Lessons from Nelipot Cottage

Of Course the Environment Matters- keeping the ridden horse barefoot

Of course the environment matters for keeping the ridden horse barefoot successfully. By environment, I mean all the places your horse works plays and relaxes in.

Ask yourself- Where does he spend most of his hours? And how helpful is that particular environment for building high performance barefoot hooves?

How many hours does he spend in a stable? That’s x number of hours he’s not moving. It’s also x number of hours that’s he’s standing in/on bedding mixed with urine and faeces. And what is he eating while he’s standing there?

If your horses are the fortunate ones that get plenty of turnout, how many hours is that? What sort of surface are they turned out on? What are they eating while turned out? Are they on a track system or in a small individual paddock square? How many miles do they move while turned out? How far do they have to move for their food and water? And all that is before we consider whether their social and behavioural needs are met.

We know that the horses with healthiest barefoot hooves are found in the feral horse populations.

#friendsforagefreedom – the Carneddau ponies have the perfect life

In our part of the UK our nearest feral population are the Carneddau ponies of North Wales. This ancient herd of ponies are truly wild, and have frequented this mountain range in Snowdonia for thousands of years. Their numbers are controlled but other than that they are not managed in any way.

Photo by Hannah_morrellt find her on Instagram

A recent segment in a wildlife programme featured a stallion in his prime chasing off a usurper- both ponies cantering effortlessly over the rough stony ground. The Mongolian ponies had similar skills.

Photo by Nasta, zoologist on our SES expedition to Mongolia July 2018

Could you canter over rough ground in your bare feet without any training or conditioning? I know I couldn’t: not straight away. I do spend a lot of my time barefoot, and when I was travelling through Israel and Australia and shoes were mostly optional, I could run miles barefoot on packed dirt and tarmac. But it did take some time to toughen feet up, human and horse. And these days they are soft and ouchy again LOL.

If your horse spends most of his time standing in a field of soft mud or working in a soft arena, of course he don’t be able to march briskly down a stony track. Just like muscles, bones and tendons, feet need conditioning.

A good diet sets the barefoot horse up for success (see part 1), while the miles will build and shape the feet (see part 2) but at the end of the day the feet will perform best on the surface to which they have become most accustomed.

If you want your horse to be rock crunching, then he will have to crunch some rocks!! He can be exposed to gravelly then rocky surfaces, bit by bit, building tough feet incrementally.

So yes of course the environment matters. Track systems in summer are great because they encourage movement, limit grass intake and tend to pack down into hard dirt. You can enrich sections; with pea gravel or hard core, best done on the horses’ route to a favourite spot so they traverse the surface regularly.

Google earth snap of the first Nelipot track

Be realistic out hacking. Build up the exposure to challenging surfaces gradually, initially at slow speeds, possibly hop off for a challenging section. Let the horse pick his way, slowly if required. One of the major benefits of keeping your ridden horse barefoot is the increase in proprioception and the way that allows him to choose his balance over challenging terrain and protect his joints- give him the time to learn the skills.

if you only ever work on a beautiful level surface, be that grass, dirt or arena footing, how will your horse learn to dodge tree roots, deal with camber or adapt to undulating terrain? It’s like the difference between road running and cross country running- in human terms it’s a different sport!

So of course the environment matters for keeping the ridden horse barefoot. It matters for both physical and mental health.

The way we keep horses is profoundly unnatural, even when we are doing our best by them. Low level stress and gut dysfunction are often contributors to poor hoof performance- as well as the physical, you could think of the hooves as the most sensitive barometer of your horses mental and psychological health.

So does the environment your keep your horse in meet all his needs? And I don’t mean shelter feeds and water here- that’s the minimum to keep the RSPCA away; I mean his species specific needs for mental and psychological health. Is he living a full and satisfying life in horse terms?

#friendsforagefreedom

Or is he being kept alive and functional purely for human use?

That’s a whole new dilemma!

My name is Fran McNicol and I am an amateur equestrienne living in Cheshire, UK. I am a doctor, specialising in colorectal surgery, and my MD research thesis was on inflammation and sepsis. Through my day job, I understand and fix the human digestive system, and I know a huge amount about inflammation and the human animal, but the most useful thing about becoming a “Doctor Doctor Miss Miss” (MBChB, MD, MRCS, FRCS) is that I have learned how to read other people’s research, evaluate the evidence and then critically test apparently good theory on my own horses. My writing is therefore my opinion, and current state of learning, from 25 years of full-time doctoring, a few years working as a polo groom around the world and many years of keeping my own horses. I love training young horses, and focus on riding the sport horse both classically and holistically. I compete regularly in all disciplines at our local riding club especially one day eventing. I started blogging as a way to share the experience gained from taking a selection of horses barefoot and working towards the dream barefoot property. I blog regularly at www.nelipotcottage.com

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Sitting Pretty…when the saddle fits

And in order for us to achieve immaculate equitation, sitting pretty is much easier when the saddle fits, both the horse and the rider.

I used to really hate saddle shopping. I reckon every ridden horse in the UK must have at least 3 saddles to their name, gathering dust in tack rooms or circulating endlessly through the second hand tack forums. Paddy was a nightmare to fit, with his razor-like withers and a wither pocket that never filled out, even once I understood the difference between constructive saddle fitting and more conventional saddle fitting.

You need to find a saddler who not only checks on the difference between fitting the standing horse and the horse in motion, but also understands the importance of allowing room for the horse that you are building up with correct work, not the horse you currently have.

Essentially, constructive saddle fitting is fitting a saddle to the dynamic shape of a horse’s back in a way that allows the muscles to inflate and therefore develop i.e. get bigger as the good gymnastic work progresses. Horse should develop fabulous top-line all the way from tail to poll, and young horses will get both taller and quite a lot wider with good work. The constructively fitted saddle will allow this incremental change, and ideally be adjustable as the tiny increments build into multiple inches.

Conventional saddle fitting is based on a template of the horse’s back in a static position; a saddle fitted snugly to this static shape will not necessarily allow lift through the shoulder sling or expansion of the trapezius and splenius muscles.

Then the saddle has to fit the rider. I have a very long thigh bone. I also have very stiff hip flexors. This combination puts me at a disadvantage in most dressage saddles; the blocks force my legs back beyond the flexibility my hip sockets will allow and I compensate by arching my back. Once my back is arched, the horse mirrors this and hollows himself too. I could lengthen my stirrups, to get my knees behind the blocks, but then I lose the elasticity in my knee and ankle joints which are part of the spring mechanism required to absorb the horse’s movement, and even more importantly, the proprioception that helps me find my balance to the ground.

Then I bought a baby warmblood, with huge movement and enormous mobile shoulders, who seemed to change shape every week.

Rocky in a relatively good phase of growth

So we needed a saddle that fitted me i.e. allowed me to sit in a classically correct equitation position, whilst allowing the enormous shoulders to float freely…and ideally was fully adjustable for a growing horse.

I initially backed rode Rocky in a WOW saddle, which I loved but he didn’t seem to love the way it sat.

Then we tried an Ava Pro-Jump for Rocky’s first ‘own’ saddle. The stirrup bar placement is correct enough that even though it is a “jumping” saddle I am able to get my legs underneath me with postural integrity. It allows free movement of his enormous shoulders, and sits stable enough on his back to cope with baby horse shenanigans. It has velcro knee blocks for added adjustability. But the rails were quite narrow.

The Ava saddles are fully adjustable, with foam and air panels, and the option to adjust the tree if required. The gullets are wide, and the panels have a large load bearing surface area, for maximum horse comfort. Their fitting approach is more constructive than conventional, and she will always fit and balance the saddle to the moving horse.

We’ve had great fun fitting Rocky. We have had to laugh and shrug a lot. He was very slowly started as a big gangly youngster, and his behaviour could be a bit feral. Horses never stick to a human timetable. At the time of the first fitting, just 4 years old, he wasn’t yet cantering willingly on the lunge or under saddle.

Rocky at his first saddle fitting. Claire’s photos are not good for sales adverts LOL

By the time the saddle I had ordered was made and ready he was trotting under saddle and cantering on the lunge, so we did get a bit of a better idea. But then by the time his 2 month check was due he had become a little cold backed and was occasionally bucking when asked to go forward. It was a worrying time, but a huge bonus to be able to exclude the saddle from the list of possible causes- because we knew that it had been checked and adjusted and that it fitted beautifully.

A few months later Rocky was diagnosed with mild kissing spine disease

blog post about Rocky’s diagnosis

I treated him, on veterinary and physio advice, with injection, muscle relaxants, a few months rest and then in hand rehab. When the time came for Rocky to go off to be re-started (by Stuart Ross who specialises in pre race training of young thoroughbreds) Claire kindly stopped by and we checked the fit and balance, ready for him to go off to boarding school.

STOP PRESS- Rocky has now worked solo in the big spooky arena, and walked, trotted and cantered over a cross pole without misdemeanour. Those friends who know Rocky and have been following our journey will understand how truly momentous this news is. And how it suggests that his back is feeling fabulous, and that work is much more fun when the saddle fits.

Another saddler who fits beautifully is another Claire of Plateau Holistic Equine. She is the Northern UK fitter for Peter Horobin’s fabulous Stride Free saddles. When I first rode Cal in the SF his shoulders opened up and floated down the long side – he was definitely buying.

The SF tree is uniquely flexible to allow the horse shoulder freedom, the rails expand and the gullet is super wide and super soft .

The saddles are fully adjustable on site – as befits their Australian origin. Everything can de done in one visit Ruth no need to take the saddle away. Cleverly, the headplate jacks in or out and the flocking points are open to allow easy re- flocking or re balancing.

The SF Classique is a beautifully open headed dressage saddle with a flat seat and minimal blocks to allow horse and rider to move naturally. It’s beautiful to sit in and gorgeous to look at.

We liked it so much we bought a jump version too

The Journey of a Thousand Miles; Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

This should be the anthem of all barefoot horses, because, in the absence of pathology and assuming the diet is sufficient, good strong hooves are grown in response to work.

In my previous blog posts I mention the four pillars of barefoot performance, namely Diet, Exercise, Environment and Trim. I wrote about diet previously Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot- the First Step; in this post I will address Exercise.

Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

It is important at this stage to differentiate between barefoot transition i.e. taking the shoes off, barefoot rehab i.e. taking the shoes off as a strategy to treat or compensate for pathology, and barefoot maintenance i.e. working a horse that either has never been shod or has been barefoot for so long that they are an established functional barefoot performance horse.

Strictly speaking even a barefoot transition will require some rehab philosophy- remember that steel horseshoes are inherently bad for hoof function.

This is a diagram from a book by Bracy Clark (1771-1860), an English Veterinary surgeon, who specialised in the hoof and wrote extensively about the harm caused by shoeing

Their needs will be broadly similar; a good diet, and as much work as they can tolerate, but how we embark on the journey of a thousand miles might differ slightly in each scenario.

How far do horses travel in a day?

Tracking studies have shown that, in the wild, horses will travel an average of 15-20 kilometres a day just going about their usual daily business, and will travel up to 55km over 12 hours to get to a watering hole in arid living conditions.

Tracker study of feral horses in Australia

The average horse walks out at 6km/h, so daily that’s the equivalent of 2.5 hours of brisk walking as a baseline. Your average livery horse in its individual little square paddock with good grass on tap will not be walking that distance; even on an imaginative and well enhanced grass track system, I’m not sure they would need to go that far.

How far do horses travel when ridden? An hour’s work might include 20minutes of trot at 15km/h , maximum 10 minutes of controlled cantering and some walking; I would say a generous estimate of an hour’s work in the life of the average leisure horse is probably about 7 km, half the distance they would do in the wild on their own, and this level of work generally doesn’t occur every day.

Use your phone as tracker to see how far you really ride on a given day; I know I was disappointed LOL.

The best hooves are those that work the hardest. Hooves grow in response to stimulus, the more stimulus to grow, the more they will grow. Hooves grow in response to wear. A horse that does many miles of tarmac every week will have established a growth cycle sufficient to keep up with the wear; if the workload is suddenly reduced these horses are commonly reported to need trimming every few days until the hoof adapts to the reduced work load. The more work the horse does, the better the blood circulation around the foot, the quicker the hoof grows and the better the quality of both horn and sole.

Hence why so many top endurance horses do well barefoot- they do enough miles to grow good hooves and then get the double benefit of self maintaining hooves and reduced concussion on the joints due to the hydrostatic absorption system contained within the hoof itself.

Click here to see endurance horse photo

It is important that we don’t force an uncomfortable horse to move; that is obviously counter productive. A sound horse freshly out of shoes should be able to move comfortably on a good artificial surface, soft turf and on super smooth tarmac. If they can’t do this then my experience suggests that there must be undetected pathology, either in the foot itself or higher up the leg. These horses might need investigating for sub-clinical laminitis or other problems.

Remember Ralitsa’s photo

Some surfaces are surprising; sand with variable hard chunks in it can be a very disconcerting surface; examples of this near us would be the red quarried sand walkways at Kelsall and the winter farm ride at Somerford; Cal hates both of these as they give unpredictably until the sole hits an unyielding stone. I always boot up for the winter farm ride now. Yet he will eat up the miles on grass, super smooth tarmac, and very fine crushed stone.

So initially we might have to find creative ways to get the miles in and the feet started on the journey of a thousand miles. Removing the weight of the rider is surprisingly effective in allowing the horse to work in comfort on a less than perfect surface. Groundwork is also an invaluable rehabilitation tool; long lining and working in hand allows us to observe and to influence how the horse uses his body.

When I transitioned Paddy, my first barefooter, we were on polo livery near Oulton Park. The roads in that area were that scary glass-like tarmac- there were routes with inclines that I actively avoided when he was shod- suddenly these routes were all open to us and turned out to be the perfect surface for barefoot hoof conditioning. The main canter track around the local common was sand, again a great surface to work on comfortably with the added advantage of exfoliation and thrush elimination. Within 3 months Paddy was not only sound on the easy surfaces but trotted without hesitation at full speed up the limestone hardcore driveway. And he was super fit.

If the horse really can’t move freely then foot protection should be considered.

Hoof boots have come on a huge amount over the last few years. When I transitioned Cal the only boots that fitted his enormous Irish feet were Old Macs- they were super tough and effective for allowing movement but also heavy and clumsy. They were great for general work but tended to fly off at canter and never felt like they fitted well enough for us to do any proper jumping in them. We then tried Cavallo Trek; much easier to get on and off but also tended to twist around at speed and didn’t feel secure enough for jumping.

Clumpy hoof boots — Old style clumpy hoof boots were never very satisfactory

Then along came Scoots- these were a revelation. Cal is in the size 8, and they don’t quite go on his feet towards the end of a trim cycle, but once on they fit well enough to gallop and jump which means we can hack around the challenging stone tracks in the forest to get to all the good jumping logs and canter areas tucked away in the back corners. I don’t seem to have any photos of Cal in his Scoots- we must move too fast LOL. I found a good photo of someone else proving the point though.

Can you jump in Scoot Boots?

Another way to increase movement is to make sure the horse does work without you. A track system in the field will increase the miles traveled compared to a square paddock, particularly if the water and the hay feeder are at opposite ends of the tracked area.

I’m not massively keen on horse walkers because we cannot influence how the horse moves; it is literally just about achieving forward motion for a set time. However my trimmer tells me about a set of horses she trims that go on the walker regularly; they have great hooves, suggesting that any movement is good for developing good strong feet, even if it is not done in best posture.

So to summarise, movement is key for healthy barefoot feet, as well as for healthy brains and bodies.

The journey of a thousand miles should take you to a set of super duper barefoot hooves, assuming 1) the diet is good enough for that horse and 2) there is no underlying pathology or metabolic challenge.

Achieve movement in as many different ways as possible; turnout, ridden work, ground work, in hand work, even the use of a horse walker; all these can all help you get to an adequate mileage.

Cal and Rocky at top of track — Cal and Rocky at the top end of our grass track. I think it’s spring or early summer judging by the state of the grass; the track turned to bare sand by mid summer.

If hoof protection is required, then by all means use it to help you get the mileage up. By hoof protection I mean hoof boots and pads, Hoof Armour looks interesting, as do some of the clip on plastic shoes, but I do not include steel horse shoes in that category. Anything that impairs the natural physiological function of the hoof can not be called protective.

And please remember to have fun with your horses. The journey of a thousand miles is a long way, and a long time; best have some fun along the way.

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Article also available as a podcast

https://soundcloud.com/fran-mcnicol/journey-of-a-thousand-miles

The First Step- Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot

The first step to keeping your ridden horse barefoot, successfully, at a high level of performance, has nothing to do with taking the shoes off. If transitioning to barefoot from shoes, the first step is to clean up the diet. If your horse is not performing as well as he could barefoot, the first step should be to go back and examine the diet. Success in barefoot performance or barefoot rehabilitation is determined by four factors; Diet, Environment, Exercise and Trim. Those well meaning naysayers who fail at the barefoot experiment have invariably just taken the horse’s shoes off and expected instant success, without taking the first step and making husbandry and lifestyle changes.

Now please note, I have no formal nutritional qualifications. I am a human doctor, specialising in colorectal surgery, and my MD research thesis was on inflammation and sepsis. Through my day job, I understand and fix the human digestive system, and I know a huge amount about inflammation and the human animal, but the most useful thing about becoming a “Doctor Doctor Miss Miss” (MBChB, MD, MRCS, FRCS) is that I have learned how to read other people’s research, evaluate the evidence and then critically test apparently good theory on my own horses. What follows is therefore my opinion, and current learning, from 25 years of full-time human doctoring and professional polo grooming around the world as well as amateur horse keeping.

Forage Based Diet

The first step is that the horse’s diet should be mainly forage based. They are trickle feeders; in the wild they will browse, forage and graze for 16 hours a day. A forage base diet doesn’t mean they should be standing in a lush green paddock of rye grass, stuffing their faces, or being surrounded by free choice ad lib rye based hay.

Typical horse country in the USA- not a blade of green grass to be seen

Trickle feeding a forage based diet means they should have to work quite for their forage but it also that it should be available more or less non stop. Unless you are going to drive around the field all day with them dispensing wedges of different forage at regular intervals, this means for true species specific husbandry we have to get creative. Track systems encourage natural movement. But the grass on track systems tend to get stressed, so they must have free access to other stuff, hay or haylage, trees and natural hedgerows, with a variety of weeds, and herbs.

Cal, my grey horse, has had breathing problems in the past, so I feed organic, late cut,meadow “Haylage” that is more like wrapped hay. It has to be organic, I found that out the hard way. Fertilised forage causes all sorts of strange toxic effects

https://forageplus.co.uk/nitrate-toxicity-in-horse-hay-haylage/

Feed Clean

When we first moved to our new field, we bought gorgeous looking meadow hay off the farmer next door. It smelt lovely, tested OK for sugar and starch, and was available in the right quantity at the right price. But the horses just didn’t look quite right on it. We switched to organic and they bloomed.

I also believe everything we should feed horses should be non GMO. Not because genetic modification doesn’t occur every time we breed an animal, or cultivate a plant, but because humans have mostly used GMO technology to increase plants’ resistance to chemicals so we can then use ever more toxic chemicals on the crop to increase yield. So organic, nitrate free, glyphosate free and GMO are unlikely to occur in the same space.

Round up is the commonest glyphosate:

“Glyphosate is an herbicide. It is applied to the leaves of plants to kill both broadleaf plants and grasses. The sodium salt form of glyphosate is used to regulate plant growth and ripen fruit. Glyphosate was first registered for use in the U.S. in 1974.”

Glyphosate is used as a desiccant; if it is applied to wheat just before harvest, the wheat dies by going to seed, thereby increasing the yield from the harvest.

https://prepareforchange.net/2018/10/23/bayer-stock-crashes-after-monsanto-cancer-verdict-upheld-by-judge-analyst-estimates-800-billion-in-future-liability/

Would you knowingly eat cereal that had been sprayed with poisonous weedkiller just before it was harvested? Would you like your horse to?

Speaking of Grass

The rest of the barefoot horse’s diet, once you get your forage right, is relatively easy. They shouldn’t need much else. If your forage is good quality and they have good varied grazing with access to a variety of herbs and weeds, they shouldn’t need much else.

I say that with my tongue in my cheek. Rewilding is a relatively new name for an ancient concept- living in harmony and balance with nature. The story of Knepp is the recent high profile example of this concept in action.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/28/wilding-isabella-tree-review-farm-return-nature

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/veganism-intensively-farmed-meat-dairy-soya-maize

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/15/the-magical-wilderness-farm-raising-cows-among-the-weeds-at-knepp

It took 3 years of hard work to get my supposedly horse friendly grass field in Cheshire up to a paltry 8 species per m2… more of that story in these two posts

Albrecht and the agronomist

How much grass do horses need?

Remember that our main crop is horses, not grass. If your field, like most of Cheshire, has only one or two plant species per m2, then you may need to supplement vitamins and minerals. The carrier feed for the supplement should be organic, non GMO, low sugar, and low starch. I would suggest feeding straights, then you know exactly what you are feeding. If you must feed processed feed in nice shiny bags, then be sure to avoid anything that contains oatmeal or wheatmeal (industrial floor sweepings), soya oil or meal, (the balance or omega 3,6,9 is completely wrong and actually predisposes to inflammation, and molasses flavouring.

Good brands of feed that I have used include Agrobs, St Hippolyt, Simple Systems.

Read your labels. And don’t believe marketing ploys like the Laminitis Trust badge or friendly sounding names like healthy hooves: read the labels again and do your own research.

Avoid overfeeding. Fat predisposes to insulin resistance, and also has a pro-inflammatory effect on the body. In humans, obesity is a strong independent predictor for cancer, diabetes and heart problems, because fat itself excretes damaging inflammatory signalling chemicals called cytokines.

Vitamins and Minerals

In terms of the mineral supplement content, magnesium oxide is really useful in the early transition days. Magnesium is deficient in most Western soils and diets. Horses and humans all very rarely test deficient in magnesium because levels are so tightly regulated in the blood and serum, but supplementing it has been shown anecdotally to have positive effects, for health and well being, as well as for barefoot transition. Magnesium also has an analgesic (painkilling) effect, helping horses to use their hooves better in the early stages.

Salt is crucial,

https://www.gravelproofhoof.org/salt

as are copper and zinc, to balance out the iron in our soils. I feed a 25ml scoop of table salt every day, and more in summer if they are working hard. If you can buy sea salt by the 25kg bag that’s probably better for them, but I’ve chosen ease over quality here.

There are many good all round balancers on the market to ease transition. I would only go with a British barefoot brand; these people have done their homework, their horses have travelled the miles, and they have developed a product based on the needs of the barefoot equine that they have identified from their own experience. A barefoot horse will tell you categorically if the husbandry is good enough, by developing rock crunching high mileage hooves.

So there you have it; the first step to taking the ridden horse barefoot is to forensically examine and perhaps change what you feed. Good hard working feet rely on good clean healthy nutrition, and it’s important to set yourself up for success with this crucial first step.

Keeping Ridden Horses barefoot- the good the bad and the ugly

Every now and then I come across a new horsey friend who doesn’t know and understand why I am such a keen advocate for keeping ridden horses barefoot.

At these times, I find myself re-telling the story that has got me and my horses to this point, and I think I should do a blog summary of the advantages and pitfalls of keeping ridden horses barefoot.

The good

The best thing, and I mean simply the best thing, about keeping ridden horses barefoot, and eventing said barefoot horses, is never having to worry about studs ever again.

Not only do I eliminate hours of prep, cleaning out stud holes, tapping stud holes, packing stud holes, putting in studs, searching for studs in the long grass, chasing the foot around with the tap still in the hole and all the other nightmares associated with the logistics of studding a razzed up horse, I don’t have to worry about what size of stud to use, nor the possible damage done to foot and forelimb by the unnatural stress and shear force transmitted to the horse from a studded foot.

You know how footballers are always fracturing their tarsal bones? This is due to the foot gripping suddenly at speed and all that kinetic energy getting transmitted to the bones of the foot at an angle and intensity those bones are not meant to withstand. Horse’s feet are meant to flex, in order to absorb the concussion of landing, and are also designed to slide a little before gripping, to protect the bones of the foot and the more precious bones and ligaments above.

And without shoes and studs, I get the benefit of the horse’s own natural gripping mechanism. The horse’s hoof is beautifully designed to function on all surfaces when healthy. A concave sole with a pointed toe allows the foot to dig in for extra lift. The fully developed spongy frog provides grip, slows the sliding and acts as a cushion shock absorber, a bit like Nike Airs, that also helps to pump blood back up the limb. The bars and quarters act like the cleats in a pair of football boots.

Keeping ridden horses barefoot also ensures that they have the benefit of optimal proprioception when we humans are on board. Proprioception is ‘the perception of awareness of the position and movement of the body’, and a key component of the information required fir the horse, or any animal, is the ability to feel the ground beneath their feet. The ability to access and use that information to adjust to uneven or challenging terrain is an essential part of balance and of healthy movement. Our human shoes are mostly supple and flex with our feet; horseshoes generally are not. I often think be by shod must feel like being permanently stuck in winter mountaineering boots with crampons- these have a completely rigid sole that does not flex at all; can you imagine trying to walk any distance in your ski boots? You have to do the funky chicken in the joints above to make up for the fact the foot doesn’t flex as it was meant to.

And can you remember how cold your feet get in ski boots, or even in wellies, in winter? That feeling when your feet are like blocks of ice, solid lumps with no fine touch sensation and it’s difficult to wriggle your toes? And you feel like you are walking on chunks of solid flesh rather than a fully functioning foot? That feeling is caused by impaired circulation; in the cold the blood flow to our extremities is reduced to prevent us losing excessive heat from those areas. The foot goes numb, and is less functional.

Thermal imaging allows us to compare the temperature difference, and therefore blood flow, between a shod foot and a barefoot hoof.

http://equinethermography.co.uk/galleries/horse_hoof_thermal_gallery.php

Immobility leads to impaired circulation. When your feet are cold you wiggle your toes to get the blood going; likewise a functioning equid foot flexes and contracts as it contacts the ground, pushing the blood around the hoof and limb.

The horn is still a living substance, more solid than our foot but certainly not rigid as we are led to believe.

Overly tight shoes also lead to impaired circulation. We know this from our own experience; why would horses be different?

What do steel horseshoes do? The rigidity of the steel limits the natural flexion of the foot, converting a conformable, dynamic structure into a fixed, immobilised structure. The nails and the tightness of the shoe impair circulation; even if the shoes are beautifully fitted to the hoof on day one of the shoeing cycle, as the hoof grows, the shoe and the nails become restrictive. Just observe how much the hoof grows out of shoes during your winter shoeing break compare to how slowly it grows in between shoeing cycles.

The impaired circulation from restrictive shoeing mimics chilled toes; the horse therefore suffers from impaired proprioception, both from cold feet and from being deprived of crucial mechanical contact between the sole of the foot and the ground.

In a healthy foot, the frogs act as extra pumps, moving blood around the foot and back up the limb, and also acting as a hydrostatic shock absorption mechanism. A cadaver model has actually shown that a barefoot hoof absorbs nearly ALL the concussion created by landing the limb, and therefore very little force is transmitted further up the limb, minimising damage and wear on the rest of the joints.

http://www.healthyhoof.com/articles/concussion_study.php

Another interesting fact is that steel horseshoes vibrate at the exact same frequency that causes the industrial injury “vibration white finger” in humans. It’s a frequency that causes necrosis or tissue death. Not all shoes do this- Cytek and other plastic shoes don’t have this effect, nor do aluminium racing plates. But steel horseshoes do.

The Bad

What are the disadvantages of keeping ridden horses barefoot? The main problem that I have observed is that we get instant feedback about how fit, well and sound our horses are.

Photo courtesy of V&T equine services

The motto above may not be an easy motto to live by, but it is the truth. Keeping ridden horses barefoot gives us really accurate information about our horse’s fitness to work.

Lucinda Green tells a great story about a racing trainer friend who has recently started legging up his horses barefoot. He is noticing fewer early season injuries, and much better longevity from his charges. Why?

Because shoeing had previously allowed him to work the horses harder than their bones, joints and tendons were ready for. By building up the work barefoot, he could only increase the intensity of work at the rate the feet were conditioned for; which accurately reflected the conditioning of the limbs above.

When keeping the ridden horse barefoot, we also get instant feedback about our horse’s general health. Event lines in the horn of the hoof document times of metabolic challenge. You will see a line for each dose of wormer, each vaccination, every flush of grass. If you’ve moved yards, or if your horse has had an injury, or another reason for a period of stress, there will be a ripple visible.

Is the horse footy on stones? Mostly it will have had too much sugar in its diet, or have a pro- inflammatory process going on. I am now ashamed that it took me a good few years to twig that Cal’s funny feet were actually borderline laminitic.

Laminitis is a funny disease- it’s much more akin to diabetes, a disorder of sugar metabolism that affects the whole body, than a disease limited to the foot. The horse’s foot is the end organ most often damaged by the systemic disturbance, a bit like diabetic foot injuries in humans. Cal had terrible airway inflammation, low level laminitic feet, probable ulcers and some very peculiar skin lumps- all of these are manifestations of systemic inflammation. Once I listened to the story his feet were telling me I found the answer to all his ailments.

The solution- strictly organic, low sugar low starch diet with wrapped late cut meadow hay and Phytorigins amazing supplements for hindgut health, maximum anti oxidant support and optimal digestive efficiency.

the results speak for themselves

So the main disadvantage of keeping ridden horses barefoot is that you will inevitably become much more in tune with your horse’s body. Once you start listening and observing, I warn you now, not all the information is welcome. You may have to adjust your plans and ambitions to fit in with the horse’s schedule, their current capabilities. Your ego may have to step aside. You may have to train at their rate. You may have to learn new skills, such as a little light hoof trimming. You may have to become a feed geek, or a grass geek 😜, or get a whole degree’s worth of knowledge from bitter experience!!

I say it’s worth it.

The ugly

My friend the vet said to me many years ago – “you do see some really odd shaped feet on barefoot horses”

He said this as if it was a problem, as if the trimming was at fault, or those misshapen hooves were dangerous to the horse’s long- term soundness. He was almost offended by the lack of symmetry, and that someone could allow it to persist.

My current level of understanding is that feet reflect both what’s going on inside the horse and also above in the musculoskeletal system.

Nic of Rockley Farm wrote a brilliant blog back in 2013 about flares and deviation; it’s probably the single most useful blog post I have ever read

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/03/flare-deviation-and-does-it-really.html

If the horse has funny looking feet, it’s likely because it needs funny looking feet, or because, at this moment, it can only grow funny looking feet. Fix the diet, treat the whole horse,allow and correct the movement, and beautiful feet will grow.

Simples

Nic writes from years of solid experience and is always a source of comfort and inspiration and power on badass barefoot days

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2017/10/ask-how-and-why-and-dont-be-afraid-to.html

Asking How? and Why? of any horse care professional is your right, and your duty as guardian of your horse.

if you are not yet ready to not shoe, do please burn this image on your brain. And give those feet a good long shoeing break every year, to keep the feet looking more like the healthy foot on the left of the picture than the right.

Educate yourself. Turn into a hoof geek. And a horse health geek. Ask questions. Be honest with yourself- what do you see when you look at your horse’s feet?

And remember- no foot no horse

A couple of book recommendations to get you started on your barefoot journey

Feet First by Nic Barker and Sarah Braithwaite

Barefoot Horse Keeping-the Integrated Horse by Anni Stonebridge & Jane Cumberlidge

This article is also available as a podcast

https://soundcloud.com/fran-mcnicol/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly

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Nelipot Cottage is a Pay as You Feel endeavour. If you enjoy what you have read and would like to support us on this journey, please consider making a donation towards advert free hosting

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Turn out versus living out

Or show us your mud rugs!

Another phrase that should have made me a millionaire;

“my horse could never live out, he loves his stable. He’s always begging to come in at night.”

Apart from the fact that this begging is a learned behaviour, because horses live for routine, we also need to understand the difference between providing ‘turn out’ versus providing adequate facilities for them to live out full time in a suitable environment.

Now don’t get me wrong: I would much rather horses spent a measly hour turned out than no time out at all. But we have to acknowledge that horses are movement, and the more they can move the happier and healthier they are. And that all our husbandry practises are a compromise chosen by humans between cost, practicality and ease of use of the animal. Turn out versus living out is a good example of a human chosen compromise.

I tolerate thick mud on my horses from November through to March, and many other days in between.

Other than competition days, I only groom to ride. I only wash a tail or pull a mane to compete. And I am comfortable with those choices. You won’t shame me into bathing my horse in winter- he needs his greasy coat for waterproofing. Likewise his feathers stay full all winter. And I very rarely brush his legs- layers of super dry mud wellies are the best protection against mud fever.

Mud wellies and ice baubles in fetlocks- natural insulation

Many people mistakenly believe that how a horse behaves in a turn out situation will determine how prepared that horse is to live out full time.

But there is a huge difference between turn out versus living out.

To understand why, we need to know more about the behaviour of the wild horse.

Horses much prefer to be too cold than too hot. They can warm themselves up, by increasing their activity, or by eating plenty of forage that then gets fermented in the caecum a.k.a. hindgut, producing heat. Effectively horses have their very own central heating system, and as long as they have adequate access to forage, will keep fermenting that forage and keep warm.

Horses left in their natural state will grow a fabulous winter coat. This has at least two layers, an underneath fluffy insulating layer and a longer coarser protective layer on top. If you have ever turned your horse out naked in the rain you may have noticed the herringbone pattern that the dried in rain has left?

Gorgeous herringbone courtesy of Sarah Oliver

This is no accident. The herringbone acts like a guttering system, allowing the water to run off the top of the coat while keeping the fluff underneath dry.

Mud herringbones for a cold night- Rocky's mum Willow in Weymouth

As long as the fluff has enough air in between the hairs it acts as an amazing insulation layer.

It used to amaze me, coming home after work to ride and pulling a naked horse in from the field, how dry the horses’ backs actually were most of the time.

Mud herringbones- dry underneath- Willow again

And all horses can grow a good coat if left to adapt. Paddy is 7/8 thoroughbred, thin skinned with a very fine coat, so I thought. The first year, we moved to Delamere from livery in March so all the horses were rugged. The second year we just didn’t rug.

I trace clipped Cal to allow me to work him, but with a shallow trace clip, he still didn’t need a rug. He’s half Irish Draught so grows the most beautiful fluffy winter coat, and thrives on fresh air.

Incidentally I also never dried him off after riding- I had to walk him back to the field from the house so he cooled off a bit; then the first thing he would do when turned out was roll in the cool sandy mud, good for his coat and his body temperature.

When it did snow, the horses loved rolling in the snow- it was like a spa day.

Insulation properties of snow- Sarah Oliver

Snow is also strangely insulating- the horses all wore snow rugs when they could, and their backs were toasty warm underneath!

Snow rugged pony in North Wales- Jo Ellis’ Rockstar

Snow pony in the Cumbrian fells- Sarah Oliver

Rolling is also a bonding activity I discovered. I took a book down to the field one summer day to sunbathe. I was flat on my back reading and enjoying the damp grass on my sweaty back when all 3 horses came over to join me for a rolling session. That was a pretty cool moment.

Rolling is a bonding activity – my 3 in Delamere

Paddy grew a good enough coat year 2, although he still looked a bit poorer than I would have liked coming into spring. Year 3, a really cold, wet year , he grew the most amazing triple layered pelt and wintered really well.

Environment is key though. Our horses had a field shelter, which they rarely used, but also had really good hawthorn hedges all around the field perimeter, good tree cover in the bottom corner, and most importantly the field had dips and hollows that offered varying natural windbreaks.

Their favourite spot was down in the dip in the bottom corner of the field. Eddisbury Hill formed a high level wind break, the hollow has quite deep sides and is south facing. I used to think they had all escaped as you literally couldn’t see them until you were on top of them, sun bathing down out of the wind.

Each part of the field served a different purpose. The sandy area near the field shelter was the sand rolling area. The steeper side of the slope below the field shelter was the mud rolling area.

The horses were very particular in their personal grooming routine. They would do a very thorough sand roll every morning after breakfast. The mud roll occurred in the afternoon generally, coating themselves up with extra insulation for the night.

Fluff and mud- super high tech thermal protection – Lyddy Putt’s ponies in North Wales

The Pzrewalski horses in Mongolia coated themselves in mud in the morning to keep the midges away but our field didn’t have good mud in summer. I could always tell when a cold night was due though- they would be coated in mud from eyelash to fetlock.

And the undisputed winner is- Lyddy’s Tawela

They never got rain scald- the twice daily self grooming regime works much better than the human version.

When it rained, they might occasionally hide in the field shelter for a half an hour break if it was really relentless. More often, they would be found grazing down in the dip, or browsing huddled under the hedge. Once there was a lull in the weather, they would charge around a bit to warm themselves up, then get back to the serious business of grazing.

They would graze for a couple of hours, then nap, then have some haylage, roll or groom, then go for a wander around the perimeter and stop for a drink. I used to love to spend the hours watching them just being horses.

So if your horse is “begging” to come in at night, ask yourself

1) have you trained that behaviour (yes obviously) and

2) what is missing from that turnout environment that would make your horse less keen to come in?

Does he have #friendsforagefreedom

Tearing themselves away from the hedgerow for a fuss

Is there enough forage? Enough stimulation?

A place to hide from the sun? A place to shelter? A place to roll? Room to get up some speed and play?

A place to look out over the surrounding area?

Now we are back at livery my 3 wait by the gate at 3pm, expecting to come in.

Before we moved back to livery, they used to wait by the gate of the big field at 6pm for evening feeds. But they weren’t asking to come in. They would eat their dinner, say thank you and then wander off down the field to the water trough and the haylage feeders.

Now they know their new routine – they are coming into a stable for dinner, and the turnout, although lovely, isn’t an environment good enough to support happily living out. They have adapted back to overnight confinement, for now.

But when we find our next dream Nelipot, I’m determined that I’m going to need a school dinner bell to call them down off the big wooded hill 😎😎

Because even happy healthy filthy horses should work occasionally 😜

buy the book- “Bare Hooves and Open Hearts”

If you have enjoyed this blog then please consider buying an author signed paperback copy of my recent book. It contains more of my philosophy on husbandry and training, based on my experience, research and learning. Price includes 2nd class postage to anywhere in Europe. Other regions may cost more- email me and we can always arrange.

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This New Year brings in a New Energy

With the New Year come resolutions, statements of intent, affirmations, SMART goals, whatever your preference. I’m sure we all share a feeling, around about this turning of the year that it is a time of change and that we can try to focus this for the better.

My statement of positive intent is that this New Year brings in a new energy.

First things first. Rocky went to the physio for assessment on the 2nd and got a very good report. The muscles in his back are no longer in spasm, and appear to have developed a bulk more in keeping with the size of his vertebrae. This is despite him essentially being left to rest, recuperate and just grow for the last three months.

My friends will know that my life has been somewhat changed over the last few months. I decided to give us all a break and go old school with Rocky’s mild kissing spine injury and try a bit of Dr Green and a whole lot of love.

I’ve probably managed to work him in hand one or twice a week since we moved back to livery in mid-November, he’s been out in the field every day and in at night, and we did a course of treatment with the Arc equine. Rocky, me and all the other animals are also learning about energy healing, after what in retrospect has been a tough time emotionally and psychologically.

Rocky looks really good. So the plan now is to do a couple of months in hand, building a back that one could sit on, and then aim to get back on and hopefully get going.

And hopefully we will find that the new year brings in a new energy, and a new positive start.

It’s a funny old thing, life. It is completely possible to keep trudging on from day to day, keep oneself busy, particularly with a demanding job and horses at home, and completely fail to check in with ourselves.

I liken my recent experience to working in the office at dusk; it gradually gets darker and darker, but as long as we can see the screen and keep typing, we don’t realise how much we are actually struggling until a colleague walks in and turns on the light.

Once the fluorescent striplight is on, it throws everything into sharp focus, the seemingly familiar is briefly and strangely illuminated. If we happen to glance up at that moment of unguarded change, we may get a surprising flash of clarity. The pile of boxes in the corner may seem more intrusive than usual, or the mess more disturbing.

And in that moment of stark illumination, we get to choose. We either blink and carry on, ignoring the familiar mess, or we decide that the situation must change. And from that point, if a decision is made to change, then nothing can ever look quite the same again.

And the New Year brings in a new energy.

I have always said that to learn about horses is to learn about life. Horses are first sentient; however their language isn’t one of words but of energy. The power of positive expectation cannot be over estimated

https://blog.dressagenaturally.net/107-the-power-of-expectation?utm_content=81684869&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&hss_channel=fbp-58052143396

nor can the power of negative energy be understated.

https://www.wikiart.org/en/edvard-munch/the-scream-1893

We have to remember our responsibilities

And to look after ourselves first

and to make sure that we spend enough time doing the things that make us happy

Positive energy gives you wings!

And the greatest energy is love, self love and universal love.

Simple. But not always easy xx

May you also find that the New Year brings in a new energy.

Thanks to the fabulous Jo Prestwich for the lovely photos.

And to Charlie Mackesy for permission to share his wonderful drawings. Do check out his other work.

https://charliemackesy.com/

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

The Myth of the Alpha

Or busting the myth of the alpha! I’m learning energy work at the moment. The first few sessions with a new teacher, even one infused to the hilt with energetic information, are always about seeking a common language. No matter how connected or enlightened we are, as humans we still need a framework of communication, and that communication can occasionally be clumsy. Sometimes one might drop a complete clanger.

It may occur as an attempt at shorthand, to convey a feeling, or it may reflect confusion stemming from a different understanding of words. My teacher’s clanger today was “the horse trusts you….you are the alpha in the herd.” There we have it, the myth of the alpha!

Now first, let me just clarify; I’m not bitching here. I spoke up at the time and between us, we found a different set of words that conveyed the feeling required in the moment. But it did get me to thinking…..

The myth of the alpha or herd leader is all pervasive. Depending on who you read, it may be the alpha male, the stallion or herd defender, who fights off all comers to protect his harem of mares and pass on his genes. Or it may be the alpha mare, the real herd leader, who makes all the important decisions in the herd, including when to move, when to drink, eat and sleep.

So much training methodology, in equine and canine training, is based on this flawed concept. We are told we have to be the pack leader, to dominate, to demand respect, if we expect to earn obedience or cooperation. The whole Natural Horsemanship movement is based on repackaging this belief in various shiny guru-based guises- “control the feet and you control the horse”, the use of “pressure release”, the “round pen” work and “join up”.

None of this methodology really stands up to scrutiny if your primary aim is a willing partner, either equine or canine. When an animal shows aggressive behaviour, the others will quietly choose to remove themselves from the aggressor’s proximity. When humans use coercive or alpha based training methods, the animal is never given the chance to remove himself from the unpleasant stimulus. Instead, he is subjected to ongoing dominance behaviour with no release or reprieve. What’s natural about that? The round pen work particularly, if you watch carefully, shows stressed horses, running around, demonstrating displacement behaviour not submission. And who wants submission anyway?

Modern cross country training ethos seems to rely on the fact that the horse will be more scared of the consequences of not jumping the fence than he is of jumping the scary fence. How many sales adverts say “never stops”? Personally, if I completely miss at a fence, I would rather my horse save us both rather than turning himself inside out to take off and hopefully get to the other side. I want him to trust me so when things get scary he asks me, are we ok, are we going, what do we need to do, not just to launch himself in desperation.

Training classical dressage, especially, can not be done by force. We are incrementally teaching the horse to experiment with new and different ways of using his body; the reward is that the new muscle usage feels better and so the horse will spontaneously offer it again. This relaxed experimenting on the horse’s part simply cannot occur in a coercive relationship. Classical training, similar to dance, is the very antithesis of the myth of the alpha.

I have spent many hours observing my horses in the field, while doing pooh picking and fencing and other jobs. They are three geldings, a bachelor gang, that have been together now for 5 years, mixed up with various short term visitors. Paddy, the eldest, is 23, Rocky is the youngest at 6. There really is no clear leader among them. They definitely all have different jobs. Paddy is the sentinel- I cannot get within half a mile of them in any situation without him fixing his eyes on me and saying Hi! I have owned him the longest, and the bond is close, but not as close as the bond I have with Cal. Still, it is always Paddy that announces my presence to the herd.

Cal is very controlling about food. He really flexes his muscles and his teeth at meal times; I have always fed him first for ease and safety. This doesn’t necessarily make the others want to hang out with him, and often when he is snoozing, or if I take him out to ride, the other two will spend the Cal free time stuffing themselves at the Haylage feeders. Cal is Irish born and bred, so I guess food has been scarce at some point. That’s resource guarding, it’s not leadership.

Rocky still loves to play, mostly on two hind legs. Cal and Paddy take it in turns to entertain him, and to chastise him when he gets too annoying. No one in particular decides when to move, or when to drink, or when to go for a mosey to the vantage point; those decisions seem to occur organically and any one of the 3 horses can take the lead. When we had a little mare in with the boys, she did move them around a lot, I guess because she liked to prove that she could!

All these observations however are based on horses in captivity. No matter how much we had enriched our field environment, it still had fenced boundaries, Haylage feeders and limited grass when they were allowed on the middle; i.e. rationed resources.

Lucy Rees has studied horses extensively in the wild.

“There’s a lot of fiction written about wild horses” says ethologist Lucy Rees. By that, she means that many books and even scientific studies describe horse behaviour in terms of “dominance hierarchies” – something which has never been observed in horses living under truly natural conditions, but which nevertheless form the basis of many schools of horsemanship… even ones purporting to be “natural”.

Her fascinating series of videos can be accessed for free. They should be required watching for all horse owners and horse lovers.

“In this video series, we meet the Pottoka ponies of the Gredos mountains in Northern Extremadura in Spain. The ponies lead a natural life in over 1000 hectares. The purpose of the project is to study natural horse behaviour and also to keep the mountains clear of shrubs which can start forest fires.

https://www.epona.tv/real-ethology-with-lucy-rees

Briefly, where there are adequate resources, and adequate space, there is no dominance behaviour demonstrated. The wild horses live in peaceful, co-operative family groups, and show cooperative bonding behaviour and virtually no aggression. There might be some posturing at breeding time, but there is no true conflict. Humans could learn a lot from horses.

Likewise the seminal study that led to the myth of the alpha wolf, was based on an observational study in the 1940s, performed on wolves in captivity. Mech then published a book on the theory in the 1970s, which he has recently been trying to get withdrawn! A wolf pack in captivity, a bit like our domestic horses, is a group of disparate individuals who have been forcibly grouped together by their human owners, with no family relationship or accounting for personalities, and who are then made to compete for resources which are controlled and rationed by the humans. Funnily enough, the captive wolves fought a lot. The study has been compared to learning about the behaviour of human families by observing people living in refugee camps!

http://www.sketchyscience.com/2014/08/the-alpha-myth-real-science-of-wolf.html

It is not just our animals who suffer from our obsession with this flawed paradigm

https://qz.com/910561/the-myth-of-the-alpha-leader-is-destroying-our-relationships-at-work-and-at-home/

Imagine how much less stressful and more fun life at the office could be if we all worked together for the greater good rather than allowing behaviour that would not be out of place in a small shark tank!

So if we are not to be their alpha animal, what role can we assume? How about being their most trusted human? How about an equal relationship between two different species of animal based on mutual trust and affection? Believe me, these animals know you have two legs. Of course large animals need to understand physical boundaries, for everyone’s safety, but we can set those parameters with energy and intent as well as very simple training- rewarding the behaviours we like and either not rewarding or discouraging the behaviours we don’t like.

Positive reinforcement does not have to involve treats; dogs and horses are first sentient: your approval and love is reward enough. (Although treats do help in the early days when puppies are super distractable.) I’ve never yet had a horse for whom I needed to use treats for simple training tasks. I’ve used food as a distraction e.g. when clipping and trimming, but not as a specific positive reinforcement training aid. I’m not saying I will never need to, but in my current skill set, with my current equines, my timing and marking is best done with verbal praise and a pat or a stroke. Horses are so good at understanding intent, they know when they have done well.

So please do your animals a favour. Look your horse or dog in the eye and try communicating with the smallest possible whispers or signals. Imagine you are in a war zone, or out hunting, and need to communicate with silent gestures and just a thought. Once you start to whisper, they will start to listen more closely. And once you observe them carefully, and try to only praise rather than constantly saying “NO don’t do that”, you will be amazed at how they blossom.

So please, join me in going out and help us all bust the myth of the alpha. The world will be much better for it.

Another useful article with a load of references to boot

http://www.eurodressage.com/2018/12/27/usemisuse-leadership-and-dominance-concepts-horse-training?fbclid=IwAR1s4Y325sjrJdoTlMrdUMORX1kP1t7H3mevxQxp4_XNwGD4HKrAcaLkbVQ

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

Lessons from Nelipot Cottage

Of Course the Environment Matters- keeping the ridden horse barefoot

Like this:

Sitting Pretty…when the saddle fits

Like this:

The Journey of a Thousand Miles; Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot

How far do horses travel in a day?

If the horse really can’t move freely then foot protection should be considered.

So to summarise, movement is key for healthy barefoot feet, as well as for healthy brains and bodies.

Like this:

The First Step- Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot

Forage Based Diet

Feed Clean

Speaking of Grass

Vitamins and Minerals

Like this:

Keeping Ridden Horses barefoot- the good the bad and the ugly

The good

The Bad

The ugly

Like this:

Turn out versus living out

Like this:

This New Year brings in a New Energy

Like this:

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.

Like this:

The Myth of the Alpha

Like this:

Suddenly happens over a very long time…

Watching good dressage training

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

How far do horses travel in a day?

If the horse really can’t move freely then foot protection should be considered.

So to summarise, movement is key for healthy barefoot feet, as well as for healthy brains and bodies.

Share this:

Like this:

Forage Based Diet

Feed Clean

Speaking of Grass

Vitamins and Minerals

Share this:

Like this:

The good

The Bad

The ugly

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:

Share this:

Like this:

Watching good dressage training

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Like this: