Those of you who know me will know that this is a subject quite close to my heart. You can tell because of the amount I bang on about it. 🤪

Ever since I discovered the existence of these irritating little nasties, I’ve made it my business to understand more about them, collecting evidence based on all the facts that I have discovered over the years.

You can’t see this from the outside

Having been fortunate enough to work with so many different types, breeds and ages of horse living in different environments being ridden in different disciplines owned by all sorts of folks with varying ideas, and having been privy to the results of many scoping’s, by now I might be able to claim that I know what I’m talking about. But you know what? Pretty much the only thing I know for sure is that no one completely knows what they are talking about. Apart for the person who tells you that they can’t possibly know whether a horse has ulcers or not and to what degree until they have seen the results of a gastroscope.

If you’ve never heard of gastric ulcers in horses or you don’t know much about them then I firstly urge you to educate yourself. They are proven now to be so common in horses that if you are going to own one at all then knowing about and understanding them should be considered a must. If you don’t own a horse yet then it may even influence your decision to do so, as if found, their treatment can be extremely costly and is often poorly covered by insurance. Not to mention the potential long term headache that owning and managing an ulcer prone horse can be.

When I look back over the years I’ve been around horses I often feel sadness at the number of them I’ve known who have been labelled as difficult or naughty and treated badly as a result, when in fact it was highly lightly that they were suffering from this painful condition. If I only knew then what I know now… But I can’t change the past. What I can do is use the experience and the knowledge I have gained over the years to help now and that is what this post is all about.

Firstly, I want to dispel the myth that there is any such thing as a typical Ulcer Horse. Horses I have seen scope positive include, fat horses, thin horses, varying breeds, ponies, horses that live out 24/7, horses on grass, off grass, horses in work, out of work, horses with serious behavioural issues to ones who have been a little off colour compared to the norm. You get the gist… What matters is your horse’s actual behaviour and or his body state and wherever these are in question, ulcers should be a consideration.

Again, based on experience and having now spoken with a number of vets on the subject, it is clear that the degree of pain reaction a horse shows outwardly can bear little relation to the severity of the grade of ulceration found, proving that horses clearly have differing pain thresholds and abilities to cope with their pain. There are no “typical” signs. A horse may or may not show any of the commonly thought of signs such as girthiness or aggression and still be full of them.

Just like humans horses react to their pain in many different ways. We may have our own ideas about what constitutes a pain reaction however your horse may have other ideas about that so it’s important to be open to recognising possible behaviours that don’t necessary fit your personal ideas.

It’s also crucial to remember that horses have evolved to hide outward signs of pain or weakness so by the time these are obvious your horse could be in real trouble.

Let it be said at this point that I have also seen horses with serious training and behavioural issues who have scoped clear so it’s not to say that every horse with an issue has ulcers, but it’s a very sensible place to start.

Which brings me to the main point of this post, and that is, no one not even God can know if your horse has ulcers unless they look inside with a gastroscope and in my opinion any vet or practitioner who tells you they can is doing you and your horse a disservice right there. It’s not possible!  I have now seen countless horses scope positive who have previously had it said, by a professional, that they are ‘not an ulcer horse’.

Despite the fact that knowing the health of your horse’s foregut can only be a positive thing, I often come across resistance from owners to having their horse scoped or re-scoped following treatment.  Below is a list of the most common reasons I hear.

1. I’ve been told my horse is not a typical ulcer horse or that he doesn’t have them by another professional.
2. I’ve been told that my horse just has behavioural issues that need a trainer.
3. I don’t like the idea of the scoping. It’s stressful/painful for the horse etc.
4. I don’t want to starve my horse for the time required prior to the scoping.
5. My horse lives a stress-free life of 24/7 turnout and a forage diet. He can’t have them.
6. I can’t afford it.
7. There’s no point because you can’t keep them at bay even after treatment.
8. I suspect my horse has ulcers but I’m going to treat with a natural supplement first and see…
9. If there are non found then I have just wasted X pounds.

I’d like to flip each one of the above on its head and come from the perspective of the horse with some added logic.

1. You simply can’t tell without a scope. It’s not possible unless you possess the super power of having x-ray eyes.
2. Behavioural issues often play a part. Many badly trained horses are suffering from a huge amount of stress which we know contributes to ulcers. It’s rarely an either/or situation and eradicating ulcers from these horses is often only part of the solution.
3. The truth is that scoping is a relatively quick and simple procedure carried out under standing sedation. Yes, it’s probably not the most fun your horse ever had but compared to a potential lifetime of pain and stress? Many vets have mobile scoping equipment now so not even any need to travel.
   

   A relatively simple and straight forward procedure

4. Your horse will need food withheld overnight. In reality many horses have run out of hay well before morning and will spend a number of hours sleeping. You might find it uncomfortable to do it but that’s about you. Again, compared to a possible lifetime of pain and stress, you just need to put your brave pants on for your horse.
5. If your horse is showing behavioural issues, or signs of discomfort then he has a problem. Whether he lives in or out is irrelevant at this stage. It can take one stressful event to set up ulcers which can then self perpetuate over time despite good natural management.
6. Try to find the money. There may be other things that could take a back seat for a while. That new rug or matchy set, or a few lessons even. Unfortunately treatment is the most expensive part. Don’t get me started on the the amount of horses that end up suffering because the price of Gastroguard is so probative for many people once their insurance has run out.
7. You just haven’t found the answer YET. And if it proves impossible then retirement or euthanasia may be an option, both of which are big decisions that should surely only be made according to factual findings.
8. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a cure for ulcers to be found in natural or holistic medicine OR just paddock rest and a fibre diet. I for one would be elated by that finding and for some horses perhaps this may indeed be the answer. So, by all means try it but in order to know for sure if you succeeded you will need a scope before and after treatment. I have seen horses outwardly improve immeasurably yet still scope positive.
9. Now we know so much more these days about how important gut health is for us all, knowing the health of your horse’s tummy can never be a waste of money. Many people spend/waste vast amounts of money over years on random unproven gut supplements.  It is highly unlikely that you will fix your horses ulcers with a supplement. At least no one has proved it to me yet via a before and after scoping. Please feel free to do so if you can. I’d be very grateful to know about it.

Sadly, it is all too often true that some horses’ ulcers return despite seemingly every best effort. If this is the case then more thought might need to go into the possible causes and solutions. Often times the solutions can make for inconvenience. But is this a reason not to know?

The truth is that ulcers are not only painful for horses they are inconvenient for owners. They also have an interesting aspect in that their existence can introduce uncomfortable moral questions for us of if we think too hard about it.

Can you tell what grade ulcers I have?

We all love our horses and to think about them in pain is uncomfortable but not thinking logically about it isn’t going to make them go away. For this reason, we must check in on ourselves to ensure we aren’t using any of the above “excuses” because that’s what they are, as an evasion to doing the very best by our horses if we suspect there to be a problem.

No one wants to scope their horse, it’s not what we signed up for and it’s a bit of a pain in the bum. No one wants to withhold food from their horse. No one wants to discover that their horse is suffering. No one wants to spend all that money on having to do a bunch of stuff that they didn’t want to do in the first place, but it’s not about you.   We do what we do for them because we can and they can’t.

So, if your horse is not doing what it says on the tin, you have that niggle and you think there might be chance, don’t get on the ‘excuse bus’ just grit your teeth and do it. Be the best friend your horse ever had. It’s all over and done with before you both know it and you will be in receipt of the most valuable information.

If you want to make it about you then I can tell you that whatever the outcome, I have only ever felt the relief that comes after having faced something I’d been putting off.

If you are fortunate enough to have a healthy happy horse whose behaviour both ridden and on the ground is calm, predictable for the most part and shows no sign of pain or anxiety then great! Please share this anyway in case it can help another.

I whole heartedly agree with the idea that Dressage is for all horses and is first and foremost therapeutic and rehabilitative, meaning that all horses benefit from it when it’s conducted in a manner which respects both their body and mind. In fact I’d go so far as to say that it’s essential for them to practise all elements of it to some degree in order to live a fully comfortable life with us.

In a previous post Making Changes I talked about creating the essential changes in the horse needed to ensure we make progress. As I was writing that it got me thinking about the whole process again and some of the obstacles that appear to stand in the way. I say that because I don’t see enough well trained, emotionally and physically balanced horses out there and it doesn’t have to be that way.

What I do see are far too many people struggling to live a truly harmonious life with their horses. It almost seems as if degrees of “bad behaviour”  are a general expectation when dealing with horses and that if we have a whole day when the horse does as he’s asked in a peaceful manner we are winning and dare I say, even grateful. I rarely go to a yard where I’m not hearing tales of someones naughty horse or watching people being dragged around, pushed about or generally albeit politely trampled on by their horse to some degree. It seems that  it’s only when the behaviour has escalated to a degree that it’s become so loud and disruptive to the human that he/she can no longer ignore it, the horse is then reprimanded, only for the behaviour to be repeated seconds later and the whole process repeated. I hear tales of ‘Oh thats just the way he is’ or ‘he’s just a bit fresh today’. In fact it never has to be that way.

Note: Horse’s do not learn, either in-hand or ridden by being punished for something they did a second ago. In fact this approach actually punishes the “bad behaviour” for having ceased. Whether you are using  positive or negative reinforcement training methods, post episode punishment is not only confusing for the horse it is also totally ineffective. Because if it worked you wouldn’t be having to repeat it again and again? So if you find you’re having to reprimand your horse often for the same behaviours it’s just because you haven’t taught him how to do something different yet.

So what’s this got to do with Dressage training? Well because training is training and it starts the moment you enter the horse’s space. If you are not teaching your horse how to be balanced when you are standing by his side you won’t be teaching him how to be balanced when you are on his back.

“Dressage”

It can be easy to feel as if Dressage is a ‘thing’ that’s for other people to do or be good at, or that your horse is not a dressage horse or that dressage training is just not for you, or it’s even something boring you have to do in the school. In fact the word Dressage is really just a word. If you look up its meaning you’ll find quite a few subtly differing definitions, which I think is what allows people to make up their own interpretation of it, especially these days. When you Google it the first description that comes up is “The art of riding and training a horse in a manner that develops obedience, flexibility, and balance”  I like this one.

So each time you enter your horse’s space and help him understand how to be balanced in body and mind, it could be said that you are doing Dressage. Each time you sit on his back and adopt good equation to help him carry you with ease, you are doing Dressage. Each time you help him correct his asymmetry so he can
release his stiff back or strengthen a weak hind leg you are doing Dressage, each time you practise carrying the bit upwards in his mouth rather than squashing his tongue with it you are doing Dressage. Because if we are going to sit on our horse’s back or just expect him to live in harmony with us in the humans world then we owe it to him to do some Dressage.

It’s my feeling that it would be helpful to horses if people viewed Dressage as less of separate discipline and instead something to integrate into their every day practise. There are those of course who have made it a separate thing. I would prefer not to call that stuff Dressage though and it could probably do with having a new word invented for it.

Dressage in its truest sense has nothing to do with competition and everything to do with making your horse’s life better.  Sure, if you want to go out and bare the fruits of your training endeavours to the world then that’s great and often a useful test of your training, but the word Dressage is just that. A word. It’s what you actually do that matters. And what you are supposed to do is help. Help the horse to live and function in our human world by teaching him how to feel calm and taken care of by teaching him what you expect of him when he’s in our presence. Then by strengthening, suppling, straightening, rehabilitating and gymnasticizing him to carry you, and this begins with your first job, which is to take away the his worry.

“Badly Behaved” horses are always worried. And until you have removed this uncertainty for the horse you will always be struggling to achieve anything other than trouble shooting the symptoms of that worry.

There are lots of different ideas on what constitutes a ‘successful outcome’ in training depending on what  methodology you follow and I won’t get into that here but put simply, when we train the horse we ‘do stuff’ based on our belief of whats required for the outcome we desire, and then hope to get stuff back from the horse, which aligns with that preconceived idea. But how often does that happen in your training and what happens when it doesn’t? What’s your next move?

Goal Setting:

Goal setting is important. We need a clear destination, or how will we know where we are going? And we need to know where we are going otherwise how will we know if we got there? This is often obvious to people and most times we have our eye firmly set on the destination. The problem is that our horse does not share this ability to look into the future nor does he give hoot about it. Added to that, he has absolutely no idea what the point is. What he does know and is always acutely aware of is how he feels in this moment.

So any future outcome you achieve with your horse will always and only ever be based on the accumulation of many many moments of how your horse felt and what he learned in each of those moments. That thought can feel a little daunting at first but once you’ve got over that it can also be a very liberating and enlightening one that will help your training progress much faster, as it will enable you and your horse to arrive at some pretty astonishing places by way of seemingly small and doable bite sized chunks.

Realistic Goal Setting:

So your goal might be to train your horse to advanced level before you’re both 90. This would be your long term goal. Then it might be half-pass by Christmas and this would be your medium term goal. Within this time frame though you will need some shorter term goals. Goals for the session and then those goals for the moment. Progress can very quickly stall however if you attempt to practice or achieve the long term goals in short term goal time frames. This is when you will often experience misunderstanding or lack of ability from the horse which can lead to resistance and frustration for both. For many riders this just feels like a simple ‘no’ from the horse. Then what? How do you assess what your horse needs to progress and succeed?

A good place to start is firstly to assume that the horse is more or less always generous and tolerant by nature. Evidence would suggest this, seeing as how they allow us up there in the first place. Just like us though some are more academic than others, some more athletic and so on, but essentially they are all just doing their best within who and what they are. It’s important to chose a horse that matches your ability and personality as a trainer but that’s another post perhaps 🙂 At the end of the day horses are primarily only interested in eating and not being eaten, preferring a quiet life. So when you’re experiencing a lack of harmony, resistance, or anything other than the outcome you’d hoped for, you must assume that your horse has either a pain issue or a simple lack of understanding or ability to carry out what is being asked of him.

It costs nothing to stop and ask!

Equine Equations:

Hands up, if you’ve ever got on a horse and without really thinking about it assumed that he knows what he should be doing? Hands up if you’ve ever had a horse not do as asked and described him as being difficult or naughty? Hands up if you’ve ever just repeated the same question louder and louder assuming the horse was either deaf or stupid? To whatever degree you are able to relate to any of the above, It’s worth a think about anyway…

It often fascinates me that however intelligent we humans are as a species, and able to apply logic to so many things in our day to day lives, throw a horse into the equation and suddenly people can literally seem to loose their minds!

If a young child was struggling to understand his times-table, would you repeatedly shout the same question louder, or even chastise him for getting the answer wrong? That would be unkind and confidence shattering surely? Instead might you stop, and endeavour to find out what the problem was? Perhaps find out what he does understand and work out ways in which to help from there? Most people I know would absolutely adopt this attitude with a child so why should it be different for a horse? Well the answer is, it shouldn’t.

Teaching vs. Training:

At first glance these two words might seem like the same thing but I like to separate them and here’s why. Before you can train the horse’s body without force you need to develop a set of aids or communication tools. An interactive vocabulary between both your bodies and minds, that over time becomes predictable and helpful to the horse.  The horse needs to understand how to respond to and comply with requests that you make of his body such as, ‘move away from this’ or ‘yield to that’ Put simply the horse must learn to comply to our physical requests in order for us to be able to influence the his body parts as we need to. But there’s a word I dropped in up there which was ‘comply’ If you look it up in the dictionary it comes attached to other words like ‘submit’ and ‘conform’ which can and often does lead to misunderstanding. But when all is said and done the horse must at some point willingly ‘comply’ with our physical requests or positive training cannot occur.

So if I have taught the horse that when I touch this part of his body he moves away, then the next time I ask that in a dynamic situation he will more likely comply with my request willingly and with ease, enabling me to help him train his body. So what when that moment arrives? I ask and get a what feels like a blank response or worse still something completely ‘other’?  Well remembering the nature of the horse as being one of general compliance and peace I must in that case assume that either he is unable for some reason or that he simply doesn’t understand the request.  This is where we humans need to become the brains of the operation, as expecting the horse to provide this part will leave you with a long and disappointing wait. News flash! They aren’t that clever. And when fear and confusion sets in, absolutely no positive learning can occur.

So before you start shouting louder <insert harsher aiding, stronger equipment etc> Wouldn’t it be first useful to ask the horse the question. ‘Do you understand what I assumed you did?’  We humans often like to think that we know best when it comes to our relationships with animals and no more so than when it comes to training horses I find. There tends to be a sense of ‘do as you’re told’ and I think this
comes from the idea that yes, they must comply with our wishes if they are to be safe and enjoyable to ride and be around, however we must not get lost in that so far up our own backsides that we forget it’s also a relationship of respect and trust that must work both ways.

When my horse doesn’t doesn’t comply to my request after a couple of asks my first action is to stop and discover whether he understood the question and how I was putting it to him. If I have repeated the same question three times and the answer is still ‘no’ or something ‘other’ then I need to assume the horse has a problem that needs my help remembering that I am supposed to be the brains of the operation.

Natural reactions and trained reactions:

In training there are certain things the horse will do more naturally than others. For example the horse is more or less obliged to follow or step under your weight so the better you are at presenting a predictable and balanced weight across the him, the more ease and success you will have in training. (Keep working on this. It can never be practiced enough) Other things however, do not come so naturally for him and need to be taught, such as the rein aids, how to interact with the bit, or what your leg aids mean. The horse isn’t born knowing this stuff, and so when the response to these things is not as you’d hoped you must assume he doesn’t understand first and the answer to this is always firstly your understanding and best efforts at assistance. Your horse isn’t out to get his own way and pit himself against you and he always has a valid reason in his mind for expressing whatever opinion he has to your requests. However afraid or confused you are, presume your horse is having double the trouble in this moment.  It’s your job to find out what the problem is and help him with it. Your horse is never wrong. Annoying? possibly. Frustrating? Sometimes. (We are all human after all) But wrong, never! Because all he is ever doing is giving you moment by moment feedback on how he feels about whats happening right now.

The good news is that if you are always present and consistent when you are around your horse, as well as getting the occasional “two fingers up” you will also get instant positive feedback on your improved efforts to understand and help him with his dilemmas. As the horse begins to learn and feel that your intervention more often than not helps rather than hinders he will begin to welcome your ideas and look to you when things get tricky as they inevitably can during training. Although it can take time, especially when you are not an experienced trainer yet, when you take the time to build this relationship with your horse it is truly the most rewarding thing and is a large part of unlocking the door to the joy that is training horses.

But here’s the thing… This vocabulary has to be taught to the horse. Only then can it be returned to with confidence again and again as you move through the levels. So in order to train the body you must teach
the aids, together with what is expected from the horse when he is the presence of Human.

The horse’s comfort and happiness is always your responsibility, not the other way around. It Isn’t your fault that your horse has stiffness, imbalance and hasn’t read the book but it is your responsibility to help with that the best you can. As much as you love your horse in a squishy way, only sound logic and understanding will result in a truly healthy, balanced, well trained horse, so that is where you must always start and return to as you come across the inevitable training dilemmas.

Teaching The Aids:

IF we get on and everything is easy, our end-goal accomplished in one session then we can assume that we are an exceptionally accomplished rider astride an impeccably trained horse who understands all of the aids. Job done!  And then, for most of us there’s reality. lol

When you meet with training issues you should never be afraid to take it back as far as it needs to go in order to discover where the confusion is because it will be there somewhere and you might be surprised at what you find.

One of the most important things I have learned over the years, sometimes the hard way, is to never assume anything! Working on anything based around a false assumption can lead to hours of wasted time and energy.

So the first thing to do is check! What does my horse understand? The very best way to go about this in the beginning is in-hand as it gives you a chance to assess the horse’s balance, propreoception and understanding of the aids without the added complication of the riders weight.  It can and should of course also be done under saddle.

So the little bit of homework for this post is first to think of something you’d like to check your horse understands. A simple one is whether when you stand by his shoulder or chest and apply the lightest touch with your fingers does he yield or move away? If not then this is a great place to start your teaching. If you find that you always have to push your horse out of your space with physicality, perhaps when entering the stable for instance then he doesn’t understand that he should yield to your touch and you will then find it difficult to train the horse to do things which require any kind of herding or yielding to you.

When you get good at this end you can try the other end. Stand by your horse with a long whip and with a tap, ask him to move a hind leg. Any manner of movement of that leg without 300 other body parts at the same time would be considered a success at this stage.

And this is the fun part. It’s quite possible that you won’t get the isolated response from the hind leg that you hoped and planned for so then what? Well if the object of the exercise was to find out what your horse does understand then here is your answer. Whatever the horse offers you at this point is what they think you wanted, or the only answer they feel they currently have.

It’s so simple really but often here, that the misunderstanding begins.  So instead of feeling disappointed or that your horse is disregarding your request, instead you might say ‘Ah so thats what you think that means’. ‘OK thanks for that offer’, ‘Now let me show you how to do it like this’. Adopting this mind set not only enables you to discover how your horse thinks and uses his body it will also help you to train him from a positive starting place. Discovering what he can do first rather than what he can’t.

If you want your horse to move away from the slightest touch or never pass you when being led or stand quietly while you chat then you have to be absolute and consistent in teaching him that this is what’s required at all times, (He wont mind. What he does mind is when he isn’t sure what he is or isn’t expected to do.)  And for this to be effective it has to be made clear to him at all times not just when you “remember” When you are with your horse all the things are are being trained because your your horse doesn’t know the difference. You then have to teach him how to do it, taking it as far back as you need to until you find the place to begin where he didn’t understand.

The sad thing is that I often see horses that are labelled as ‘difficult’ who are in fact just trying so hard to work out what you wanted that they are literally throwing any answer that comes to mind at the problem, and when this is attached to 500Kg’s it can come across as unreasonable and daunting. Remember that when you are daunted, confused or afraid, your horse is experiencing the same thing amplified. So by helping him in a manner that promotes his understanding, balance, flexibility and in turn, his peace of mind you are not only helping him you are helping you.

Have a Merry Christmas 🙂

For those of us who care about our horses, regard them as our partners and strive to do our very best for them, the modern fashion for almost regarding the horse as a piece of sporting equipment, and indulging in harsh methods that work against nature and the laws of physics in the pursuit of glory, is saddening and frustrating to watch. It’s easy to get angry about it and the heat that’s generated online these days is quite something to behold.

“Brutality begins where skill ends.” ~ Egon von Neindorff

I have removed myself nowadays from any pages that indulge in mud-slinging and name calling, not just because I don’t enjoy the energy of such places but also because absolutely non of that helps horses in a real sense. However good your intentions, once you start shouting at people, bullying and name calling you have ceased to make it about the horses.

So in the pursuit of truth and the absence of mud-slinging what is it really all about? And how can each and every one of us help to make a difference for horses?

“Anything forced or misunderstood can never be beautiful.” ~ Xenophon

I believe that most people who choose to keep and ride horses do so because somewhere in their heart it began with a love for them, whatever that word means to them? So where does it so often seem to go wrong? From grass-roots level right up to the international competition arena? Why do we see young children taught to be harsh and domineering towards their ponies and top level riders openly bloodying their horse’s sides and mouths? Whilst all claiming to “love” their horses.

“In the art of riding, any excuse to yield is justified.” ~ Nuno Oliviera      

The older I get the more I find myself only interested in seeking the truths of things because the truth of a thing is not based on opinion or belief, it’s based on actuality. Truth doesn’t come and go like the latest fashion and albeit sometimes painful to look at, for me truths are a relief because they are reliable and enduring and living by them helps make my life ultimately less stressful and gives me more faith in my decision-making. When ‘I don’t know’, there is always a truth out there somewhere that I can refer to if I care or dare to look.

“Increased body awareness gives you a greater awareness of your inner self as well as your surroundings. Changing your habits will cultivate an ability to make clearer choices” ~ Sally Swift

It recently became necessary for me to lose some weight. Although I “tried” and “tried” I couldn’t seem to shift the pounds. I then proceeded on a moan-fest about how unfair it was and how I just couldn’t understand it and so on… I was doing everything! There must be something wrong with me? Blah-blah etc. You get the picture. The painful truth was that despite what I liked to tell myself, the amount of calories I was putting in was still exceeding the amount going out. Once I was honest about that I was able to set about changing it. Oh but HOW I wanted it to be about something else! But when I stopped and examined the truth, it told me that to lose weight you actually do have to use up more calories each day than you put in. Hmmm…Problem solved. I am now two stone lighter.

Our horses are a part of our whole life story so the way in which we view them, interact with them, treat them and even train them will always reflect how we are generally conducting ourselves in all aspects of our life; because why would we change who we are just because we arrived at the stables or got on the back of our horse?

Because of who I am, rather than ranting and name calling I ask myself, what is going on when people who claim to love their horses and care deeply for them can then be found jabbing them in the sides with their heels or spurs, bumping up and down on their back thoughtlessly or pulling back on the reins continuously with tight strong hands? There are degrees of abuse that’s for sure, but the truth is that it’s not always confined to the bespurred competition Rollkur brigade that we like to get so fired up about.

“Pulling on the reins never creates lightness either at the time or when you’ve finished” 

For some unknown reason I’m yet to fathom, horses stoically and generously bear the brunt of our general ineptitude. It seems to be their lot in life and it doesn’t always appear to bother them overly as long as it remains within certain parameters. The problem I see can be our potential lack of honesty surrounding that. Perhaps it’s because horses often allow us to get away with a great deal before they really start complaining it can mean that if we aren’t careful, we can begin to ‘get away with’ more and more when what we should be doing is checking-in on ourselves continuously in order to ensure that we are never taking advantage of that.

“If you can’t yield the rein contact without feeling like you’ll fall backwards you need to look at that”

The early part of my own riding journey saw me spend many years learning and becoming quite good at, ‘making horses do stuff’ because I genuinely thought that was the point. I won rosettes and outwardly to the uneducated eye, probably looked like I knew what I was doing, but every now and again my ‘honesty alarm’ would go off and when it eventually became too frequent and deafening to ignore I went in pursuit of something that might finally silence it. It transpired that a part of this journey became about making a commitment to myself that I was no longer going to invent reasons for behaving in ways on the back of horse that I knew were wrong.  Amongst other positives, my learning progress speeded up immeasurably once I learned how to run things through my ‘honesty filter’

“If you always do what you always did, you‘ll always get what you always got. If you are not happy with what you are getting, you have to change what you are doing.” ~ Kyra Kyrklund

There are plenty of crimes we can be committing around and on the back of a horse if we aren’t vigilant and listening to their responses but the one I’ve specifically chosen for this post is, pulling backwards and downwards on the reins because it’s one of the most damaging and yet at the same time, simplest to understand and easiest to perceive.

There is not a book or a DVD or an online course out there that will tell you it’s ok to pull continuously backwards on the reins with stiff tight wrists and muscular forearms and shoulders. It’s not part of any reputable training methodology and your horse will clearly tell you that it’s not working for them. Most riders don’t want to do it, it’s not our intention to be rough, jabby or unyielding on the horse’s mouth and we are even a fully paid up member of the ‘be kind to horses’ club and yet…

“Acceptance of the bit happens in the haunches, not in the mouth.” ~ Thomas Ritter

 The truth is of course that the quality of your rein contact and the subtlety and softness of your hand will improve over time in direct relation to the education of your seat together with your horse’s increasing ability. This can be used as a reason why we don’t all have hands like Arthur Kottas… Yet. And thats ok, however we must not make this into an excuse. There is a difference. How often do I hear as a reason for the horse feeling hard in the hands? He’s strong, he’s rude, wrong bit, when he’s better trained he’ll be lighter… Check-in and see if you have any of your own? I had plenty of quite inventive ones at one time.

“Poll flexion is not Pull Flexion.” ~ Thomas Ritter

The truth is, that it’s a mouth and unyielding downwards acting rein contact causes pain and resistance. The truth is, that it’s your responsibility not the horse’s, to ensure the contact is not hard and pain causing. The truth is that it works both ways. If you keep allowing yourself to hold on with and rely on your hands you will never discover all the other things you need in order not to hold on with and rely on your hands. The truth is that when you have half a ton of horse arriving in one or both hands you have a balance issue that’s never fixed by more pulling. The truth is that when your horse is opening his mouth you have a training issue, more often than a bit issue.  The truth is that it takes two to pull. There is an endless list of bankable truths associated with just this one subject. You aren’t expected to never end up with too much horse in your hand. It happens. But don’t let this become your truth. The feel in the contact is always your responsibility.

And if you find yourself saying ‘yes but’ to any of the above then the truth is you’re just not quite there yet, and thats ok, just keep searching… Seek out the kind of trainer who is willing and able to help you. If by the end of your lesson you have a horse who feels heavy in your hands, you might want to think about changing trainer because the truth is it’s not supposed to feel like that.

“Each use of the hand has to be preceded by an action of the upper body, otherwise the rider is merely influencing the horse’s head.” Nuno Olivera

So all of that can sound a bit daunting. It can be tough to admit that despite what you perceive as your best efforts you may be falling short of the mark as far as the horse is concerned, but the truth is you will never become better at not doing those things as long as you deny they are happening and the effect they are having on your horse.

“The reins are not for ‘keeping you up there'”

The good news is that after the initial uncomfortable phase, allowing complete honesty and truth into our riding is empowering, stress relieving, it leads very quickly to the improvement of all the things we were avoiding and it always leads to a better life for your horse. Which is the point right?

I can only imagine that most of the people we despair of, who use and abuse their horse’s body and kind nature for the sake of personal gain and prestige, despite being shown every evidence that what they are doing is harmful to their horse, firstly just have truth and honesty issues to the extreme.

“Strong contact through the reins, whether constant or occasional, is counterproductive to the goals of dressage.” ~ Charles de Kunffy

I prefer to believe that the majority of these people don’t set out to abuse their horses, they just have goals, both short and long term, which is fine, however they have allowed the pursuit of these goals to become ‘the point’.  If they started with a love of horses then in order to achieve these goals at any cost must require them to build up very firm barriers and filters to reality in order to not see the compromises they are making to their horses. At it’s extreme, they almost don’t know they are doing it any more. I feel desperately sad for their horses but also sad for them because until they do they will never experience the joy of true partnership and what it could be like for them and perhaps this is their punishment even before we start shouting at them.

“In schooling horses, pulling on their mouth is unnecessary and causes them anxiety and eventually physical damage. The discomfort and stress to the rider is also enormous, unnecessary, but well deserved” ~ Charles de Kunffy

Each and every time we ride we have the chance and the choice to assess the truth and reality of the things we are doing up there and what we are telling ourselves about that. Take every opportunity to listen to your horse and your inner voice. Run your choices through your ‘honesty filter’ It doesn’t mean you have to be the greatest rider that ever lived but it will speed up your learning, your progress and do a great job of protecting your horse from the inevitable mistakes you will make along the way. Never put your goals above what you are feeling in the moment.

“It is a lot better to risk losing a bit of contact than not to yield.” ~ Nuno Oliveira

It is ok to admit that you have things you need to learn to do better and you’ll find that these will diminish much faster when you confront them rather than denying they exist. What’s not ok is for the horse to constantly feel hard in your hand. He never ‘wants’ it to feel like that. What’s not ok is for you to be constantly pulling your fists downwards onto your thighs or backwards towards your body. If this is happening, then be honest, prioritise it and set about fixing it immediately, in every moment, because you will have little else of value beyond this fundamental error. Taking photos of yourself can be a great honesty tool.

“Not pulling is for ‘now’ not for in a minute”

So whilst we are rightly concerned about the welfare of those horses out there who are being abused at the highest level and perhaps feeling that shouting at people might help. Don’t forget that you can’t look outwards and inwards at the same time. Regularly take moments to check in on your own levels of honesty. We may not always be able to change the way others behave but we can ensure that in our own world we are responsible for our actions and the impact they have on those we are interacting with, both humans and horses alike. Whilst kind thoughts, idealistic words, good intentions and even the odd rant is admirable, we must also check in on ourselves regularly that at our own level we are walking the walk not just talking the talk.

“…If I have always worked honestly, my horse will carry me to the end of the world.”

E.F. Seidler

I’ve recently returned from a lovely break in Thailand. I’ve never been before and one of the things I’d heard so much about and was keen to try were the amazing massages. My poor old body has taken a bit of beating one way and another over the past year so I thought this would be just the thing. I wasn’t disappointed and had four. 😄

So apart from making everyone jealous now we are in the depths of winter, what am I writing about it here for? And what has any of this got to do with horses?

Well I recently read and shared a really enjoyable blog by Nelipot Cottage in which there was a photo of a hand with ‘I am enough’ written on it, which reminded me of some thoughts I had whilst receiving my last massage of the four.

There’s rarely a time when us ‘good students’ are not in pursuit of improvement. Seeking to better ourselves for our horse’s sake and sometimes just for the sake of our own sanity. We attend clinics in search of finding the ‘thing’ that might just be the answer, we study books and spend hours attempting to better our skills according to how we feel about them at the time or are being reminded of were they are lacking. We spend hours riding in the school trying our hardest to be better at putting this here and keeping that there. There’s often a lot of ‘Doing’ going on and it can get quite knackering! Lol Bear with me…

Back to the massages… We found a lovely quiet place on the beach where a family of ladies provided the service. Each time I had a massage I had a different lady but essentially the massage routines were pretty much the same, except they couldn’t have been more different! What I discovered by the last one was that I had definitely enjoyed some more than others in terms of finding them more or less therapeutically beneficial to me. But what I found interesting was that this seemed to have not so much to do with the “skill” level of the giver, which did vary, but more to do with something else entirely.

In the end my favourite, and the one which found me feeling totally relaxed, trusting, able to receive and ultimately the most dribbly was given by a little older lady with a much more gentle approach than I had thought I needed or wanted and one which I was initially a bit disappointed at. She also had hands a little like sandpaper, which I’m fairly sure isn’t something usually recommended for a masseuse. Lol

As I began to regret my choice and start an internal whinge dialogue a strange thing began to happen… I found myself beginning to relax in her presence and as this happened I found there was no need for her to use an overly firm pressure or aggressive technique in order to achieve a deep and effective feel to the massage because I was letting her in.

It seemed that regardless of the skills employed, potential ‘correctness’ of the treatment and general sandpaper levels, each of the givers brought a uniqueness and ‘themness’ to the experience which could only be brought by them. Body interacting with body in this way is a very intimate and sensual experience. If you find yourself tense, fighting and resistant it can become painful and unpleasant. With relaxation, acceptance and trust it became something entirely different. I found that ultimatley my reaction in those terms had a great deal more to do with the energy the giver exuded from the start. Something in their own uniqueness and ‘themness’ if you will…

I got to thinking on that last day as I was melting into a jellied heap at the hands of The Little Old Sandpaper Lady, that if I can sense this then imagine how acutely horses must experience it. I really believe that they know who we are even before we do and can feel not just what we do but the very essence of who we are in a way that can’t be hidden beneath even the greatest set of skills. It is this that can make the very real difference to how we are received by them and how open and compliant they are to our ideas and requests. I believe that even when we are struggling and blundering with the technicalities of it all, they can still feel the place from where our intentions come.

Of course we’d all love a fast track to the Eutopian land in which we possess both an enlightened soul, an even unfaltering temperament AND an awesome set of skills but I think that when we are struggling with the latter and perhaps feeling a little guilty about our ineptitudes we can remind ourselves that the horses know… There’s often a lot of ‘doing’ going on and thats ok but amidst our ‘doings’ I think it’s worth remembering that underlying all that we are also a ‘being’ acutely sensed by them, and it’s entirely possible that your ‘being’ is indeed enough, and who your horse might still choose to be with regardless of your skill level 😊

We all know it’s important for the horse to be thinking and moving forwards. It gets shouted often, referred to on dressage sheets frequently and generally discussed as one of the Holy Grails of training, but what does it mean? And more importantly what does it mean to you?

To have travelled ‘forwards’ just means you started from ‘here’ and got to ‘there’ and unless you are going backwards or sideways you must be going forwards right? Pretty much anyone can get from here to there… eventually, so there must be something about the ‘how’ that warrants a look when related to training your horse.

I find the word ‘forwards’ is used almost obsessively by many trainers and in some ways, rightly so. Problems can arise however when the ‘getting from here to there’ element is valued over elements such as balance, suppleness and joint mobility. Racing Thoroughbreds get from one point to another very efficiently but not much about how they do it resembles dressage.

Generally speaking in training it’s not useful to value one singular element over another, which can often become the case when one is felt to be the horse’s most obvious weakness. An obsession with a lack of forwards can give way to incessant driving of the horse with aids that can never cease. At this point it’s useful to know that all elements are related, one always being affected by another to some degree. So when you are struggling with one particular element and finding it isn’t improving it’s useful to have a look at the others and how they might be affecting things.

Horses that lack ‘forwards’ are almost always suffering from stiffness and asymmetry. Continuing to kick or drive such a horse forwards with little regard for these issues often results in an attempt by the horse to comply by simply moving his legs faster with a stiff back, accompanied by an obvious increase in tempo. Alternatively he may become more reluctant and shut down, bracing his body against the request for increased activity from a stiff hind leg.

So, ‘Forwards’ becomes nothing more than ‘faster’ when joints are stiff and postural muscles are disengaged. In the absence of balance, hind leg articulation and suppleness this kind of ‘forwards’ at best, has very little value to the horse in terms of gymnastic development and at worst breaks the him down over time.

Many riders struggle with showing enough change in the ‘medium’ elements of their earlier dressage tests because the training has focussed on the ‘getting from here to there’ element of forwards in the earlier stages and missed the elements required for collection, or being able to remain on one place. And here’s the thing…

Horses who are lacking in forwards often need to slow down first. I think this is one of the most counter intuitive things in riding and something I so often see misunderstood. I can’t remember how many times I have asked a rider to slow down on their “lazy” horse who “won’t go forwards” (usually to their horror) only to find that they actually can’t!  It always gives me a chuckle.  They find that they don’t have a downwards transition readily available and can’t slow the trot to a sittable jog, yet they complain that their horse is not ‘forwards’ Hmm… It’s got to be one or the other right? So which is it? If you have ‘forwards’ issues, please go and see how slowly you can trot.  <Evil trainer grin> 😁

So this is where you need to put your thinking cap on because if you aren’t able to slow down with some ease, maintaining rhythmical steps you can count then you must be going too “forwards” so asking the horse to go more forwards can’t really be the answer.

Faster isn’t ‘forwards’ simply because fast has more thrust than carry. True ‘forwards’ requires both elements. The element that is the ‘carrying phase’ of the hind leg needs to be in place from which the horse can then thrust. If you only obsess about the thrust part you will never train ‘carry’ and it is this element and associated functional issues that is often overlooked.

Ensuring that the horse is stepping forwards and covering ground in a lively fashion is of course the goal to seek but each horse has a personal ‘speed’ at which he is able to maintain balance and confidence more naturally. This may not feel like “forwards” enough yet for your end goal but it’s a place where his joints and muscles can remain supple and available to him. If you push him out of this natural rhythm too early in the manic pursuit of FORWARDS he will lose his ability to find and maintain the balance and  articulation of  joints required for the much needed carrying phase of the stride.

Free forwards travel is a minimum requirement in training so if you find yourself feeling as if you have to create this with continuous ceaseless aiding then you may want to check on other elements that might not seem obviously related to the problem of getting from here to there.  😊

Forwards comes from training balance to which we add activity.  😊

This is an updated version of a post I wrote after one of our wonderful clinics with Patrice Edwards.  We so often see such significant changes in the horses both at clinic and during lessons and it’s always interesting to have a rummage around in the ingredients of that, of which there are often many. 😊  My original post got lost in the depths of Facebook so I decided to resurrect it, add some thoughts and re-post it here.

When we train the horse it is basically our intention to take what nature gave us and make it better. Horses are of course, already perfect just as they are but they weren’t designed to carry people around, so by ‘better’ we simply mean physically enhanced, and better able to carry out that job, stress and pain free…

The horse of course, has absolutely no idea what all the fuss is about or that this training lark is all in his best interests. Why would he? He’s just there… Hanging out, living in the moment attempting to get by the best he can; dealing with each dilemma in his life as it occurs.  We humans could learn a lot from that philosophy! lol

Innocent perfection.

One of the wonderful things about the kind of Horse Centred training which focuses on correct biomechanics, is that it provokes positive feelings in the horse because it seeks to improve his sense of balance, well-being and security. If we repeatedly teach the horse, and consistently prove to him, in the moment, that his compliance to our aiding produces something that makes him feel better then we very quickly begin to have a willing partner because horses, although relatively simple, are not stupid. 😊

From the moment we enter the horse’s space everything we do is teaching him something about what happens in that space. It can be easy to assume that training is only occurring when something we are specifically taking notice of or liking in that moment is happening, but of course this is not true at all. How could it be? The horse has no idea whether his behaviour, or what he offered as a training response is what we wanted or not unless we consistently make that very clear for him.

Nothing in nature stays the same; it is always building up or breaking down. This means that we are always either enhancing or diminishing the horse to some degree; he can never really stay the same.  For this reason we have a responsibility to keep a close eye on which direction our training is taking us, even if it’s by the minutest degree either way…

Very few large changes occur “over night” I will often hear how a behavioural or training change, or even a lameness has occurred “all of a sudden” but in reality this is rarely the case. Often by the time we are seeing the big change it is a product of lots of small changes that have been going on in the background, relatively unnoticed over a period of time.

So if EVERYTHING is training then we need to be vigilant. We all have an idea of what we would like to receive or feel, and hopefully we readily praise our horses for that when it turns up. No problem there; however, what I often come across is a lack of, or urgency in ensuring that negative training is not inadvertently taking place in the background. We would never knowingly do this right? So how and why might it be happening?

All of the caring and wonderful riders who choose this path for their training are here because they want to understand how to train their horses with kindness knowledge and understanding and most work incredibly hard to make that a reality. I think we are all from the section of riders who seek to increase our skills in order to facilitate better and healthier movement in our horses. So while this is absolutely correct and highly commendable, I see it also lay the door open to potential problems for progression in training. Perhaps it goes back to the old saying about our biggest virtue being our biggest potential vice? Sometimes we ‘kind’ folk may need to get a little more… ‘Urgent?’ shall we say 😀

As long as it’s changeable it never has to be perfect.

Horses really do have no idea what ‘the point’ is. They are maximum efficient and will always look for the easiest option. Your horse is never going to wake up one morning and say to himself “You know, I think I’m going to try a bit harder with that right hind leg today” It’s never gonna happen! lol.

Most of what the horse offers us naturally is not really useful to him in terms of how we know he needs to function in order to carry a rider and for this reason it is you who needs to be his constant reminder. Not just when you remember, not just when you noticed, not ‘in a minute’, or when you can be bothered or are in the right mood or have time… But always! Because every step you ride is a step you trained. And it’s just the same in-hand or around the yard. Every time you allow your horse to carry out any behaviour at all around you, you reinforced that behaviour.

So consistency is a huge contributory factor when it comes to ensuring maximum efficiency in training. It’s another one of those annoyingly simple things, but I see it lacking over and over again, slowing or stunting progress.  If you teach your horse to do one thing in this moment and then allow the opposite in the next, while you weren’t paying attention, what did you train? At best you trained nothing, (although I’m not sure this is actually possible?) at worst you trained a resistance. It’s true to say that avoiding this pitfall in training certainly takes a great deal of focus on the part of the rider and horse; and this is why work should be broken down into relatively short periods of intense focus interspersed with frequent brain breaks for both horse and rider. Time for both to rest and reflect, allowing the horse his full freedom from the aids and to trust that this is also possible.

Your horse should either be ‘on the aids’ attentive, responsive and ‘ready’, or on a totally free rein at rest. Check how often you might spend time in neither one nor the other but instead a sort of ‘grey area’ in between?

So when we apply an aid to the horse, we are asking for something to change in his body state. (otherwise, what was the point?) In order for this aid to be of any use at all it must be answered by the horse. Something needs to change. Now! If an aid is applied and no change occurs or worse still is met with a resistance to which you then resist or yield, again, what have you trained?

So useful questions to ask yourself are, how many times did I sit up here applying the same aid almost continuously with no actual change occurring? Am I being clear and concise when I aid in that moment? Does my horse clearly understand when he got it right?

To be ‘an aid’ it must be applied and then ceased within that step or stride, not ‘held’  

Now here’s the thing… At this stage it may not necessarily matter what change you get, because if it wasn’t the one you expected or hoped for, it just means you have to reinvestigate the aid you gave, perhaps modify it in some way next time or go back a step to discover what your horse understands of that aid. What is not acceptable is ‘no change’ If this is the case then at this point you have trained your horse to resist or ignore your aid.

Riders often tell me that they are afraid to see an aid all the way to it’s conclusion for fear of  being wrong or confusing to their horse, especially if they are experiencing a little resistance from their horse due to past training.  The truth is that making a “half aid” or an overly long aid that doesn’t create a change, not only leaves the horse in the same negative body state but it also trained him that this is ok. This really isn’t better for the horse than risking the original fear because if nothing else, the former is creating a dialogue between the horse and rider. We all make mistakes and mistakes are better than doing nothing because we learn from our mistakes.

Although we might need to be adamant at times, insisting on change is certainly not about coercion or being a bully because creating successful positive changes in the horse always requires good equitation, good timing of the aids, the ability to cease an aid at the appropriate moment and all of those other pesky skills required that we need to practise. 😃  It is however about ensuring you are not training negatively.

If you resist a resistance or yield to a resistance, you train resistance.

Train your horse to be confident and sure.

The truth is that horses just hear what they hear. They don’t know that you made a “mistake”, they just react with the answer they have to what they heard. So as you begin to ride with less fear of being wrong, and more courage of your convictions whilst also listening intently to your horse’s response, he then becomes your teacher. 😊  By ensuring that you do get a response to the aid you gave you enable yourself to then decide if it was appropriate related to what you wanted to change, or if you would like to do it differently or better next time. You will also receive a far clearer understanding of what your horse actually understands vs. what you thought or hoped he did. (Definitely another post)

So on the journey from the rider you are today to the one you would like to become, you will make mistakes. Your horse may also tell you from time to time that “This is difficult!” and that’s ok. You just do your best and say, “OK I hear you, buts now lets try… ” Because if you constantly meet a difficulty or stiffness in your horse with a resistance or a passive fear of doing it wrong instead of an urgency for change, you will, over time, train stiffness and resistance.

So be a little bit courageous! 😀 Go out there and see how many changes you can make in your horse in every stride, because the possibility of constant fluid changeability from one state to another is one of the keys to ensuring you are on the correct path heading in the right direction.

There’s no getting away from the fact that your ‘equitation’, or the way in which you present yourself to the horse in a physical sense, is all-important when it comes to what you can expect to get back in return, and to deny this will always slow your progress. Equitation however, is not the end of the story because good equitation is only needed in order that you can fairly and efficiently convey your wishes to the horse in a way that he understands and enables him to comply.

(Note: Throughout these posts I am going to refer to the horse as ‘he’ or ‘him’ Just for ease and continuity. Other mares are available.) 😊

There are so many aspects to riding and learning to become a good rider that it sometimes seems almost impossible to know where to start when writing these posts and I hope can do the subject justice on words. Because everything we do is so intertwined, with one thing always affecting another, I often find myself starting with an idea and then wandering off of on a tangent. So I’m going to try my best not to do that but I can’t promise. I too am learning, always… 😊

So these posts are going to have a look at various aspects of equitation in both a theoretical and practical sense with a bit of discussion and then a practical exercise to do.

At this point I want to explain that no ‘one thing’ I discuss here is ‘the magic thing’ It will only ever be one aspect of… It is important though that as you try a ‘thing’ or learn a ‘thing’ that you then run that ‘thing’ though everything else you do to see where it might fit or what else it might be affecting. Ask questions if you don’t understand or something doesn’t seem to fit with your current understanding or your idea of the destination, because confusion can lead to fear which can lead to giving up and going back to treading the old familiar path. Give yourself the best chance…

What’s in a Word?

I hear so many potentially useful words out there (The internet is awash with them) but I also see that these words are not always working for people, in part I think, because they are often being misinterpreted or lost in translation. So in these posts I want to encourage you to look a little closer at those words and what they might mean to you; Apply some honesty as to whether they are working for you and then shed some light on how you might make them work better for you, instead of often leaving you with more question marks. There shouldn’t be any question marks as it either works or it doesn’t. If what you are doing is not making your horse feel better, lighter, more harmonious, then you are not doing what you thought you were, because good equitation applied correctly always works.

So what about these words and sound bites? Perhaps they are things you’ve had shouted at you by trainers in the past or something you’ve read in a book or just something you made up. “Heels down!” Is an age old instruction that I have never seen produce a desired effect in the rider or horse, yet it haunts and hinders adult riders all the way  from childhood.  In the early years I found that some of the new things I was learning didn’t immediately seem to fit with my current soundbite library. As I stuck with it though, I found I began to understand… I now understand what ‘heels down’ means and why it’s a desired ‘thing’ but I also know that it’s not achieved by ‘pushing your heels down’.

It’s true to say that one of the biggest obstacles I come across when teaching adult riders is the interpretation and translation of some of these words, terms and ideals and the effect they have on the riders ability to progress both in the lesson and during homework. I find that some riders can have so much invested in them that it can literally paralyse their ability to make the changes which are so desperately needed if they are to progress.

Equitation vs. Positon:

On the whole I prefer the term equitation over position when referring to the rider’s body on the horse as the word ‘Position’ tends to conjour up something more static, perhaps even separate from the horse.  I see a lot of riders attempting to ‘keep’ various parts of their body still on the horse or ‘hold’ various parts of their horses body still. lol. Well not only is this virtually impossible in itself, but it also creates a static and restrictive feel for the horse which is never useful. Riding is always a dynamic pursuit, which involves continuous movement throughout both entities.

Soundbites of the Seat:

Good equitation originates from the seat. Whilst it’s agreed that equitation alone doesn’t train the horse, it is a vital part of the whole process. Sadly today very little, if any time is spent educating and improving the rider’s seat. We do endlessly hear soundbites based around how you should ‘ride from the seat’ or ‘use your seat’ or have ‘an independent seat’ or…? I’m sure you have one; but what does this mean? What does it mean to you? How do you interpret this when you get on your horse? Do you have a good seat? And how do can you tell?

You see to me, these are all incredibly important questions to ask yourself and to discuss with your trainer. Does your idea of the seat actually reflect the original and intended meaning of the soundbite you were intending to emulate? Are you doing what you thought or hoped you were? Because if not then you are going to spend a lot of time working really hard on something that isn’t going to enhance your riding or your horse’s way of going and you’re going to get very old doing it. So it’s useful to check in on this stuff regularly.

(Note: You must seek a trainer who is able to and happy to discuss the ‘how’s’ and ‘why’s’ with you, not just the ‘whats’)

Meet your Seat:

So how can you tell if your idea of what something means is correct or not? Well, your horse will be telling you and then you have to make sure you’re listening. 😊

The moment your butt hits the saddle you are now presenting your ‘seat’ to the horse. It is your first point of contact and you should be consistently presenting a ‘good’ or ‘independent’ seat from this moment until you get off. (No pressure there then! lol) But what does this mean? How? And are you?

An image I find inspiring

Books and the internet offer an array of opinions on, and descriptions of, what you should be doing with your seat; describing ‘weighting’ of this seat bone or that one, or positioning your pelvis this way or that depending on what you want to achieve but how many times has it all made sense on the page only to go out there and discover that somehow this doesn’t seem to translate to you and your horse? Are the words then wrong? Often they are being offered by highly skilled and respected riders and trainers, so what’s up? Why with so much advice out there and so many trainers available do people still struggle so much to achieve harmony with their horses, train them past preliminary level or keep them sound as they progress up though the competition levels? These are serious questions we should be asking.

The Interactive Part:

So here is a little exercise designed to help you to get to know your seat a little better and get you thinking… In some of  these interactive parts you will need to give yourself time and permission to silence any urgent voices in your head telling you that contemplative time spent at halt and walk is not valuable training time and that unless you are twirling  around the arena at speed working up a sweat then you’re not doing dressage.

These are times to investigate your understanding and your feel, get subtle feedback from your horse and by moving slowly and mindfully, improve your propreoception and change muscle memory.  Actually, nothing could be more ‘Dressage’ 🙂 You can add twirling later! 😀 Because lets face it, If you can’t do it at halt, you’re going to struggle at canter 😉

Focus on your seat:

Every way in which our seat or any part of us is in contact with the horse, means something to him and is having an affect of some kind. This could be a daunting thought but it could also be empowering because the more you understand it and are in control of it the more wonders you can achieve with your horse.

The first task is all about you. Just sit down and think about what the seat means to you? No one else. How do you ensure you are ‘riding from the seat’ as per the popular instruction? Perhaps write down some ideas. Things you say to yourself whilst you’re out there riding; if anything at all? Things your instructor has told you, things you’d like to ask them?  Anything else that relates…

The next task is to take this to your horse. Commence your usual ride but with a strong focus on your seat. What you think you ‘should’ be doing with it. What you ARE doing with it? Why? When? And what response you are getting? Are there ‘soundbites’ occurring? 😉 This needs to be done purely for the sake observation and diagnosis so that you can get to know your seat and how it is affecting your horse in it’s current state. It sounds like an easy task but notice how many times you might want to change something rather than just allowing yourself to observe it and listen to the feedback.

A Bit of Theory:

There are loads of things you could be “doing” with your seat, that’s for sure and don’t we all like to be DOING something? 🙂 However as is often the way with horse riding, the thing we want to do is often the very thing we shouldn’t be doing, and too much ‘doing’ is  often the first problem with an uneducated seat.

An educated, independent seat is one that is first and foremost able to ‘do’ nothing. Whaaaat!? Yep! Before you can ‘do’ you must first be able to ‘not do’ because the first aid of the seat should be ‘Passive’, ‘Open’ and ‘Receiving’. None of your other aids can be effective through a blocking, pinching or overly active seat.

Where the horse feels any contraction, muscle tension or power in the seat or leg, his back and barrel will tend to remain stiff defensive and contracted. (I intend to list the symptoms of such things in a later post).  A restricted, contracted or over-active seat is unable to firstly receive the horse’s movement and then to diagnose… (Again, another post) You see… Not going off on a tangent 😀

The exercise:

So firstly lets remove the idea that this is in any way difficult or Rocket Science. It’s actually very simple. As with most things in riding, it might not be ‘easy’ to do, but the good news is that effectiveness in riding is always based around simplicity… Thank god! 😀

Your horse will help you out with all these exercises because they love to interact in this way and will absolutely tell you when it feels better vs when it feels worse, so keep your antennae up for their vote.

A clinic student reaping the rewards of having worked really hard during the lesson on changing her old soundbites and body patterns

Climb aboard your horse and lower your bum into the saddle. Allow it’s full weight to rest there and observe the feelings. Take some time to also feel and observe your legs hanging heavy and soft by the horses sides.

[Note: Nothing that touches the horse, including the inner thigh, calf and buttocks should contain any muscle contraction or tension. The horse should not feel any tightness of the buttock muscles or any closure of leg muscles inwards or towards his body]

See if you can sit astride your horse and achieve this feeling. You can do this with or without stirrups as you feel works best for you right now. Check in on your shoulder/hip/heel alignment vertically to the ground for the best sense of balance to the ground that you can find for now.

Take time to observe what is going on in your pelvis and seat and legs. Are these areas truly free of tension or contraction? You are only in halt, so you don’t need to cling with anything, and nothing here should feel as if it needs to be active. (I personally find the word ‘empty’ useful for the feeling of my pelvis and everything inside and associated with it.) Are your buttocks inflated and free from tension, resting heavy, with your seat bones released out of your body onto the saddle? Repeatedly scan these areas, releasing tension from them wherever you find it, almost as if ‘exhaling’ through them. Continue observing the feeling and any feedback you might be getting from your horse.

If the heel raises as you aid, then there is contraction somewhere but it shouldn’t be ‘pushed’ down either.

The main point of this exercise is for you to get to know your seat and associate yourself with this open, inflated and released ‘feeling’ at halt where there is no need to aid or stabalise yourself for movement.

(Note: Your horse doesn’t care what you look like, he only cares what you feel like)

The next part is to pick up the reins as you usually would in readiness to move off. As you do this, continue scanning the aforementioned areas and notice if anything begins to change. (The horse’s reaction to the rein at this point may be such that it makes these areas in you to want to change. It’s not an excuse to do so)  So does tension or muscle or a change in texture begin to creep into your pelvis, seat or leg? If so, at what point? And why? Really take time to ask yourself those questions because guess what? It’s not allowed and that is basically it for now. 🙂

At this point, it really is that simple! This is not the end of the seat story of course, but we must take one thing at a time and if you have limited or no awareness of this part then the next part will always be flawed to one degree or another. You must get to know your body and know how to achieve and return to ‘neutral’ or ‘nothingness’. ‘Open’ ‘Passive’ ‘Receiving’ before you can start ‘doing’

You should never be doing things ‘AT’ your horse with your seat or your legs!

Then of course you can move off in walk and progress to whatever it is you wanted to do in your schooling session that day, but taking this lesson with you as the equitation priority for this ride. What, when and why do changes occur in your seat, pelvis area and legs, from open passive receiving to muscle contraction and ‘doing stuff’?  (Return to halt as many times as it takes at this stage to rediscover the feeling you found there) Despite all the possible old sound bites in your head, could you use your own imagination to discover the ability for this not to change somehow, whilst you still manage to ‘ride’. That part is very much up to you and belief that it IS possible is one of your most powerful tools when you are out there alone with no teacher.

(Note: Depending on the horses training he may not initially understand that he needs to respond to aids that are presented with so little muscle-tone of seat and leg. For this reason he may need some gentle re-education on this subject. Use your long whip as an aid to help the horse understand your request before you employ the ‘more muscle tone’ in your seat and leg that he may be waiting for. It will quickly make sense to him and training will have occurred.) 😊

So that’s it for now my friends. Remember the biggest bestest and fastest rewards come from practice and sticking to the task come what may. Just do it! 😀

I welcome any discussion or questions on any of the above or anything related to your practice. This is a place where there are no ‘stupid’ questions as the sole intention is to make things better for you and your horses. 🙂

If there is a soundbite or an ideology that you’d find useful to discuss, then let me know and perhaps we can use it for the next post.

I thought I would follow on from my post about the horse’s nature in training, with some thoughts on balance, how this affects behaviour in training and how by improving one, we can improve the other.

In nature, horses have three primary motivations, namely, procreation, eating, and not being eaten. That’s pretty much what solely occupies their life between the parts when we turn up; and so behind each response we encounter we will find one of these motivations. To keep this in mind helps immeasurably when you’re attempting to figure out ‘Why’ your horse does this or that… Give it a try…

In order to train the horse in a healthy and holistic way, we must gain access to his body and mind. It’s our job to help the horse free his body from the confines of contraction and restriction that often occur from attempting to carry the rider, but first we must be ‘allowed in’ so to speak. If we attempt to train without that permission then we face breakdown of the mind and structure of the horse. To train fairly and effectively it is vital to have at least a basic understanding of the biomechanics of the horse and how this affects not only his athletic ability but also his behaviour.

We hear a lot of talk about the need to train balance. So what do we mean by that? Well first we have to understand a little about the horse’s anatomy and perhaps something about imbalance or asymmetry, as his natural asymmetries are what hinder him most in training. If we look at the horse’s body and how it’s arranged, we see that he carries the greater proportion of his weight on the forehand, which we can consider his first ‘natural imbalance’. It is the horizontal imbalance and it’s what we seek to change with good training.

Fred is a trained horse and so quickly settled in the big show environment although it was his first outing for many years and potentially VERY unnerving for him!

The second is the ‘lateral’ imbalance and is related to how much weight the horse carries on one side of his body in relation to the other.

Together, the above have an affect on how much weight is distributed over all four feet and what share of the work is carried out by each hind leg in terms of thrust and carry etc. (Linked to the ability to ‘collect’) This is very important to the horse because the degree of imbalance he suffers directly affects his ability to remain upright and therefore his fear levels.

In a sense, the horse’s skeletal structure is similar to our own in that he has two skeletons; The ‘axial’ skeleton, which consist in the main of the spine, head and ribcage and the ‘appendicular’ skeleton, which consists of the pelvis and legs, (or in our case legs and arms) The horse then differs from us in one particularly relevant way. Unlike us, he has no clavicle, or collar-bone, meaning that his two skeletons are not stabilised or joined together as they are with us.

An unlikely match of structures!

This means that the spine and ribcage with everything stored inside it are relatively more free to float and move somewhat independently of the legs. (Who hasn’t experienced at some time in life, the frustration of taking the horses head and neck so far in one direction only to find yourself travelling somewhere else entirely?) Welcome to the world of ‘No Collar bone!’ lol  This is why thats possible and this is why it’s vital that the rider learns to balance across the horse. (another post)

Wherever there is imbalance in the main framework or skeletal structure of the horse there will be compensations in the surrounding structures, i.e. the muscles, tendons and ligaments, because something has to hold it all up.  For now we will just consider the muscle tension that results from imbalance, because it’s these muscles that do the compensating, which affect what the horse is offering us.

Where we find imbalance in the skeletal structure, we find strain on the surrounding structures.

Lets go back briefly to the part about being ‘allowed in’ In order for the horse to develop use of the correct muscles he must be relaxed in his body and mind. The aim of dressage training is to teach the horse to engage and use his postural set of muscles rather than his inherent ‘flight’ or locomotor set of muscles. And here is the link… Flight, or locomotor muscles do what it says on the tin. When engaged, they are ‘ready’ for flight and in the worst case, if you’re half way through your dressage test on a windy day, already carrying that out. Not useful! lol

So back to the anatomy. Not only is the ribcage and everything stored inside it, somewhat rogue in terms of where it can turn up, we then add the weight of the saddle and rider to that. Uncontrolled, in some cases this can cause the horse very real conflict and angst as he feels the weight of his barrel (Rider, saddle an’ all) falling in one direction, while his legs are being asked to go in the other. This will always be compounded by an unbalanced rider or one who doesn’t understand how to sit equally across the horse.

Attempting to turn in either direction from here will present a problem for the horse

Being a prey animal, a horse’s primary concern is to stay upright, on all four feet. If you fall down in the wild you might be left behind by the heard and end up as somebodies lunch! So put simply, when a horse is struggling with his balance, especially at speed in a confined space, the fear of falling is very real for him. Fear switches on the flight responses, adding more tension until a viscous cycle is created. Often no amount of human reasoning at this point is adequate to help the horse. Instead he must be taught to balance, and find the use of his postural muscles.

So piecing all this together we can begin to deduce that the less ‘trained’ or developed your horse is in his postural muscles, the more likely he is to be subject to flight responses and unless you are training a racehorse this simply isn’t useful and can even end up being dangerous.

In some instances, where the the rider attempts to shut down the flight response using force we may even begin to see the ‘fight’ responses kick in, by which time much damage is being done to the horse both mentally and physically.

Balance and Harmony

It is of course possible to influence the horse’s behaviour via accessing and working with his mind as the first point of contact, but it’s useful to know that it works both ways. The mind influences the body and the body influences the mind. So flight muscles that are ‘switched on’ will be sending flight signals to the brain and vice versa. Some horses who have been traumatised by past training methods might benefit from a period of time accessing their trust firstly through training that focuses solely on the mind. But integration of the body should be sought as soon as possible in order to prepare it for the rider.

All horses react differently to fear, uncertainty and discomfort in there bodies depending on their breed conformation and personality type. Some become sharp and spooky, some resistant and “opinionated” Some become shut down and sluggish, some don’t appear to be too bothered at all but the state of their musculature will tell us that they are working in contraction. So when you feel as if you are experiencing any of these traits in your horse or even if not, it’s always a good time to check in on his symmetry and I’ll be doing a post related to this and how you can check at some point. There is a little check list on the website that you can find here…

http://straightforwardequitation.vpweb.co.uk/Home.html

Whatever your reasons for lunging, perhaps you’re starting a youngster, training an older more established horse, rehabbing or just exercising, it’s worth having a think about the fact that whatever your reasons, you are ultimately asking your horse the same thing; to work, usually at speed on a relatively small continuous circle for some amount of time.

Lunging on various sizes of circle can be extremely therapeutic for the horse and can greatly enhance his gymnastic training.  However, this is only the case if done with careful thought and understanding of the horse’s nature and biomechanics. When the horse is asked to work on a continuous circle in bad form, it is always detrimental to him. It is damaging to joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments and causes stress to his over all physical and mental health.

Here we can see the stress and strain on the body caused by circling out of balance at speed

We are not only training the stuff we like to see.

Horses are incredibly easy to train, that’s why they domesticated so well, and this is worth considering the next time you take your horse out for a blast round on the lunge in a head collar.

Every step the horse takes is a step that you trained.  So in effect, each circle the horse completes in brace and out of balance on the lunge is a step that you re-enforced this body state and trained the horse that this is the way it should be done. Ultimately, over time these body states lead to breakdown rather than enhancement. So whatever your reason for lunging, what matters to your horse is the ‘how’ as well as the ‘why’.

By nature, when circling or turning at speed the horse will load his inside shoulder, brace his back and take his head and neck to the outside in order to counter-balance.  This is fine for nature as these instances are generally short lived before the horse is travelling straight again or is back to head-down eating the grass. This body state was not designed to be maintained for periods of minutes at a time and is detrimental to the horse when it is.

In training, it is our aim to change this natural posture to one that we know is better for the horse, and necessary in order for him to carry a rider with ease. A key to achieving this new posture ultimately requires that the horse learns to become inwardly focused on a circle rather than outwardly as is natural…

So how do we train the horse to change this naturally offered posture? It’s pretty hard-wired and can feel as if it needs some convincing!

First of all it is crucial that we never attempt to shape or fix the horses neck into an unnatural, inward fixed or ‘rounded’ position; however tempting it feels. This action immediately takes away the horse’s ability to find balance, causing detrimental muscle and joint compensations throughout the whole body. In turn this causes stress to his mind, as he feels trapped and unable to balance naturally. What we must do instead is aid the horse into a better posture and balance, helping him to release the braced neck muscles, while showing him how to de-contract and balance himself throughout his entire body. (All parts of the horse’s body, from nose to tail, are linked and we only talk about working with one part as far as it is useful in gaining access to or relating to the whole)

To lunge well, requires a number of skills in timing, body positioning, feel and tact and it takes practice. To begin with, your horse will not understand what you require in terms of his body positioning on the circle and will adopt the natural ‘flight’ posture. It is useful then to start your training with some close in-hand work first in order for both the horse and handler to begin the process of communication necessary for successful lunging.

Learning to work in-hand with your horse is a wonderful way of improving both you and your horse’s balance, coordination and communication. A great amount can be learned about the horse from the ground, which you can then translate to your ridden work later. You might find that your horse is not the only one who struggles with his balance. 😉

Willow is wearing a traditional well fitted leather cavesson.

A balanced horse is a happy horse.

Here Willow has learned to lower and soften her neck to the inside on a large circle. She then learns to yield her shoulders and haunches to my request. Gradually this work will translate to understanding these requests whilst further away from me, out on the lunge.

Once this work is understood by the horse, there is no need for side reins or any kind of auxiliary equipment. These would only serve to block the horse and take away the ability to use the whole body.

There are an array of opinions on lunging relating to the ‘how’ and the equipment used. Always Lunge off the bit… Never lunge off the bit… Put the rein under the chin… Put it over the poll… Clip it on one side of the bit… Always use side reins… Never use side reins… Use a Pessoa… Use a rope halter…. The list goes on… What I seldom see is the horse being lunged off a simple quality cavesson. Nothing but a well made, well fitted cavesson with the line attached to a centre ring enables the handler access to the effective alignment of the head and neck in relation the whole horse.

The lunge-line should never be attached to the bit!

The mouth of the horse is sensitive and precious and any discomfort in the mouth always leads to tension, fear and resistance. In the first instance, no matter how skilled we feel we are, it is impossible to ensure that no harm will come to the mouth while the horse is out on the lunge line. And in the second instance we will see from the picture below, that lunging off the bit more often than not, causes to horse to adopt incorrect horizontal and lateral flexion.

(Note: I often see the horse lunged from the bit prior to ridden work because the rider doesn’t want to faff about with changing equipment. This is just lazy)

Here we see a common example of a horse in tension, struggling to keep his balance whilst being lunged from the bit in side reins.

Note the incorrect flexion and bend to the outside, the loading of the inside shoulder and bracing of the neck, barrel and back muscles with stiffening of the hind leg. So although the neck has a round appearance, we can see that attaching the rein to the bit and using side reins has achieved nothing towards our aim of helping the horse to soften to the inside, use his back or flex the hind leg. The neck is a bit ’round shaped’ though.  😉

There are several other variations of attaching the rein to the bit, all of which tend to result in incorrect flexion, and leaning on or sitting behind the bit, not to mention the discomfort to the horse.

So what about lunging in just a halter? Is this kinder as it doesn’t involve the horse’s mouth, or fixing the neck into unnatural positions?

Although preferable to lunging from the bit, the halter does not allow us to aid the horse sufficiently.

Well, if we take a look at the picture on the right, we can see that in the loose fitting halter we are unable to aid the horse at all with his poll release or neck  alignment, and further to that, any pressure on the rein from the underside results in the halter slipping around to the inside whilst tipping the horses nose inwards and the poll outwards.

As with anything we require the horse to learn, it should be carried out over time by way of a step by step training program accompanied by the correct equipment. Below are some examples of how gadgets, pullies, and restrictive pieces of equipment are not only unnecessary in order for the horse to develop gymnastically and build top-line but are actually a hindrance to that process. At best they give a false impression to the uneducated eye, at worst they are painful and debilitating over time.

Baby Jonjo showing a natural unbalanced body state during his early training.

To the left, a young horse on a circle working in a naturally unbalanced frame with a hollow top-line, and unless he is educated, he will continue to function this way. This is the very same posture that induces people to fiddle about with the horizontal head and neck positioning, usually in a restrictive manner.
What lowers the neck over time is the correct use of whats behind it.

Freedom of movement is essential with no restrictions to the head and neck or attachments to the mouth.

Prior to lunging for the first time Jonjo had completed some education in-hand.  This prior work enabled me to communicate with him ‘out there’ right away and help him to begin investigating all possibilities available to him with his neck and body.

With appropriate aiding and no restrictions he becomes more confident and able to discover how to balance himself on the circle.

Beginning to find some balance and relaxation.

Here we can begin to see glimmers of what we are aiming towards. Jonjo is beginning to find a little more ‘posture’ and horizontal balance.

It is vital for the horse that we understand that ’roundness’ comes from the horses back, and his ability to balance and use his entire body free from restriction. it is simply not a function of the neck alone.

Sadly, In-hand work and lunging are another dying art in the horse world today. Good equipment is difficult to find and all to often gadgets are used where instead, skill and horsemanship should be learned.  Carried out correctly, In-hand and lunge work is an invaluable part of  your horse’s training, having the most therapeutic effects on his body and mind.  It can be used to strengthen, balance and supple the young horse in preparation to carry the rider, rehabilitate the horse  back to work after injury, train new concepts without the added complication of the riders weight and yes, even to get the beans out 😉  provided it’s carried out mindfully.

So next time you go out there, perhaps give yourself a bit of extra time to think about the ‘how’ What it is you are achieving when you lunge your horse and how it’s affecting him.

And finally to leave you with another example of the lack of need for gadgets in training to achieve you’re desired effect. It’s about understanding the goal, learning the skills and believing…

A picture I love showing Manolo Mendez.  This horse is being lunged in one of his own Spanish style cavessons which are my preferred piece of kit when lunging.