Category: Classical Riding

Change is inevitable

Change is inevitable in life- we are never static. With horses, we are either building them up or breaking them down (Charles de Kunffy).

Photos are an important tool to chart our progress, in either direction.

I found this old photo of Cal in my memories today- what struck me immediately was how weedy his chest looked then compared to nowadays.

Change is inevitable.

This photo was taken on the Whitegate Way when he would have been 7. I bought him at 6, he fractured his carpal bone that winter. This photo was taken the winter after, when he was just back into work but we hadn’t yet met Patrice and started our Classical training journey.

I think this was the snow that disrupted the first Patrice clinic I was due to attend. I’m pretty sure this was the day we were meant to be at Stafford Horse Trials- funnily enough it was cancelled that year!!

 

 

Change is inevitable, and its lovely when it’s good. The photo below was taken late summer this year. Look at the chest on it now! He is every inch the magnificent draught in this photo.

So for those who don’t believe that horses grow both taller and broader with correct training- here is some evidence 🙂

Change is inevitable, but you can choose which change to pursue.

I’m hoping the TB half will be more obvious when he is eventing fit…but then again… I quite like the magnificent charger.

We get the horse we need for the next stage of our learning, not necessarily the horse we think we want.

Bring on 2018 🙂

 

First do no harm…

First do no harm… You may not know, but I am a surgeon in my other life, so “first do no harm…” is the mantra that I live by, day to day, and try to apply in every interaction in life, human to human and human to horse. Above is another doctor, who I am sure shared the same mantra.

Now I know we all love our horses and we work really hard for them and with them, and nobody that got into horses ever did so with the intention of causing harm. But here is an awkward truth:

“The intention to harm need not be present for a horse in fact to be harmed”

So how might we harm our horses?

The first most obvious example is blood. Now we all may have different standards but one of my basic principles is that nothing I do to my horse should make him bleed.

I’m not saying I have never caused a horse to bleed- when Paddy was in work, I rubbed his side raw in a jumping lesson, not with a spur but with a spur rest. Yes, he does have incredibly thin skin. But that wasn’t an excuse. I rubbed his side raw because my leg position wasn’t good enough in those days and I was gripping with my calves, in that “knees out, heels in” stable, secure and incorrect position that jumping trainers encourage because it decreases the number of ground slaps that might occur in any one lesson.

It wouldn’t happen now. Four years and hundreds of pounds of seat focussed lessons later my leg position has changed entirely, my seat is now secure and I aid with the inside of my foot not the back of my calf.

When Cal was young I rubbed his mouth raw with the bit. The well meaning livery yard owner gave me some crystals to mix with water to harden up his mouth. I was an idiot and uneducated and I used the solution and carried on schooling. No one suggested I should learn to use the bit better or learn to keep my hands still (independent seat again); it was the young horse’s soft mouth that was the problem and there was a caustic solution for that.

First do no harm…

Rocky has not had a sore mouth. Now we have learned that the bit should only act up or out, never down on the bars, that the length of rein is dictated by the horse, that the frame dictates the length of rein and the horse’s level of balance and schooling dictates the frame. And I have a more secure seat that allows me to think forwards with my hands without losing balance.

So obviously I’m still not perfect, but I’m learning and trying to be better all the time. And if I caused one of my horses to bleed in a competition I would eliminate myself and kick myself and run for home to train and improve myself so it could never happen again.

First do no harm…

There are other more insidious ways of causing harm to a horse. The modern fashion of riding Low Deep and Round, also known as deep stretching, well behind the vertical, has been shown by more than 50 scientific studies to be physically and mentally damaging for the horse. Modern science is proving what the Old Dead Guys knew by keen observation- closed postures and curling the front of the horse rather than riding from the haunches leads to problems with kissing spines, suspensory ligament pathology, SI joint damage, hock arthritis, and also to stress and gastric ulcers first from having their vision limited and then from learned helplessness.

First do no harm…

This horse is behind the vertical- red vertical line included for reference.

Please don’t take my word for it: read the research for yourselves

http://equitationscience.com/equitation/position-statement-on-alterations-of-the-horses-head-and-neck-posture-in-equitation

And then make your own minds up. But please remember

“To know and not to do is not to know”

So we are naturally too quick to criticise others, and all of us are just doing our best. How will we know if the work we are doing is correct?

Luckily horses are very clear once we have learned to look and listen.

I’ve altered the quote below (from Maya Angelou)

“I have learned that horses will forget what you said, horses will forget what you do, but horses will never forget how you made them feel”

So how do we know that our work is good? In a world where so much teaching is against the horse rather than for the good of the horse, how do we tell the difference? How do we know whether the work made his body feel better? Which after all is the whole point of Dressage- from the French verb ‘dresser’ which actually means to train, to sculpt our horse into a thing of beauty that is empowered rather than diminished by our interventions.

Did it make the horse feel good?

What signs do we look for to know it made them feel good?

My favourite sign is helicopter ears- they go soft and floppy and assume all sorts of funny angles. Rocky has huge ears, as do all his family, so this one is pretty obvious, as well as being visible from on top!

Another sign is soft liquid eyes, with relaxed ‘eyebrows” and slow blinking. When the work is good, the horse is calm, because horses are kinaesthetic and they find it frightening to be out of balance. When their balance is aided to improve, they relax and chill out. They almost look stoned after good work. Stoned, not exhausted.

Breathing slows and calms: soft hurrumphs or gentle chuntering are signs of a relaxed mouth , tongue and larynx as well as relaxed brain. Harsh sharp breathing, breath holding, or sharp snorting, teeth grinding or calling out are all sure signs of a horse either stressed or on full alert.

More on the mouth from James Dunlop:

“In the French Tradition, it is the state of the mouth that governs everything. There are three mouths possible. A dry mouth, a soaking wet one with gobs of foam on the chest and legs, and a moist one in which the lips are just moist and the lower jaw relaxed. The third mouth is described as being ‘fraiche’ and offers a gentle murmur (L’Hotte) as if to be ‘smiling’ ( Beudant) . It is to this third mouth that we should aspire.”

I always get off the horse after a work session and look critically at the muscles. Is the neck soft and inflated, are the under neck muscles soft, does the neck come nicely out of the shoulder girdle. Does it look wider at the base than the middle of the top? A good neck should be an even triangle  from withers to poll, and from shoulder girdle to poll. The LDR horses have this weird tube of muscle that runs up from the middle of their necks, with no splenius or trapezius; in layman’s terms they have a hollow missing triangle just in front of the withers and also under the pommel. This photo below is an example of a horse showing aberrant muscle development from excessive flexion.

A lovely reminder of the missing neck muscles, also showing why forward down and out is the healthiest position for the neck

Is the lumbar back full? Does the hors’s skin shine and glisten and move smoothly over his frame or does it look dry and tight and stuck to the bones? Is the tail carried, not clamped,  does it swing softly as he moves? If the tail swings, the back can’t be braced.

And finally, does he look proud after work? Does he go strutting back to the field to tell his mates how cool he was? Does he look better and stronger and bigger each time? Does he offer the improved posture next ride without having to do the prep work?

If he offers the new posture or the new body usage next time, you know it felt good and he’s choosing to seek that posture. If you have to do all the work all over again, every time, it didn’t feel better. And that means it probably wasn’t right. So don’t repeat it…because if you aren’t improving your horse you are breaking him down (Charles de Kunffy).

and first do no harm…

Use your words carefully

Use your words carefully; a post inspired by Lucinda Green.

Use your words carefully, because they reflect what you think, and actually can reinforce what you subconsciously believe. Use your words carefully, because they will reflect and reinforce how you behave. Use your words carefully, your internal dialogue as well as the external conversation.

A light bulb book for me this year was Shad Helmstetter’s “What to Say When you Talk to Yourself”.

 

 By listening to our internal dialogue (the little voices in our head) we can hear when we are self-critical, or self-sabotaging. Once you have listened to your internal dialogue you can pick aspects of it to re-programme, and improve. For example “I am always late”, “I’m a late person”, “I find it really hard to be on time”. If I say that to myself all the time, what is the outcome? You’ve guessed it- rarely on time. If I change that to “I am often late because I try to fit too much in and am unrealistic about how much time things take” then that phrase allows me to change: I can decrease my commitments, say no occasionally, make sure I include journey time and cup of tea time and hey presto, “I am now often early”. Use your words carefully, and choose good ones.

What’s this got to do with horses I hear you cry? Well everything, as everything to do with horse also has to do with life.

Use your words carefully when you talk about your horse.

Phrases I have heard recently “Rude down the rein” “Just taking advantage” “Just being a brat”

“Just being a brat” was me. Our youngster Rocky was pretty easy as a 4 year old.

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This year he has found his body and has been throwing some amazing shapes. It’s been scary, amusing, testing, in varying degrees. When the international standard movement and that athletic warmblood body turn up at full power, it feels spectacular. As we are getting too old to bounce, he went to boot camp, twice. He came back both times better but still making shapes. At the last clinic with Patrice, I ‘finally’ realised the shapes were a reaction to the rider being out of balance. That’s why I always felt I was sat in the middle of the buck, or leap, he was putting me back where he wanted me to sit! As he is young and slightly crooked, the left side of his body feels like an empty space. When I sit level, he levels himself, the left side of his body comes under me, both hind legs can go forward and hey presto, so can the whole horse. So the shift in mindset is that he’s allowed to tell us when the rider is out of balance, but quietly and politely. An ear flicker would be adequate, rather than a full blown capriole. So we listen to him, quietly, and he turns the volume down. The last few rides have been delightfully uneventful!

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“Just taking advantage” was a comment made by a friend when we were chatting about the recent Lucinda Green demo masterclass at Aintree.  A lovely ex-racehorse had misunderstood the complex grid and had run out past the tiny skinny, twice. The rider had allowed the horse to run past the obstacle and so the horse had learned- “Oh, it’s OK if I run past this little silly thing because he lets me”.

Horses always know where their feet are.

So Lucinda’s instructions were to stop the horse, immediately, so he couldn’t run away past the fence. The rider was then to ask for rein back, reversing away from the fence enough to allow a repeat approach. She then uttered the phrase which absolutely made my evening “Regroup. Let him breathe and then ask him to take you over the fence.”

And he popped it beautifully. Such a simple change of phrase changed everything.

Use your words carefully.

Just look again at the difference between those 2 phrases.

“Taking advantage”.  He wasn’t. He was doing what he had been taught, very quickly, by being allowed to run out on two previous attempts. Horses learn in an instant. Once it was explained to him that the run out wasn’t the correct answer, and he was given time to regroup, he found another answer just as quickly. The correct answer, for which he got rewarded. How many riders or trainers do you know that might have chased him in, given him a smack, got stronger and louder, when all the horse needed was the time to think and a better explanation?

Use your words carefully.

“Ask him to take you to the fence.” A lifetime of sympathetic horsemanship and horse-centred training summed up in that one phrase.

You can almost hear the horse saying “Oh, OK. Just that? Just pop over that stupid thing? OK, I can do that.”

“Rude down the rein” or “he just barges into me” are phrases we hear often. To me, that description sums up a horse that is completely on the forehand, running forward out of balance. This is really clear if you look at postures in standing position- are the front legs slanted backwards, does the horse’s chest protrude over its forelegs, do the horse’s chest muscles look like GG boobs?

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This photo is of Rocky, our youngster, demonstrating slight downhill balance. 

It’s less obvious but equally distressing to the horse when you see them ridden “in an outline”, nose tucked in, face behind the vertical. Look at the slope of the torso from croup to shoulders; is the horse level or running downhill? Look at the front leg movement in walk, do the forelegs get placed in front of the shoulders or do they only pick up when the horse’s chest has already gone over the top of them? This horse is also falling over forwards. That’s why he barges into you; he can’t help himself. That’s why he’s bearing down on the rein; he’s catching himself, every stride. And just because it looks pretty, looks like the pictures in the magazines, that doesn’t make it correct. Every forward movement is done with momentum rather than control… imagine how stressful that must be for a prey animal that always knows where its feet are.

The answer, of course, is to teach our horses better balance. And we do this by basic dressage, the classical way, for the good of the horse, to build a better, more gymnastic body, not just to go out and compete at Novice dressage for the rest of our lives.

Lucinda was very strict on this. She made sure we all understood how horses see- their long distance vision is from the top of their eyes, so they need their heads up to see the fence. Their short distance vision requires them to look down, hence why they might put their heads down to check out ditches or water. As riders we have to allow and indeed encourage the correct head position, and not be pulled out of the saddle if the horse changes. If the rider tips forward the horse has to lift both himself and the rider off his shoulders to jump the fence.

An analogy Lucinda used for a better seat connection was to ride plugged into the saddle, like a 3 point plug, with longer reins, with most of the horse in front of you not behind you. This is the same seat Charles teaches, although he emphasise elbows more. It’s the Classical seat that has served for hundreds of years for dressage, jumping, and even warfare. Of course one should go with the horse over then fence, but never ahead of the horse. The feeling was likened to row 25 of the airplane, when they put the most passengers at the back so the thing takes off. The canter has to have enough quality, not speed, that the horse has options and choices. Lucinda said she never looks for strides, and indeed she didn’t measure any distances for any exercise during the whole evening; if the canter is good enough the horse can choose. And the fences weren’t big: the point of the exercise was to teach quick feet and quick brains, not to prove scope.

Lucinda said she likes to ride as if a 5 bar gate could pop up at any point in front of her and the horse could jump it at that moment. Patrice, our regular trainer, says a dressage horse should be able to jump a four foot fence out of every stride- that is the definition of ‘in balance’ and ‘on the aids’. Interesting that both these ladies have evented at 4 star level. They are not afraid of the whole horse turning up at full power- they are most afraid of the whole horse not turning up!

Be honest now- do you have that feel in most of your rides? I know I don’t…but what a great image to work towards.

So just spend a few moments this week, as well as listening to your horse, please also listen to yourself. Listen to the words you use when you talk about your horse, and choose them carefully. And be very careful of the words you use when around your horse. Horses are incredibly sensitive to intent, and respond much better when listened to and acknowledged rather than being told “Get on with it you beggar!” A horse that is loved and respected will try his heart out for you.

And make his body better and stronger by working him in balance so he can try his heart out for you, for years and years and years.

Every moment matters

Every moment matters; with your horse, every moment is training, something.

Every moment matters was loosely the subject of a brisk discussion in the pub last night. I didn’t manage to explain myself very successfully in the pub (red wine effects possibly) so I thought I’d have another go at clarifying my thoughts.

Every moment matters: The quote that started the discussion:

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

Charles de Kunffy, Ethics and Passion of Dressage


It is our responsibility as riders is to make sure the horse is physically able to carry us comfortably at no long term detriment to his body. 

“The first basic commitment for riders, borne of our love and respect for the horse, is to rebalance the horse under the added weight of the rider and his equipment. This is a never ending process that lies at the heart of the young horse’s training….However the perfecting of the composite balance of horse and rider is a never-ending task.”

Charles De Kunffy -The Ethics and Passion Of Dressage 

Horses in the wild have a natural balance that equips them perfectly for a life spent mostly grazing. The majority of their weight is on their forelegs, as they spend 60% of their life with their head down inspecting blades of grass. Their long spine hangs between hips and withers supported only by long back muscles. The hind legs act to push or thrust the horse along but do not naturally fold and create lift. 

Horses are also naturally crooked, just like us, the majority are right handed or right convex banana shapes. Anyone who rides knows that one circle tends to get larger, the other smaller, that turning in one direction can feel like falling and the  other like turning a ship around. In the wild, this doesn’t really matter, although the horse on the outside of the herd is the one that gets eaten so the very unbalanced tend to be the most neurotic. Once ridden regularly however, if the one sidedness is not corrected, in a right convex horse the left forelimb and the right hind are most prone to injury as they do the majority of the weight bearing work. 

Horses are also somatic beings- their body state determines their mood and their overall health. An unbalanced horse is an anxious horse, an anxious horse is prone to ulcers and injury. 

Every moment matters when we choose to sit on a horse. We have to improve on their natural balance, otherwise the additional load of a rider and the increased work required when being ridden will place undue stress on the fragile forelegs. For this  reason we work to transfer the balance gradually back so the hindlegs take more load. To achieve this the back needs to learn to lift the rider and also to connect the flow of energy from hind to fore. This takes training.

The premise of classical training for me is that the training is absolutely correct in achieving improved biomechanical function and that improved function then leads to a happier calmer horse. 


What became apparent in the pub is that people make assumptions based on language.

Classical 

Training 

“Classical” –  it occurred to me in hindsight that to some people Classical means “Haute Ecole” or Airs or Piaffe and Passage. When I say Classical I mean training,  right from the beginning with Classical principles. I do agree that not every horse needs to be trained to Haute Ecole to make a good riding horse but every horse does deserve to be trained correctly from day one and that correct training will lay a foundation that enables the horse to do any job safely and to the best of its’ ability.

“Ride your horse forward and straight” Gustav Stenbrecht

Such a simple instruction- but getting there requires us to restore the horse to his natural balance under the weight of  the rider, and improve his crooked tendencies, so we can then teach him to lift his back to carry the rider on a well supported spine in order that riding does not harm him. For me that is where Classical riding starts. 

And where many horses are failed by their riders who take shortcuts or simply do not understand basic training principles.

“Training”- one person in the discussion doesn’t like the word training, because it sounds too regimented. 

Again, a language dilemma. I don’t mean schooling or drilling, training does not have to take place in an arena. In fact,training is occurring every minute that you spend with your horse. Every moment matters because your horse is watching you, learning what responses you expect, and repeating behaviours that seem to meet with praise. With this truth comes another; if your horse always does something “annoying” like walking away from the mounting block, that is what you have taught him, albeit inadvertently. Better then to be mindful every minute and ensure that you are training desired actions. Which is why every moment matters.

“The horse knows no right from wrong and learns everything indiscriminately. Therefore, in schooling him there is no neutrality”

CDK again-it’s so important he said it twice!

For in hand and ridden work, we have 3 sets of kit in our training toolbox, our seat and aids, the exercises, and the arena patterns. Two of these can be used hacking out, but the geometry of the arena contains magic and to never make the effort to school in the defined marked out arena and use the patterns to work their magic for you is to limit yourself to 2/3 of your training possibilities. 

And there is no excuse for drilling. By combining the patterns and exercises there are literally thousands of things we can do in an arena. I can think of about 50 variations of a 20m circle without pausing for breath, inside bend, outside bend, shoulder in, straight, haunches in, changes of pace, changes of topline, innies and outies etc etc.

I don’t school often enough. We are fortunate to live in the middle of some of the best off road hacking in the U.K. and we don’t have an arena. However I do my best to ride mindfully every minute- if I am always training, at least I am doing it deliberately, although often not perfectly. If I receive an unexpected result, I don’t blame the horse, I analyse my seat and aids and check where the confusion might have arisen.

“..all [training exercises] follow one another in such a way that the preceding exercise always constitutes a secure basis for the next one. Violations of this rule will always exert payment later on; not only by a triple loss of time but very frequently by resistances, which for a long time if not forever interfere with the relationship between horse and rider.”

Steinbrecht again.

Are my horses robots? No way!!! The other Classical principle is that the aids and exercises are used in a way to set the horse up for success, so that he offers the desired response and can be rewarded. The horse is never punished- what you receive is what you asked for. That’s a hard one to get used to.


A completely correct and balanced seat is essential to damp down white noise and allow clear aiding- this is always a work in progress but my photos do show definite improvement over the last few years. 

“The horse knows how to be a horse…we have to learn to be a rider.”

CDK again- my favourite.

A Classically trained horse is enabled and empowered to use his body efficiently, willingly, correctly with two equal hind legs and therfore no blockages to the transfer of power from tail to poll. So we ride at full revs, the whole horse, but with absolute calm.

So there we have it. A quick reflection on my point in the journey. 

Some people may say they just want to have fun, and ride their horse. And that’s fine, as long as we remember that fun is a human word. And ask ourselves regularly and truthfully if we are having fun with the horse or at the expense of the horse. 

“The improvement of understanding is for two ends; first our own increase in knowledge, and secondly to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others”
Please do comment- for good or bad ?

Books I am glad I found 

Books I am glad I found!! Those who know me know I am an insatiable reader. I read the cereal packet at breakfast. As soon as I could read I believed the answers to life the universe and everything had been written- we just had to go and find the answers. A lot of crap has been written too, and I’ve read most of that also!

Books I am glad I found. The road from quirky unhappy horse with terrible feet to barefoot supremo, Schoolmaster and now herd leader wasn’t easy for me or Paddy so the books I am glad I found were a comfort, a guide, a textbook and an inspiration.

So what are the books I am glad I found?

buy Feet First here

The first book I read about barefoot performance horses and still my go to text for simple logical explanations. Mine, Sarah’s and I’m sure Nic’s,  knowledge of nutrition and training has moved on immensely since this book but it still stands as a great starting point to your barefoot journey.

buy Paddock Paradise here

The next logical step in the pursuit of barefoot understanding.

Simple truth- horses are absolute, emotionally congruent and live in the moment. You can’t fool a horse. What you are receiving is what you asked for, always. That truth is too much for some. Once we allow it it to be the truth, riding and training becomes a martial art, with the Centaur as the goal.

buy Barefoot Horsekeeping here

Our understanding evolves as we learn and study. For me now keeping a horse barefoot is just keeping it healthy. If it’s not right without shoes it won’t be right with shoes. Anni’s beautiful book is scientifically referenced and is bang up to date. She writes about the whole horse-husbandry, trim and training correct biomechanics for barefoot success.

The first book I read about classical dressage. Beautifully written and illustrated, with a good dose of Zen too, it opened my mind to the possibility of a horse made more beautiful and more magnificent by correct and sympathetic training. No subjugation or coercion.

buy Dressage for the 21st Century here

Then the opposite. Anyone who thinks a bit BTV or a bit of LDR is OK should read this book. I did it to Paddy, ignorantly, on the instruction of trainers who didn’t know better, who wanted a nice pretty correct outline for that dressage test. I’m sure we didn’t know the physical damage we were doing then. But I know how, I have the arthritic horse to prove it. And we should all know, the evidence is out there for all to read and see with their own eyes. Totilas being the most famous example.

buy Tug of War here

These books are the antidote to the ugliness of modern dressage. We should all feast our eyes on these pictures, blaze on our brains what correct training and free swinging backs and natural movement looks like and the never look at photos in H&H or BD magazine again lest our eyes be polluted or seduced by the overbent toe flinging marionettes doomed to lameness in their teens.

It can’t all be about flatwork!! I love eventing so jumping has to feature, although I have learned that a horse “doing dressage” correctly should be able to jump a four foot fence at any point in the test…  Reine Klimke is possibly the best remembered of the old style competitors  who won with classically trained horses. His victory lap of one handed changes is another piece of eye training and recalibration I treat myself to regularly.

Watch the victory lap here

And the most important of the books I am glad I found, or even the most important author and inspiration I am glad I found. Charles writes clearly, simply, succinctly. If I memorised every word of the 3 books and applied the wisdom, I would have beautiful, fit, willing, and magnificent horses, with all the moves and all the athleticism one could ask for.

Patrice quotes CDK as her most important mentor, I hear his words in her voice when I read the books. He comes to the U.K. To teach twice a year still and we should make the most of that- he is getting on a bit and won’t travel for ever!! I have 4 days of spectating booked for the March visit and dream of having my “peasant pony” advanced enough to present to him for a ridden lesson.

So there you have it, the books I am glad I found. If you only read one, then please read Charles.

buy Charles here

My motto for 2017

My motto for 2017, thanks to a Facebook friend I have not yet met: it is to “Shout Louder in my Own Space”.

My motto for 2017 is a reaction to recent online experiences. We have all been subject to the effects of the Echo Chamber recently. Modern media allows us to connect with people with similar interests all over the world. I have barefoot and Classical Dressage friends all over the planet now with whom to discuss issues and ask for advice.

A peculiar phenomenon has occurred. Humans like to belong, so we naturally select friends with views and interests similar to our own, and although we feel very connected, we may actually be isolating ourselves in a virtual bunker where everyone agrees.  This is not good for learning, or for discussion. To expand our consciousness and knowledge we need challenge, not reassurance.

It was  a great surprise to me when Hilary Clinton won the Democrat nomination my US friends all supported Bernie Sanders. It was a terrible shock when Trump won; from my Facebook feed that seemed inconceivable, as did Brexit prevailing in the UK referendum.

Facebook groups are a funny beast. There can be such great discussions, and also such emotive howling between people who disagree. I have been personally attacked, belittled, stalked and ridiculed for disagreeing with eminent media commentators who frankly should have better things to do with their time. I regretfully left one Classical Dressage Facebook site when it became apparent that the “owner” of the page had views diametrically opposed to my own experience and learning. It seemed rude to be on their page constantly questioning their ‘expert’ opinion. Unfortunately the person in question only intreacts on their own site so there is no way to have a rational discussion in a neutral space where questioning their views in a friendly and enquiring and educating way would seem less disrespectful.

And therein lies the rub- how do we discuss without dissing, how do we discuss training and husbandry in a non combative way when people insist on taking different viewpoints as personal attacks and seeing criticism when questioned?

Maybe I need to learn to ask better questions?

Or maybe I need to save my energy for furthering my own knowledge, concentrate on my own learning, and listen most intently to those that never lie; the horses themselves.

Classical training as a journey is about so much more than just dancing horses. The mindset required is one we might recognise more as a martial art: absolute humility,  self-control, responsibility for oneself and an understanding that every action has consequences. We cannot choose how others react to us, we can only control how we react to others. Each challenge is an opportunity, from every difficulty comes the chance to change.

Hence my motto for 2017- Shout Louder in my Own Space.

The purpose of this blog is not to preach, or to bang about how great barefoot is for horses and how Classical Training is the only way. The purpose of this blog is to share my journey, and that of our horses, abscesses, warts and challenges and all.

When we arrived at out what was our last livery yard before we got our own space, we were the odd ones out. Our horses were barefoot, on a funny diet, and we were training with a strange foreign lady no one had heard of, who didn’t compete anymore, and who had us doing strange self lunging exercises at the slowest trot imaginable. We were learning about biomechanics, and the correct seat, and had inadvertently enrolled on a 4 year programme that I now liken to a Master’s degree in Classical Equitation and Dressage Training.

We didn’t preach, or gush, or bore, we just quietly did the do. The old black horse should have been crippled with arthritis, but looked better and better as each month passed and his crooked body blossomed with the application therapeutic gymnastic training. The grey horse went from nearly having kissing spines to eventing up to BE100 and filling his draft frame with the appropriate muscle. And the baby bay horse got the best start as a riding horse that one could wish for.

It hasn’t all been easy.

Cal the grey has continued to be plagued by difficult feet syndrome. He has X-rays due tomorrow I hope to report on vast improvements in his sole thickness with targeted consistent boot use. He is sounder on tough surfaces but the pictures will tell the unadulterated truth.

The baby bay had me on the floor a couple of times and went through a mild napping stage. A week treating his hindgut and a saddle fitting seemed to sort that out. He hacked out beautifully on his own on walk and trot on our last jolly a week ago. He’s now on a growing break and I can’t wait to get him into work again once the nights get a bit lighter.

However Gary’s new horse Beat the ex -racer responded quickly to a short lesson on rein aids and working on the connection forward to the bit. The relaxations and improvements in his walk achieved in two short lessons illustrated yet again how quickly correct training works, and how beneficial it is to the horse’s body and mind.

So this blog will be my effort to live out my motto for 2017. I will shout loudly in my own space, about our problems, challenges and solutions, doing my best for my horses in the best way I can do now, on every new day, with what I have learned to date. I will continue to learn and to study and to seek and to question, and if the answers I find can help any single one of you to solve a conundrum on your journey with your horses, or your life outside of horses, then that will be worth it.

Whatever else happens, let’s have some fun doing it too, because horses are meant to be fun. They are such noble and sentient beings that they should bring out the best in us, if we could just stop to listen and learn, and not allow ourselves to get caught up in competition and ego and ambition.

So thanks to Max for my motto for 2017.

Not the best photo at the end but look at the changes in his balance…

Badminton

This week has been all about Badminton Horse Trials and Cal’s bronchoscopy. Carrie Childs, and her very gorgeous Donner Sara B, qualified for the BE90 Mitsubishi Motors Grassroots Championships at Badminton and kindly invited me to share her adventure.

http://www.britisheventing.com/asp-net/page.aspx?section=1127&itemTitle=BE90+%26+BE100+National+Grassroots+Championships

The build up has been nerve wracking to say the least; as any horsey person will know, the first hurdle after qualifying for any championship, is getting the horse there in one piece. Her preparation had been slightly patchy. Carrie has been blogging for Horse and Hound about the whole experience so some of you will have followed the journey with her.

The first indication of how well Badminton Horse Trials looks after the Grassroots competitors was 4 car passes arrived for friends and family to share the action. I got a lift down with Carrie’s boyfriend, who very kindly got up at 5 to pick me up at 6am (gulp) although his undue respect for the national speed limit and some traffic around Stroud meant we did miss the 9.30am dressage test- whoops.

I then made sure I fulfilled my designated role for the day: keeping mother Judith calm and happy (bubbles started at 10am). 

  These weren’t the first drinks of the road trip: apparently there had been some Pimms consumed the night before at a welcome reception held in the sponsors pavilion by the iconic Badminton lake.

There was then a bit of a gap between phases and Carrie had arranged for another friend to help with the horse so Judith and I took the opportunity to walk the cross-country course. I thought the course was just beautiful. The ground preparation was quite simply perfect, so no problems there for a barefoot horse. Mud is no problem for my Irish bog trotter, it’s hard ground with damp on top that I occasionally worry about. The course posed some proper championship questions but all were fair and there were alternatives where required. Now I know it always looks easier when one is not riding but I thought there was nothing there that my gorgeous Caltastic wouldn’t jump on a good day, although the total amount of jumping required was substantial. I really loved how the Grassroots course crosses the Badminton 4 star track at some of the classic areas, so there was a Grassroots jump into the lake, a tour of the quarry, a line through the white gates and even a new extension off the famous stone wall corner. 

 The dressage arenas and the show jumping were set up on the Grassroots corner of the park but still had enough trade stands around the locale to feel buzzy and exciting. The stables and washroom facilities were plenty fine and there was a real sense of camaraderie around the lorry park.

Carrie did pretty well. I know she was disappointed not to produce her usually immaculate dressage; she then had a slight hiccup in the show jumping which, although superbly recovered,  put her out of the running for placings. Cross country however she hacked around for a fabulous clear, albeit with some time penalties. She tells the story much better than me in her final blog

The road to the Badminton Mitsubishi Motors Cup: We’ve done it!

All in all it was an amazing day, and really inspiring. I came back absolutely determined that this is an experience I would like for myself and that Cal and I would do our very best to qualify one year soon.

The day I came home Cal had his bronchoscopy. This was much better than last year, there was still some mucous about but only grade 2 this year, and the Carina, where the bronchi split, did look sharper, although still not knife-like. Georgie the vet also did bronchial washings to send off for a neutrophil count.

I went through every range of emotions over the next couple of days. I had been hoping that his airways would be perfect on bronchoscopy, and I could just blame myself for being a wet lettuce, so the presence of mucous completely deflated me and all my newly formed Badminton dreams were on hold.

“May obviously isn’t Cal’s month, he’ll never be able to do a Spring championships…” etc

The results came today. Cal’s neutrophils are 2%, joy of joys, so the steroid inhalers are doing their job, despite withdrawing the inhalers 3 days before the scope, as we would for competition, his airways were still OK.

So it’s official, it’s the rider that needs more kicking. For some reason I can be really bold cross-country but still worry more about knocking a pole off a collapsible show jumping fence. The answer to that is very simple: do more of it, do so much of it that it becomes boring and routine and a series of exercises.

Project Kick Ass starts tomorrow at Somerford with Maddy.

And what more inspiration could one wish for than the mighty Michel Jung, Rolex Grand Slam and 2016 Badminton winner, leading from start to finish on a record completion score. He showjumps and does dressage to Grand Prix levels, as well as eventing to four star, so each phase is really solid. He really is the complete equestrian athlete.

It’s simple, as I know from surgery: intelligent directed corrected practise makes inevitable progress towards expertise.

K.L.F.    Kick Like F

 

 

Training, not Taming

Training, not taming, the horse to be ridden. A recent post on social media showed a photo of a beautifully marked wild mustang stallion posturing. The caption asked “is this the self-carriage that we seek?” And one of the replies was “I’m not sure I’d like to be riding my horse if he was in that mode…”

And this got me wondering. Looking at the photo, the horse’s back is beautifully lifted, and at maximum length from tail to poll, the overall balance is uphill, the suspension and ground cover breath-taking, the throat latch is open but the poll is absolutely the highest point. In short, if one added a rider to the photo, it would be the most beautifully correct passage, and the rider would be invisible because the horse would steal the show.

So for me, yes, absolutely, this self-carriage is a good example of what I would seek. As Charles de Kunffy says, the purpose of dressage training, in keeping with the Renaissance ideals, is to transform a random act of Nature into an edifice of Art. Training, not taming.

The purpose of training, for me, is to strive towards a quality of symbiosis that makes me and the horse feel like a Centaur, one body, one mind, working together effortlessly and invisibly. I love eventing so ideally for me that would be true on the cross country course, show jumping and also in the dressage arena. I want my horse to be a willing partner, thinking for himself, our brains attuned to each other but working in harmony. I certainly wouldn’t want to canter towards a big solid cross-country fence with a horse that isn’t looking after himself and, by extension, me as well. Training, not taming.

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Now please don’t get me wrong, I am not boasting here: if you saw me ride, you would see that I am a long, long way away from that ideal. But it is important to know what we strive for, for how else might we take steps to achieve it?

Achieving a classical seat is an incremental process
Achieving a classical seat is an incremental process

So would we like to ride a horse with the amount of energy and pizzazz of the posturing stallion?

Who wouldn’t?

Surely the whole point of riding a horse is to have two bodies and minds working together to achieve more than either can separately? The human becomes more majestic, more imposing, more powerful, on board a horse, leaping huge fences and traveling at tremendous speed. The whole point of riding is to harness the power of the horse and use it for our purpose; be that enjoyment, labour, display or battle. Why would you get on a horse and ask it to diminish itself?

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Many horses are “energy efficient”. Many horses have no idea how powerful they can be! My own gorgeous, sleepy, gentle Cal, scares himself silly when both hind legs work equally and he realises how much power there is behind him. When he hits that point, we have had Pesade and Capriole, when all that was required was two hind legs, equal, underneath you, lifting please! The baby Rocky is right hand crooked: when asked to lift his bum with his left hind, we have had kicks and twists and inside outs just to avoid a bit of new weight bearing. When they find the feeling though, and play around with the new body you have just introduced them to, that is truly an amazing moment.

One of my most treasured memories is when the black horse, Paddy, old, arthritic, stiff and resistant, spontaneously offered the most beautiful canter in a lesson where we spent a bit of time doing walk pirouettes and helped him to unlock his back. The canter was a really cool reaction- “ooooooh that feels soooo goooood”

The novice horse loses the new balance again two strides later of course! But if you can show them that place, again and again, the balance becomes better and stronger and then they choose the new muscle usage because it feels good, and then they offer the correct posture because it feels good. And then they blossom and grow in confidence and stature.

This can’t be forced. For the horse to choose, it has to feel physically better. And good training, that sticks, where the horse is a willing partner, has to be based on offers not coercion. The best training is where we set up a question or exercise where the only logical physical answer employs the new muscle usage that we seek. The horse experiments, tries a few things, works out the required offer and then is rewarded for the try. The exercise is repeated, the try gets quicker, more confident, stronger. Eventually the horse learns that this exercise creates that feeling, and the aids become invisible and the try becomes an immediate response. And that is training, not taming.

There is no “control” required because there is no resistance and no fear. The horse is on the aids, working on suggestions and signals. The horse is not diminished mentally because his mind is respected and employed to his advantage during the training. The horse is not diminished physically because the training is built up slowly, layer upon layer of incrementally tougher demands on a body that has been gradually prepared for the higher demands of collection.

This takes timing, and tact, and humour, and skill. And it takes lots of time. Podhjasky says 4 years to prepare a horse for the high school movements. Four years after they first start school work, which the SRS horses do at 6. Years 4-6 are spent hacking out, in straight lines, developing bones and tendon and bodies, seeing the world and learning about life, not in the arena.

But when you have an advanced well horse trained in this manner, that will spontaneously offer every ounce of half a tonne of muscle, to make the pair of you majestic, why would you not want a piece of that? And why would you not want it to last for ever?

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That’s what I’m striving towards. And if it takes me a whole lifetime of learning and training to achieve it with one horse for even one minute, it will have been worth the journey.

Congruence, Emotional Intelligence and Authenticity

Congruence, emotional intelligence and authenticity have become buzz-words recently. Search the internet and there are countless sites offering to help us reconnect with our inner self, with assistance from Reiki, meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, mindfulness, raw food diets and even equine assisted facilitation.

As life gets busier and we become further removed from the simple pleasures; walking barefoot across a lawn, paddling on a beach, sitting on the grass in the sun, standing on a hill-top feeling the breeze across our faces, we lose congruence and humankind becomes sicker and poorer.

Those of us who play with horses for our fun are very fortunate in that we experience Nature regularly, especially if we keep our horses at home. I get to feel the wind on my face every day cycling down to the field with the night-time feeds, as well as the rain, the snow and hopefully, soon, the sun. I slither and slide through the mud in our field, I hear the owl call, the vixen shriek and see the moon and the stars turn with the seasons. In summer I will laze on the grass with the horses, sun bathing and joining in the rolling party, in between pulling ragwort and pooh picking. There is no finer way to see the countryside unfold and observe the wild life than from the back of a horse. Just ask the Queen!

As well as the fresh air and hard physical labour, which has a virtuous Victorian effect on the mood, there are subtler lessons to learn from horses. Horses are very clear about the importance of congruence. There is nothing more distressing to a horse than sharing space with a being which feels one emotion and projects another. To them, this means there must be a big hungry cat in the vicinity. Humans bizarrely do this all the time; they say one thing, whilst meaning another, they hide their fear, even from themselves. Ignoring the big scary plastic bag just makes horses even more wild. They feel responsible for you while you are sat up there whistling away, imagine if you are the only one that could see that dangerous animal and your stupid partner is ignoring all the warning signals you are throwing out. Much better to see the bag and yawn, yes yawn. “That boring thing? Yes of course I can see it silly, it won’t eat us, and it’s just a stupid bag.”

#friendsforagefreedom

Horses have unfortunately become a commodity to feed our egos, an accessory to furnish us with trophies and achievements, or a substitute dependant that needs to be loved and spoiled and cared for in some slightly offbeat displacement activity. As a result they are often kept in totally unnatural environments, provided with what humans perceive as essential: a warm stable, a nice rug and lots of high quality food. What a horse perceives as essential is very different: in the wild they would choose continuous movement, interaction with other horses for grooming and herd behaviours, forage for 16 hours a day to keep their teeth healthy and their stomach acid low, and freedom to roam.

Once Paddy had managed to tell me that barefoot was the only way forward for him, I started to question a lot of the other dogma associated with traditional horse keeping in horse mad Cheshire. The various dilemmas familiar to barefoot horse owners surfaced and individual solutions evolved. Trim versus natural wear, turnout versus grass, the whole minefield of starting to read food labels and learning about ingredients and mineral balance. Luckily for me my first barefooter was an easy transition. Gut health, equine gastric ulcer syndrome, hind gut health, hoof abscesses after chemical worming leading us to targeted worming programmes, the list of what my horses have taught me is endless and will take many years to share.

The lesson for today however is my definition of congruence; that if you live what you believe, are completely authentic, then even without trying, you will show the way and others will follow.

Three years ago we moved to a new livery yard. We had been livery gypsies for a few years. Mel the polo groom had looked after Special Needs Paddy beautifully, which meant that we moved yards every year to her new polo job. We had done a tour of the outskirts of Delamere, complicated slightly by the acquisition of the second horse and then, when Mel left to marry her dream man, we spent a couple of years trying to find equivalent stellar care. We eventually landed at Bankfield shortly after the yard had been taken on by an American couple who were going to run the place as a professional competition yard. There were 18 boxes and they were full. The other liveries were traditional horse owners, all very nice but competitive and pretty orthodox in their training and husbandry practises. We were barefoot but Cal was barely functional and we had just started lessons with Patrice- I was in the self-lunging de-contracting stage which meant lots of trotting around super slow with high hands and maximum neck length and doing lots of in hand work that we didn’t quite understand and couldn’t explain.

Gary and I didn’t preach. We just practised congruence. I remember actively trying not to talk too much about barefoot, or classical riding or natural husbandry. After all, nobody likes the yard know-it-all and having been well educated about toxic livery yards, I had learned to keep my head down and my mouth shut. But if anyone asked a question they got an honest and full answer. And our horses went from strength to strength. Cal’s knee healed completely, we got back out competing and he has turned into a cross country machine. Paddy turned out to be the perfect schoolmaster for Gary and for me- he was very clear that we had discovered Patrice just in time and that he would never tolerate bar or tongue pressure from the downward acting bit ever again. And having felt him finally give me his back after 10 years of resistance I was never going to apply bar or tongue pressure deliberately again.

I still have no idea how it happened but within two years nearly all the horses on the yard were barefoot and yard owner and most of the liveries were having classical riding lessons with Patrice. The American dream didn’t last long, for various reasons including the breakdown of the sham marriage and emigration of their main client. The rest of us were left there, in the vast arena, peacefully pottering along on a journey of discovery.

Once you start listening to your horses they are very clear communicators. And doing right by them becomes very simple, although not necessarily easy. Once it is clear in your head that whatever response you receive from the horse is always the truth, congruence again,  and that horses try their best, there is no such thing as naughtiness or resistance. There is only “I hurt”, “I don’t understand”, or “I understand but I can’t do that yet”. A footsore barefoot horse isn’t 100% well; simples. It might have too much  grass, a high sugar diet, not enough work, insulin resistance, ulcers, Cushing’s, or an abscess brewing. If there are persistent abscess problems look to your land and your forage. If your horse is resistant, look to your saddle fit but mostly to your training because the work is causing them discomfort. If they don’t want to come in, it’s because they hate being in the dark stable on their own. They need to see each other to communicate and feel safe. They need to touch and groom and play. They need to lie down to sleep, just for an hour, and they need a look out whilst they do so.

And there is no greater compliment than two horses standing to attention at their doors, poised and perfectly balanced, when you walk onto the yard ,as if to say “pick me today, pick me today, I want to work today. “ Particularly when both those horses have been resistant, “work shy”, injured or problem horses for various reasons.

Horses don’t lie. Their bodies don’t lie, their muscle development doesn’t lie. Whatever the others thought of our oddball ideas, our horses gleamed with health and grew stronger and more beautiful, and eventually imitation became the sincerest form of flattery. Congruence.

“Outstanding success with any type of relationship in life or in any enterprise, depends upon authentic intelligence. Remarkable, high functioning individuals or groups are exceptionally coherent and show congruence in their actions and behaviours.”