. So this goes on all night long. The sun comes up at seven, we don't even see it. We finally get up at about 9:30 in the morning, which is really, really late for us, and we are in this calm kind of commodos, almost like we'd had a little bit of anesthesia, just a little drip of something to calm us down, and it was fascinating because our daily lives, all of us, we do everything to prevent that kind of stuff from happening. So much control, control, control, control, control everything. So we never get into that depth where we're out of our control, or we can access that new piece having survived that. That's becoming rare. We don't ask to do that. And and what that's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

To bring that back isn't what Bernie means by an animal state and what that relates to in these ponies out here is you learn that they live in these harsh conditions and they're on a kind of a crowded island, and they have to share space and they have to work their way around other bands. And at times of year, there's you know, a lot of hormones flying around, and they have to find a way to manage. And so you really get a feeling that they live so much in the moment and not a lot of forethought about they allow the next thing to happen and then they respond to it. Um, a good example of this is we were watching this herd, which we will go into detail in in later, but there was a a place in which this two stallion herd had gotten in the middle of a stallion on one side and his mares on the other side. And the mares needed to get back, or the stallion wanted his mares back with him, and his territory was um west of where these horses were.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Let's call them stallion through.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

And then the mares were east. And one of the mares kind of drifted in, and her tactic was to kind of join in with uh with the with meet the two other stallions and just start grazing with them. And I don't know if she would stay or if she was gonna kind of hold back after everybody started grazing. And then the other mare did almost exactly what Bernie and I did during the storm. She kind of went to an edge, stood kind of up against uh a low tree, and then really and she's bay, and she tried not to move very much, and she just kind of went into a state of not eating, just uh glancing out at the horizon. Not shut down though. No, she was not shut down, listening, but she was trying to become very still. It was almost like a uh Um energy preservation mode, but also so that her energy wasn't um projecting. And these other mares came very close to her from this herd grazing. And she just by doing nothing drew no attention to herself. And the stallions never came over to her. And I felt that it was very much the same thing as Bernie and I went through in this storm where once it had been explained to me, well, we're not, you know, we can't move. Um the anchors are in as well as they we can put them. We can't change the anchors now. That would not be a smart move. That really you just have to ride it out. So I I accepted that, crawled over to my berth, and pretty soon entered that state like something. He had shot something up my arm, and I was okay with everything. I mean, it just you ride it out. You will respond. The only time is worth energy is when a response is needed. Say the boat did start to drift, or there's a job or a task for me, or now you have to try to jump ashore or swim ashore, but there's no need or reason anymore to be thinking about what's you know, the best is to just wait and respond.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

What what a wonderful life to live that way. I wish that we could live that way all the time, you know, and not have all that unnecessary worry and dread and craziness, you know. We can learn a lot from them.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Well, the good news is we can, in the sense that the experience that we had was a was, I wouldn't say extreme, but it was like on one side of the immersion spectrum. The other side is anyone who's interested in seeing what we saw with these bands, the interrelation between the different generations and the Steins, they can come to Beaufort, they can get$15 out of their wallet or or their debit card for$15. You can catch a boat ride on a boat.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

It's a very stable boat. With the two big engines on the back.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And you will be sleeping in a bed that night that won't drag onto a shoal. But the point is, yeah, it's very open. You can't accessible. So I would encourage anyone who's interested, come to Beaufort, take the ferry out. This could be an afternoon, this could be a morning trip out back in the afternoon, or if if a person wanted to spend more time, you can camp up to two weeks on Shacklet Banks. So a person could pretty much do exactly what we're doing on the island. And I think the value in that, and Julie and I have talked about this, is that there are a lot of great you know, presenters, videos, riders about horses. But to our mind, the masters, the true masters, live about 300 feet off our bow on this island, and they're the wild ponies. And if we just sit with them, observe them, oh my gosh, what we can learn. Yeah, is phenomenal, and then carry that home and work with our horses and our friends and our own selves. Ourselves. Yeah, right. The sleep example is a great example.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

It's amazing how well regulated these animals are. And by that I mean that they can go from, oh, I need to make a response right now, which we call the sympathetic side of your nervous system where you need to take action and you you can do that, but then you can let go of it, completely let go of it, and come back to a state of rest and digest and relaxation. And they are masters at that response. Even in this interesting thing where we saw the stallions divided and they knew that there was going to be a stallion encounter and that was gonna but as that stallion approached the situation with his mares on the wrong side of a two-stallion band, which is a rare band anyway, to have two stallions, he would get a little closer, a little closer. We'd watch him sniff the wind, and then he'd drop his head and say, I need to graze for a little while. So he'd graze and think things over and let his nervous system go back down. And by doing that, really, instead of by the time he met actually met one of the stallions, he was so full of aggression and fight and flight that there was gonna be a sharp encounter because he's so high in his nervous system already. There isn't. There's this play, there's this wonderful room to come up and to accept that he's meeting a stallion that has his mares, and they allow for a lot less of aggressive response. And then it's bleeds out. And remember, these are probably cults that grew up in proximity and probably played as youngsters. Um, there's a lot of familiarity already, but then there's the kicking in of the hormones and the way that life goes. Um, but you see all that, but you then see that we need a moment to let the pressure off, and everybody takes a little break and they'll separate out and they'll graze a little or they'll stand and they'll come down in their nervous systems and then they'll have the next encounter. And by doing that, it saves both of them from more injury than they might have.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

And this also applies to like human relations, like interpersonal relationships, like just that value of letting things bleed out a little bit in your own way. And the real the and Julia gave an absolutely beautiful description, and I could I I was sitting here listening to you say, and I could just see the encounter. I totally saw it. And the really cool thing is because we had it's just so visual, and because we had the luxury of time, proximity, we filmed, Rose. We filmed so much of the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah, it's coming out in three articles that will be on my set.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

A beautiful three-part series on consideringanimals.com, which shows I'm sorry, on two step way. Uh Julia has two websites, consideringanimals.com and two stepway. I'm posting at my site, riverearth.com. But these videos will be online on those sites for people to really spend the time and just watch those stallions interact, bleed off pressure, raise pressure, and then go to grazing and work around each other without this huge escalation. Escalation, which it's like we all need to see this from stallions to politicians. All of us you know, walk away, walk away, take a walk away, yeah, take a walk.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Come back with it. Amazing. Eat an apple, come back.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

There you go. Well, I was just sitting here thinking um how great it is that you're posting it on both your sites because people will get two different two perspectives, you know, and so that gives you even more knowledge than you would get if it was just one person and how they viewed it and it and absorbed it. So what a wonderful gift to all of the horse people.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Thanks, Rose. Yeah, it's been really fun to have this kind of stereoptic view of yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

I know one thing I'll say on mine, um, the more uh stuff that's really oriented around horse behavior that relates to the work I do with the nervous system of horses and and so forth, those are all on twostepway.com. And then for a more overall experience of studying the ponies out here, that's all on consideringanimals.com. Welcome. Good to know. And then for an overall, including the boat and a wider view of the whole experience is riverearth.com, which is Bernie's site.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Okay. Well, that's that's really wonderful. I can't wait to watch all of them. So are you going to Yeah, they came out beautifully well. I I know I can't wait to see them. Do you have plans to come back again and continue this type of study or go to other islands where there's wild horses here in North Carolina? We talked about that this morning.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yeah, I I almost feel from what I'm learning, it would be equivalent of um school teachers that go and get there in the summers, they go and they get more continuing education. In some ways, I would feel that this is going back to the source of something so important to understand and to hear it right from those ponies, to take it in and to bring it from them uh as the translator to a gift to the domestic horse and their owners to try to help those people that really love their horses understand um how these horses would choose to live naturally and how we can bring as much of that as we possibly can to their lives.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

So, like Julia said, a beautiful thing, which I've never heard you say before, a gift to the domestic horse. And this has really resonated with me over the last, especially last week, as we get to know these bands better. We're seeing it on Shackelford this way horses or uh organize themselves, interact among themselves, have relationships, you know, close family, distant family, if they're just left to themselves for 400 years.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

So that's how peaceful they are under what should be a lot more stressful. I mean, we worry about horses with sand colic, we worry about this, we worry about blanketing, we worry about all of these things for our horses, but those are not the main things for them. Their family structure is what they hold to. That's what they hold to, and they put up with this weather, and they put up, we have pictures of them eating tiny, tiny little teeny little things in the middle of sandpiles. And somehow, you know, those things aren't the things that we need to persist perciferate around. It's really a lot more this get the social thing right, get those nervous systems as happy and regulated as they can be for those ponies, for our horses.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Because when, you know, with that as a backdraw, when we look at our domestic horses, and if we if we have horses uh at home, or if we work with horses, or even if we're just interested in horses, it stands out in such stark contrast how many of us either keep horses or watched horses kept. Now, one example comes to mind um of you know, a person sees a beautiful three-year-old online, and they're let's say they live in North Carolina, they've they've got a uh hunter barn, they've got hunters and jumpers, and they're like, Oh my god, I've got to have this this three-year-old prospect. They have it shipped up from Florida, the three-year-old arrives, and it doesn't know anybody. All the horses totally overwhelmed by smell, by sound. It may have had a buddy.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

By its safety, it does have any idea how safe it is, it has no idea, and that's the most important question to a horse.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

It goes into, and I'm not singling out show barns, but I'm emphasizing the extreme. So let's say this horse comes into you know a so-called very nice barn, it gets its own pasture, it comes into a stall at night, and then the owner's like, wait a minute, this the horse starts acting a little nervous or something. It's like this isn't the horse that I bought. Well, it's sure not where the horse came from, and it really resonated with me. Like, we need to see the being inside each and every one of our horses and understand what the natural default is if you leave them alone and what we're doing now, and and how to you know, really make it best for the horse, set it up, you know, social structure, stimulus-wise, as best we can, and really look at the individual cases.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

It might be worth, you know, you thinking, well, I'm getting a new horse. That means I should give it two, three, four months to settle in. It's gonna need a regular buddy that it can rely on. I will have to pull shoes on another horse and allow them to meet each other, to greet each other, to establish how they're gonna be around each other, and to develop some sort of normalcy and structure and companionship and and so forth, so that that horse can regulate, so that horse doesn't have to be hyper-vigilant, so that horse can settle in. Um, I see just what Bernie talked about a lot of time in my practice, and the biggest issue for horses is they become dysregulated, and the rig biggest reason they become dysregulated is they don't have normal social bonding. If we were talking about people, this would make perfect sense to us.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Yeah. Well, I was just thinking, you know, when you get a new horse, what's the first thing you do? You cram him in a stall. Exactly. So you really put him up.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

We can't even walk out. I mean, a way, and that's a very good point, Rose, because of another way that a horse dumps his um over-emotional state is to move, is to walk.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

We've seen that going all day long.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

So you need that, you need that too.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yeah. So, yeah, so so it's it really has got us thinking, and to get back to your thing, like the new horse, like put it in a stall, and man, the next day we're gonna ride this thing. Yeah, in the arena or what and see what it can do. And and I understand that, and I've done that, and I totally understand the temptation for that. But with what we're seeing out here, it makes us really understand like, whoa, you need to really think about how this new horse and even an existing horse that you have fits into the best social bond possible. And I think, and this is just me speaking personally, and to me, that means ideally having horses live as a herd outside, uh ideally with a run-in shed, of course, plenty of good hay and water, not too much, and steady buddies, steady buddies being among themselves, not a bunch of churn. I understand if you're in the horse business buying and selling horses, you're gonna have a lot of churn. I understand that. But ideally, these horses would have good, stable relations. It's gonna help their health, and they're ultimately they're what you we do with them.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

And another really interesting thing on that point is the multi-age structure is so important, too. So they're they're these cohesive bands for a reason. There's certain just with as with people, um, it's the stallions that play with the young moor. Um they are, you know, contrary to people's belief, he's not really herding out his cults. He's actually protects them. He hurt, he takes very good care of them, they disperse when they're ready. Um, he's their major source of play in the beginning. And um he, you know, he'll look he looks after the fillies, he'll he'll take care of the of the young ones. Um the older ones are incredibly important, the regulation of the whole band as a as a band because they have a lot of experience and they will seek out that knowledge. I have a wonderful example of this two stallion band that we were watching. Um, two mayors on another day uh came up and joined them. And the stallions came over uh to meet the mayors. And the mayors that were in the group, the original mayors, um, one of them got kind of nervous by the new arrival. Everybody oriented, which means the horses put their heads up, they bunch together as the arrivals are coming, and they're basically by orienting, they're asking the question, How safe am I? How safe am I right now? If you see your horse turn and look at an object, he's asking that same question, what how secure and safe am I? Can I be curious and go forward, or do I need to open up the distance from this? So the horses orient and the mares are bunched together and the stallions go off. First, the lieutenant stallion he goes out away from the band and greets them. Then the main stallion comes out and he greets them, and then the new mares and the stallions start grazing together, which is a social a way to work on social contact. And then the two original mares, the one of them, the the lead mare, I don't even like calling them lead mare because they all have different, but this very established mare, you can tell is very important to this bird. The younger, the other mare gently sniffed her flank as if asking, How safe am I? And when the answer came back from the smell she got, she just took these enormous release yawns. Horses let off their excess stress by yawning. And she took these beautiful yawns, and then she kind of took a little displacement shake, which they do, and then she just walked quietly along with this one mare, and they dropped their heads and started grazing, and they never even bothered to go over and sniff the new mare's nose to nose. And it was just such an interesting reaction of who's important for regulation. Um, I believe that mare, that dominant well, I don't want to call her a dominant mare, but a very established mare in that herd, how important she is to the structure and regulation of everybody. That would mean how much cortisol is in the stallions, how much they're going to be aggressive versus curious. And so all of it is so important. So back to our own herd, we have a very old mule who you've met named Holly, who to our herd. So she's kind of at the bottom of the what you would call the pecking order in terms of being able to go out a gate or she'll yield to almost everybody. But that's also for self-preservation because she's old, she's saying, I don't want to bicker, I don't want to fight, I don't want to do anything. But the lead, the horse that the others follow is a mare, and she she can she needs that Polly to be regulated to make her regulate it. And when Polly becomes nervous of something or is taken out of the herd, she the whole herd disrect dysregulates. Totally rescue. I mean, they lose their heads. So even though, in some sense, she's unimportant, and when they're all grazing and it's a peaceful day, they wouldn't care less if she's nowhere in sight. But as soon as something is scary, that dominant or the mare that you think is in charge needs to regulate off that other one. It's fascinating, it's very much more complicated. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

That that is such a good point because I've I've seen it in my own herds, you know, in the past with older horses versus younger horses and how the leadership roles kind of change depending on the circumstance. But that is so interesting. I I this is such a fascinating conversation. I'm so happy that you went and you have seen all these things and observed these behaviors that we need to take heed of because everything in my life, my business, my children, everything is based on my experience with horses and how I trained them and how I learned about them, and and all of those things apply to every phase of my life. So these things that you're noticing are so more so bigger, so much more important than just the horses, because the whole human race, the whole human race acts this way, or should. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Data, yeah, and and one of the magical things is like we live in a like a data-driven society where we measure stuff and we you know put stuff in the spreadsheets, but well, we've and that reveals certain patterns and information. Of course, with AI, you now you can make all kinds of create things. But what we're doing less and less as a society is slow down, in our case, sit on a sand dune, try not to sit on a prickly pear, which we've had, which we've had go through our boot and our butts, and just observe. I made a little audio recording a couple days into our trips. Like, I'm walking through the sand, I'm not seeing any ponies, I have no idea. This is like a blank sheet of sand, don't know what we're gonna find. And this was actually. Pretty much before anything that we've discussed with you today. And the magic of this was to be open. Be open to it and watch things that you get really hard to measure in the way that we look at the world now more and more. We like that measurable, you know, quantifiable, spreadsheetable, AIable data. Well, there was none of that out here, and it and it opened a whole new world of information and knowledge that's really precious to us that we really value. I would love to share and say people, everyone, if you're interested, come to Shackleford, bring it to me.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

I think that's a really important point. You know, in today's world of fast scrolling, we're waiting for the each, you know, mo like we need a a moment to be, you know, fascinating and then another new moment. But everything is a moment. I mean, if you sit quietly and watch two horses look like they're just grazing, and I mean, one of the things that has revealed itself has done it very slowly. So Bernie and I would sit down and what it would look like, we're just gonna watch horses graze. And you have to be accepting of that. And what can watching horses graze teach you? And then within that is all the reveal of the things we've told you. Though those things happen because you're really observant and you're starting to say, you know, this stallion is is is who he is. This is his, you know, chestnut color. This is his if you name all those things and start to really observe in more detail everything that is information at the time, you need that to make the next sense of the next moment of information.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Saying it out loud, actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

To build these in your own way takes time. It means being focused on the actual observation and off the phone and not expecting everything to be a big moment. These small ones are the puzzle and the pieces that give you that whole story. And that's the fun thing to really do is learn to build that yourself.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

And there are plenty of big moments, Rose. Yeah. Sitting on a cactus spine. I'm sure 40 knot gales, getting your anchor caught in a huge submerged widow right next to your fingers. Julia picked up a pony skull. I saw a long time observing it. Julia, there's a black widow on that. We got rammed, not even going to get into the story, but we got broadside smashed into by a skiff with 250 horsepower on the back of it, smashed into grid. So, like, these are the highlights, they're there. But we need those, right? Yeah. But it's again that point of what's so encouraging to Julie and I is all of us, every one of us, is capable of turning off our phones, forgetting what the experts say, and learning from the moment, and learning from whatever it is, whether it's uh watching a blade of grass wiggle back and forth and just watching the wind or that source stuff that doesn't come from experts, it doesn't come from posts, blogs, how-to stuff, which is all very important. There's so much that I've learned from experts. But we this has been a great chance, and it's available to all of us to go straight to the experts. And in this case, the experts, the masters, are the wild ponies of shadows.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

For sure. Well, you know, I think that that having to be forced because you're on an island is a good way to force yourself to to remember that the best parts of life are in those little tiny moments. They're not in those great big things. And but you you pass by them and you ignore them because you're hurrying to the next big moment. So this is such a great experience in so many ways.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Because you know, I think with the pressure of social media, it's like we're all looking to get trophy head mounts, like these stuffed head mounts of amazing experiences, like this and that. And we want to line our lives with that. But I would say, and I think from what we've learned is to slow down, observe, and those big trophy moments will come, but they will be set against a backdrop of depth of knowledge of experience, and really that sets them into a beautiful context, and we can all do that.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

I certainly agree. I do. Well, I have really enjoyed talking to you guys, and I know you got something that you want to go check on. So I I don't want to keep you a whole lot of people. Yes, we do. But but let's watch some yes, and wonderful Rome.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

Stay tuned on on Two Step Way. I have um the unfolding of a tremendous social drama going on with this one herd we've been talking about, and it's coming out in issues. So stay tuned because we're gonna have a video up of it, and it's just fascinating to watch. Um, and that moment I described to you with the one mayor checking in with the other one, that will be in a video on there. Um, and I'm sure Bernie has some things that he could tell you just quickly uh that are on riverearth.com.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Just very briefly, riverearth.com uh is where I'm posting to, twostepaway.com, considering animals.com is where Julie's posting to. And I have a little bit more of the the sailors view, the the nuts and bolts of it view. So between the two of us, that really covers it well. And what's really beautiful, and this is why we maybe sound a little fidgety, is like there's this amazing story playing out on the island that we saw yesterday with this stallion, the main stein, Lieutenant Stein, another Stein, his may show up. So we're gonna go back today and just sit on our dune. It's our last day on Shacklet before we head on. We're just gonna watch what happens and we'll post all this.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Yeah, and it's like turning into you know the uh an episode of As the World Turns.

SPEAKER_02 50:37

So great. Now, Julia, on your website, two step way. Is it is it two step way or is it the number two?

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Oh, it's TWO Way, two stepway.com.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

I want people to be sure that the other thing is.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Yep, and considering animals.com and Bernie's riverearth.com. All right.

SPEAKER_02 51:05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Yeah, just to jump in really quickly. So so twostepway.com is Julia's professional. Yeah, that's the horse, that's mostly horse.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Um considering animals is the whole trip as far as studying ponies with a lot of cool uh pony shackled experience.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

And though while I won't take anybody sailing on grit because only a fool sorry, I was gonna say only a fool would come sailing with me, but I can't say that now since Julia's sitting beside me. So I won't take people sailing, but Julia does a lot of work with people with her two-step way, which really specializes on seeing the being in that horse that's looking at us, and she's got this incredible depth of knowledge that she's adding to all the time, including this that is uniquely earned.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Yeah, and I would say by far my best teachers so far. Good big horses.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

And now we're gonna go watch ponies.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

Okay, the work you've done is is crazy good. So thank you so much for being on the show and sharing it with everybody. Thank you. I appreciate it, and thank you guys for here to listen. Thank you. It's my pleasure to host today's Horseman Podcast: a chance to hear working horsemen's voices, hear what inspires them, experience their trials and struggles, and realize we all have a story to tell, and it's worth telling. I hope you enjoyed the show today. As always, thank you for listening. And follow us on Facebook.