horse riding Archives - Lessons from Nelipot Cottage

“Being Seen, Being Heard, Feeling Felt and Getting Gotten”

I have been pondering and playing with the concepts of connection and communication in riding, rather than control or coercion. And the idea of consent.

In some ways I always ask consent of my horses. I wait for them to take a step towards me in the field before I put the headcollar on. I allow them to sniff the brushes before I get stuck into grooming. I acknowledge that Cal has a very tickly stomach and I am careful which brush I use to get the mud off. More work for me, but it’s more pleasant for him. I pick the mud out of his ears by hand scratching. I make sure they all offer me the hoof that I want to clean out. When I am tacking up, they should come to the front of the stable volunteering to be ridden. Both Cal and Rocky like to have a good empty before I put the saddle on- I allow them the time to do this.

If we seek a true partnership with our horses then it follows that they should be allowed, able and comfortable to offer an opinion. I changed the ramp on my lorry a few years ago. It used to be carpet and I changed it to rubber matting. Big mistake as it turns out- a few years on the rubber matting is now slippery when wet. Cal was reluctant to load yesterday after slithering a little on the ramp once or twice over the past few weeks. I talked to him and told him I understood and I have promised him I will sort it and have ordered some sticky backed grip tape- I do hope that works. Horses may not understand words but they understand intent. Knowing that I register his comments and acknowledge them was enough to persuade him to load.

Others may have escalated the pressure in that situation and compounded the negative association with loading. That is counter- productive. I know exactly why he hesitates to step on the ramp- why would I punish him for being careful?

A few years ago the clutch in my truck went the day before a 3 day clinic. My local friend very kindly lent me her 7.5 tonne truck. Her horses have all been terrible travellers as long as I have known her but they are all related, out of the same mare, and I just thought they were highly strung. Cal always loads and travels beautifully- when things are right. By day 3 of the 3 day weekend Cal was refusing to get in my friend’s 7.5 tonne lorry. It looks like a great truck, well maintained, airy, spacious, but there must be something very peculiar about the suspension and the ride.

Funnily enough, the friend went on to get a new truck and her current crop of horses all load and travel beautifully!

If horses are not in a mental and physical balance that enables them to complete the task requested then they will express that, as a bit of stiffness or resistance, or perhaps even as a big explosion. Our job as riders is to set them up for success. Balance before movement. Mental balance and physical balance are intimately related in horses. The flight response is all about stiff muscles, braced spine, ready to flee. Horses will say- I can’t do that with this body. Or the flip side of the dilemma- I can’t do that in this moment with this brain.

If we can change that response we can enable better choices.

If the horse needs a moment to check something strange and scary when they are out hacking, until they are happy before walking past, then surely that is fine? Horses have no concept of time- stay a second or stay 10 minutes- they have no idea. Rocky plays reverse and go forwards a bit with stuff he isn’t sure about- if I wait and breathe and let the process happen at his speed- obviously praising the forwards but not over-stressing or fighting the backwards- it sometimes takes 3 or 4 reverses, the last one being the furthest back before he then always psychs himself up to walk or even trot past the scary object in a calm curious manner. If I get agitated and push him beyond his comfort zone then things can quickly deteriorate. Since I have been more patient to let him think and process he is much more willing to let me encourage him past the less scary stuff. It is all about an ongoing conversation.

It can all change with a heartbeat.

The science tells us that a horse’s heart emits 40 times more electromagnetic force than a tiny little human heart. Horses in a herd use this force field effect to synchronise their heartbeats. When a horse on the edge of the herd sees or senses something suspicious, their heartbeat will speed up. The rest of the herd feel this increase in heart-rate and are suddenly equally on alert.

You can find the webinar explaining the original research into heart rate synchronicity between horses and humans here https://www.heartmath.org/resources/downloads/heart-heart-communication-horses/

We can use this synchronicity effect to our advantage when riding or training. The vagus nerve is the nerve of para-sympathetic innervation. The parasympathetic nervous system inhibits the body from overworking and restores the body to a calm and composed state. It can be described as the “rest and digest” system. This is the opposite to the “flight or fight” response, activated by the sympathetic nervous system. When we breathe out slowly so our out breath is longer than our in breath, this activates the vagus nerve, and therefore para-sympathetic innervation. Calm returns.

You can test this slowing effect of the vagus nerve by feeling your own pulse, or your dogs heart-beat when he is lying next to you. When you breathe out long and slow, your heart beats a touch slower than when you breathe in. My dog has quite a marked variability when he is relaxed.

Breathing out while in the saddle also activates your diaphragm-seat connection. A good slow out breath pulls you deeper into the saddle, onto the back of your seat- bones. The horse will feel your calm, low heart beat, from as far as 4 feet away apparently, and theirs will synchronise to match. That is how they are programmed. Calm returns.

Conversely, if you tighten and tense up and breathe short sharp shallow breaths under tension, then the sympathetic “fight or flight” system takes over. We tend to hunch, subconsciously, putting us into a grip and clutch mode, on the front of our pelvis, and our heartbeat speeds up.

I would like to think that you wouldn’t find Rocky and I at this level of conflict again

And the horse will feel this, and synchronise to the faster human heartbeat, which makes them anxious too. A horse at rest has a pulse of 24-48 beats a minute- this is much slower than the human average of 60-100. To be sharing calm with our horses, we need to very consciously make sure we are at the bottom end of this human range.

When two hearts literally beat as one, that is the true meaning of connection

The meaning of dressage comes from the word root of “dress” or “to straighten”. The creation of a straight or “well dressed” horse is the purpose of dressage. And a straight or well dressed horse is able to perform any task required in that moment, assuming that the task requested has been prepared for with appropriate training and conditioning work, and the horse is in a mental state that allows cooperation.

With Rocky I have realised that I must apply equal emphasis to the mental as well as physical balance. With a big, athletic and genetically gifted horse, the sympathetic nervous system “no” can be too loud and too explosive to allow constructive dialogue. It is hard to have an ongoing conversation when we have parted company.

You could replace the word obedience to with ability to correctly respond and then you avoid the negative impression of mental submission.

For me submission is the horse offering its beauty and power in perfect mental and physical balance to the rider; like a pair of dancers or figure skaters jamming and saying “what shall we mess with next?’

So I breathe. And sit relaxed and loose. And deliberately slow my heart. And then we can talk. And hopefully one day we will dance, two hearts beating as one.

Rocky early days under saddle. Must take more pictures this year LOL

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If Only my Horse could Talk…

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“If only my horse could talk!”

How many times have we all said those words? In jest, or in despair?

But consider that our horses could be equally frustrated, stamping their feet and tossing their manes and screaming “if only my human could listen”

They don’t actually scream of course. Until it gets really bad and then they need to get really loud.

Amongst themselves horses talk mostly in whispers, a sideways look, a flick of an ear, an imperceptible yield. Horses are naturally very peaceable animals. The equine ethologist Lucy Rees has spent a lifetime observing horses in the wild.

“To understand horses and their difficulties in our hands, we need to watch them as they really are, without anthropomorphic interpretations and expectations”

To this end, she has studied many populations of feral horses in the Americas and Australia, above all in Venezuela, where for years she ran residential ethology courses. These studies led to Horses In Company (2017), a book whose evolutionary perspective revolutionises our view of horse society. She started the Pottoka Project, in which she released a herd of feral Basque ponies in the mountains of north Extremadura, and, with a few volunteers, observes them as they live normal equid lives.

There is a very educational and beautiful series of short films available on her website or via Epona TV

Meet the Pottoka

For me, her most astonishing finding is that, in an environment in which there is no resource shortage, horses exhibit virtually no conflict behaviour. I have written about this before, against the context of that other pervasive myth, the alpha male.

The Myth of the Alpha

This is a lesson that I thought I had learned already. but as the saying goes, until you truly know something, and take that truth to heart and actually act on that truth, you don’t really know that something.

The last year and a half have been really tricky for me and Rocky. I previously told the story of his initial diagnosis of a sore back. His time off and six months of slow and careful rehab,

The Rocky Road to Rehab

coincided with my change in personal circumstances. However, as we got back into consistent work there was no real improvement to his behaviour. His back looked and felt perfect, with improving muscle coverage and no sore spots, but his behaviour remained erratic and I was still getting regular reminders on the inevitability of gravity.

I had him scoped him for ulcers a couple of years ago. The rationale at the time was partly to check out his behaviour, but also based on the fact that at the time he was a full 100kg lighter than his two equally classy sisters

The scope was essentially clear. The vets looked at me wth sceptical cocked eyebrows when I explained my reasons for scoping him; if you don’t actually know his sisters, he is big enough and looks like a strapping lad and he didn’t look unhealthy at the time, but I was the client and it was my money.

He had some very mild traces of inflammation, but no true ulceration. They didn’t push me to treat him formally and were quite happy when I said I would organise an empirical trial of treatment with the well known blue granules that one can buy online from America. He did put some good weight on, so I thought the ulcers must be better, and so we never re-scoped. And his behaviour never changed- he was still occasionally obstreperous but nothing one wouldn’t expect or excuse from a young horse?

Extra bit of information required here- on the ground he is the sweetest, most affectionate horse you could imagine. He loves people and loves a good fuss.

Because he had previously been scoped clear, with no behavioural benefit following on from that half hearted trial of treatment (isn’t the retrospect-oscope a wonderful instrument), the possibility of continuing ulcers just didn’t enter my brain. I am a very literal thinker, and my brain really only works in lists and straight lines, so in my head, ulcers was ticked off, as was back. All that was left was learned behaviour and an athletic and strong minded horse that I had to decide if I was capable of riding.

I bought Rocky as a yearling. He has the most beautiful paces I have ever sat on. Had I not bought him as a youngster, I would never have been able to afford his Olympic standard genetics. For those of you who are into bloodlines, he is by Royaldik.

Heraldik xx is a very well known sire to all eventing fans- Ingrid Klimke’s Butts Abraxas, Andreas Dibowski’s Butts Leon, and Sam Griffith’s Happy Times are all among top flight horses sired by Heraldik.

At WEG in 2010, Heraldik had 3 offspring in the Eventing and 2 in the Show Jumping. Heraldik had a full sister Herka, and Royaldik is out of Herka. And Royaldik’s full brother Rohdiamant is also the WBFSH world number 3 dressage stallion.

So my gorgeous little baby Rocky

is quite simply the most well bred horse I am ever likely to own. Particularly as his famous relatives have proved to be functional as well as flash, with the confirmation to withstand a busy life at top level competition.

I remember vividly teaching Cal to jump. Until he learned to canter, and developed the bulk of muscle required to carry his draught bone along the ground let alone up, jumping an 80cm oxer always felt like a lottery.

By contrast, Rocky can be looking at everything else, going sideways and then just pop the same fence as a minor inconvenience as it appears in his path.

All of which is a very long winded way of saying I wasn’t gong to give up on that feeling without a fight. It’s addictive, sitting on a horse that gives you a feeling of such ease over a fence.

It’s not quite so addictive, hitting the ground on a regular basis.

As I tell this story now it is so fricking obvious that I am cringing as I type these words. I share this story, as brutally and as honestly as I can, to help you avoid similar obstinate mistakes, and to spare your horse having to shout quite so loudly.

Rocky had severe separation anxiety. He was dramatically reactive to all new situations, to horses coming up behind us, to getting a bit too far away from other horses, to a gate closing. He would freeze out on hacks, at invisible obstacles. His reaction to any unexpected stimulus was to dump me and run.

He had been scoped for ulcers. His back was now fine. We had checked the saddle situation and solved it with a gorgeous Stride Free Jump.

So I decided we needed remedial training. My long term local eventing instructor helped me with the riding and the training and we lunged him “thoroughly” before we got on to establish forwards, and we taught him that forwards was required before all else.

And he did become more rideable. I gave it my best shot. I rode him 5 days a week, every week, all winter, through the dark and the cold and the rain. I sent Cal away on loan so I had the time to concentrate on Rocky. We had regular lessons and outings. And he did come on really well. He put on muscle, his back improved, his canter got stronger. But he still bucked.

Then one week in mid January he put me on the floor three times in the same week. And there were no mitigating factors. He had done enough work, there were no scary things out there, I was riding at my usual time, in my normal routine. The same week he booted the part time groom in the chest and shook her up really badly.

And I just knew I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t ride him, we couldn’t keep him safely here. I searched my heart and I made arrangements for him to go on sales livery. And was absolutely at peace with that decision. I think a few of my friends were even quite relieved.

I had a couple of weeks to spare before he could go, and Patrice, my long term mentor and classical dressage instructor, suggested I scope him once more. It made sense. I couldn’t conscientiously sell a sick horse, and I would be gutted if I sold my horse of a lifetime because he was too quirky for me and then found out someone else had treated him and he turned out to be a poppet under saddle too.

Of course he had ulcers. Really bad ulcers. Multiple lesions, several grade 3, lots of grade 2 and significant amounts of fibrin deposits and areas of irritation.

OK I thought, I’ll treat him but he’s still going. Once he’s healed, he’s still for sale.

Then lockdown happened, about two weeks into his ulcer treatment.

And he’s not a horse you could leave out of work altogether, his brain is quite active and he does find mischief.

So I had to ride him…..just light hacking, in company., to keep him ticking over and his brain occupied….nothing challenging….

He got better, and better. The bucking objections turned into leg flicks and stalls, then just to ear flicks. He hacked out on his own, with no trouble at previously nappy corners. We could cross the main road ( a major barrier previously) and go around the whole village. We had to stop occasionally and check out things like a scarf left on a street sign but he looked and worked it out whereas before he would have dumped me and run away. We even did the long circuit under the railways bridges and went past the scary white log on the bridle path on our own, after a few looks and a couple of reverses. But they were only reverses, not gymnastics. And I could feel his brain working it all out rather than his body reacting.

I’m still an idiot. And we were still in lockdown. As we couldn’t do the second check scope at the time I let his meds run down to see what would happen. About a week after the PPI ran out and the day after the Misoprostol finished, I swung my leg into the saddle and instantly felt like I was sitting on a different horse.

I had to prove it of course. I am still an idiot. He dropped me in the school so I got back on and we went around the block. It was tense but manageable. Until we got back inside the gate and then he tried to drop me on the concrete.

Se we started the meds again. It took a few weeks to get back to lovely horse again. But he had been very clear- and yes the lesson obviously needed re-iterating.

My horse doesn’t have behaviour problems. He has pain problems.

And I am genuinely ashamed that he had to get to a point of shouting out his pain so loudly at me that I put both of us in danger.

“If only my human could listen.”

sic ‘nothing one wouldn’t expect or excuse from a young horse.’

Question- how much of bad horse behaviour is actually pain?

He has just been re-scoped. The ulcers look much better. We are still only on light work but he is putting on huge amounts of muscle. He is currently off the transfer list!

Part 2 to follow in a few months.

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Living in the Here and Now

http://www.veloofoundation.com/fran-mcnicol.html

“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live.”

I have been reading Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now. I have to say it is the slowest read of a book I haven’t yet given up on. This is because the concepts are completely foreign to the control freak, overthinking part of me. Due to a fear of loss of security in my life, I have always tried to micro manage every moment. I have lived nearly every minute either ahead of or behind myself, wallowing in the paralysis of “what if?” or agonising about “How do I prevent that? What can I do that will stop that happening?”

Living in the here and now is a strange and alien concept.

https://www.wanderlustworker.com/how-to-be-present-the-5-steps-for-living-in-the-here-and-now/

That micro managed place where we are avoiding excess discomfort can become a place of limitation and challenge avoidance. It doesn’t necessarily prevent high performance. That’s a relative concept. But it does limit potential peak performance.

I love high adrenaline activities. But drip feed adrenaline…not the dare devil activities where you completely surrender control but those where you saunter along the knife edge proving how controlled you can be, choosing the move, every next minute…..until you really aren’t in control at all, and you finally have to deal with living in the here and and now.

As Mark Twain said, “I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

We cannot change the past, and we cannot prevent the future. All we can do is make the most of the present moment, informed by the past, and a series of best present moments will then build up to become a brighter future…if we are careful enough to wish it so.

Our wishes will come true…whether we like it or not.

Change is inevitable- be careful what you wish for

top ten tips to start living in the here and now

The big horse has challenged me in ways I would never have thought possible. I love riding, I love horses, I ride because I breathe. Ever since I was a tiny child I have dreamed of having my own horses and riding them every day, of schooling them from scratch, of transforming them from clumsy awkward novices to beautiful, elastic, supple unicorns. I have never been without horses to ride, never been in a situation where I wasn’t rushing home from work to get an extra session in, rain or hail or shine.

Imagine then having to psych yourself up to get on the big horse. Imagine having to talk yourself into doing the very thing that has always brought you joy. Imagine driving home from work on a windy evening, making excuses in your head, thinking “Oh, I might leave it today, it’s a bit windy, he might be a bit naughty, maybe I’d better not tempt fate…” we say it for a gale first of all, then a blustery day, then a light breeze…until

Suddenly happens over a long time

suddenly, we never seem to get on our horse.

On those days of doubt and fears maybe we need to square up to our gremlins and ask ourselves

What is the worst thing that can happen?

and then we need to JFDI (medic speak for Just F*cking Do It)

Fear setting was a new concept to me until last year.

We are taught goal setting from an early age. Positive thinking is important. But if we ignore the darkness, if we ignore the abyss of fear and dread, it will bite us at the most inopportune moments.

Fear setting was a key part of the process that enabled me to leave my previous “dream life”. I asked myself “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” It turned out that staying unhappy was a much greater than stepping out into the unknown.

Positive thinking increases the likelihood of positive outcomes. But when the outcome is not so positive, how we cope with that eventuality is the space where we learn resilience.

Resilience is the ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened

Put simply, when facing a new challenge, what is the worst thing that can happen to you?

For a few months, I found myself avoiding new situations with the big horse. He is incredibly athletic, and has possibly put me on the floor more times than all the others combined! But I know this; I never yet get on him without a body protector, and a hard hat, and I know now that he needs regular, strenuous, work…like a stroppy teenager, he is better behaved when well exercised. I was avoiding challenging, stretch zone situations, keeping us within our narrow comfort zone, which meant that our comfort zone never expanded and we never got into our learning zone.

I asked myself “what is the worst thing that could happen”? Answer in my head turned out to be that he could ditch me in front of a load of strangers… well guess what? He’s done that loads!! We got the shiniest poshest rosette of my equestrian life for the most spectacular dismount, at riding club camp last year. That worst case scenario has already happened, so nothing left to be afraid of there….

So what else am I afraid of? What else might happen?

You never know- it could go really well…Like our jumping lesson tonight. Yes there were shenanigans. Yes we made mistakes. Yes he tested me. But the outcome??? I stayed in the plate (hurrah) and he came on in leaps and bounds, literally. I learned that I have to turn on a forwards feeling, without pulling the inside rein, (finally that lesson went in).

We just have to turn up, daily, and do the thing. We just have to believe that learning occurs in the stretch zone, for human and horse, and that although it may not always be pretty, it’s only by doing too much that we learn what is enough. We have to believe in ourselves, to be willing to expand our skill set but also to forgive ourselves and learn from our mistakes. We have to be non judgemental about our mistakes, observe them with wry amusement and do differently next time.

Differently, not better. Better is a judgement. And above all, we have to keep showing up, living in the here and now.

“Over the course of our lives, situations will arise that can sometimes seem insurmountable. When I’m faced with obstacles and life seems really difficult, my unconditional love for myself gives me the strength to continue. I greet the ups and downs of life’s journey with unconditional love for myself and the people in my life by understanding that I am only truly alive in the present moment; the future is a projection that does not yet exist. As long as there is life, everything is possible. Practice with awareness, remember to love yourself and others unconditionally when the road gets tough. Only through love can you overcome obstacles with peace.”

– Miguel Ruiz Jr.

“Perhaps our dreams are there to be broken, and our plans are there to crumble, and our tomorrows are there to dissolve into todays, and perhaps all of this is all a giant invitation to wake up from the dream of separation, to awaken from the mirage of control, and embrace whole-heartedly what is present. Perhaps it is all a call to compassion, to a deep embrace of this universe in all its bliss and pain and bitter-sweet glory. Perhaps we were never really in control of our lives, and perhaps we are constantly invited to remember this, since we constantly forget it. Perhaps suffering is not the enemy at all, and at its core, there is a first-hand, real-time lesson we must all learn, if we are to be truly human, and truly divine. Perhaps breakdown always contains breakthrough. Perhaps suffering is simply a right of passage, not a test or a punishment, nor a signpost to something in the future or past, but a direct pointer to the mystery of existence itself, here and now. Perhaps life cannot go ‘wrong’ at all.”

Jeff Foster

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Learning Our Horses’ Alphabet

Learning our alphabet is the first step of learning any language. And dressage is no different. Except that learning our alphabet isn’t quite the right phrase, really we need to be learning our horses’ alphabet.

As horses are movement itself, and the best way to access a horse’s brain is through his body, learning our horses’ alphabet actually means learning the alphabet of our horses’ movement.

First, the gaits. The step pattern, the footfalls, the sequence of pure gaits. How will we know if we have a pure walk or a good quality canter if we don’t know what the pure gaits consist of?

Humans are born with the ability to make every common sound heard in every language, from the Welsh ttthhh to the Xhosi nk. Babies learn, by imitation, to repeat the sounds they hear the most around them; they perfect those, the voicebox adapts and they may lose the ability to create other language sounds.

I learned to speak French in the Ecrins mountains when I was 10. I have a regional accent that most native French can pinpoint to that area, and I always get a very warm welcome when I go back to that region.

Glacier des Violettes- the best mountain HVS in the world runs up to the left of the glacier- Ailefroide

But there is one telling detail that a true linguist would spot, one omission- my rrrrrr is weak. I can just about roll my rrrr, but not quite like a native.

In the same way, horses are born with every variation of every gait at their disposal. Some will come easier than others, some are bred selectively, such as the tolt or the pacing gait, but all foals can do all gaits at the beginning. They learn first by copying their mothers, and their peer group, which gaits are the easiest for day to day life. And then in training, we reward them for the four pure dressage gaits, and every variation thereof. But we can only do that if we know how the four pure gaits are meant to look , feel and sound.

A young Milton with Caroline Powell- brought on slowly and correctly to become the world’s most successful show jumper

The reason these specifically defined pure gaits have been selected as the most desirable over the centuries is because time has shown that these gaits are the most efficient for the horse to carry a rider in a healthy biomechanical posture.

And we have to understand that aberrations of these gaits are not healthy, and should not be ignored, let alone rewarded. How many lateral walks do we see in FEI dressage tests, not only ignored but scored highly, against the directives?

Then we need to remember that horses are born crooked. Just as humans are born right handed or left handed, the symmetrical, perfectly balanced horse has not yet been born.

Training is therefore first rehabilitation, followed by therapy, and finally it can become gymnastic.

To complete the training of the dressage horse we need to be able to speak to his body in sentences, in combinations of aids that combine targeted exercises and accurate patterns to enable the horse to develop strength and suppleness.

CDK talks about the daily vocabulary of training; like a virtuoso musician practising their scales every day, a trainer must help the horse to run through his full physical repertoire every session- all bends, all gaits, every length of neck, every length of stride, all directions of travel.

Run through, not drill.

Simple repetition does not bring about improvement- targeted focus does. When doing scales we did them fast, slow, staccato, slurred, syncopated da deee and deee da, forwards and backwards. Every variation, to avoid strain and boredom.

The quality of each movement will vary according to the horse’s level of training, but a fragment of each exercise will be possible in every horse from the very beginning.

This can be achieved from the ground, in hand, or from the saddle.

The brilliance in the virtuoso comes from a solid foundation, from the long hours spent perfecting the details of the basics.

Perfect practise makes perfect.

So know your horse’s alphabet, and help him to write three dimensional poetry in motion.

Make the Mental Transition to “I can”

We must make sure that we do not inadvertently teach ourselves to fail regularly in our training. It is important that we learn to make the mental transition to” I can”.

I heard a story this weekend about a very high achieving golfer. Every time he takes a lesson to improve one aspect of his game he goes out, applies the lesson and plays much better. Instead of being pleased that he has played better, he then looks for the gaps in his recent good game, focusses on those, practises those aspects which he has not improved and then goes out and so has a horrible time again. Essentially he has trained himself to fail, repetitively.

Golf and dressage have much in common.

Golf swing fundamentals

We must train ourselves to bank the good stuff first, especially in riding where there are two sentient beings involved in the encounter. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t learn from our mistakes; reflection, adjustment and testing is a key part of experiential learning of a practical skill. But we must learn just as much if not more from our successes.

I have started videoing myself riding more regularly. A friend once made the comment that high definition video is the most brutal feedback anyone needs. I don’t have hi-def capability but a mobile phone propped up on the arena fence is effective enough.

The first time I watch the video I am always appalled. I look like cooked spaghetti, what are my legs doing there, what on earth makes me think I can ride….

Then I look at it again and watch the horse…and generally there are some nice moments. And I have to remind myself that if the horse is improving then I can’t be that bad…

If the horse wasn’t improving, I would possibly have appalled myself so much that I would have given up. I am my own worst critic.

Do as I say, not as I do!!

But luckily for me the grey horse loves the nitty gritty of training, and loves the way good work makes his body feel. Which means he loves me.

If we want to improve a movement or an exercise then we have to pick one aspect to work on. We can’t just “try it again” and hope something will improve globally by accident. Practise doesn’t make perfect, perfect practise makes perfect. So you have to be consciously competent enough to choose one aspect that you can change to improve the overall performance of the task. A bit like teaching surgery….

Which means we have to choose other aspects to leave alone, or even better, aspects to keep because they are already good.

So for example; I’m doing trot halt, rein back, trot, transitions in step sequences of four. Four because even numbers make it predictable for the horse so the transitions should occur with less resistance. (That bit is magic, don’t question it, it just is, even number of steps for predictability, odd number of steps when you want change).

I ask myself what I can do….generally I can count to four, the transitions occur when asked, the rein back is diagonal, the line of travel is straight, the trot out has lovely oomph.

What do I want to improve? Lets just say one thing- the softness of the topline, for now.

Do I throw all the good qualities away just to focus on the topline? Do I say topline first and foremost, at whatever cost, no matter how many steps, no matter if it’s straight, …

Or do I try and add another quality to the good stuff I have already?

I have written before about how essential positive feedback is to the horse if you want to keep him on side. The horse is never allowed to think he made a mistake.

Every Opportunity to Praise

Imagine how dispiriting it would be for a horse if, every time he does a movement or an exercise, to the best of his ability, exactly as you have aided it (because again that is the truth) and you say “No, no, that was terrible, it was all wrong, we have to do it again, we are just so rubbish!”

He wouldn’t keep trying for very long would he?

Imagine if, instead of saying “we just can’t do that”,

you made the transition to thinking I can,

if we thought “We can do that even better! We can do that more like an advanced horse. What’s the most we can do?’….in the example, “What is the best most elevated and elongated topline we can do that rein back in? How would Granat feel doing that reinback?”

What is the maximum we can ask for?

Not demand…that’s different. If we ask for the absolute maximum possible that we can imagine, the horse will give is the maximum he is capable of, in that moment, and he might just surprise himself and you!

Our limited expectations can limit our horse’s potential. I know I am often guilty of trying to make every step the best step, when sometime it just needs to be the next step. Sometime we just need to make progress, in the work and across the arena.

Dinner needs to get cooked!

Never mind if the balance goes awry, what is the biggest length of stride the horse can offer?

What is the longest neck he can keep that balance on without going splat? He has to go splat at least once for you to find out the answer to that question. If he doesn’t go splat how do you know you have asked enough? Obviously you ask for a touch less next time.

And then the next time you pick another aspect.

So in my example; yesterday I worked on quality of topline. And the response to the aids also improved. Today I worked on responsiveness to the aids (and topline came for free with a few repetitions). Tomorrow I will need to find a different sequence or a different usage of that lesson (pretend piaffe/passage transitions with rein back legs maybe, or what does reinback leg do to the canter walk transition) otherwise I am drilling my horse, and sucking all of the joy out of his psyche.

So to get the best out of out horses, we need to learn to make the transition to “I can”.

To I can do the most magnificent trot, halt, rein back, trot that I can imagine, with this fabulous horse I am lucky enough to be riding in this moment. The horse doesn’t know this is a difficult exercise, he just hears your thoughts, well before your aids.

So make those thoughts worth listening to. Make him feel magnificent.

The magic is in the transition- when every possibility is available, everything is possible.

And teach yourself and your horse to succeed, a little more every day.

Every Opportunity to Praise- the power of positive feedback

Finding every opportunity to praise- the power of positive feedback, and the soundbite that summarises my current training philosophy.

I don’t get too hung up on R+, R-, I do use so-called aversives like spurs and whips and bits but I try to use them in the non-aversive way that we are taught is possible by 2000 years of classical tradition. And I am willing to learn and evolve, with the horses as my most reliable and honest teachers. So this article summarises where I am now. It’s a long way from where I was 10 years ago. And we may all read this in another 10 years and think what nonsense?

I seek to share my current understanding because writing it down helps me to clarify my thoughts, and because occasionally it seems to help other people too.

So, I seek every opportunity to praise…the horse, the junior doctor, myself. It becomes a way of being, seeking the opportunity to praise the positive in every action or interaction

As some of you will already have read, my glorious warmblood was recently diagnosed with a kissing spine.

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/the-rocky-road-to-rehab/?fbclid=IwAR0j8hIJFXag31z0ciYySH4UgIRnTSgVYgTPgnoKqFIlU3NaPQslSuz77Ho

As he is still young, green and growing, and as my personal circumstances have been a bit complicated recently, I have made a conscious decision to take his rehab very slowly. To allow the growth spurt to complete, to let him down and let the spasmed muscles relax, to get him pain free and in good shape physically and mentally and then to start again from the beginning. This time I will pay meticulous attention to posture and correct muscle usage and see if we can end up with a better back that will allow me to sit on it without causing trouble or pain.

This rationale also gives me time to completely rebuild our training relationship, from the ground, so we have trust and a good communication system in place before I get back on. And this process has set me thinking about how I train: what is my methodology?

And I have arrived at the soundbite; seek every opportunity to praise.

I’m not very good at clicker training. Currently I don’t own a horse that is more motivated by food than by praise, so the premise of training to a click backed up by food doesn’t work for my current equine partners. I’m also not as quick to click as I am to praise with my voice, so for me it is much easier to ‘mark’ with my voice. And as horses are basically telepathic, even if they don’ t hear the word, they hear the thought…so for me a clicker just introduces a layer of delay.

I’m also put off by the tragic story of Tilikum- when clicker training goes wrong, the result can be dangerous frustration for the animal.

https://youtu.be/fLOeH-Oq_1Y

I’m sure the horse will come along one day that forces me to learn clicker training and I will have to eat these words, as I have so many others!! But life is a journey…

The key question is what to praise. Now the horses and I are back in company rather than living at home in our little private bubble, we are once again exposed to other humans and their relationships with their horses. One can learn a lot by listening.

The other day our neighbour was grooming her pony. Every other word seemed to be a No, or a Don’t Do That, or a Stop That, or another No.

Now I am a proud survivor of surgical training; in the good old days, you knew you were doing well if the boss kept quiet, and you only got spoken to, or rapped on the knuckles, if you were doing it wrong. When we read about how to raise children, we read that “the average toddler hears the word “no” an astonishing 400 times a day, according to experts. That’s not only tiresome for you but it can also be harmful to your child: According to studies, kids who hear “no” too much have poorer language skills than children whose parents offer more positive feedback.”

Disciplining Your Child Without Saying No. – Redbook

https://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/advice/a2560/how-to-say-no/

But if we just randomly say Good Boy, how will the horse, or the child, learn what was good or desired?

It’s all about timing.

Here’s an example. Rocky, the young warmblood, has really mobile shoulders and very expressive front legs. His reaction to food, to buckets, to grooming, to challenge, is to wave, particularly his right, foreleg around, and for me the waving is often at waist height. There is no point telling him not to do this; by the time we are saying No Don’t Do That the foot is already up in the air. He doesn’t choose to do it, it’s a reaction, an instinct. Horses don’t reason or plan, they react. There is no possible way of teaching the horse Don’t Do That once the action has already occurred.

Instead, how about we teach him to put the leg back down on the ground on command? At first this is opportunistic training; every time the leg hits the ground as he’s scraping or waving, I praise- “Down- Good”. Eventually, we just have to say ‘Down’ and the leg will land.

I don’t want to teach him not to wave the leg around; who knows, we might want Spanish Walk one day, although I’m not sure gymnastically that this particular horse will ever require that exercise LOL; his shoulders are already mobile enough.

Goofball Rocky with his very mobile shoulders

So the principle is: rather than trying to teach a negative after the unwanted behaviour has occurred, instead we teach a positive correction to the unwanted behaviour, a correction that we can cue and then reward. This has the advantage of not preventing a behaviour or movement we may want to access again in the future, and also gives us the opportunity to praise our horse rather than rebuke him. Horses, like children, respond much better to positive feedback than negative. They enjoy being right, and being rewarded for being right.

Another common misconception is that we can get a horse to calm down by stroking or patting them when they are on high alert.

Effectively, what we are doing here is rewarding the horse for being anxious or fractious. We are reinforcing the unwanted behaviour. Far better to change the mood and then reward the following calm, which is the desired behaviour. How do we change the mood?

Laughter or yawning are my two favourite strategies here. When Cal was a youngster and we were hacking around Kingsley as the annual scarecrow competition hit full swing, I used to giggle at the crazy stuff in the hedges. The best one was a pair of legs, sticking up out of the hedge, as if diving into a pool; I think it must have been London Olympic year. Cal would be eyeballing the scarecrows and sidling past at speed and I would be chuckling and giggling, but with hands loose on the reins and concentrating on loose legs and relaxed seat. He’s pretty bombproof now.

At competitions with Cal, or handling Rocky recently when he’s been in pain having physio, I focus on boredom and yawning. Boredom slows your heart rate and lowers your energy, while yawning relaxes the jaw and the neck, and therefore the hands, as well as changing the frequency of your thoughts. When the horse comes down in energy, relaxes or yawns, then we can take the opportunity to praise the relaxation and the calm, because that is the desired behaviour.

Now I’m far from perfect. I’m not trying to preach, just to share some stuff I have learned. Tonight was worming night, and Rocky still had me swinging around the stable because yet again I didn’t do enough prep work in between wormings. But I will do the prep work, and it will get easier.

When I’m riding nowadays, I’m alway looking for the moment to praise, the topline stretch or the moment of throughness or relaxation that I can mark as desirable so I might get offered it again. I am also careful to praise myself- although that’s much more subtle. I don’t vocalise those moments so much, although maybe I should, but a turn in balance or good use of a seat aid will get noted as a nice feeling, or a good moment, with a nod or a smile.

More importantly, I don’t beat myself up for the not perfect moments anymore- I have a giggle, regroup and do it again, better. I no longer hate my disobedient legs, or my flappy elbow, or my gripping left hand, instead I notice them, change them, forgive myself, correct them again…until the corrections become fewer and further between….and then you notice your flappy knee or your sticky out toe and move onto to the next bit of homework.

Finding every opportunity to praise, ourselves and our horses, keeps training fun and rewarding, and beats the winter blues.

So here’s some homework. First spend an evening wth your horse just listening to what you say to him, is it no or is it yes, is it don’t do that or clever boy?

And then spend an evening being really careful to look for the moment to praise, both you and him, for the good stuff, and to replace a Don’t with a Can You Do this instead. And then observe both your moods. I predict your horse will be proud and puffed up and loving at the end of a positive session.And you will go home energised and enthused and looking forward to the next session, no matter what has occurred, because you have both had more fun.

And then suddenly might just happen over a very long time 😉

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/suddenly-happens-over-a-very-long-time/

Because there is pure magic in the power of perfectly timed positive feedback.

Seek every opportunity to praise xxx

Suddenly happens over a very long time…

Suddenly happens over a very long time… this is another of those annoying contradictions that is so true of dressage training, of deep learning, or of developing expertise. How many times have you heard someone say- “we were stuck for ages and then suddenly, it just happened, as if by magic.”

Or the converse, “everything was going so well and then suddenly, out of nowhere, it all went horribly wrong. ”

Suddenly happens over a very long time.

Watching good dressage training

can be like watching paint dry. Cal and I have a fairly predictable school routine now; first we cover the arena with many random footprints, changing direction, weighting different hind legs, suppling the shoulders and the barrel.

All the while, I run through my position; are my legs kicked out of my hip sockets, are my knees down, are my calves long, are my seat bones open and my pelvis neutral, have I got 3 good spines, a good flat back, a solid frontline, and most recently, a seat that moves through my hands.

Then we move on to checking the 4 corners of the horse, have I got control of the 4 corners, is the weight equal between sides, is the bend even in both directions, have I got directional control, is he full from tail to poll, have I got lift and stretch?

Then we start doing laterals, in walk first and then either focus on trot or canter work. We pick an exercise to use as a test, then another to improve on the dilemma we find, then test again. Suddenly happens over a very long time.

It sounds very serious but we actually laugh a lot together, Cal and I. He is much less perturbed these days about having to be right all the time. The key for me is not to mind the moments where we lose balance, or lose steering, or just lose everything. I practise non judgmental observation, then make the change required (hopefully- there’s a 50-:50 chance of being right usually) and then test the result. It’s taken me a long time to get to that stage- I used to get annoyed by our mistakes, or frustrated by my incompetence, or so focussed on achieving the task that I was rigid in my aiding and obsessed with task completion not quality of gymnastic (riding the exercise not the horse).

I rode last night in my winter jodhpurs, which don’t have a sticky bum, and I’ve been a bit short on riding hours the last couple of weeks. So, when I lost my rhythm, I slithered all over. I’m sure Cal was giggling, but he kindly didn’t drop me, or object!

Now these days I know that while it is important to complete the exercise, because there is magic in the patterns as well as in the aiding, it is also important to be able to notice and change each step….or at least some of them. Suddenly happens over a very long time.

Every moment I am asking what do we have, what do I like, what do I want to keep, what do I want to change? I say every moment, in horse time it’s probably every 600 moments, in between running the human position check program, doing the steering, checking the bend, the weight, the back, breathe, check my position…you get the idea. We take frequent rest breaks and we accept one or two steps of good initially because we know these few steps will build up to a whole long side one day.

The last time I went to watch Charles de Kunffy teach, I had been playing with canter half pass on the long diagonal the day before. Cal could do about 3 steps of canter half pass before it all fell apart. I practised a good few times across the diagonal and then when we got to 4 passable strides I stopped. Charles asked for 3 strides canter half pass, then 3 straight then another 3 strides canter half pass. The horses were empowered, rather than pressured, and the few strides requested got better and bolder with each repeat. Such a simple lesson, and such a good reminder.

Likewise with your baby horse, if you only have 4 reliable strides of canter, take the 4 strides, ask for the trot, then ask again. The magic is in the transition, the taking weight behind occurs in the moment of change, the shift in the back occurs in the switch of rhythm, not in the lolloping around.

The trick to make suddenly happen over a very long time is to notice the quality of each moment and then to make the appropriate change. As Charles says so eloquently in “The Ethics and Passion Of Dressage”-

‘There is no neutrality in riding: you are either actively improving your horse or actively breaking him down’

Cal’s neck has ‘suddenly’ got huge. Over the space of a few weeks, it seemed to deepen by about 3 inches. Did I do anything differently to cause this sudden change?

No- we were doing the same work, the same basic regime, although the exercise are getting more advanced, laterals on a circle or curving line, transitions in shoulder in, smaller patterns.

Building muscle, and building a horse is incremental, and exponential. If the foundations are good, and the details attended to at the beginning, then latter progress can be rapid.

Charles writes about this too-

‘we remember that the “finished horse” is born of daily attention to minutia in schooling. Careful consistency, repetition and elaboration are part of that daily work which produce the supple horse.’

I have really done my homework over the last few years. I have worked on my position with every spare brain cell and bit of muscle memory I could muster, I have used any precious arena time as efficiently as possible, I have done thousands of transitions, of bend, of weight, of speed, of topline…

I’ve had a lot of fun as well, farm riding, eventing, charging around the forest, but every moment on the horse I have genuinely tried to ride as well as possible, in that moment.

And suddenly my horse is looking really fancy. Suddenly, over a long period of time, my horse has become magnificent.

And in the process, I have learned a huge amount, about positive thinking, about discipline and change, about body and mind, and about life.

Because once you have seen something, you cannot unsee it. Once the feeling of true flow has been experienced, nothing else will do. Suddenly happens over a very long time. You are either improving something or breaking it down. You get to choose which, every minute, every day. I would recommend that, rather than coasting along, you focus on improving the daily details, the gymnastic, the posture, the flow, so that you suddenly find magic, not despair.

And if you get into the habit of checking every moment for what do you like, what would you keep, what would you discard, some unexpected patterns emerge, in human life as well as in the arena.

And when effecting positive change, in the moment, by choice, becomes a way of life, then the world might just shift on its axis.

Good riding should be therapeutic. It turns out that good horsemanship can also be therapeutic, for the human as well as the horse.

Suddenly happens over a very long time….and then nothing will ever be the same again.

“The horse is indeed the only master of his forces that our own strength is quite unable to augment by itself alone. It is hence up to him to use them to his liking and to determine the way to employ them in order to respond in the best way possible to the rider’s indications. Should the latter want to act by himself, the horse lets himself be carried and adjusts his efforts to those that the man makes him feel. But if the horse knows that he can rely upon his own means only, he will use them without expecting anything but indications, and then he uses them in full, with all his stamina.”

Beudant

Change is inevitable. You can choose

The Rocky Road to Rehab

It’s taken me a few weeks to be able to write about our glorious youngster’s diagnosis and the Rocky road to rehab.

I know all about the road to rehab- it’s almost 7 years since Cal fractured his carpal bone. And I completely believe a good outcome is possible – Cal’s fracture taught me to trust the process and detach from the outcome. He has become the most fabulous horse you could wish for. And the fracture, although well healed, made sure he was another horse I could never sell. (How does anyone manage to sell a horse?)

I clearly remember the early uncertainty, the agony of box rest, the hundreds of miles we walked in hand, and then finally the relief when he jumped his first course and stayed sound.

I just never expected to be on the road to rehab with Rocky.

We bought him as a yearling.

Well bred, well handled, but completely unspoilt, from a trusted source. He came home with us from the South Coast, after Paddy dumped me in the ditch at Longleat. Paddy did share some wise words with him on the trip home though- he travelled like a pro and learned to eat out of a haynet on the way.

We turned him out with another colt at a friend’s place and let them be boys, living out and razzing around together. We brought him in to the livery yard aged 3, a couple of months before we moved into our own place. Once our land was sorted the three horses went out together full time, and gelled as a little herd straightaway.

Paddy was hiding – Ernie thinks they are his brothers anyway

The pity party

The reason it’s taken me a few weeks to share a bit more is that I have been having a proper pity party. Everything we have learned about over the last few years, the entire focus of our horsey learning, has been about correct classical training, that is meant to preserve the health of the horse and prevent this type of injury.

The stages of balance, from Egon Von Nendirf’s beautiful book. Rider is Melissa Simms, who passed away only recently.

Good work is meant to be therapeutic. Rehab is really just about going back to absolute basics, working on the ground for now, opening up those intervertebral spaces and building the muscle in between. It’s basically what we should be doing all along.

Rocky had the joint space medicated, and this was followed up with some ultrasound to the muscles of his lumbar region, as these also were in spasm.

The ODGs knew all about kissing spine- correct classical training focuses on opening the back, elongating the top line, thereby preventing them occurring. Piaffe, the test of collection, also shows maximal length from tail to poll, when done correctly, along the arch of the top line.

Nuno showing an exemplary piaffe- all on the seat

Levade requires even more topline

Einsr Smit-Jensen archive — The lumbar back is curved, the loins coiled, the hind legs and hocks flexed.

We’ve taken it really slowly

We did 6 weeks of in hand work and sat on him briefly at 3, did about 3 months in hand work and rode him away for 6 weeks at 4, and then did a bit more with him in his 5th summer, a few fun rides, a bit of light schooling and hacking, a bit of polework.

This year, his 6th year, was meant to be when the work got a bit more consistent. As often happens, our working lives have been the limiting factor, as well as Rocky’s ‘tricky nature’.

Do we even believe horses can have tricky natures?

https://sophieshorsetales.com/done-with-well-behaved-horses/

This is not a young horse that has been over-worked…

Or was he?

I was starting to use judgmental words about him though- ‘backward’, the ‘work ethic of a flea’, because he would stop dead when tired and have a little buck when asked to go forwards.

I’ve written about this before

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/use-your-words-carefully/

I should have known better.

So the pity party has been all about where did we go wrong?

Have we done too much ridden work with him?

http://www.equinestudies.org/ranger_2008/ranger_piece_2008_pdf1.pdf

Have we ridden him too much, when we should have been building a stronger horse with good in hand work and just riding a little?

Is the injury the result of an unfortunate conformational glitch?

Did the injury occur when he got stuck under the partition in the truck a couple of years ago? He didn’t thrash around or panic but still…

And then after a couple of days madness, I gave myself a slap and a talking to. It doesn’t matter how it happened- we just need to focus on the rocky road to rehab.

Rehab is a rollercoaster of emotions, hopes and dreams, where actually we just have to knuckle down, do the work and trust the process. All the previous learning, all the work on posture, timing, training, helping horses find biomechanically correct movement, will surely get put to extra good use now.

The value of good in hand work

The value of good in hand work can not be overstated. I never manage to do as much as I should. Only last week, Cal, my supposedly advanced horse, was the demo pony for a Patrice clinic, which meant I was the demo human (gulp). We found a few holes in the simple work- for example the SI left has too much neck bend, and so doesn’t weight the inside hind or stretch along the outside, and leg yield left, he doesn’t actually choose to step past his barrel with his hind leg-the mistakes are much easier to feel and correct from the ground if we are observant and honest enough with ourselves.

It’s also important not to pussy foot around with the rehab horse. We mustn’t look at them as if they are broken- they find this really disconcerting. Instead we should look at them with soft eyes, taking in the details of the movement, the stretch needed here, the balance needed there. We should do all the best work, asking nothing less than enough, yet noticing and rewarding every try that gets us towards better. We should remind them of their magnificence, encourage them to use themselves fully and correctly, and welcome the moment when the whole fabulous horse turns up.

In hand work also teaches us about our horses’ training brain. Rocky has always thrown his whole genetically gifted body at any task. When I ask him to slow down and actually work within himself, paying attention to the details of which leg goes where, he then needs to work really slowly, with lots of breathing and thinking breaks. This is timing and observation I will need to take forward to the ridden work once we get back on.

Some vets recommend a Pessoa or similar training aid when rehabbing a horse with kissing spines. The advantages are that it stretches the horse ‘over the back’- that horrid modern phrase. The disadvantages are that any training aid attached to the mouth only serves to teach the horse to avoid the bit- imagine jagging yourself in the teeth every time you move a leg?

In classical training, the bit belongs to the horse.

The horse has to learn to trust the bit, to take it forwards, to use it as a point of reference to reach towards and work around. The bit should never be used against the horse, neither as a means of control nor as a tool to ’round the neck’. Even the subtlest of left/right actions backwards on the bars of the north or downwards on the tongue teach the horse to avoid the aversive pressure and duck behind the bit to relieve the pain. Working them in a training aid that attaches to the mouth isn’t subtle, and there is no way the bit can act in the corners of the mouth, as it should, when the head is strapped down.

I have been using the equi-bands, to encourage Rocky to lift his tummy and round his back – this specific training aid has no front part so all influence on the head is from the human hand to the front of the cavesson, teaching the horse to stretch forward over the topline. The connection to the cavesson should be like the connection to the rein- and the line held like a rein- it only acts forward and up, and continually places the contact in front of the horse so that he learns to take the contact forwards.

Manolo- the photo shows beautifully how asking for a forward long neck extends the spinous processes. His contact is a bit vague in this moment but you get a good sense of elbow bent, line held correctly, lower arm opening forwards encouraging the topline to reach.

And perhaps most of all we should never underestimate the healing power of love, positive energy, and sunshine.

Rocky chilling out after a work session with his Arc gizmo on in the sun

Online dressage competition

I’ve been meaning to try an online dressage competition for ages, so when our blogging support group got an offer for free entries in return for blogging about the experience, I accepted with alacrity.

We were approached by Melissa of Dressage Riders Online.

http://www.dressageridersonline.co.uk

I chose to do a novice test- this month’s allocation was N24, a test I have ridden once before.

Now, the first advantage of doing an online dressage competition is that no plaiting is required- as Cal has enough mane for 2 horses.

Cal showing off his double mane at dinner

This grows at top speed, no matter how much I pull and tidy, I have resigned myself to sewing in 19-21 plaits for any competitive outing.

19 Plaits looking a bit flat after overnight attack of the Lycra hood

No plaits is therefore a huge treat for me, although Cal quite likes looking smart.

The other advantage of online dressage competition is that you get to use your own familiar arena, without any diesel costs.

We don’t have our own arena. My lovely neighbour has a fabulous arena that I am fortunate to be allowed to use regularly- it’s secluded and peaceful, more or less next door, I hack there and I quite often have the place to myself. Cal generally goes beautifully there.

Until we needed to mark out a 20m x 40m space. I enlisted Gary’s help as arena builder and camera man and he, being a perfectionist, brought his massive tape measure to make sure it was marked out correctly. So as I was working in, we had slithery snake-like metallic tape measure and moving poles to contend with. It was also quite windy so the hedge monsters were out in force and the new patio umbrellas were waving gently.

Cal kept it together remarkably well and was working nicely so we decided to go for the first take. I stopped at C to pass the phone over the fence to Gary, who had to crawl through the electric tape to take it off me, and Zap!!! He got a proper shock!

Gary yelled and jumped, Cal jumped and then decided that C was obviously a really dangerous place to be! Another 10minutes of working in at that end, I eventually convinced him that it might be safe to approach the fence as usual.

After 3 takes we had a test I thought might be worth sending in. Just as well, it was the last possible filming day of the month- I’m a bit of a deadline queen.

I’m not the only blogger who benefited from the free trial of online dressage competition-

A Perfect Storm https://m.facebook.com/aperfectstormx/

was quicker on the posting trigger and even managed to share a clip of her test video, showing stretching on a circle.

‘Uh oh’ I thought, ‘I’m pretty sure there’s no stretching on a circle on my video?’

Sure enough there wasn’t- whoops!

With no judge to beep when I’d gone off course, I had merrily missed out a whole movement!

Too late- month over, video gone in.

On the Tuesday evening as I was heading towards Mostyn for an evening show jumping lesson, Melissa messaged me to say my WeTransfer link wasn’t opening properly, she was off to work and could I send my test to the judge directly? As I was headed into deepest darkest Wales on my own in the truck, this wasn’t the best news!

I had a couple more tries on arrival at Mostyn but I really could not get the WeTransfer app to work correctly from my phone.

I finally managed to send a link to my YouTube channel (get me- total technophobe dunce- YouTube??), when I got home at 930pm, convinced I would be too late.

But no, the judge was lovely and kind and accepted my video.

And we came 2nd!!!

The test sheet and the rosette arrived a couple of days later.

Gorgeous rossie 😀

Helen Copeland is a list 5 BD judge from the North East. The comments were really positive and helpful, with none of the usual meaningless phrases

(‘could be rounder’, and ‘needs to be more over the back’ in particular being two phrases that are guaranteed to send the test sheet into the bin without me reading further)

and I thought the marks more than fair for our rather challenging day at home.

The marks would have been even better was there not a big fat 0 in the stretchy circle box!

And I love Haribos!

So would I do it again?

Definitely.

I feel it is important to ride tests occasionally, in order to identify the challenges in the work and the next areas of focus required in the training. Along with the discipline of doing a particular movement at the marker as well as when the right moment arrives.

We’ve taped the marker spots on the neighbour’s arena fence so set up next time should be quicker.

My limiting factor will always be finding someone to video, preferably without electrocuting themselves first, but now I’ve got the technology sorted, actually submitting the video should be easier.

And most importantly, this is the the first judge for ages who has put useful specific comments that seem to demonstrate an understanding of correct training.

Because we train our horses classically, which to me means as ethically, and as biomechanically correctly as possible, the modern obsession with over tempo horses and false roundness in front, no matter what else is occurring, has actually properly put me off formal dressage competition. Obviously when Eventing we have to do a test so we can get onto the XC course.

So I’m encouraged to try online dressage competition again, hopefully with Cal in a calmer frame of mind next time, and see if we can improve our test riding. And hopefully see some progression in our scores as he improves.

So a huge thank to Melissa from Dressage Riders Online for the chance to try out online dressage competition.

You have hooked me in as a regular customer from now on in.

Here’s the link again

http://www.dressageridersonline.co.uk/

I thoroughly recommend this lovely site for friendly help and ease of use. If I can manage the technical video sending bit then honestly, anyone else will be fine.

Thanks to Gary for filming – please note no Garys were harmed in the production of this movie 😂😂, and to Stacey for being the best horsey neighbour ever.

And to Cal, for simply being the best teacher one could wish for 😍😍

Cal after Shelford UA ODE- his back looks amazing these days

How much grass do horses need?

As some of you may know, I have just come back from Mongolia, the original land of the horse. I was fortunate to be part of a scientific expedition to a mountainous region in the West of Outer Mongolia.

You can read the official trip report here

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/the-mongolian-baatar-expedition-2018/

Horses were our main form of transport, and our expedition team included a zoologist, a botanist, and an archeologist as well as the herdsman and grooms who looked after us and our trusty steeds. Amongst other lessons, this was a unique opportunity to learn about the incredibly bio-diverse plants of Mongolia, in the context of fodder for the sturdy little mountain horses.

How much grass do horses need?

When you look out across the steppes, mountains and plains of Western Mongolia, it all looks really green.

However, when you get closer to the green, it’s actually sandy, rocky, shaley soil, with a patchy smattering of plants; mostly succulents. This part of the country is really arid, with very little ground moisture, so succulents and hardy herbs and weeds do best. The plants were often tiny, yet with really complex, swollen, almost tuber-like root systems.

Trees were a rarity, growing only by oases or rivers. Winter had been late this year, so the flowers weren’t really out when we arrived, but did start to appear later in the trip when there had been some rain. We flew into and out of Khovd, the small domestic airport that serves Western Mongolia, and we could see a definite difference in the green cover between arriving and leaving, 2 weeks apart.

There are over 3,000 plant species described in Mongolia, with over 975 having a use in traditional medicine. On the lower slopes of the Altai mountains, our botanist told we should expect to find 14-18 different species of plant within a metre square. None of these would be species that you and I would recognise as grass. There were lots of varieties from the pea family, a Mongolian thistle, Mongolian chives (delicious as a snack when travelling), bellflowers, Iris, Ephedra, and Artemesia or wormseed. My olfactory memory of our trip will be a perfume made up of Artemesia, DEET, leather and horse sweat- a heady combination indeed!

The horses were tough little buggers; approximately 13-14hh. They were all barefoot, obviously. None of the horses are trained to pick their feet up and none of the herdsman owned a rasp, so they are all self trimming. Feet varied in shape; although the majority were very similar to the mustang hoof we see in the Pete Ramey and Jaime Jackson books, there were some with flares, and slightly longer toes. The feet were all incredibly tough, and highly functional.

We travelled across boulder fields, up and down stony mountain tracks, across steep scree slopes, as well as across the green(ish) foothills and the more gravelly steppes, and the little horses picked their way confidently over all terrain, for 20-30 kms a day, and were still keen to charge into camp at the end of the day.

We gave them a day off after a few tough days, and then an easy day on the last day which the herdsman must have cursed us for, as it took them two hours to round them all up for their night-time trip back over the hills for their next clients. Even in hobbles, some of them could move pretty fast!

They were lean, but very fit. During the day, they got a snack at lunchtime, grazing around in hobbles while we ate our little picnic boxes of pasta or cracked wheat with chewy beef, and they were sure to drink copiously from every stream we crossed.

At night, the bits were slipped from their mouths, although the rawhide bridles were left on, and they were hobbled and turned loose around the campsite. In the morning the herdsman would jump on the nearest horse and go and round up the others, ready for action.

How much grass do horses need?

Not much, apparently, in the high mountain country. The herdsman and the botanist knew which plants contained the minerals and vitamins the animals needed for good health, and the horses self selected at every opportunity. At stream crossings, while waiting their turn, they took the chance to grab mouthfuls of more lush reeds and grasses. If we stopped to take photographs of a new variety of herb or plant, the horses also checked out what we had found and had a quick munch.

In Hustain, back in the East and South of Ulan Bataar, there is a reserve where the Przewalski horses thrive in the wild. Here, at lower altitudes, the plains were greener and lusher, but we still counted 18-25 species within a square metre, and over 90 varieties of plant just in the small valley where our campsite was situated. There were more grasses here, as well as numerous wildflowers and herbs.

The Takhi, or Przewalski, were very plump, but they get a very short summer and a long harsh winter, so presumably were layering up fat for the cold, None of them seemed to have pathological or sore feet.

Back home.. I looked at a few scattered metre squares in our field. I got up to 9 species of plant in the best one, and have about 20 species of plants altogether if I count the hedgerows and the low hanging tree branches. We have this little lovely- Prunella Vulgaris or Selfheal. What a useful weed! 😍

Below is a bouquet of grass flowers from our re-wilding area,

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/grow-your-own/

over-seeded with gifts from a friend, who inadvertently bought one of the last remaining areas of Upland Hay Meadow in the UK with his retirement cottage.

So how much grass do horses need? The answer seems to be, not much grass at all actually. As long as they have access to a wide variety of plants including grasses, herbs, weeds and trees they should be able to meet all their nutritional needs. The key to whole horse health is surely preserving the biodiversity of the fields they graze in, and also their own hindgut micro-biome?

The Mongolian horses were very skilled at self selection.

In human nutrition, we know that almost everything in moderation is good, while anything to excess can be bad, even celery!

Why would horses be any different?

We “know” that bracken is poisonous to horses. But bracken contains an insulin like compound. Eaten to excess (12kg, the research says) then yes, too much insulin like compound would be toxic. But in Spring, when the lush grass comes through, a little bit of bracken can help the horse cope with the sugar- rich grass flush and protect them against laminitis.

Likewise, oak trees are supposedly poisonous to horses. But oaks contain tannins, which have an anti – helminthic effect. Our horses choose to browse the low hanging oak branches in the field, and love to drink out of the tea- coloured stream that runs through the peat bog in the forest. Are they doing their own worm control regime?

Or even better, their own pro-biotic? I’m now buying EM1- Effective Micro-organisms, a suspended culture of live bacteria for hind gut health. Drinking from a muddy puddle may well provide the same bacteria, in a handy suspension, at no cost?

Maybe, when horses gorge on acorns, escape from fields or break into feed rooms, it’s because they don’t have sufficient to meet their needs? Was their paddock bare, had the haynet run out, or are they craving a vital nutrient that cannot be obtained from grass alone?

Our horses only break into the middle grass, off the track, if the Haylage feeders run dry and there isn’t enough on the track to interest them. Last Friday, the Haylage finished overnight but the hedgerow is chock full of fun stuff like blackberries and fresh hawthorn, and the track is now covered in tiny bits of green- they didn’t beak through the electric despite the battery being low.

So much grass do horses need?

I guess it all depends on the quality of your meadow-

Maybe a better question would be how many grasses do horses need?

Here’s a challenge– how about you go and measure a rough metre square in your grazing and count how many different species of plant grow there?

here are some links to other accounts of the trip

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeenshire/1538375/adventure-seeking-castle-keeper-takes-trip-of-a-lifetime-with-mongolian-horseback-expedition/

https://www.caymancompass.com/2018/08/12/cayman-resident-explores-the-steppes-of-mongolia/

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2018/08/18/rare-sights-for-mongolia-team-led-by-jersey-adventurer/

Tag: horse riding

“Being Seen, Being Heard, Feeling Felt and Getting Gotten”

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If Only my Horse could Talk…

“If only my horse could talk!”

“If only my human could listen.”

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Living in the Here and Now

Fear setting was a new concept to me until last year.

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Learning Our Horses’ Alphabet

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Make the Mental Transition to “I can”

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Every Opportunity to Praise- the power of positive feedback

And I have arrived at the soundbite; seek every opportunity to praise.

Disciplining Your Child Without Saying No. – Redbook

It’s all about timing.

Another common misconception is that we can get a horse to calm down by stroking or patting them when they are on high alert.

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Suddenly happens over a very long time…

Watching good dressage training

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The Rocky Road to Rehab

We bought him as a yearling.

The pity party

We’ve taken it really slowly

The value of good in hand work

In classical training, the bit belongs to the horse.

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Online dressage competition

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How much grass do horses need?

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

“If only my horse could talk!”

“If only my human could listen.”

Share this:

Like this:

Fear setting was a new concept to me until last year.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

And I have arrived at the soundbite; seek every opportunity to praise.

Disciplining Your Child Without Saying No. – Redbook

It’s all about timing.

Another common misconception is that we can get a horse to calm down by stroking or patting them when they are on high alert.

Share this:

Like this:

Watching good dressage training

Share this:

Like this:

We bought him as a yearling.

The pity party

We’ve taken it really slowly

The value of good in hand work

In classical training, the bit belongs to the horse.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: