Luckily horses are very clear once we have learned to look and listen. I’ve altered the quote below (from Maya Angelou)
“I have learned that horses will forget what you said, horses will forget what you do, but horses will never forget how you made them feel”
So how do we know that our work is good? In a world where so much teaching is against the horse rather than for the good of the horse, how do we tell the difference?
How do we know whether the work made his body feel better?
Which after all is the whole point of Dressage- from the French verb ‘dresser’ which actually means to prepare or to straighten, to sculpt our horse into a thing of beauty that is empowered rather than diminished by our interventions. Did it make the horse feel good? What signs do we look for to know it made them feel good?
My favourite sign is helicopter ears- they go soft and floppy and assume all sorts of funny angles. Rocky has huge ears, as do all his family, so this one is pretty obvious, as well as being visible from on top!
Another sign is soft liquid eyes, with relaxed ‘eyebrows” and slow blinking. When the work is good, the horse is calm, because horses are kinaesthetic and they find it frightening to be out of balance. When their balance is aided to improve, they relax and chill out. They almost look stoned after good work. Stoned, not exhausted.
Breathing slows and calms: soft hurrumphs or gentle chuntering are signs of a relaxed mouth , tongue and larynx as well as relaxed brain. Harsh sharp breathing, breath holding, or sharp snorting, teeth grinding or calling out are all sure signs of a horse either stressed or on full alert.
More on the mouth from James Dunlop: “In the French Tradition, it is the state of the mouth that governs everything. There are three mouths possible. A dry mouth, a soaking wet one with gobs of foam on the chest and legs, and a moist one in which the lips are just moist and the lower jaw relaxed. The third mouth is described as being ‘fraiche’ and offers a gentle murmur (L’Hotte) as if to be ‘smiling’ ( Beudant) . It is to this third mouth that we should aspire.”
I always get off the horse after a work session and look critically at the muscles. Is the neck soft and inflated, are the under neck muscles soft, does the neck come nicely out of the shoulder girdle. Does it look wider at the base than the middle of the top? A good neck should be an even triangle from withers to poll, and from shoulder girdle to poll.
The horses ridden in hyper flexion, also called Low Deep and Round by those trying to make it sound better, have this weird tube of muscle that runs up from the middle of their necks, with no splenius or trapezius; in layman’s terms they have a hollow missing triangle just in front of the withers and also under the pommel. This photo below is an example of a horse showing aberrant muscle development from excessive flexion.
A lovely reminder of the missing neck muscles, also showing why forward down and out is the healthiest position for the neck
Is the lumbar back full? Does the hors’s skin shine and glisten and move smoothly over his frame or does it look dry and tight and stuck to the bones? Is the tail carried, not clamped, does it swing softly as he moves? If the tail swings, the back can’t be braced.
And finally, does he look proud after work? Does he go strutting back to the field to tell his mates how cool he was? Does he look better and stronger and bigger each time? Does he offer the improved posture next ride without having to do the prep work? If he offers the new posture or the new body usage next time, you know it felt good and he’s choosing to seek that posture. If you have to do all the work all over again, every time, it didn’t feel better. And that means it probably wasn’t right. So don’t repeat it…because if you aren’t improving your horse you are breaking him down (Charles de Kunffy).
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“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live.”
I have been reading Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now. I have to say it is the slowest read of a book I haven’t yet given up on. This is because the concepts are completely foreign to the control freak, overthinking part of me. Due to a fear of loss of security in my life, I have always tried to micro manage every moment. I have lived nearly every minute either ahead of or behind myself, wallowing in the paralysis of “what if?” or agonising about “How do I prevent that? What can I do that will stop that happening?”
Living in the here and now is a strange and alien concept.
That micro managed place where we are avoiding excess discomfort can become a place of limitation and challenge avoidance. It doesn’t necessarily prevent high performance. That’s a relative concept. But it does limit potential peak performance.
I love high adrenaline activities. But drip feed adrenaline…not the dare devil activities where you completely surrender control but those where you saunter along the knife edge proving how controlled you can be, choosing the move, every next minute…..until you really aren’t in control at all, and you finally have to deal with living in the here and and now.
As Mark Twain said, “I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
We cannot change the past, and we cannot prevent the future. All we can do is make the most of the present moment, informed by the past, and a series of best present moments will then build up to become a brighter future…if we are careful enough to wish it so.
Our wishes will come true…whether we like it or not.
The big horse has challenged me in ways I would never have thought possible. I love riding, I love horses, I ride because I breathe. Ever since I was a tiny child I have dreamed of having my own horses and riding them every day, of schooling them from scratch, of transforming them from clumsy awkward novices to beautiful, elastic, supple unicorns. I have never been without horses to ride, never been in a situation where I wasn’t rushing home from work to get an extra session in, rain or hail or shine.
Imagine then having to psych yourself up to get on the big horse. Imagine having to talk yourself into doing the very thing that has always brought you joy. Imagine driving home from work on a windy evening, making excuses in your head, thinking “Oh, I might leave it today, it’s a bit windy, he might be a bit naughty, maybe I’d better not tempt fate…” we say it for a gale first of all, then a blustery day, then a light breeze…until
and then we need to JFDI (medic speak for Just F*cking Do It)
Fear setting was a new concept to me until last year.
We are taught goal setting from an early age. Positive thinking is important. But if we ignore the darkness, if we ignore the abyss of fear and dread, it will bite us at the most inopportune moments.
Fear setting was a key part of the process that enabled me to leave my previous “dream life”. I asked myself “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” It turned out that staying unhappy was a much greater than stepping out into the unknown.
Positive thinking increases the likelihood of positive outcomes. But when the outcome is not so positive, how we cope with that eventuality is the space where we learn resilience.
Put simply, when facing a new challenge, what is the worst thing that can happen to you?
For a few months, I found myself avoiding new situations with the big horse. He is incredibly athletic, and has possibly put me on the floor more times than all the others combined! But I know this; I never yet get on him without a body protector, and a hard hat, and I know now that he needs regular, strenuous, work…like a stroppy teenager, he is better behaved when well exercised. I was avoiding challenging, stretch zone situations, keeping us within our narrow comfort zone, which meant that our comfort zone never expanded and we never got into our learning zone.
I asked myself “what is the worst thing that could happen”? Answer in my head turned out to be that he could ditch me in front of a load of strangers… well guess what? He’s done that loads!! We got the shiniest poshest rosette of my equestrian life for the most spectacular dismount, at riding club camp last year. That worst case scenario has already happened, so nothing left to be afraid of there….
So what else am I afraid of? What else might happen?
You never know- it could go really well…Like our jumping lesson tonight. Yes there were shenanigans. Yes we made mistakes. Yes he tested me. But the outcome??? I stayed in the plate (hurrah) and he came on in leaps and bounds, literally. I learned that I have to turn on a forwards feeling, without pulling the inside rein, (finally that lesson went in).
We just have to turn up, daily, and do the thing. We just have to believe that learning occurs in the stretch zone, for human and horse, and that although it may not always be pretty, it’s only by doing too much that we learn what is enough. We have to believe in ourselves, to be willing to expand our skill set but also to forgive ourselves and learn from our mistakes. We have to be non judgemental about our mistakes, observe them with wry amusement and do differently next time.
Differently, not better. Better is a judgement. And above all, we have to keep showing up, living in the here and now.
“Over the course of our lives, situations will arise that can sometimes seem insurmountable. When I’m faced with obstacles and life seems really difficult, my unconditional love for myself gives me the strength to continue. I greet the ups and downs of life’s journey with unconditional love for myself and the people in my life by understanding that I am only truly alive in the present moment; the future is a projection that does not yet exist. As long as there is life, everything is possible. Practice with awareness, remember to love yourself and others unconditionally when the road gets tough. Only through love can you overcome obstacles with peace.”
– Miguel Ruiz Jr.
“Perhaps our dreams are there to be broken, and our plans are there to crumble, and our tomorrows are there to dissolve into todays, and perhaps all of this is all a giant invitation to wake up from the dream of separation, to awaken from the mirage of control, and embrace whole-heartedly what is present. Perhaps it is all a call to compassion, to a deep embrace of this universe in all its bliss and pain and bitter-sweet glory. Perhaps we were never really in control of our lives, and perhaps we are constantly invited to remember this, since we constantly forget it. Perhaps suffering is not the enemy at all, and at its core, there is a first-hand, real-time lesson we must all learn, if we are to be truly human, and truly divine. Perhaps breakdown always contains breakthrough. Perhaps suffering is simply a right of passage, not a test or a punishment, nor a signpost to something in the future or past, but a direct pointer to the mystery of existence itself, here and now. Perhaps life cannot go ‘wrong’ at all.”
Jeff Foster
Thank you as always for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. To those influencers who comment, share the site with friends or help to promote in any other way, I remain eternally grateful. To those supporters generous and able to offer funds, whether small or large, karma is finding its way back to you with a rainbow of horses and abundance beyond dreams. Thank you all for joining in the adventure.
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Learning our alphabet is the first step of learning any language. And dressage is no different. Except that learning our alphabet isn’t quite the right phrase, really we need to be learning our horses’ alphabet.
Elizabeth Ball
As horses are movement itself, and the best way to access a horse’s brain is through his body, learning our horses’ alphabet actually means learning the alphabet of our horses’ movement.
First, the gaits. The step pattern, the footfalls, the sequence of pure gaits. How will we know if we have a pure walk or a good quality canter if we don’t know what the pure gaits consist of?
Humans are born with the ability to make every common sound heard in every language, from the Welsh ttthhh to the Xhosi nk. Babies learn, by imitation, to repeat the sounds they hear the most around them; they perfect those, the voicebox adapts and they may lose the ability to create other language sounds.
I learned to speak French in the Ecrins mountains when I was 10. I have a regional accent that most native French can pinpoint to that area, and I always get a very warm welcome when I go back to that region.
Glacier des Violettes- the best mountain HVS in the world runs up to the left of the glacier- Ailefroide
But there is one telling detail that a true linguist would spot, one omission- my rrrrrr is weak. I can just about roll my rrrr, but not quite like a native.
Coming down from the Violettes
In the same way, horses are born with every variation of every gait at their disposal. Some will come easier than others, some are bred selectively, such as the tolt or the pacing gait, but all foals can do all gaits at the beginning. They learn first by copying their mothers, and their peer group, which gaits are the easiest for day to day life. And then in training, we reward them for the four pure dressage gaits, and every variation thereof. But we can only do that if we know how the four pure gaits are meant to look , feel and sound.
A young Milton with Caroline Powell- brought on slowly and correctly to become the world’s most successful show jumper
The reason these specifically defined pure gaits have been selected as the most desirable over the centuries is because time has shown that these gaits are the most efficient for the horse to carry a rider in a healthy biomechanical posture.
And we have to understand that aberrations of these gaits are not healthy, and should not be ignored, let alone rewarded. How many lateral walks do we see in FEI dressage tests, not only ignored but scored highly, against the directives?
Then we need to remember that horses are born crooked. Just as humans are born right handed or left handed, the symmetrical, perfectly balanced horse has not yet been born.
Training is therefore first rehabilitation, followed by therapy, and finally it can become gymnastic.
To complete the training of the dressage horse we need to be able to speak to his body in sentences, in combinations of aids that combine targeted exercises and accurate patterns to enable the horse to develop strength and suppleness.
CDK talks about the daily vocabulary of training; like a virtuoso musician practising their scales every day, a trainer must help the horse to run through his full physical repertoire every session- all bends, all gaits, every length of neck, every length of stride, all directions of travel.
Paul Belasik
Run through, not drill.
Simple repetition does not bring about improvement- targeted focus does. When doing scales we did them fast, slow, staccato, slurred, syncopated da deee and deee da, forwards and backwards. Every variation, to avoid strain and boredom.
The quality of each movement will vary according to the horse’s level of training, but a fragment of each exercise will be possible in every horse from the very beginning.
This can be achieved from the ground, in hand, or from the saddle.
The brilliance in the virtuoso comes from a solid foundation, from the long hours spent perfecting the details of the basics.
Perfect practise makes perfect.
So know your horse’s alphabet, and help him to write three dimensional poetry in motion.
We must make sure that we do not inadvertently teach ourselves to fail regularly in our training. It is important that we learn to make the mental transition to” I can”.
I heard a story this weekend about a very high achieving golfer. Every time he takes a lesson to improve one aspect of his game he goes out, applies the lesson and plays much better. Instead of being pleased that he has played better, he then looks for the gaps in his recent good game, focusses on those, practises those aspects which he has not improved and then goes out and so has a horrible time again. Essentially he has trained himself to fail, repetitively.
We must train ourselves to bank the good stuff first, especially in riding where there are two sentient beings involved in the encounter. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t learn from our mistakes; reflection, adjustment and testing is a key part of experiential learning of a practical skill. But we must learn just as much if not more from our successes.
I have started videoing myself riding more regularly. A friend once made the comment that high definition video is the most brutal feedback anyone needs. I don’t have hi-def capability but a mobile phone propped up on the arena fence is effective enough.
The first time I watch the video I am always appalled. I look like cooked spaghetti, what are my legs doing there, what on earth makes me think I can ride….
Then I look at it again and watch the horse…and generally there are some nice moments. And I have to remind myself that if the horse is improving then I can’t be that bad…
If the horse wasn’t improving, I would possibly have appalled myself so much that I would have given up. I am my own worst critic.
Do as I say, not as I do!!
But luckily for me the grey horse loves the nitty gritty of training, and loves the way good work makes his body feel. Which means he loves me.
If we want to improve a movement or an exercise then we have to pick one aspect to work on. We can’t just “try it again” and hope something will improve globally by accident. Practise doesn’t make perfect, perfect practise makes perfect. So you have to be consciously competent enough to choose one aspect that you can change to improve the overall performance of the task. A bit like teaching surgery….
Which means we have to choose other aspects to leave alone, or even better, aspects to keep because they are already good.
So for example; I’m doing trot halt, rein back, trot, transitions in step sequences of four. Four because even numbers make it predictable for the horse so the transitions should occur with less resistance. (That bit is magic, don’t question it, it just is, even number of steps for predictability, odd number of steps when you want change).
I ask myself what I can do….generally I can count to four, the transitions occur when asked, the rein back is diagonal, the line of travel is straight, the trot out has lovely oomph.
What do I want to improve? Lets just say one thing- the softness of the topline, for now.
Do I throw all the good qualities away just to focus on the topline? Do I say topline first and foremost, at whatever cost, no matter how many steps, no matter if it’s straight, …
Or do I try and add another quality to the good stuff I have already?
I have written before about how essential positive feedback is to the horse if you want to keep him on side. The horse is never allowed to think he made a mistake.
Imagine how dispiriting it would be for a horse if, every time he does a movement or an exercise, to the best of his ability, exactly as you have aided it (because again that is the truth) and you say “No, no, that was terrible, it was all wrong, we have to do it again, we are just so rubbish!”
He wouldn’t keep trying for very long would he?
Imagine if, instead of saying “we just can’t do that”,
you made the transition to thinking I can,
if we thought “We can do that even better! We can do that more like an advanced horse. What’s the most we can do?’….in the example, “What is the best most elevated and elongated topline we can do that rein back in? How would Granat feel doing that reinback?”
What is the maximum we can ask for?
Not demand…that’s different. If we ask for the absolute maximum possible that we can imagine, the horse will give is the maximum he is capable of, in that moment, and he might just surprise himself and you!
Our limited expectations can limit our horse’s potential. I know I am often guilty of trying to make every step the best step, when sometime it just needs to be the next step. Sometime we just need to make progress, in the work and across the arena.
Dinner needs to get cooked!
Never mind if the balance goes awry, what is the biggest length of stride the horse can offer?
What is the longest neck he can keep that balance on without going splat? He has to go splat at least once for you to find out the answer to that question. If he doesn’t go splat how do you know you have asked enough? Obviously you ask for a touch less next time.
And then the next time you pick another aspect.
So in my example; yesterday I worked on quality of topline. And the response to the aids also improved. Today I worked on responsiveness to the aids (and topline came for free with a few repetitions). Tomorrow I will need to find a different sequence or a different usage of that lesson (pretend piaffe/passage transitions with rein back legs maybe, or what does reinback leg do to the canter walk transition) otherwise I am drilling my horse, and sucking all of the joy out of his psyche.
So to get the best out of out horses, we need to learn to make the transition to “I can”.
To I can do the most magnificent trot, halt, rein back, trot that I can imagine, with this fabulous horse I am lucky enough to be riding in this moment. The horse doesn’t know this is a difficult exercise, he just hears your thoughts, well before your aids.
So make those thoughts worth listening to. Make him feel magnificent.
The magic is in the transition- when every possibility is available, everything is possible.
And teach yourself and your horse to succeed, a little more every day.
Trust is a two way street. For trust to exist in a relationship it has to be felt both ways. ‘How does this relate to horses’ I hear you cry?
Simple really. We expect our horses to trust us, but do we trust them?
Those of you who have had the delightful pleasure of sharing a lesson with me and the Rockstar will know I have racked up quite a few air miles this summer. Highlights were winning the “most spectacular dismount” rosette at camp (there were 3 episodes that could have qualified), and a splat at the end of one of Neil’s bouncy grids- Rocky was getting more and more extravagant in an upward direction, and just minutes after me saying those immortal words ‘at least I’m still on’ his back end flicked up even higher as we turned and I wasn’t.
He had just dumped me again before this photo was. taken-
I’ve been resetting the counter on the 1st day of the month. It’s the only way to stay sane. And I’ve said out loud on several occasions that I’m not sure if I’ll ever ride him without a back protector.
Then something very peculiar happened. Over the last few weeks I’ve been hopping on Cal bareback to take the two of them down to the field. And after a few days I started getting this really strong urge to hop on Rocky instead of Cal.
Which I initially dismissed as madness and stupidity.
After all, I can barely steer this young horse in a bridle. I can’t remember May’s total of involuntary dismounts but there was a score, June was a 4 point month and July a 2 pointer.
But the urge kept occurring.
If we believe in the whoo whoo stuff, maybe it was Rocky himself putting the idea in my head.
August has not been a month of perfect behaviour. I’m still on 0 points but that’s more about luck than skill- I’ve had a couple of hilariously spicey in hand sessions.
So I have no idea why I got on the big baby warmblood, him in a head collar, me in Crocs with no hat (don’t judge me) and no body armour, to take him and Cal down to the field.
It took me about 3 goes to line them up to the mounting block and actually get on. Then there was some milling about in all 4 dimensions while I got them both pointing the same way in the yard. I’ve ridden Cal quite a bit in a head collar and done some neck reining stuff like Garrocha work- (note to self- too much even- that inadvertent indirect rein aid needs sorting) Rocky however had no idea as yet what a neck rein aid might be.
Once we were lined up it was a relatively straightforward exercise. They know the way, obviously.
There is something very special about riding your horse bareback. You are connected to the horse, muscle to muscle, back to back, in a way that you just can’t feel in a saddle. I giggled, and I praised him, and I found my inner child to jolly him along.
We got there, I slid off carefully because of the Irish safety boots and I thanked him properly, scratching his chin and looking him straight in the eye. And I felt something shift between us.
Me trusting him enough to get on in that playful kid like way has changed our relationship. And if it was him asking me to trust him and just get on, then that is the first loud and clear request that I have had from him, and I listened. And every creature loves a good listening to!!
I really hope that was his thought I heard because if so, it was delightfully clear- we always say ‘if only they could talk…’
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m sure the points tally will continue to rise. And I’m sure he will test me in ways Cal hasn’t even dreamed of. But he has taught me a very important lesson: that trust is a two way street. And if I want him to trust me; then in a partnership of equals, I have to offer him the same courtesy.
Cal has long known my every thought- however inconvenient a truth that may be.
You might not think of riding and training as a partnership of equals. That’s fine. In my humble opinion horses are the best mirror out there- what you receive is what you asked for. And what you offer will come back amplified a hundred times.
I’ve shared this picture before but it is my mantra for this year
Charlie Mackesey
and the wonderful Charlie Mackesey has got his book sorted – it is now available for pre Order on Amazon.
I’ll tack the link below when I am on my laptop rather than phone.
Finding every opportunity to praise- the power of positive feedback, and the soundbite that summarises my current training philosophy.
I don’t get too hung up on R+, R-, I do use so-called aversives like spurs and whips and bits but I try to use them in the non-aversive way that we are taught is possible by 2000 years of classical tradition. And I am willing to learn and evolve, with the horses as my most reliable and honest teachers. So this article summarises where I am now. It’s a long way from where I was 10 years ago. And we may all read this in another 10 years and think what nonsense?
I seek to share my current understanding because writing it down helps me to clarify my thoughts, and because occasionally it seems to help other people too.
So, I seek every opportunity to praise…the horse, the junior doctor, myself. It becomes a way of being, seeking the opportunity to praise the positive in every action or interaction
As some of you will already have read, my glorious warmblood was recently diagnosed with a kissing spine.
As he is still young, green and growing, and as my personal circumstances have been a bit complicated recently, I have made a conscious decision to take his rehab very slowly. To allow the growth spurt to complete, to let him down and let the spasmed muscles relax, to get him pain free and in good shape physically and mentally and then to start again from the beginning. This time I will pay meticulous attention to posture and correct muscle usage and see if we can end up with a better back that will allow me to sit on it without causing trouble or pain.
This rationale also gives me time to completely rebuild our training relationship, from the ground, so we have trust and a good communication system in place before I get back on. And this process has set me thinking about how I train: what is my methodology?
And I have arrived at the soundbite; seek every opportunity to praise.
Proud pony loves praise
I’m not very good at clicker training. Currently I don’t own a horse that is more motivated by food than by praise, so the premise of training to a click backed up by food doesn’t work for my current equine partners. I’m also not as quick to click as I am to praise with my voice, so for me it is much easier to ‘mark’ with my voice. And as horses are basically telepathic, even if they don’ t hear the word, they hear the thought…so for me a clicker just introduces a layer of delay.
I’m also put off by the tragic story of Tilikum- when clicker training goes wrong, the result can be dangerous frustration for the animal.
I’m sure the horse will come along one day that forces me to learn clicker training and I will have to eat these words, as I have so many others!! But life is a journey…
The key question is what to praise. Now the horses and I are back in company rather than living at home in our little private bubble, we are once again exposed to other humans and their relationships with their horses. One can learn a lot by listening.
The other day our neighbour was grooming her pony. Every other word seemed to be a No, or a Don’t Do That, or a Stop That, or another No.
Now I am a proud survivor of surgical training; in the good old days, you knew you were doing well if the boss kept quiet, and you only got spoken to, or rapped on the knuckles, if you were doing it wrong. When we read about how to raise children, we read that “the average toddler hears the word “no” an astonishing 400 times a day, according to experts. That’s not only tiresome for you but it can also be harmful to your child: According to studies, kids who hear “no” too much have poorer language skills than children whose parents offer more positive feedback.”
Disciplining Your Child Without Saying No. – Redbook
But if we just randomly say Good Boy, how will the horse, or the child, learn what was good or desired?
It’s all about timing.
Here’s an example. Rocky, the young warmblood, has really mobile shoulders and very expressive front legs. His reaction to food, to buckets, to grooming, to challenge, is to wave, particularly his right, foreleg around, and for me the waving is often at waist height. There is no point telling him not to do this; by the time we are saying No Don’t Do That the foot is already up in the air. He doesn’t choose to do it, it’s a reaction, an instinct. Horses don’t reason or plan, they react. There is no possible way of teaching the horse Don’t Do That once the action has already occurred.
Instead, how about we teach him to put the leg back down on the ground on command? At first this is opportunistic training; every time the leg hits the ground as he’s scraping or waving, I praise- “Down- Good”. Eventually, we just have to say ‘Down’ and the leg will land.
I don’t want to teach him not to wave the leg around; who knows, we might want Spanish Walk one day, although I’m not sure gymnastically that this particular horse will ever require that exercise LOL; his shoulders are already mobile enough.
Goofball Rocky with his very mobile shoulders
So the principle is: rather than trying to teach a negative after the unwanted behaviour has occurred, instead we teach a positive correction to the unwanted behaviour, a correction that we can cue and then reward. This has the advantage of not preventing a behaviour or movement we may want to access again in the future, and also gives us the opportunity to praise our horse rather than rebuke him. Horses, like children, respond much better to positive feedback than negative. They enjoy being right, and being rewarded for being right.
Another common misconception is that we can get a horse to calm down by stroking or patting them when they are on high alert.
Effectively, what we are doing here is rewarding the horse for being anxious or fractious. We are reinforcing the unwanted behaviour. Far better to change the mood and then reward the following calm, which is the desired behaviour. How do we change the mood?
Laughter or yawning are my two favourite strategies here. When Cal was a youngster and we were hacking around Kingsley as the annual scarecrow competition hit full swing, I used to giggle at the crazy stuff in the hedges. The best one was a pair of legs, sticking up out of the hedge, as if diving into a pool; I think it must have been London Olympic year. Cal would be eyeballing the scarecrows and sidling past at speed and I would be chuckling and giggling, but with hands loose on the reins and concentrating on loose legs and relaxed seat. He’s pretty bombproof now.
At competitions with Cal, or handling Rocky recently when he’s been in pain having physio, I focus on boredom and yawning. Boredom slows your heart rate and lowers your energy, while yawning relaxes the jaw and the neck, and therefore the hands, as well as changing the frequency of your thoughts. When the horse comes down in energy, relaxes or yawns, then we can take the opportunity to praise the relaxation and the calm, because that is the desired behaviour.
Now I’m far from perfect. I’m not trying to preach, just to share some stuff I have learned. Tonight was worming night, and Rocky still had me swinging around the stable because yet again I didn’t do enough prep work in between wormings. But I will do the prep work, and it will get easier.
Butter wouldn’t melt
When I’m riding nowadays, I’m alway looking for the moment to praise, the topline stretch or the moment of throughness or relaxation that I can mark as desirable so I might get offered it again. I am also careful to praise myself- although that’s much more subtle. I don’t vocalise those moments so much, although maybe I should, but a turn in balance or good use of a seat aid will get noted as a nice feeling, or a good moment, with a nod or a smile.
More importantly, I don’t beat myself up for the not perfect moments anymore- I have a giggle, regroup and do it again, better. I no longer hate my disobedient legs, or my flappy elbow, or my gripping left hand, instead I notice them, change them, forgive myself, correct them again…until the corrections become fewer and further between….and then you notice your flappy knee or your sticky out toe and move onto to the next bit of homework.
Finding every opportunity to praise, ourselves and our horses, keeps training fun and rewarding, and beats the winter blues.
So here’s some homework. First spend an evening wth your horse just listening to what you say to him, is it no or is it yes, is it don’t do that or clever boy?
And then spend an evening being really careful to look for the moment to praise, both you and him, for the good stuff, and to replace a Don’t with a Can You Do this instead. And then observe both your moods. I predict your horse will be proud and puffed up and loving at the end of a positive session.And you will go home energised and enthused and looking forward to the next session, no matter what has occurred, because you have both had more fun.
And then suddenly might just happen over a very long time 😉
Suddenly happens over a very long time… this is another of those annoying contradictions that is so true of dressage training, of deep learning, or of developing expertise. How many times have you heard someone say- “we were stuck for ages and then suddenly, it just happened, as if by magic.”
Or the converse, “everything was going so well and then suddenly, out of nowhere, it all went horribly wrong. ”
Suddenly happens over a very long time.
Watching good dressage training
can be like watching paint dry. Cal and I have a fairly predictable school routine now; first we cover the arena with many random footprints, changing direction, weighting different hind legs, suppling the shoulders and the barrel.
All the while, I run through my position; are my legs kicked out of my hip sockets, are my knees down, are my calves long, are my seat bones open and my pelvis neutral, have I got 3 good spines, a good flat back, a solid frontline, and most recently, a seat that moves through my hands.
Then we move on to checking the 4 corners of the horse, have I got control of the 4 corners, is the weight equal between sides, is the bend even in both directions, have I got directional control, is he full from tail to poll, have I got lift and stretch?
Then we start doing laterals, in walk first and then either focus on trot or canter work. We pick an exercise to use as a test, then another to improve on the dilemma we find, then test again. Suddenly happens over a very long time.
It sounds very serious but we actually laugh a lot together, Cal and I. He is much less perturbed these days about having to be right all the time. The key for me is not to mind the moments where we lose balance, or lose steering, or just lose everything. I practise non judgmental observation, then make the change required (hopefully- there’s a 50-:50 chance of being right usually) and then test the result. It’s taken me a long time to get to that stage- I used to get annoyed by our mistakes, or frustrated by my incompetence, or so focussed on achieving the task that I was rigid in my aiding and obsessed with task completion not quality of gymnastic (riding the exercise not the horse).
I rode last night in my winter jodhpurs, which don’t have a sticky bum, and I’ve been a bit short on riding hours the last couple of weeks. So, when I lost my rhythm, I slithered all over. I’m sure Cal was giggling, but he kindly didn’t drop me, or object!
Now these days I know that while it is important to complete the exercise, because there is magic in the patterns as well as in the aiding, it is also important to be able to notice and change each step….or at least some of them. Suddenly happens over a very long time.
Every moment I am asking what do we have, what do I like, what do I want to keep, what do I want to change? I say every moment, in horse time it’s probably every 600 moments, in between running the human position check program, doing the steering, checking the bend, the weight, the back, breathe, check my position…you get the idea. We take frequent rest breaks and we accept one or two steps of good initially because we know these few steps will build up to a whole long side one day.
The last time I went to watch Charles de Kunffy teach, I had been playing with canter half pass on the long diagonal the day before. Cal could do about 3 steps of canter half pass before it all fell apart. I practised a good few times across the diagonal and then when we got to 4 passable strides I stopped. Charles asked for 3 strides canter half pass, then 3 straight then another 3 strides canter half pass. The horses were empowered, rather than pressured, and the few strides requested got better and bolder with each repeat. Such a simple lesson, and such a good reminder.
Likewise with your baby horse, if you only have 4 reliable strides of canter, take the 4 strides, ask for the trot, then ask again. The magic is in the transition, the taking weight behind occurs in the moment of change, the shift in the back occurs in the switch of rhythm, not in the lolloping around.
The trick to make suddenly happen over a very long time is to notice the quality of each moment and then to make the appropriate change. As Charles says so eloquently in “The Ethics and Passion Of Dressage”-
‘There is no neutrality in riding: you are either actively improving your horse or actively breaking him down’
Cal’s neck has ‘suddenly’ got huge. Over the space of a few weeks, it seemed to deepen by about 3 inches. Did I do anything differently to cause this sudden change?
No- we were doing the same work, the same basic regime, although the exercise are getting more advanced, laterals on a circle or curving line, transitions in shoulder in, smaller patterns.
Building muscle, and building a horse is incremental, and exponential. If the foundations are good, and the details attended to at the beginning, then latter progress can be rapid.
Charles writes about this too-
‘we remember that the “finished horse” is born of daily attention to minutia in schooling. Careful consistency, repetition and elaboration are part of that daily work which produce the supple horse.’
I have really done my homework over the last few years. I have worked on my position with every spare brain cell and bit of muscle memory I could muster, I have used any precious arena time as efficiently as possible, I have done thousands of transitions, of bend, of weight, of speed, of topline…
I’ve had a lot of fun as well, farm riding, eventing, charging around the forest, but every moment on the horse I have genuinely tried to ride as well as possible, in that moment.
And suddenly my horse is looking really fancy. Suddenly, over a long period of time, my horse has become magnificent.
And in the process, I have learned a huge amount, about positive thinking, about discipline and change, about body and mind, and about life.
Because once you have seen something, you cannot unsee it. Once the feeling of true flow has been experienced, nothing else will do. Suddenly happens over a very long time. You are either improving something or breaking it down. You get to choose which, every minute, every day. I would recommend that, rather than coasting along, you focus on improving the daily details, the gymnastic, the posture, the flow, so that you suddenly find magic, not despair.
And if you get into the habit of checking every moment for what do you like, what would you keep, what would you discard, some unexpected patterns emerge, in human life as well as in the arena.
And when effecting positive change, in the moment, by choice, becomes a way of life, then the world might just shift on its axis.
Good riding should be therapeutic. It turns out that good horsemanship can also be therapeutic, for the human as well as the horse.
Suddenly happens over a very long time….and then nothing will ever be the same again.
“The horse is indeed the only master of his forces that our own strength is quite unable to augment by itself alone. It is hence up to him to use them to his liking and to determine the way to employ them in order to respond in the best way possible to the rider’s indications. Should the latter want to act by himself, the horse lets himself be carried and adjusts his efforts to those that the man makes him feel. But if the horse knows that he can rely upon his own means only, he will use them without expecting anything but indications, and then he uses them in full, with all his stamina.”
It’s taken me a few weeks to be able to write about our glorious youngster’s diagnosis and the Rocky road to rehab.
I know all about the road to rehab- it’s almost 7 years since Cal fractured his carpal bone. And I completely believe a good outcome is possible – Cal’s fracture taught me to trust the process and detach from the outcome. He has become the most fabulous horse you could wish for. And the fracture, although well healed, made sure he was another horse I could never sell. (How does anyone manage to sell a horse?)
I clearly remember the early uncertainty, the agony of box rest, the hundreds of miles we walked in hand, and then finally the relief when he jumped his first course and stayed sound.
I just never expected to be on the road to rehab with Rocky.
We bought him as a yearling.
Well bred, well handled, but completely unspoilt, from a trusted source. He came home with us from the South Coast, after Paddy dumped me in the ditch at Longleat. Paddy did share some wise words with him on the trip home though- he travelled like a pro and learned to eat out of a haynet on the way.
We turned him out with another colt at a friend’s place and let them be boys, living out and razzing around together. We brought him in to the livery yard aged 3, a couple of months before we moved into our own place. Once our land was sorted the three horses went out together full time, and gelled as a little herd straightaway.
Paddy was hiding – Ernie thinks they are his brothers anyway
The pity party
The reason it’s taken me a few weeks to share a bit more is that I have been having a proper pity party. Everything we have learned about over the last few years, the entire focus of our horsey learning, has been about correct classical training, that is meant to preserve the health of the horse and prevent this type of injury.
The stages of balance, from Egon Von Nendirf’s beautiful book. Rider is Melissa Simms, who passed away only recently.
Good work is meant to be therapeutic. Rehab is really just about going back to absolute basics, working on the ground for now, opening up those intervertebral spaces and building the muscle in between. It’s basically what we should be doing all along.
Rocky had the joint space medicated, and this was followed up with some ultrasound to the muscles of his lumbar region, as these also were in spasm.
Rocky working at camp this spring
The ODGs knew all about kissing spine- correct classical training focuses on opening the back, elongating the top line, thereby preventing them occurring. Piaffe, the test of collection, also shows maximal length from tail to poll, when done correctly, along the arch of the top line.
Nuno showing an exemplary piaffe- all on the seat
Levade requires even more topline
The lumbar back is curved, the loins coiled, the hind legs and hocks flexed.
We’ve taken it really slowly
We did 6 weeks of in hand work and sat on him briefly at 3, did about 3 months in hand work and rode him away for 6 weeks at 4, and then did a bit more with him in his 5th summer, a few fun rides, a bit of light schooling and hacking, a bit of polework.
This year, his 6th year, was meant to be when the work got a bit more consistent. As often happens, our working lives have been the limiting factor, as well as Rocky’s ‘tricky nature’.
Do we even believe horses can have tricky natures?
This is not a young horse that has been over-worked…
Or was he?
I was starting to use judgmental words about him though- ‘backward’, the ‘work ethic of a flea’, because he would stop dead when tired and have a little buck when asked to go forwards.
Have we ridden him too much, when we should have been building a stronger horse with good in hand work and just riding a little?
Is the injury the result of an unfortunate conformational glitch?
Did the injury occur when he got stuck under the partition in the truck a couple of years ago? He didn’t thrash around or panic but still…
And then after a couple of days madness, I gave myself a slap and a talking to. It doesn’t matter how it happened- we just need to focus on the rocky road to rehab.
Rehab is a rollercoaster of emotions, hopes and dreams, where actually we just have to knuckle down, do the work and trust the process. All the previous learning, all the work on posture, timing, training, helping horses find biomechanically correct movement, will surely get put to extra good use now.
The value of good in hand work
The value of good in hand work can not be overstated. I never manage to do as much as I should. Only last week, Cal, my supposedly advanced horse, was the demo pony for a Patrice clinic, which meant I was the demo human (gulp). We found a few holes in the simple work- for example the SI left has too much neck bend, and so doesn’t weight the inside hind or stretch along the outside, and leg yield left, he doesn’t actually choose to step past his barrel with his hind leg-the mistakes are much easier to feel and correct from the ground if we are observant and honest enough with ourselves.
It’s also important not to pussy foot around with the rehab horse. We mustn’t look at them as if they are broken- they find this really disconcerting. Instead we should look at them with soft eyes, taking in the details of the movement, the stretch needed here, the balance needed there. We should do all the best work, asking nothing less than enough, yet noticing and rewarding every try that gets us towards better. We should remind them of their magnificence, encourage them to use themselves fully and correctly, and welcome the moment when the whole fabulous horse turns up.
In hand work also teaches us about our horses’ training brain. Rocky has always thrown his whole genetically gifted body at any task. When I ask him to slow down and actually work within himself, paying attention to the details of which leg goes where, he then needs to work really slowly, with lots of breathing and thinking breaks. This is timing and observation I will need to take forward to the ridden work once we get back on.
Some vets recommend a Pessoa or similar training aid when rehabbing a horse with kissing spines. The advantages are that it stretches the horse ‘over the back’- that horrid modern phrase. The disadvantages are that any training aid attached to the mouth only serves to teach the horse to avoid the bit- imagine jagging yourself in the teeth every time you move a leg?
In classical training, the bit belongs to the horse.
The horse has to learn to trust the bit, to take it forwards, to use it as a point of reference to reach towards and work around. The bit should never be used against the horse, neither as a means of control nor as a tool to ’round the neck’. Even the subtlest of left/right actions backwards on the bars of the north or downwards on the tongue teach the horse to avoid the aversive pressure and duck behind the bit to relieve the pain. Working them in a training aid that attaches to the mouth isn’t subtle, and there is no way the bit can act in the corners of the mouth, as it should, when the head is strapped down.
I have been using the equi-bands, to encourage Rocky to lift his tummy and round his back – this specific training aid has no front part so all influence on the head is from the human hand to the front of the cavesson, teaching the horse to stretch forward over the topline. The connection to the cavesson should be like the connection to the rein- and the line held like a rein- it only acts forward and up, and continually places the contact in front of the horse so that he learns to take the contact forwards.
Manolo- the photo shows beautifully how asking for a forward long neck extends the spinous processes. His contact is a bit vague in this moment but you get a good sense of elbow bent, line held correctly, lower arm opening forwards encouraging the topline to reach.
And perhaps most of all we should never underestimate the healing power of love, positive energy, and sunshine.
Rocky chilling out after a work session with his Arc gizmo on in the sun
I’ve been meaning to try an online dressage competition for ages, so when our blogging support group got an offer for free entries in return for blogging about the experience, I accepted with alacrity.
We were approached by Melissa of Dressage Riders Online.
I chose to do a novice test- this month’s allocation was N24, a test I have ridden once before.
Now, the first advantage of doing an online dressage competition is that no plaiting is required- as Cal has enough mane for 2 horses.
Cal showing off his double mane at dinner
This grows at top speed, no matter how much I pull and tidy, I have resigned myself to sewing in 19-21 plaits for any competitive outing.
19 Plaits looking a bit flat after overnight attack of the Lycra hood
No plaits is therefore a huge treat for me, although Cal quite likes looking smart.
The other advantage of online dressage competition is that you get to use your own familiar arena, without any diesel costs.
We don’t have our own arena. My lovely neighbour has a fabulous arena that I am fortunate to be allowed to use regularly- it’s secluded and peaceful, more or less next door, I hack there and I quite often have the place to myself. Cal generally goes beautifully there.
Until we needed to mark out a 20m x 40m space. I enlisted Gary’s help as arena builder and camera man and he, being a perfectionist, brought his massive tape measure to make sure it was marked out correctly. So as I was working in, we had slithery snake-like metallic tape measure and moving poles to contend with. It was also quite windy so the hedge monsters were out in force and the new patio umbrellas were waving gently.
Cal kept it together remarkably well and was working nicely so we decided to go for the first take. I stopped at C to pass the phone over the fence to Gary, who had to crawl through the electric tape to take it off me, and Zap!!! He got a proper shock!
Gary yelled and jumped, Cal jumped and then decided that C was obviously a really dangerous place to be! Another 10minutes of working in at that end, I eventually convinced him that it might be safe to approach the fence as usual.
After 3 takes we had a test I thought might be worth sending in. Just as well, it was the last possible filming day of the month- I’m a bit of a deadline queen.
I’m not the only blogger who benefited from the free trial of online dressage competition-
was quicker on the posting trigger and even managed to share a clip of her test video, showing stretching on a circle.
‘Uh oh’ I thought, ‘I’m pretty sure there’s no stretching on a circle on my video?’
Sure enough there wasn’t- whoops!
With no judge to beep when I’d gone off course, I had merrily missed out a whole movement!
Too late- month over, video gone in.
On the Tuesday evening as I was heading towards Mostyn for an evening show jumping lesson, Melissa messaged me to say my WeTransfer link wasn’t opening properly, she was off to work and could I send my test to the judge directly? As I was headed into deepest darkest Wales on my own in the truck, this wasn’t the best news!
I had a couple more tries on arrival at Mostyn but I really could not get the WeTransfer app to work correctly from my phone.
I finally managed to send a link to my YouTube channel (get me- total technophobe dunce- YouTube??), when I got home at 930pm, convinced I would be too late.
But no, the judge was lovely and kind and accepted my video.
And we came 2nd!!!
The test sheet and the rosette arrived a couple of days later.
Gorgeous rossie 😀
Helen Copeland is a list 5 BD judge from the North East. The comments were really positive and helpful, with none of the usual meaningless phrases
(‘could be rounder’, and ‘needs to be more over the back’ in particular being two phrases that are guaranteed to send the test sheet into the bin without me reading further)
and I thought the marks more than fair for our rather challenging day at home.
The marks would have been even better was there not a big fat 0 in the stretchy circle box!
And I love Haribos!
So would I do it again?
Definitely.
I feel it is important to ride tests occasionally, in order to identify the challenges in the work and the next areas of focus required in the training. Along with the discipline of doing a particular movement at the marker as well as when the right moment arrives.
We’ve taped the marker spots on the neighbour’s arena fence so set up next time should be quicker.
My limiting factor will always be finding someone to video, preferably without electrocuting themselves first, but now I’ve got the technology sorted, actually submitting the video should be easier.
And most importantly, this is the the first judge for ages who has put useful specific comments that seem to demonstrate an understanding of correct training.
Because we train our horses classically, which to me means as ethically, and as biomechanically correctly as possible, the modern obsession with over tempo horses and false roundness in front, no matter what else is occurring, has actually properly put me off formal dressage competition. Obviously when Eventing we have to do a test so we can get onto the XC course.
So I’m encouraged to try online dressage competition again, hopefully with Cal in a calmer frame of mind next time, and see if we can improve our test riding. And hopefully see some progression in our scores as he improves.
So a huge thank to Melissa from Dressage Riders Online for the chance to try out online dressage competition.
You have hooked me in as a regular customer from now on in.
I thoroughly recommend this lovely site for friendly help and ease of use. If I can manage the technical video sending bit then honestly, anyone else will be fine.
Thanks to Gary for filming – please note no Garys were harmed in the production of this movie 😂😂, and to Stacey for being the best horsey neighbour ever.
And to Cal, for simply being the best teacher one could wish for 😍😍
Cal after Shelford UA ODE- his back looks amazing these days
Fallacies and paradigms- 2 of my favourite new words. Are you operating within a false paradigm?
First question – what is a paradigm?
Are you operating within a false paradigm, i.e. a false belief system? How does this relate to horses? I hear you cry…
Let me use a personal example of operating within a false paradigm.
Some years ago there was an incredibly successful black dressage stallion from the Continent. He and his rider posted record breaking scores. His movement was spectacular- his forelegs seemed to reach for the sky, stretching far beyond where his nose pointed, and the crowd gasped and cooed. And the judges also gasped and cooed. The record breaking scores led me to believe that this sort of movement must be sought, a result of the pinnacle of skilful and careful dressage training.
At the time, I wanted to learn more about how to train my horse, from scratch, all the way though to magnificence. At the time the black stallion was the epitome of competitive magnificence in my eyes. He was scoring over 80% and winning every gold medal around.
So my paradigm: because this combination was winning everything, he must be the most correct rider, and the black beauty the most beautifully trained horse out there.
As I read and learned more, I started to read about Rollkur. This rider is a well known exponent of Rollkur, or LDR, or deep stretching, or whatever fluffy name the proponents choose to use. This is an abusive training method where the horse’s head is hoiked in behind the vertical to achieve control and submission. This deprives the horse of his sight and also the use of his neck. It was first used by Nicole Uphoff and a big horse called Rembrandt who was too hot for her to handle in competition situations. Rollkur allowed her to ride him under control. And she won…lots.
Rollkur also has a strange effect on the movement of the forelegs. It accentuates flinging of the forelimbs while failing to engage the hind limbs. It creates or accentuates spectacular forelimb movement, but not in a biomechanically sound way.
Rollkur for prolonged periods of time was banned by the FEI in competition and warm up in 2010, on the basis that it is abusive, and that training in this position is bad for the horse’s health and soundness.
But the effects of Rollkur, the unnatural spectacular gaits on a hollow back and an overbent neck, continue to be rewarded.
So as an amateur learning dressage, I studied those high scoring tests. I tried to reconcile how this hero of dressage, a sport espousing harmony and partnership, could be considered abusive? How could the results of an abusive training method be winning rides, when dressage is an art as well as a sport, and is all about harmony, and improving the physique of the horse?
I did this weird thing in my head- maybe Rollkur done skilfully isn’t abusive? Maybe he wasn’t actually doing Rollkur, but something very close to it? Maybe it was possible to train a horse to show that degree of forelimb extravagance without using Rollkur? Maybe the horse was bred with that movement and he was simply harnessing it? May be we needed better horses to win, not to be better riders?
BUT DRESSAGE SHOULD BE A TEST OF TRAINING? Alerich, Wily Trout, these were thoroughbreds with ordinary movement, who were made more magnificent by correct training.
At my sister’s riding club in Germany, a Fjord pony used to win regularly at their equivalent of PSG, because he was trained to be the best athlete he could be.
I watched the black stallion’s tests on YouTube, over and over. And as I watched them more, and read more, and learned more, I began to notice other stuff.
The black stallion actually had very good, large moving, but correct gaits as a youngster. The trot in the later work wasn’t regular. The diagonal pairs didn’t match. The hind legs were uneven, one almost hops behind. The head is mostly behind the vertical, not mostly in front occasionally coming to the vertical as required in the FEI rules.
There was little harmony- the curb was torqued horizontally on tight reins and the stallion straining to escape. And his eye still haunts me, now I know what pain looks like.
I was struggling to understand how something that didn’t fit the FEI’s own definitions of the movements required could score so highly. The judges are the protectors and guardians of our sport- why would they reward incorrect work so highly?
When I want to learn something, truly learn and understand something, I go to the best textbooks.
I’m a surgeon- to know how to operate on a human, one needs to know the anatomy, the physiology, the function, and the likely effects of intervention. When we are schooling our horses, we are doing daily mini operations, working to improve the form and the function. To do that we do need detailed knowledge.
The first book in my dressage collection was a gift, and a key find.
Yet the details it contained of correct movements and exercises were not evident in the tests I was watching, nor in all the photos in this book.
Then came Aachen. The black stallion by now had another rider- who was struggling to ride him as successfully. More ominously though, his gaits looked very uneven by now. He was deemed fit to compete at Aachen, but the videos of that test show obvious lameness. How could the best equine vets in the world have passed him fit to compete?
Then came Rio. Another Continental horse was passed fit to compete despite having been on intravenous painkillers and antibiotics overnight, having had a temperature of 40C and despite being in obvious, glaring pain in the warm up. The cause of the injury was first reported as fractured jaw, then a spider bite, but the cause is really immaterial. How could a true equestrian even contemplate competing their horse after a night like that? A human can choose to go out feeling ill, a horse needs us to speak for them.
And the vets should have spoken for the poor chestnut horse. The team vets did their best to get him into the ring- dubious but possibly understandable; their job is to look after the horses for the team, after all. But the official vets, those adjudicating, how did they let him warm up, let alone enter the arena?
So the best vets in the world, employed by the FEI to monitor the competition, to make sure our equine partners are happy athletes as stated in their directives, allowed a very ill horse to be saddle up, ridden in obvious pain, and proceed to the competition.
My paradigm at that time- these are the best horses in the world, trained to the highest standard, protected by the rules and by the most experienced professionals in the world, whose job is to uphold the rules.
It would seem that paradigm was false…
Are you operating within a false paradigm? What are your beliefs regarding your role as a trainer, rider and protector of your horse? Have you examined those beliefs, checked them against your knowledge, discovered the gaps in your knowledge and sought to fill those gaps? Or do you blindly accept, as I once did, that the experts must know best?
And most importantly, have you twisted the observations of your own eyes, ignored your own feel, to fit in with your current belief system? I know I did, I denied the evidence of my own eyes, argued with others who didn’t know much about horses, yet who saw discomfort and weirdness more clearly, until the cognitive dissonance within my own head was churning me up inside.
BTV, on the forehand, clawed left hand, C2/C3 highest point- at the time I was proud of this photo.
Luckily for me at the time, I had a very clear and outspoken horse, whose body and mind did not tolerate training that caused physical or psychological damage, no matter how much I loved him, and how genuine I was in wanting the best for him. For Paddy, and now for Cal and Rocky, trying hard wasn’t good enough, I have to learn to do it correctly.
BTV, short reins, short neck, hollow behind the saddle. Around the time of this photo we scored 72 in a test but Cal was turning his back on me when I presented him with a saddle.
Hands better, my position improving, neck coming out of shoulders correctly, chest broadening nicely, topline filling out, hindleg stepping through better
I was operating within a false paradigm.
I don’t have beliefs any more, or heroes, or idols. I have growing knowledge, an expanding skill set, and I have learned to listen to my horses.
Horses don’t have paradigms 🙂
Baby Rocky- neck and back need A LOT more muscle to support that head but floppy ears and nice steps. And I have elbows and a back!
I’m a surgeon- to know how to operate on a human, one needs to know the anatomy, the physiology, the function, and the likely effects of intervention. When we are schooling our horses, we are doing daily mini operations, working to improve the form and the function. To do that we do need detailed knowledge.
