Sore backs

I just found this piece of information, posted on some forum by a guy called Ronald Aalders.

"It's a wide spread mistake to think that the response of a horse to a finger or blunt object along it's spine -bending down ward or dorsi flexion of the back- is a sign of pain.

It is not!

Every healthy horse without back problems has this response. It is a perfectly natural reflex response called 'spina prominens reflex' (thank you Dr. Rooney).

Why so many people continue thinking that it's a sign of pain is beyond me. It's rather the opposite. A horse that does not have this response, is likely to have a back problem. By tightening it's muscles the horse overrides the reflex, because the reflex hurts him."

I don't think this statement is 100% correct, but it's an interesting observation, and I will have to investigate further. I hope the three horses, and pony, in the paddock are feeling ready for testing tomorrow. What fun!

Gally's progress

I call my trainer.

"Hi Mark! How's my horse going?"

"Well, we trotted him out and he seemed a bit short in his stride. So I ran my hand down his back, and he almost sat down!", the friendly laugh echoes down the phone line. "I'm having a bit of a problem getting hold of Jamie (horse chiropractor). Otherwise I like him. He'll be a good horse for you. Yeah sure he's a bit green, and there's no lateral mouth on him, and there's no lateral movement on him, and he lacks forward. But, lets get Jamie out to him, and see what happens then."

Sheesh. The conversation made me "almost" sit down.

What bothers me is that I flagged the back problem with Anna when I first started having lessons on Gally. And she just cut me off mid sentence and told me to get on with it.

Of course, that's no excuse. I should have checked the horse's back myself. Lesson learnt.

Crownie ... your horse chiropractor will be coming out to see you as soon as I can get hold of him.

Working on fitness

In order to take Crownie eventing, she has to be fit. We ride out into the state forest, and walk for almost two hours. Towards the end we do a short trot and canter.

Walking is a great way to get horses fit. It strengthens their joints and ligaments. The fast fitness work can come later. But the walking builds a solid foundation that prevents horses from breaking down.

Later in the day I check her legs for heat and swellings. All good.

To jump

Today I commenced teaching Crownie to jump. I've jumped her before, but she's never had much of a formal education.

Now that I understand the concept of "This will profit you" and "This will profit you not", the training takes on a whole new wonderful dimension.

I have setup some tiny cross rails, and the whole idea is for Crownie to jump each one. All I have to do is show her that jumping over the logs profits her. So once she's over the log, I relax and leave her alone.

I keep repeating the exercise until I feel (intuition at work?) that she no longer looks to run out. That she feels the jump isn't an issue, and it's easier to actually just jump it rather than try something else. I don't increase the jumps in height.

The trainer

Today I took Gally to my trainer, Mark.

While I was there, I watched Mark in the process of braking in a young athletic filly. Athletic? Man, this horse was like a cat. She would twist this way and that. She was amazing. But Mark was equally amazing. He had an answer for everything she did, and he followed Tom Roberts principles of "This will profit you" and "This will profit you not" to the letter.

It was brilliant to watch, especially after finally understanding some of Gally's problems, some of my shortcomings, and the horse training principles as described by Tom Roberts.

The book

Recently on holidays I purchased a book by Tom Roberts "Horse Control: The Young Horse". (And, yes, I was following my intuition when purchasing this book.)

Well I started reading it today, and the cloud on how to train horses just totally lifted after reading the very first chapter.

In the past, I used to sit and dream about how one day I might write a book about training horses. Everything I had read so far didn't really get to the core. Most books were too convoluted, or too high level. And I wanted to write something that would be easy to follow. Well I am not going to do that anymore. Because I think I would be re-writing Tom Roberts' book, word for word. In fact, I don't think I could do quite as good a job as he does.

And I won't even start to summarise his book here. I couldn't do it justice. If you want to become a really good horse trainer, just go and read his book. (The book applies to all horses, not just young horses.)

The stack

Okay, the title is so obvious that I will get to the point.

A lady came out to assess my riding level on Gally and Crownie. Another couple of ladies came out to get assessed on their horses, because it's cheaper to buy assessments in bulk.

One of these lovely ladies was going over a jump when I asked Gally for canter. And "bang", off he shot like from a shot gun, and I fell off.

At this point Gally got put away, but I still got assessed on Crownie. Still did the required walk trot and canter, some jumps and a gallop up and down the hill. (Okay, I just trotted down the hill. Close enough.)

Now, I've fallen off before, and I've fallen off Gally before, but some events hammer things home stronger than others. This was one such event. Now, if you're thinking that I am now going to give up riding, and close this blog, you are wrong. Phew, I'm glad we got that out of the way. (The thought did cross my mind).

A whole lot of things actually got hammered home. I could sit here for a whole week writing about them. But the thing that got hammered home the most was, I haven't been listening to my intuition.

I have been aware of a whole heap of problems bubbling on in Gally, and from the first time I saddled him my intuition was screaming at me to take him to my trainer. Not my dressage coach. My horse trainer. The guy who taught me how to teach Princess not to rear.

So why didn't I do it? Logic. Too much logical thinking. "Well, the horse was broken in, and another girl has been riding and training him, and my coach rode him and said he is fine." The list of logical thinking goes on. But my intuition was screaming at me to seek help from Mark.

And I think this is the first key to horse riding. You must let go of logic, and follow your intuition.