From the riders point of view......

It was a veritable horse smorgasbord for me this past weekend. I spent Friday attending lessons at a local dressage barn with a new friend who is studying teaching techniques for her budding horsey biz and Saturday at the beautiful Biltmore Estate soaking up as much as I could from Susan Harris, a centered riding instructor. Let me first say, that Susan Harris is a very dynamic teacher. Her delivery is calm, positive and soothing through out. As my new friend so succinctly put it," she has a smile in her voice the whole time."

Centered Riding by Sally Swift, was our bible at horse college as far as equitation went. Her fabulous visualizations seemed to speak to every discipline offered in the program;jumpers, hunters, eventing and dressage. Its a book I pick up often and go over for inspiration. Watching it in action with riders ranging from beginners on school horses, to hunter seat riders who show, to endurance riders on their lively arabs, was a real treat. There is alot I'm still processing but stealing a trick I learned from Susan Harris that day, I will try to stay focused on the most significant thing I learned. ( I know, but if I try to write about all umpteen pages of notes, it will be the longest blog post in history and most likely the worst written....soooooo let me try to spare all of us that fate and f o c u s...) The one thing i was most excited about was something another good friend and I discussed only recently, COLLECTION! Or as she called it " the game of contact" and in Lyons speak, gives.

While the execution and verbage differ in all three conversations, I think its great how they all shed light, at least for me, on the same, very intricate, subject. From my Lyons perspective, Gives is a very horse-centric way of teaching collection. "DUH, Beth of course it is!", you say. "Isn't it supposed to be all about the horse and his body and his mind and his decision to turn over control of those parts of his body to you, his partner...." Yes, it is smarty pants, however sometimes, OK, many times when dealing with a system like conditioned response, which as you all know,means many ,many, repetitions I think we humans get a little lost on how to make the question more specific, fun, interesting to the horse and really to ourselves as well. We are so busy counting, we forget about thinking deeply, about the subject we are trying to teach. So are you ready? Here are the four questions that Susan Harris asked her riders to ask their horses while working on contact/collection. Susan called it "finding" the contact. Can you find my, hands? yes? release! can you find my elbows? yes? release! can you find my shoulders? yes? release! can you find my back?yes? release! They used leg to encourage the horse to find these parts. Now , no one I watched had a horse that found the back of the rider but was what neat was how this very act of asking for these different levels of give from a horse made the rider more aware of how hard their horse was actively trying to find anything and where they both where on the journey to find it. It was neat for me to watch a student answer Susan's question of what part of your body has your horse found? and see where they were. A horse that found a riders hands was very different looking from a horse that found the riders shoulders. Also gratifying was seeing the riders face light up when they progressed. They where learning feel! They where also learning to converse with their horse. A first for more than one rider attending. It was very exciting.

The second most significant thing that I appreciated was the definition of Tempo...Which was succinctly put as : how fast or slow the rhythm is...It was an "a-ha" moment for me as it was so simple. The last time I tried to read about Tempo as it related to horses it was several paragraphs long and required a thesaurus. In any case I believe that one word or sentence that sheds light on any thing important in your life with horses or otherwise is worth the price of admission. In this case I feel like I got myself to the front of the sale line and things where buy one half price and get three free!

Forest for the trees....

Boo has been lame, not a wee bit off, not kinda sore, LAME! So much so I had to have the vet out before I left Wilmington. She had throbbing pulses in her pasterns and filling in her lower legs. It was not pretty. She reacted badly to the new trim. Had I been riding, I would have noticed her reluctance to move. That it was not just her tendency during hot weather. Had I been more in tune and less "just trying to get back inside out of the heat/bugs/yuck." I would have noticed sooner that she was not 100%. It was a big old wake up call for me for a horse that is usually not in need of any extras but some cool spray on the hottest days. She had to be booted, and buted and banamined for not a few days. Then we started on herbs and daily soaking in cold water. That was 7 weeks ago. Since then she is off or short or not quite right on days it rains, or days its really hot. We have moved and she has been introduced to real pasture full of mature fescue. I am amazed she has not completely fallen apart.

I have been dithering about the trim, one part grumpy, two parts guilt,and three parts fear. Picking up my tools makes my arm pits sweat. Not just little nerves, hand shaking, hyperventilating nerves! Cuervo is at 9 weeks ( that's three weeks past due) and Boo is at 7 weeks ( that's 2 weeks past due) I have read and reread, perused on line forums and talked to other trimmer friends all who have been great. I have reasoned with my self and made dates on the calender to do something. I have even weenied out and tried to have a trimmer in the area come out and do this next trim on my horses. Well, he won't/can't/ isn't going to. So I have to do it. Its on my calender for today...later...when the shade is covering most of the paddock....after lunch.....when the breeze picks up. sigh. Here is the crazy part, because we have had some big rains up here, I decided to treat her feet for fungus twice a day as a preventative. You know, soft feet due to moisture+ organisms in the ground= foot fungus. Anyhow to my surprise, she improved 100% after one day of treatment. She was striding about the turn out, and trotting at Cuervo( with a very ugly expression I might ad) to pry him off one of the hay bags. HMMMMMMMM..... Now I'm wondering, was it all the trim? Or was it the foot fungus my old trimmer had been ragging me about that took hold from the minute we stepped hoof onto Toad Bubble Flats? I treated it daily there to no avail it seemed until the hoof wall was reshaped via the "big" trim (as its now refereed to) Could all this pain and suffering been avoided if i had only kept up with the fungus treatment, that I stopped as I was soaking and booting and babying said horse feet?

Can't tell ya, all I know is that this afternoon I will trim her again and keep up with the fungus treatment indefinitely. Sometimes the obvious is oblivious!

'nuff said......

July 16, 2004
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

I cleaned my saddle on a hot afternoon in Wyoming recently.
It's a Western saddle, made for me nearly a decade ago by a
saddle maker in Billings, Mont. At the time, I was spending
part of every summer in the West, trying to learn as much
as I could about horses and horsemanship. The days spent on
horseback were always a strange tangle of joy and nervous
anticipation. The horses were mostly strangers to me, and I
was supposed to be imparting something to them, not merely
taking what they had to offer. I rode, I learned a lot
about horses, and the saddle darkened with use.

In Wyoming I took off the cinches and stirrups. I removed
the breast collar and laid it in the sun. I brushed away
the dust and oiled the latigos, then worked over the fine
tooling on the skirts and fenders with a soft rag. I
removed a plywood splinter wedged between the oak frame of
the stirrup and its leather lining - the result of a
collision in a Colorado round pen. I even spent a couple of
hours polishing the nickel-silver bindings on the stirrups,
trying to restore the mirrored shine they had when they
were new. They began to gleam, but they'd been nicked and
dinged too often to look new again.

I'd spent part of that week in the saddle again, for the
first time in several years. I was riding with old friends,
including a trainer named Buck Brannaman, and once again I
was riding an unfamiliar horse, feeling in the way he moved
how all the riders before me had responded to him. The
horse's name was Eddie. He'd spent part of his life trying
to decide just what his numerous riders were trying to
teach him. But since he rarely had the same rider twice,
Eddie decided to stick with what he already knew. That's
why he felt a little stubborn, a little sluggish, but not
unwilling. I spent three days getting him soft in the mouth
again, easy to bend, light in my hands. In return, he
reminded me how much I had once learned from horses. Eddie
made me want to clean my saddle and come home and ride my
own good horse, a quarter horse named Remedy, who has had
plenty of time off lately.

You'd think that a man with his own horse and saddle would
ride every day. But you'd be wrong. I took a job - this one
- that has made it hard to haul the horses to the West for
the summer. And somehow the East has seemed too full of
excuses and inhibitions. Too much work to do. Not enough
skywide spaces or antelope. Even the pleasure of watching
the horses grazing became an excuse not to interrupt them.
And in the end, I lost track of the time. My saddle sat in
the horse trailer. The stirrups tarnished in the damp
Eastern climate. Mold began to turn up on the cinches. And
Remedy, who was 19 when I bought him, slowly turned 26.

So I discovered when I got home from Wyoming last week. I
put my newly clean saddle in the horse trailer and brought
the horses to the barnyard. Remedy usually leads the way,
head high, a straight-up walk toward the feed and the hay.
But this time he came last - stiff and visibly thinner than
he'd been two weeks earlier. At his age, a horse that loses
mobility begins to lose flesh as well, and he'd begun to
lose both while I was gone. The vet thinks it's a matter of
sore feet - a chronic condition with some aging horses - so
we'll do everything we can to ease his pain and build his
muscles again. That will mean lots of riding on my part.

Horses live a long time, long enough for owners to believe
they'll always be there. I don't know whether horses are
conscious of time. But I know that in his pain, Remedy
seems, as my wife put it, to be deep within himself. That's
not his way. In full health he is pure awareness, boldly
alert. He can make you feel like an adjunct of his
presence, as if he were somehow vouching for you with the
pasture gods. Now it's my turn to vouch for him, to get him
healthy and to learn, before it's too late, all the things
he knows once more.

Did it!

Boo: one done, one not

Boo before

Boo after


We have been hearing about it for what... three years now? "I'm gonna do my own horses feet." "These freaking farriers are all so lame..blah blah blah!" Well, I did do it...FINALLY! I paid for a very nice, very smart ,very funny gal to come here for the day and hold my hand through the process( and take over when I wanted to cry from tiredness and anxiety). I want to clarify here that I did not become a farrier after one class, I became the principle hoof trimmer for my own horses feet to be checked and rechecked by people with way more experience than me. I have also been reading about and watching this process for years. Frankly to quote a well known reality TV personality "Its not rocket surgery." Back breaking hard work when left for 5.5 solid weeks at the peak of summer hoof growth...Yes! Rocket surgery ? No! I learned I have a decent eye for feet, so that's good and that I'm a total dork nose when it comes to handling tools. One rasped wrist, and two sweaty armpits while handling a very sharp hoof knife later, I was relieved to know that if I stick to the plan I wont have to handle the more lethal of hoof tools.

The run down? Well as far as technical difficulty everyone will be glad to know that with just 8 feet between two horses, I get beginner, intermediate and advanced levels to hone my skills on. Add to that the "little" trouble I have handling said sets of feet and well, Its a process that's for sure! Between learning what is white line, what is water line, what is live sole and the fact that flares aren't just on the sides of the horses feet, my head was fairly spinning with data. I was gently reminded that I wouldn't accept Boo's very rough behavior (even for her) in a horse in training and that gave me the impetus to really ask more from her. By the end she was standing with out hay calmly and fairly quietly while I labored over a back hoof. I didn't take pictures of Cuervos feet as they seemed less obviously in need but the biggest surprise being that it will take about a year to fix his issues. Lets just say that the widest part of his foot is not where it needs to be and leave it at that!

My recommendation after using my "Mattel/baby" tools and Lisa's "big girl" tools is: BUY THE BEST TOOLS AVAILABLE! You are not saving time, money or your back otherwise. I plan to continue posting pictures of our progress for my own records as well as to get in put from anyone wishing to comment. My new schedule for horse feet is simple and easy. one set of hind feet from the bottom only day one, day two bottoms of one set of front feet, day three, tops of one set of hind feet and day four tops of one set of front feet. The following week repeat on horse #two. No more four or five weeks for my horses feet to get out of shape. If you think about it, how much progress in the right direction can one possibly make if you are leaving the hoof to get itself pulled all out of whack? Seems to me you would be only able to get the hoof back to where you got it 5 weeks ago, that is if it didn't break off so badly that you couldn't trim as you needed. Boo is trying desperately to get a good foot, she has folded over parts of hoof, grown a callus and is battling a very badly stretched white line which has allowed a fungus to take hold. Cuervo on the other hand is making due but shows his lack of progress in his contracted heels and small frogs. I am now confident we will get there, and that I can do it! Its great to not be reliant on someone else for my horses hoof care. Saving the 90 bucks a month isn't bad either.

Marathon Musings

As I'm wrapping up my month long marathon end of this week, I wanted to share a bit about what I learned from my horse buds in all the time I spent with them. They are such cool creatures! First and foremost, I can't tell you the number of times I looked at them and it took my breath away. So different but both so beautiful. I had to pinch myself a few times to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I felt like , what I imagine, a new mom must feel like...... enamoured! I approached this experiment differently than I did oh so many years ago when I attended my certification. Back them there where time frames and expectations and ego. But this time, I wanted to get to know my critters on a deeper level and the skills we practiced where just secondary to the "knowing" that took place. Sure we improved on our buddy sour work(pics to follow), sure our foot handling got better(vid to follow), yes, I rode....but more importantly,I feel connected to my ponies. I learned what motivates Boo is rest, but also short stints of challenge. Way more challenge than my recollection of how her training went when she was younger. Cuervo is motivated by challenge but also and maybe more importantly by companionship...mine! Really an eye opener! It was a very ambitious endeavor that fell short logistically on more than one occasion, but it was a success in my book if only to rediscover the two amazing critters that I call my own.

Marathon update 2

We are all tired. Nine hours a day is a bitch frankly and with temps in the 90s the past two days? 9 hours didn't happen. I remember these days a Johns, we usually ate peanut M&M's for dinner and collapsed into bed. NO JOKE! Cereal was to much trouble...grin. So I'm taking it easy and believe it or not had one of the best rides on Boo ~bareback and in halter no less~ that I have had all week. We have been practicing basics, and sometimes stringing it together to get a slow roll back change of direction, and side passing a few steps and backing switching to a turn on the forehand...playing in other words. Well between beating back swarms of mosquito's we had some great moments of advanced, strung together, movements. We where both smiling..Itchy , but smiling! It was a good day. Abridged but good.

Marathon update

After a late start the marathon is in full swing. The hardest part is the 9 hours! I have to keep reminding myself that at Johns, there was a good deal of lecture and watching fellow students. So I'm not kicking my own butt to much. In the times, like yesterday, when it got too buggy and hot, I grabbed one of my horse books(the twisted truths of modern dressage) and sat down for a read, outside of course with the ponies!
Changes noted on the horsey front: My babies are very attentive to my comings and goings, way more so than when I just emerge to feed them. That warms the cockles of my heart let me tell you! We are bonding on that horse and human level beyond the average "hay lady" status.

My second observation has to do with Amerika, several of you have asked if she has improved my riding skills and I'm going to say emphatically "YES!" To quote Mr. Parelli, I have had a "whoa" growing in my heart since I stopped riding Zee and began riding many untrained horses. Its not life threatening, but I really noticed it after my tumble off of Boo a while back,( the one where I had the hematoma from hell..) I reasoned it out. I self talked. I rode more, but it stubbornly had its little whoa tentacles firmly embedded. With my ability to focus on myself during my rides on Amerika, (like I would ordinarily focus on my horse during our rides) I am able to train me. The "whoa" is melting like the witch from Wizard of Oz. Its all good!