Tag: holistic horses

The Rocky Road to Rehab

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

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

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

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

We bought him as a yearling.

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

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

Paddy was hiding – Ernie thinks they are his brothers anyway

The pity party

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

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

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

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

Rocky working at camp this spring

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

Nuno showing an exemplary piaffe- all on the seat

Levade requires even more topline

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

We’ve taken it really slowly

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

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

Do we even believe horses can have tricky natures?

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

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

Or was he?

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

I’ve written about this before

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

I should have known better.

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

Have we done too much ridden work with him?

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

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

Is the injury the result of an unfortunate conformational glitch?

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

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

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

The value of good in hand work

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

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

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

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

In classical training, the bit belongs to the horse.

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

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

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

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

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

Naming your horse

Naming your horse can be a real challenge. Choosing passport names can be great fun, but I’m starting to wonder if naming a horse is a prophetic process or even if they help you find the perfect name?

Paddy arrived with a stable name but no passport. He needed a good name for Eventing so after much deliberation I called him Wise Words.

This name did turn out to be prophetic- Paddy taught me lots, over the years. His most important lesson was to teach me to listen to horses.

I’ll never forget the relief in his whole demeanour when we took his shoes off for the last time. Suddenly the trimmer was his favourite person, whereas the Farriers had always been the enemy.

And his jumping improved no end once he could feel his feet and adjust himself.

He always had an opinion though, especially about ditches. Classic quote from the commentary box- Fran McNicol getting some wise words from her horse at the ditch.

His last event was the unaffiliated 3 day at Longleat- some clown had put decorative little wooden lizards and alligators in the ditch. I’ll never forget him back-paddling in mid air over the part A skinny like a cartoon character when he spotted those.

He was the greatest on his good days though – I have some wonderful memories when our wise words were in tune 😀

Cal arrived with a green passport, a microchip and no name. He was bought to be the fabulous cross county horse so I named him Cloud Warrior.

Surprisingly he’s turned out to be a bit of a dressage diva, who offered Pesade very early on. I wonder if I might have a secret Airs horse in the making- I need another few years for that Naming to come true.

He also loves posing

In the meantime at Shelford this year we had an average dressage, a surprise stop in the show jumping but he was storming around the cross country, with speeding penalties, when the commentator struck again. “Cloud Warrior- this horse is very well named, not had the best day in the other phases but he’s storming across the country. Good name for a good cross country horse!”

Rocky’s real name is Royal Magic.

I have no idea yet how that name will come to be true!!

Do you have any funny stories to tell about naming your horse?

Another self trimming horse

After owning Cal for 7 years I am very proud and pleased to announce that I have another self trimming horse!!

And once again, now it’s a reality, I’m wondering why it took me so long to understand that even funny feet Cal could be a self trimming horse.

For any self respecting hoof nerd, a self trimming horse is the ultimate aim. The self trimming horse has a perfect balance between wear and growth, balances his own feet through work to the shape that suits him, and is sound in the work he does.

I never thought Cal could be a self trimming horse, until my barefoot life seemed to come full circle.

I’ve written previously about how my barefoot journey began

Barefoot Brain-ache

And about my trials and tribulations with funny feet Cal

Horse needs shoes and pads

Including the point where we thought we had really cracked it.

Barefoot Breakthrough

but all along, I was operating from within a false paradigm, despite hoof geeking obsessively all these years!

I thought a horse’s hooves had to be good before he could become a self trimming horse.

Barefoot beginnings

Now, I started my barefoot journey thanks to Sarah of Forageplus. Sarah wrote a book with Nic Barker (of Rockley Farm rehab fame) called Feet First

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feet-First-Barefoot-Performance-Rehabilitation/dp/0851319602

which was the original barefoot bible for those brave souls bucking the trend in the late 90’s!

Diet

It was early days- barefoot horse owners were considered eccentric freaks. Sarah drove around the county to trim clients horses with a huge tub of magnesium oxide in the back of her jeep and a set of scales. Who knows what the police would have made of her white powder delivery round?

We didn’t know as much about best nutrition for healthy feet as we do now, although we knew diet was the key.

As was work.

Exercise

When I transitioned Paddy he was being looked after by Mel the polo groom. He did at least 5 miles daily plus whatever I did with him in the evenings and weekends. And luckily, due to the facilities locally, he was able to do that comfortably from the first day his shoes came off. Glass smooth tarmac really is the best surface for conditioning rock crunching feet!!

Hoof boots were really hard to buy, really clumpy and mostly imported from America and made for little horses with dainty feet. I didn’t bother for Paddy- he never needed them.

Then along came Cal. He arrived from Ireland in the most horrific set of shoes. Looking back I’m really not sure how I didn’t spot the really funny feet.

I can’t find any early feet photos but believe me the whole of the hoof capsule sat in front of a line dropped down the cannon bone!!

This photo is from about 18months after I bought him. In that time he had fractured a carpal bone (in shoes) tripping over that toe, and was about a year into his barefoot rehab.

Now you would never say that foot could belong to a self trimming horse would you?

Environment

Shortly after this photo was taken we bought our own place and started applying everything we knew about creating the perfect feet. We had our six acre field which we proudly put a track around, our very own #paddockparadise

I mineral balanced to our now steady supply of late cut meadow hay, and then later Haylage.

We soil tested and actually applied the chemicals as recommended by the Albrecht protocol.

Grow your own….

We tried to do our rock crunching milage around the fabulous #Delamereforest and surrounding area.

Trim

and we kept looking for the perfect trim that would finally turn that peculiar set of feet into something functional. I went through a posse of trimmers over the first few years. Sarah wasn’t trimming much as her business grew, so we needed an alternative. My first choice wasn’t flexible enough to fit in around my hectic work schedule. The next was lovely but then got poorly and needed a couple of operations. I went back to a UKHNCP trimmer for an alternative view. The alternative then moved down south! I sought a couple of second opinions, one of whom did a really radical trim which left him sore for weeks. Then I eventually met Emma Bailey, who is a good listener, really knows her nutrition and is always keen to discuss with and learn from all horses and clients. She is also good friends with Nick Hill and Ralitsa, the holistic vet, so we got 3 heads to scratch.

We went through gentle trims, more invasive trims, leaving the flares, taking the flare off, trim the bars, leave the bars, attack the toe, swipe the heels… yet no matter what we tried, the feet improved a bit month by month yet remained stubbornly slipper like

With thin soles, shallow collateral grooves and little heel height.

He was surprisingly functional over the years, despite the feet looking flat and poor, he has worked hard on all surfaces except stones and we have had some great fun

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL55sjNB8nhYVHUrASlthXCJkdGsqql_RF

Then Emma went on a workshop with Nic Barker and my barefoot life came full circle.

Any self respecting hoof nerd will know of Nic’s seminal blog piece ‘Celery’

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/04/dont-even-think-of-touching-that-hoof.html

And in the most recent blog follow up on that theme, not much in her learning and experience has changed

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2018/09/put-down-rasp-and-pick-up-celery.html

Now I always have believed in self trimming horses! Paddy was essentially self trimming apart from a check every 3 months, and a touch up for trips out, and Rocky looks like he will go the same way, but for some reason, it had never occurred to me with Cal. How could those pathological feet possibly become healthier without help?

Luckily Emma is a good listener. She cane back from the workshop and basically waved a rasp at all 3 horses. And told me to get out there and work them and see what occurs.

There’s been a sub solar abscess or something funky by my hand on this foot- there’s a load of false sole and a chip out of the bar

And guess what?

Cal’s finally growing the feet he needs.

Yes -there is lots of bar- he obviously needs it.

Yes -theoretically you could tighten the foot up to the white line…but it opens up again more or less straight away.

Yes -there looks like some flare from the top but from the bottom they are actually not too bad.

And yes- that toe can still come back, and it does, a few gentle swipes every time I ride.

And best of all- look at the depth of those collateral grooves!! That is new and special and exciting!

Now I’m not saying he’ll never get trimmed again. Those toes need touching up, as do any cracks and chips.

But the more we trimmed, the more hoof he grew, but exactly the same foot! Now we are not trimming so persistently, the foot is growing more slowly but is also building itself up, from the inside.

And so I’ve come full circle, back to celery – in a healthy horse, barefoot is never all about the trim.

I think I finally have a healthy horse- that’s been another journey, getting the diet right, and now we have stopped messing around ‘fixing’ his feet, we seem to have acquired another self trimming horse.

I’ll leave you with the Rockley rehabs for inspiration. The feet in this barefoot ‘hoof porn’ film are all self trimming, and all incredibly functional.

N.B. Until you’ve seen a horse move and the hoof land you cannot judge the level of function.

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/p/barefoot-in-slow-motion.html

Is your horse self trimming?

Does it land heel first?

If not, have you ever thought that less could be more?

The Buzz about the Fuzz

I started noticing the buzz about the fuzz a year or so ago. The fuzz is fascia, a part of the connective tissue that is generally ignored.

When we bought Rocky, our fancy warmblood, we bought a young horse with international standard genes. We had to have him gelded, and we were told to make sure we got some massage done on the gelding scar to preserve his fabulous movement.

We all know a little bit about fascia. It’s the stringy stuff in between the muscles in your chicken breast, or the marbling in your steak. It’s the layer that keeps healthy muscles separate so they can slide over each other and work independently.

In surgery, knowledge of fascia is critical- it’s fascia that determines the layers of anatomical cleavage where cutting should occur.

The French surgeons really get the buzz about the fuzz- they call it ‘cheveux d’anges’ or “angel hair”- a lovely romantic name for the delicate little tendrils we see when tissues are separated already by fascial planes act like a dotted line for bloodless and painless surgery.

Not that fascia doesn’t contain blood vessels and nerves- they are just fewer in number. If tissue is disrupted by injury, it’s partly the fascia that stabilises that injury, by thickening into a scar. That’s why it’s important to keep good mobility throughout life, and especially after injury.

Dr Hedley’s short film is a great celebration of the buzz about the fuzz

https://youtu.be/_FtSP-tkSug

So, when I was looking for a horse massage therapist, I remembered the lovely Babs, of Chester zoo fame, who happens to be incredibly local to us, and who we knew from the last livery yard (before we moved onto our own land).

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=522106882

Babs came to treat the horses and I asked her about Myofascial Release Therapy. Her eyes lit up and she started telling and showing me.

What struck me first was how subtle and gentle the manoeuvres were. She was using gentle finger pressure on acupressure and meridian points.

There is a theory that acupuncture actually works along fascial lines- no other anatomical highway explains the effects of acupuncture: it doesn’t work along the determined paths of blood vessels, nerves or lymphatics.

Had it not been for my horse’s dramatic reaction, I wouldn’t have known there was any treatment going on.

Not Cal, but another equally demonstrative horse

Cal is very demonstrative- in between manoeuvres he stretched, adjusted, licked and chewed. And got more and more soft blink sleepy.

And his posture improved, and the gymnastic schooling work went through better and better.

In a perfect world, correct schooling work in itself should be therapeutic. We all feel that our horses generally have a hollow side and a longer side. If we strengthen to equalise to the shorter hollow side we end up with stiff horses, equally contracted on both sides. If however we work on lengthening and decontracting the short stiff side to equal the length of the longer side of the body and then start to strengthen, we build strength on suppleness and the power can come through from behind without any blockage. The basic knowledge of gymnastic schooling is mostly lost now, in the rush for progress and prizes, few people know how to nor take the time to build the horse up into an athlete before using the power they offer. Hence why my search for a good instructor led me to a lady who lives on the south coast and visits us once a month for 3 day clinics!!

The hyoid and tongue apparatus of the horse is connected to the hocks by an uninterrupted fascial sheet, varying in thickness but nonetheless a pure connection. So any bit action which constricts the tongue and hyoid will also adversely affect the movement of the hind legs. This is the cause of the funky trots we see now in high level dressage horses: neck and head restricted, tongue tied down, hind legs strung out behind rather than coming through to take the rider up and forward.

Funky trot- back is hollow, hocks out behind, head and neck restricted due to excess pressure on the bit

https://handshealinghorses.wordpress.com/tag/horse-hyoid-apparatus/

The tongue is also connected to the shoulders

https://www.facebook.com/339154063236779/videos/403549170130601/

In humans, our mostly sedentary lifestyles prevent us from riding well. We get told we need a strong core to absorb the horse’s movement, but actually it’s a stillness in motion we need to seek, not a stiff brace. Think walking along on a boat not surviving a ride on the Big One!

We need open flexible hip sockets, a nice flat back with good isometric tone of our front and back lines, as well as the line from armpit to hipbones. Most of us have over developed or tight back and shoulder muscles with weak contracted front lines. Strengthening a shorter front line will only increase the dysfunction- we need to open up the hip flexors before we can engage our ‘core’ to get the balance required between front and back lines. I found a human Physio to help with this- again with focus on MFR.

https://www.facebook.com/backinactionwarrington/

Matt from BackinAction isn’t quite as gentle as Babs; often it feels like a Chinese burn as he stretches creaky, stiff fascia, but after 6 months of breaking down the fuzz, I can now access front and back trunk muscles as required, and even use my hand or leg without the other joining in, and mostly without bracing or stiffness. This is progress indeed.

So quite rightly, there is a lot of buzz about the fuzz. Is your fuzz soft and pliable, or tough and stringy?

And how about your horse? Does his skin move smoothly over soft muscles or can you see stripes or striations in the muscle? Have you inadvertently strengthened a stiffness? Does he pound the ground or float softly?

Supple horses with soft pliable fuzz and efficient energy transfer last a lifetime- isn’t that what we would all wish for our dream partners?

How much attention do you pay to the fuzz? For you and your dancing partner?

How much grass do horses need?

How much grass do horses need?

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

You can read the official trip report here

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

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

How much grass do horses need?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How much grass do horses need?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Mongolian horses were very skilled at self selection.

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

Why would horses be any different?

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

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

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

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

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

So much grass do horses need?

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

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

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

here are some links to other accounts of the trip

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

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

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

“In the Middle are the Horsemen” by Tik Maynard

“In the Middle are the Horsemen” by Tik Maynard- a book review.

Image courtesy of Trafalgar Square Books

“He studied the horse, and human nature, and how the two can find balance. And in that journey, he may have found himself”

I was offered the opportunity to write this book review through the blogging support group #Horsebloggersmeetup.

“In the Middle are the Horsemen”

The title of the book was immediately alluring to me; my main obsession over the last few years has been to make myself into a better horse-person. This is a book I certainly would have bought for myself, had I not received a free copy courtesy of the fabulous Quiller publishing.

The blurb says “In 2008, 26 year-old Tik Maynard faced a crossroads not unlike that of other young adults. A university graduate and modern pentathlete, he suffered both a career ending injury and a painful break-up, leaving him suddenly adrift. The son of prominent Canadian equestrians, Maynard decided to spend the next year as a working student. In the horse industry, working students aspire to become professional riders or trainers, and willingly trade labour for hands-on education. Here Maynard chronicle his experiences- good and bad- and we follow along as one year becomes there, what began as a casual adventure gradually transforms, and a life’s purpose comes sharply into focus.”

I’m still a kinaesthetic reader: the feel of a book in my hands is very important to me. This is a classy book: although paperback, the outer cover is glossy and sturdy, the front a peaceful photo, the paperback thick enough to look crisp for a good few years. The paper inside is good quality and the layout nice and clean.

He spares us the details of the injury and the break-up: the story of “In the Middle are the Horsemen” begins with the hunt for a job. Tik’s criteria are simple enough: a central riding location (in North American terms), the trainer must have a deep understanding of the classical foundation of horse training, and the trainer must be a leading rider or trainer in whatever discipline he or she practised. He starts writing to all the great and good, asking for a job.

Tik manages to land jobs at some of the best yards in the world. He works for Johann Hinneman, Ingrid Klimke (unpaid and all too briefly), the O’Connors, Ian Millar the showjumper, for a day, Bruce Logan the cowboy, Anne Kursinski, to name a few. He learns some hard lessons, from people and horses, and as with all those who reflect on their time spent with horses, the lessons help him grow into a better human, as well as a better horse-person.

“In the Middle are the Horsemen” started life as a series of magazine articles and this does leave the narrative slightly disjointed at times. Tik is a very entertaining writer, with a good eye for detail and an ear for dialogue which allows the stories to flow. I read the book in one sitting; it certainly kept me absorbed and entertained, I laughed with him as well as at him, and I liked him a lot more at the end of the book than I did at the beginning!

Photo by Kathy Russell, courtesy of Trafalgar Square Books

Tik initially struggles to separate good horsemanship from good riding; the crux of his learning and the theme running through the book is that you need to be a good horse-person to be a truly good rider. This is hardly a startling revelation, and his lack of clarity on this point, especially in the early stages of his story, leads to frustration for both author and the reader.

In the same way, he never truly defines classical horsemanship and he seeks deeper knowledge in trendy books and DVDs such as Mark Rashid, Buck, Parelli, Mclean: horsemanship and some attempts at science, whilst apparently bypassing the seminal books written by the truly classical trainers of recent times. For example, Rashid’s books get 2 mentions, Klimke only 1!

“You just need to be a better rider” does finally morph at the end of the book into “I wanted to be a great rider, now my ambition is greater, to be a great horseman”

His quest for adventure seemed to surpass the thirst for knowledge. He’s a young man, on a planned quest, who sometimes preferred to follow his master plan rather than go with the flow, leaving seemingly golden opportunities for unknown pastures greener. I wanted him to stay at Ingrid’s for longer; but I guess that would have been my dream, not his.

For a book about horsemanship, in the end, most of the lessons seem to come from people not horses. Most of the stories are about people and human-human interactions, not human-horse.

There are a few good quotes later in the book

“Then there was just the being with horses. Which is nice. But without the training, without the communication, we just happened to be with each other, there was no dialogue. It is like sitting next to Elizabeth Gilbert on a plane. Cool…but you are still strangers until one of you starts talking.”

I did get the impression that Tik would always be the one to start the conversation.

“A horse’s cost never reflects his worth”

And some great questions

“What’s good to a horse?”

It’s not a book about training, nor could it be used as a training aid. It is the entertaining, well told, rueful and truly funny account of of one young man’s learning. There are a few tips disguised within stories that might open the door to self reflection, to make people sit up and question aspects of their horse-human interaction.

The book ends where he finds love, and peace and purpose. And the horses in his part of the world are surely better for his quest, as it would seem he now works as a horse trainer, for competitive riders but with a strong Natural Horsemanship bent.

“In the Middle are the Horseman” is a good and entertaining read. The honest tales of life as a working pupil on an equestrian gap year or three made me wistful; what a wonderful dream to live out, and I’m so glad for him that it has had a happy ending. The writing is crisp, the pace lively and the book is peppered with good anecdotes as well as increasingly honest self reflection.

Is the book a keeper? Yes, for a while.

Will I read it again? Yes once or twice.

Will I pass onto a friend? Yes for entertainment value.

Would I recommend “In the Middle are the Horsemen” to my friends? Yes, as a fun equestrian book to buy for a holiday or a rainy weekend.

Would I read another book by him if he wrote one? Yes for sure

Thanks to Sam at #Haynet for organising me to write this review, to my virtual friends at #Horsebloggersmeetup for their group support and encouragement, to #Quillerpublishing and Trafalgar Square books for the gift of the book, and to all you readers out there for taking the time out to read my blog.

Buy the book- it’s a 3.5 out of 5

Buy the Book here

Grow your own….

When you can’t get hold of the organic, GMO, low sugar forage you need, one alternative is to grow your own…if you are lucky enough to own your own land.

We are very lucky; we have a consistent supply of organic meadow Haylage from a producer large enough to keep our little herd going all winter, although it was close this year! It hadn’t occurred to me that we could grow your own…

This summer is the horses’ third year of living on our field. After a couple of years of experimenting, we now track around the edge in summer, growing the grass in the middle long for winter foggage, also known as standing hay.

Over the last couple of years I have learned more about how natural biodiversity in the horse’s diet is vital for good hindgut function. I have been following the wonderful work that Carol Hughes does at Phytorigins, using the wild Carneddau ponies of North Wales and their environment as a source of inspiration and study. Carol is very generous with her knowledge and shares much priceless information on her public Facebook page

https://m.facebook.com/groups/1862115997153052

Sarah at Forageplus has also been a big part of my learning journey and introduced me to the work of Albrecht, an American agronomist who was all about preserving the diversity of the micro-ecosystem within the soil itself, vital for the health of all animals and for our survival.

Forageplus offer a soil testing service and advice on soil mineral balancing to Albrecht principles. As far as I know, they are the only company in the UK to offer this service.

I wrote a couple of years ago about our early experience trying to explain Albrecht to our local agronomist-

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/albrecht-and-the-agronomist/

Since then we did manage to soil test and treat as per the recommendations for two years, giving ourselves a budget break this year because treating your land isn’t a cheap fix, although much cheaper than vets bills!!

I have also been reading about re-wilding, and the remarkable ability of the land to heal itself if left alone. Our land would have started life as a lowland meadow

http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/UKBAP_BAPHabitats-29-Lowland%20Meadows.pdf

With a bit of mere and moss thrown in

https://www.cheshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife/our-work-wildlife/living-landscapes/meres-and-mosses

A work colleague recently bought a house in North Wales with a 3 acre native upland hay meadow. Talking over coffee about the recommendations he had to follow for the preservation of this incredibly rare habitat made me think- could I get our field nearer to its original ecological state? And how much healthier for our horses would that be?

So, no chemical fertilisers or weed killers. In fact

Encourage and embrace plant diversity. Rik gave us some seeds from Wales, and I bought some native wildflower seeds from https://www.meadowmania.co.uk/

A single hay- cut followed by grazing, but the grass clippings must be cleared not allowed to rot and thereby fertilise the field.

Regular aeration- we have not achieved this yet- seems to be he hardest job to convince a contractor to do, but it is vital as it gets oxygen into the soil for the roots and the root dwelling organisms.

After cutting, grazing by herbivores is allowed and harrowing the dung. Ideally the herbivores should not have been treated with wormers as these kill the dung eating insects. We don’t worm unless necessitated by faecal egg counts and tapeworm saliva tests

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/targeted-equine-worming-programme-action/

So what changes have I noticed?

We had over 10 species of grass that I could differentiate in the field this year. We have had almost no ragwort this year – 15 plants pulled to date in the improved area, the track has a few more tiny rosettes but has not been treated as per Albrecht.

We have lots of new herbs and wildflowers, including this wonderful Prunalla Vulgaris, also known as ‘self-heal’.

Wild flowers return

The huge expanses of clover were not evident this year- instead we had swathes of new grass.

And we had enough grass to cut!! I was thinking we would have to pay someone to cut it and take it away as there wouldn’t be enough to bale but in this funny spring the grass just grew and grew.

And then shrank again in the heat…

Nonetheless it was still worth a go.

It doesn’t look like much once it’s mowed and rowed

However the baler kept spitting out good sized round bales

So there we have it- 3 months worth of home grown organic meadow Haylage. I am both delighted and gobsmacked. If you can’t buy what you need, do think about whether you could find a way to grow your own… there is no more satisfying feeling than seeing your own land produce a crop.

Although strictly speaking, we grow horses, not grass.

I hope I have inspired you- it is possible to grow your own hay or Haylage, to suit your own horses’ needs.

Next time, I’ll be able to tell you all about these guys

And what I will have learned from meeting them in their own natural habitat- in the wilds of Mongolia 🇲🇳

Big fit horses in reasonable work can get laminitis too…

Laminitis is not just a disease for small natives: big, fit horses in medium work can get laminitis too, as I discovered to my chagrin a few weeks ago.

I was chatting about our recent troubles at the area 20 qualifiers yesterday and the lady I was chatting too said “Oh, he’s a big horse, we forget they can get laminitis too” as if this was rare?

It had never occurred to me that laminitis was mainly a disease of small ponies, although I do associate it mostly with good doers. Cal is a good doer, but he is also a big, fit horse in medium level work and had been eventing the week before he showed that big fit horses in reasonable work can get laminitis too.

The causes of laminitis are now known to be metabolic, either associated with Equine Metabolic Syndrome ( a sort of type II Diabetes for horses) or Equine PID, more commonly known as Cushing’s disease. Metabolic causes means that laminitis is a disease of the whole horse, the cause and the treatment are not limited to the foot.

I’m pretty sure Cal has EMS, although I’ve never tested him properly. How do I know this? Because he has been such a tricky barefooter over the years. For those of you who do not fully embrace the barefoot concept, let me share with you my paradigm.

Any horse with the correct diet, environment, exercise and trim should be able to go barefoot and work hard barefoot.

Those 4 simple sounding words are not simple things to achieve in the U.K. Cal is an Irish Spirts horse, so he is half Irish Draught, and he looks like he got quite a lot of Connemara in the mix, so a dose of Spanish blood too. He didn’t get much TB in his phenotype, that’s for sure.

Diet-  Cal is finely tuned to survive in the Irish peat bogs, or possibly also in Spanish scrubland. He doesn’t get much green grass, a sniff makes him footsore so a good bellyfull would probably kill him. He is the main reason our horses are track dwellers, and his story is partly why we bought our house and land, because traditional livery yards simply could not cater for his needs. This horse loves fresh thistles, bashes down nettles to let them wilt, eats a bit of bracken for the insulin like compound, goes for ivy, again for the sugar busting properties. He is pretty good at managing his own condition, as long as he is offered the variety of herbs and plants he needs to offset the green posion. He gets a small bucket feed which contains salt, Phytorigin GI, a hindgut balancer ained at feeding the good bacteria, Phytolean plus, a plant based supplement with lots of anti-oxidants designed to support the immune system and homeostasis of tricky metabolic horses.

Environment: he on a track system or paddock paradise. His main needs #friendsforagefreedom are met as best we can. He lives out 24/7, in a stable herd with his mates, to groom, play, commune with and boss around. They have access to constant ad lib forage, and are safe from stress. As he is pretty dominant he is the safest of all from stress, especially as Paddy is the lookout.

Exercise: he’s my main horse. He lives on a track so does about 5 miles a day mooching around on there, he also gets ridden 3-4 times a week, a mixture of hacking, schooling, jumping and fast work every 10 days or so. Of course he could do more, if I had more time.

Trim: trim has always been tricky. But that’s mainly because Cal has been tricky. The more I learn about feet, the more I think there difference between a good trim and a bad trim is a bit like a clip: two weeks!! Bad feet are impossible to trim into a healthy shape and function, and good healthy working feet are really hard to trim into bad shape because they just wear themselves correct again with work and movement. Cal has been footy on stones for his entire barefoot career. We use nice little euphemisms but make no mistake, a slightly sore foot is a slightly weak or a pathological foot. That’s why I would never call a horse sound unless it was truly sound without shoes: if the horse is sore when you take the shoes off, the shoes are disguising a problem. It took me a few years of looking at hoof photos to realise that Cal was a sub-clinical laminitic.

When I bought him his feet ran so far forward the whole foot sat in front on his legs, but he was sound as a pound in shoes! When he broke his carpal bone and we took the shoes off it took 3 full years to get a hoof that actually had hoof under the leg bones, and 4 years to get the heel bulbs in line with the middle of his cannon bones. The under run heels, the slipper like toes, the occasional growth ring, these were all subtle laminitic stigmata. Yet he had worked hard, team chased, hunted, evented, with the only sign of challenge being on very stony ground. So many people said I should just shoe him, as if that would solve all our problems, and that advice even came from some barefoot trimmers and vets.

Had he been shod, I might not have spotted the mild attack of laminitis until it was a full blown disaster.

I had brought him down to the house ready to compete at the weekend. I had ridden him in the school, bathed, cleaned tack and left him in the stable at the house for an early start. Normally when at the house they get Horsehage HiFi Haylage,

but our local shop had run out so I had bought some West Lancs Haylage instead. I gave him a good feed and a good big section of Haylage to last him overnight. The next day he was pointing a foot at me, and shifting around behind.

It took me a few days to twig what was going on: because one foot seemed to be worse I thought abscess first of all. And I was still feeding the West Lancs Haylage. It was only when I realised it was pure Ryegrass Haylage that I put two and two together. After a few days at the house no abscess had appeared and he wasn’t actually a welfare case so I moved him back to the field. He got better there but after 10days was still not looking rideable. He had palpable pulses in all 4 legs and was moving very slowly and appeared miserable.

I got the vet out, who agreed with me that it was laminitis, but very mild, to the extent that, I quote, “a lot of owners wouldn’t have noticed there was anything wrong”. He gave Cal a shot of i.v. analgesia which allowed me to get hoof boots on his front feet so he was comfortable enough to walk back to the house, and then to march him up the big hill. I kept him at the house, rationing every mouthful: no grass at all, a section of Hifi or a tiny feed very 4 hours and walking up the hill once or twice daily. All this strict diet and exercise was aimed to sharpen his insulin response again. He had Phytorigins Rescue Remedy which is a 5 day course, double dose PhytoGI, double dose Phytolean Plus for maximum antioxidants and a sachet Danilone twice daily.

http://phytorigins.co.uk/Phyto-Rescue-Remedy

After 4 days he was much improved, back to hacking out and schooling again at 10days. He went back to the now very dry sandy grass free track (thanks weather) on about day 5 (more to do with work than precise symptoms).

The vet offered to do a glucose stimulation test to see if it was definitely EMS- I have declined this. The blood test says it’s not Cushings, there is no really effective treatment for EMS other than really tight management which we do already, and there is a significant risk of laminitis from the stimulation test.

I now know that every mouthful counts, that I will never switch Haylage again for my own convenience, and that this horse needs to work every week, no matter how busy I am with my job.

It’s been a bad spring. I have another medical friend whose horse got laminitis because she was a bit busy with work and didn’t ride for a week: nothing else changed. And I have heard local tales of other big, fit horses in reasonable work who have succombed to the condition after a seemingly innocent change in diet or management. The grass this spring has been bonkers, wet and warm and then sunny is a great combination for really rich Cheshire cow grass. Our track looks totally bare now but it’s the scorching sun that has killed the green stuff the last couple of weeks, before that it was the horses munching away that kept the grass looking poor.

Do you check your horse’s pulses every day?

http://www.ironfreehoof.com/equine-digital-pulses.html

Shod or not, a palpable pulse might be the first sign of impending laminitis and feeling a change early might just save your horse from a full blown attack.

https://thehorse.com/111374/10-early-warning-signs-of-laminitis/

Do you watch every mouthful your horse eats?

Keeping a tricky barefoot horse sound, healthy and in full work is a sure way to turn into a feed geek; Paddy could eat more or less what he liked and still trot and canter on any stony surface in the forest.

Since having Cal my rudimentary knowledge of horse physiology and nutrition is now more or less at degree level; of course it helps that I am already an expert in human physiology so the proper equine textbooks are legible to me. I have tried every supplement on the market, tried every supposedly healthy bagged feed and have come around to the acceptance that maintaining a healthy hindgut is key, and that all is really required is hay, water, salt and enough variety in their environment to allow them to forage for what they need. in the absence of variety, supplements might be required and it’s the Phytorigins approach that makes the most sense to the cynical scientist in me.

Do you reduce the bucket feed if your horse is doing less work?

Cal isn’t on anything rich or high in protein or sugar, we use Agrobs, but I have cut down significantly from what I was feeding and will cut down even more if he has a quiet week. He wasn’t fat, but his condition hasn’t really changed on less food so I think feeding the minimum required to keep him fit is definitely the way to go. Even in a busy month, he will never be in hard work like a polo pony or a racehorse.

Cal fully recovered at BRC area qualifiers

Operating within a false paradigm

Fallacies and paradigms- 2 of my favourite new words. Are you operating within a false paradigm?

First question – what is a paradigm?

operating within a false paradigm

Are you operating within a false paradigm, i.e. a false belief system? How does this relate to horses? I hear you cry…

Let me use a personal example of operating within a false paradigm.

Some years ago there was an incredibly successful black dressage stallion from the Continent. He and his rider posted record breaking scores. His movement was spectacular- his forelegs seemed to reach for the sky, stretching far beyond where his nose pointed, and the crowd gasped and cooed. And the judges also gasped and cooed. The record breaking scores led me to believe that this sort of movement must be sought, a result of the pinnacle of skilful and careful dressage training.

At the time, I wanted to learn more about how to train my horse, from scratch, all the way though to magnificence. At the time the black stallion was the epitome of competitive magnificence in my eyes. He was scoring over 80% and winning every gold medal around.

So my paradigm: because this combination was winning everything, he must be the most correct rider, and the black beauty the most beautifully trained horse out there.

As I read and learned more, I started to read about Rollkur. This rider is a well known exponent of Rollkur, or LDR, or deep stretching, or whatever fluffy name the proponents choose to use. This is an abusive training method where the horse’s head is hoiked in behind the vertical to achieve control and submission. This deprives the horse of his sight and also the use of his neck. It was first used by Nicole Uphoff and a big horse called Rembrandt who was too hot for her to handle in competition situations. Rollkur allowed her to ride him under control. And she won…lots.

Rollkur also has a strange effect on the movement of the forelegs. It accentuates flinging of the forelimbs while failing to engage the hind limbs. It creates or accentuates spectacular forelimb movement, but not in a biomechanically sound way.

Rollkur for prolonged periods of time was banned by the FEI in competition and warm up in 2010, on the basis that it is abusive, and that training in this position is bad for the horse’s health and soundness.

https://practicalhorsemanmag.com/health-archive/hyperflexion-in-horses

But the effects of Rollkur, the unnatural spectacular gaits on a hollow back and an overbent neck, continue to be rewarded.

So as an amateur learning dressage, I studied those high scoring tests. I tried to reconcile how this hero of dressage, a sport espousing harmony and partnership, could be considered abusive? How could the results of an abusive training method be winning rides, when dressage is an art as well as a sport, and is all about harmony, and improving the physique of the horse?

I did this weird thing in my head- maybe Rollkur done skilfully isn’t abusive? Maybe he wasn’t actually doing Rollkur, but something very close to it? Maybe it was possible to train a horse to show that degree of forelimb extravagance without using Rollkur? Maybe the horse was bred with that movement and he was simply harnessing it? May be we needed better horses to win, not to be better riders?

BUT DRESSAGE SHOULD BE A TEST OF TRAINING? Alerich, Wily Trout, these were thoroughbreds with ordinary movement, who were made more magnificent by correct training.

At my sister’s riding club in Germany, a Fjord pony used to win regularly at their equivalent of PSG, because he was trained to be the best athlete he could be.

I watched the black stallion’s tests on YouTube, over and over. And as I watched them more, and read more, and learned more, I began to notice other stuff.

The black stallion actually had very good, large moving, but correct gaits as a youngster. The trot in the later work wasn’t regular. The diagonal pairs didn’t match. The hind legs were uneven, one almost hops behind. The head is mostly behind the vertical, not mostly in front occasionally coming to the vertical as required in the FEI rules.

There was little harmony- the curb was torqued horizontally on tight reins and the stallion straining to escape. And his eye still haunts me, now I know what pain looks like.

I was struggling to understand how something that didn’t fit the FEI’s own definitions of the movements required could score so highly. The judges are the protectors and guardians of our sport- why would they reward incorrect work so highly?

When I want to learn something, truly learn and understand something, I go to the best textbooks.

I’m a surgeon- to know how to operate on a human, one needs to know the anatomy, the physiology, the function, and the likely effects of intervention. When we are schooling our horses, we are doing daily mini operations, working to improve the form and the function. To do that we do need detailed knowledge.

The first book in my dressage collection was a gift, and a key find.

Yet the details it contained of correct movements and exercises were not evident in the tests I was watching, nor in all the photos in this book.

Then came Aachen. The black stallion by now had another rider- who was struggling to ride him as successfully. More ominously though, his gaits looked very uneven by now. He was deemed fit to compete at Aachen, but the videos of that test show obvious lameness. How could the best equine vets in the world have passed him fit to compete?

http://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2015/08/dressage-at-aachen-not-so-great-for-the-sport/

Then came Rio. Another Continental horse was passed fit to compete despite having been on intravenous painkillers and antibiotics overnight, having had a temperature of 40C and despite being in obvious, glaring pain in the warm up. The cause of the injury was first reported as fractured jaw, then a spider bite, but the cause is really immaterial. How could a true equestrian even contemplate competing their horse after a night like that? A human can choose to go out feeling ill, a horse needs us to speak for them.

And the vets should have spoken for the poor chestnut horse. The team vets did their best to get him into the ring- dubious but possibly understandable; their job is to look after the horses for the team, after all. But the official vets, those adjudicating, how did they let him warm up, let alone enter the arena?

http://taviannaomi.wixsite.com/indubioproequus/single-post/2014/05/01/The-Glass-Cieling

So the best vets in the world, employed by the FEI to monitor the competition, to make sure our equine partners are happy athletes as stated in their directives, allowed a very ill horse to be saddle up, ridden in obvious pain, and proceed to the competition.

My paradigm at that time- these are the best horses in the world, trained to the highest standard, protected by the rules and by the most experienced professionals in the world, whose job is to uphold the rules.

It would seem that paradigm was false…

Are you operating within a false paradigm? What are your beliefs regarding your role as a trainer, rider and protector of your horse? Have you examined those beliefs, checked them against your knowledge, discovered the gaps in your knowledge and sought to fill those gaps? Or do you blindly accept, as I once did, that the experts must know best?

And most importantly, have you twisted the observations of your own eyes, ignored your own feel, to fit in with your current belief system? I know I did, I denied the evidence of my own eyes, argued with others who didn’t know much about horses, yet who saw discomfort and weirdness more clearly,  until the cognitive dissonance within my own head was churning me up inside.

BTV, on the forehand, clawed left hand, C2/C3 highest point- at the time I was proud of this photo.

Luckily for me at the time, I had a very clear and outspoken horse, whose body and mind did not tolerate training that caused physical or psychological damage, no matter how much I loved him, and how genuine I was in wanting the best for him. For Paddy, and now for Cal and Rocky, trying hard wasn’t good enough, I have to learn to do it correctly.

BTV, short reins, short neck, hollow behind the saddle. Around the time of this photo we scored 72 in a test but Cal was turning his back on me when I presented him with a saddle.
Hands better, my position improving, neck coming out of shoulders correctly, chest broadening nicely, topline filling out, hindleg stepping through better

I was operating within a false paradigm.

I don’t have beliefs any more, or heroes, or idols. I have growing knowledge, an expanding skill set, and I have learned to listen to my horses.

Horses don’t have paradigms 🙂

Baby Rocky- neck and back need A LOT more muscle to support that head but floppy ears and nice steps. And I have elbows and a back!

If wishes were horses

“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride”.

As a child, all my wishes were for horses. All my dreams and all my games involved horses, and all my wishes were horses and all my prayers were for a horse of my own (just in case there was a kind deity out there who could dish out real life miracle horses).

If wishes were horses, then I would have ridden every single day of my childhood.

I did OK. I had some riding lessons aged 7, which stopped pretty quickly once my mum realised that this inconvenient obsession would not be cured by increased exposure. The bus to secondary school passed an equestrian centre, as well as Mill Hill Boys School. While all my friends were getting off the bus to flirt with real boys, I was racing down to the stables, mucking out in return for the privilege of a fleeting bareback ride, bringing the horses in from the field.

If wishes were horses…I wrote poems about horses, practised drawing horses, covered every exercise book with doodles of horses’ heads.

If wishes were horses, I would have had a full stable!

I wonder how the books we chose shaped our equestrian dreams?

I read/devoured/memorised the Colt from Snowy River series, the Black Stallion series, the Thunderhead trilogy, the Shantih series. My horsey idols all lived out, in fields on the moors, or on the range, were often ridden bareback, had their natural instincts and characters kept intact, and seemed to have a mystical connection with their human hero/ine.

I dreamed of jumping, and galloping, mane and hair flowing in the wind, communicating by mind meld, not of fighting, or struggling, or arguing with my horse to achieve results.

I didn’t dream of rosettes, or winning. Just of being out with my horses, day after day, enjoying freedom and fun.

My mum took me to see the Spanish Riding School in London in the 80s. In those days, they were still the bastion of correct classical training. The advanced work looked effortless, the horses appeared magical, the synergy between horse and rider invisible. Years later, when I started competing, and having ‘proper’ lessons, the difference between what I had seen that evening and what I was being told to do seemed completely incongruous.

I didn’t dream of pulling my horse’s head in, of making him rounder, of making him submissive. I had dreamed of a willing partner, of being able to ride with my seat, without force, without pain.

I didn’t dream of whipping my horse to make him do something. The theory that your horse needs to be more scared of you than of the fence is just nonsense. I want my horses to trust me, so when they see a scary fence they check in, ask is it OK, and then go for it because I say we can. And after good training, I want my horses to be so confident that when they see a scary fence, it isn’t scary because they have seen similar stuff before, been allowed to work it out, and learned that they can. In the long run, I want my horse to be saying “it’s OK mum, I’ve got this, let’s go”. We don’t get to that point by force, but by education.

Anna Blake wrote a fabulous blog about that process

https://annablakeblog.com/2018/03/09/the-middle-path-peaceful-persistence/

Anna writes with a lot of wisdom: her blogs contain life lessons as well as horse lessons. Most of us need life lessons first 😉

And most horse lessons are life lessons, in the end.

I do ride with a schooling whip, as did the masters, for communication to say “this hip”, “this shoulder”, “lift your belly”, or to see “hey, I’m talking to you”. A whip is never to be used for punishment, never against the horse. It’s a communication device, for very specific aiding moments.

‘Aider’- verb, French- to help, assist, support, to help to do

That’s what the aids should be…

I also do lots of exercises where the whips are used as flags in my hands to show floppy wrists, or held down behind a straight back. My horses tolerate all sorts of waving whips around, because they know the whip won’t hurt them, and also because they know intent. They know when the whip is something to do with them: pointing at a particular body part during in hand work for example, or when the whip is absolutely nothing to do with them.

I do also wear spurs, but again they are for refinement. I have done years of work on my legs, with many more years to go, so that I can give an aid for energy with the inside of my foot, not my heel or calf. That means I can use my spurs for specific aids- currently “Cal, lift your belly!” I am nowhere perfect- our work as a rider is never done, but I can choose, leg or spur?

I do jump in spurs, but was surprised to find that cross country times became much more achievable once I loosened my legs and learned to balance on my legs not grip with my calves. Cal’s hindleg could then come forward into the space allowed, his stride got longer and smoother, and hey presto, the magnificent half draught learned to gallop.

When I recall my early reading choices, It’s no surprise our horses live out, unrugged, in a herd, with their key needs catered for #friendsforagefreedom.

Winter on the big field

And a dog. Every horse should have a pet dog😂.

Our horses have 6 acres, so cannot be described as free range, but they have as much freedom and movement and equine free time as we can allow them. As well as ample forage, a field with an increasing number of plants, grasses and herbs to choose from, and plenty of life to watch.

Our summer Paddock Paradise style track along the bottom edge of the field

l’m not trying to tell anyone how to do things- we all find our own path and our own compromises. And we should all continue learning and examining our “truths” every day.

But what I would ask is that you look back to your childhood dreams of horses and just reflect on how close you are to those ideals? Did your wishes turn into the horses you dreamed of? Did the horses turn into happy, healthy, willing partners?

And did you turn into the owner your horse would dream of?

Would your horse pick you?

Cal and Lilly, our neighbour. Every horse deserves to be loved by a little girl- looks like Lilly is going to be Cal’s little girl…when she’s a bit bigger

 

Lilly is about to start riding lessons, at a local riding school where children aren’t given whips. I look forward to hearing about the ethical riding lessons as she learns the basics, properly.

Another ethical establishment – East Devon Riding Academy- blog regularly about their approach to teaching children the joys of horsemanhip.

http://www.ridingacademy.co.uk

Because who remembers falling in love with horses and then somehow, along the way, we are taught that it is OK to hit them, OK to tie their mouths tight shut, OK to force their heads down, rather than allow them to express their opinion about our riding?

When I dreamed of horses, my childhood dreams were full of sound, happy horses.

Now that I have learned to listen to the horses I have, to allow them a voice, an opinion and a good equine life of their own, now all my dreams are coming true.

And I hope Lilly’s will too.