Trust

Another excellent post from The Red Mare yesterday, who is the horse at the heart of The Happy Horse book.

It's all about people wanting a quick fix for horses with "problems" and buying gadgets or calmers to try and make them easier to work with.

"No calmer in the world will give you a bond of trust with your horse. If you do not build that bond of trust, day by slow day, there is always going to be a moment when you will find yourself in trouble."

The trust I have been building all these years with my horses has really paid off this weekend. I very rarely ride Sky. I have ridden her maybe half a dozen times in all the years we've had her. But I have done a lot of groundwork with her and general day to day interactions so she knows that I am the one who makes decisions and she also knows that if she gets scared, she can turn to me for help. She does get scared quite a lot. Yesterday she was snorting at a patch of snow on the ground because it was well, white, and it hadn't been there the day before. But I said it was OK and we went past it and it didn't jump up and eat her.

Anyway, a friend had brought her Total Contact saddle over for Ali to try. And after she'd done that, I fancied a go. So I got on Sky, she looked round at me as I was on the mounting block as if to say "Well this doesn't normally happen" but she stood still as I mounted and stood waiting for me to tell her what to do. We rode up and down the lane in walk and trot and she followed all my instructions perfectly. She was calm and relaxed, and amazingly sensitive and supple. She really is a credit to Ali.

Would she have let anyone else do that? Probably not. Our years of building up a trusting relationship really have paid off. And of course I trust her too. She was only wearing a cordeo......

In other news, I rode Tari for the first time ever today. I think she trusts me too :-)

How to have a Happy Horse

I have just finished reading a fabulous little book called “The Happy Horse”. I really wish it were available as a print book rather than the ebook which is the only format you can buy (at the moment) since there is more than one person I know who would really benefit from reading it. Written by Tania Kindersley up in the wilds of Scotland where she lives (and from the sound of it, where I’d like to live!), it is partly a collection of stories, reminiscent of Mark Rashid’s books, and partly a “how to” book.

The author, after a 30 year break from “horsing” (I love that word!), decided to go out and buy herself a Thoroughbred mare. When she got the mare home, rather than being able to just hop on and start riding, she discovered that her horse was not at all happy, and demonstrated this with a dazzling array of behaviour such as bucking, spooking and leaping about. But rather than label the horse “dangerous” or “naughty”, her new owner set about Googling how to make her horse happy. The results of her discoveries and her experiences are all detailed in the book.

I found myself nodding a lot whilst reading it, and often exclaiming (to my fairly bored family) “Exactly! More people need to realise this!” and so on. I think that we have made many of the same discoveries about horsing over the years. And there is some stuff in there that perhaps we haven’t realised yet, so much food for thought and perhaps some things to try with our horses, especially Sky, who seems to have a lot in common with the author’s red mare…….

There are quotes like this, which I could have written myself, and it’s something I often say to people who ask for my help.

“I am constantly amazed by how many people really do think that they can force a half-ton flight animal to do anything. They reach for the strong bits and the sharp spurs; they wrangle and wrestle and shout. They get out their whip. This does not work, but people go on thinking that somehow, if they get tough enough, it will work.”

And this, which pretty much sums up us “fluffy bunnies”:

"You may find that it is not the things you do with your horse that are hard, so much as the way people look at you as you do these things. If you choose not to walk with the crowd, the crowd can get a bit shifty and restless and cross. Some of that crowd may not want to think about herd behaviour; they would much rather get out their strong bits and their standing martingales and their side reins........then you might have to take a lot of deep breaths, count to ten......smile a blinding smile, and bugger on regardless.”

Over the years we have had so much criticism from fellow horse owners, both online and in real life. I can totally understand why some people can end up doing what is seen as “normal,” even if they’re not convinced it’s best for their horse, just to avoid such criticism. There are some nasty bullies out there. There are people who have criticised this blog because of the views I express about how to do what I feel is the best for my horses. You can’t please everyone, or even anyone sometimes. So it is refreshing to read something like this book and realise that there are people out there who have taken the time, done the research, disagreed with the “experts”, tried different things and found a method that works for them (and more importantly, for their horses) too.

So we shall continue to bugger on regardless, continue to ignore the negative comments and continue to learn as much as we can about how to make our horses happy. If you want to do that too, get a copy of this book. Your horse will thank you for it :-)

Do you trust your horse?

Thought provoking quote from Ben Hart on Facebook this morning:

"In general, we want our animal to trust us, and developing the animal’s trust becomes the goal and focus of our work. Often however, when I ask how much an owner trusts their equine, it is clear that the development of trust has been accidentally one sided. We have to learn to trust our equines as much as we want them to trust us."

So do you trust your horse? Do you trust him enough to let go of his head? Ride him without a bit/tight noseband/martingale? Ride him bareback?

Do you trust him enough to be allowed out in a field with other horses? Or enough to take him out of the school for a hack? Have you ever ridden without a bridle at all?

No?

We decided to try spending time with our horses just doing nothing. Not bringing them in, turning them out, grooming them, feeding them, tacking them up, schooling them, but just doing nothing much. Just letting them sniff us, giving them scratches, sitting in their field watching them graze.  We especially love spending time watching them interact with each other and their mates......

We take them for walks. Let them have a graze on the side of the track. Hang out with them whilst they're being horses. Makes the relationship a bit more even sided......

I can highly recommend it!

In-hand clinic

Had a nice morning with my friend and trainer Trudi Dempsey at the Swang Pony Centre and a lovely little pony called Alice. She is 7, but pretty much untouched. I went to meet her as she was tied up waiting to start work and she really didn't seem keen on people in general, and me in particular! It's so easy to forget that not all horses are trusting like mine......She was OK with me scratching her neck, but wasn't at all keen on me going further back than her shoulder, and any move towards the rear end was met with a sharp step away!

Anyway, we took her into the school, she really wasn't at all reassured to start with. We swapped her rope headcollar (which was one of those ones that tightens over the nose) for a sidepull, and then had a look at her conformation and how she moved. As with most cobs, she is solidly built and so probably wouldn't find it as easy to flex and bend as a finer, larger horse. She was also very tense in the neck, due to her anxiety about the total strangers in charge of her.

Trudi started by showing me how to do some simple neck flexions, just asking her gently to move her head first to one side, then the other. It was immediately apparent that she found this easier to the left. I led her around to see if she would stop and start when I did (bit sticky at first, but she soon started looking to follow me) and back up (needed quite a lot of energy the first time, but she quickly got the idea).

Then I had to combine the asking for bend with moving forwards. Again, she was pretty quick on the uptake, and after a very short time she was lowering her head and the tension in the neck was lessening. We worked on flexions both towards and away from me, and stopping with the slightest lift of the rein. She was very responsive. When she got a bit "stuck" I was able to change the bend to the other side and she would carry on walking.

I was very impressed by how quickly she decided to trust me and let me move her around. At first she didn't want me anywhere but where she could keep both eyes on me, so we had to start with leading from the front, but she soon realised that it would be OK to let me stand by her shoulder instead. However, the back end is still a no-go area, that will need more time I think!

By the end of the hour, we had a far more relaxed pony who was starting to step under with her hinds as we circled and was stopping, backing up and moving off from the lightest of signals. She lowered her head of her own accord and accepted scratches and strokes on her poll and ears. There were a few yawns too! I turned her out in the field next door and she promptly wandered over to the other ponies and went for a lie down. Lessons are obviously  hard work ;-)

Trudi took some video so I could see what her feet were doing. As you can see, at the start, we got stuck a few times. It's amazing how little bend you need to get those hinds really stepping under the body.

After that we stayed to watch some other lessons. There was another in-hand lesson with this rather gorgeous chap

......and a ridden lesson which was very interesting. The horse was falling in to the inside when circling and spiralling but with the simple addition of some outside bend when on the long side of the arena, it helped the horse support itself better in the bends.

What was really interesting was that the rider started off thinking she needed a lot more rein contact to get the horse to listen to her but when Trudi showed her that less is more and how to lengthen the reins a bit the horse seemed a lot more relaxed and responsive.

 

So a great morning and lots of things to take home and try with my lot :-) And hopefully we can get Trudi to come and do a clinic at the new yard now we've got somewhere to work.......two of my new fellow liveries came along to watch today and found it very interesting :-)

Relationships

Have been thinking a lot recently about how to make my relationship with my horses better. Take Kinna's recent problems, the first time I went to see her after she got sore, she didn't want me anywhere near her at first, she didn't trust me not to hurt her so I had to give her the choice to walk away and after trying for about 20 minutes to get a headcollar on her, I rethought it, and just went for a leadrope round the neck. Even this wasn't pleasant for her, she still wouldn't let me touch her head to put cream on, but she did let me treat her legs and under her tail.

Usually of course  I have daily contact with her so would it have been easier if she'd stayed at home?  She clearly didn't want poor Sarah anywhere near her but then, she doesn't know Sarah like she knows Ali and me.

I have just read a book by Joe Camp called Horses and Stress. He and his wife came late to horse ownership and because he never had any preconceived ideas on how to do it, he questioned everything and chose what he sees as the best way to keep his horses. So he keeps them out all the time in a herd, moving about, barefoot, unrugged, just like mine. One of the things he says is "Time in the saddle, in the arena, and on the trail are important. But I believe the most important time is in the pasture. Just hanging out. It has done wonders for us, and our horses". He does this thing called "No Agenda Time", more on that on his website, which is essentially being with a horse and doing nothing to it, expecting nothing of it, and waiting for the horse to choose to come and interact with you.

We all talk about the importance of groundwork, training, leadership etc, but before all of that we don't take time simply to be with a horse. We expect things, we need to do things, achieve something, teach them something, practise doing something, whatever.

Today something cool happened when I was down at Tanya's cleaning the paddocks. Her little pony, Polo, has real issues with being caught. He doesn't like adults, he doesn't always want to be caught even by his rider, he is very wary of strangers and often of people he does know. He can't really deal with any kind of pressure. For months he  avoided me, except for when I arrived with his food. More recently he has consented to let me go up to him, but hasn't exactly been happy and relaxed with that. Mostly I just need to check his fly mask, pick out bits of stray hay in it, that kind of thing. I have just got on with things around him, tried to put no pressure on him and leave him alone and I see him watching me out of the corner of his eye a lot of the time.

But today, he chose to do something he's never done before. He actually asked me to do something for him. After I'd picked the hay out of his mask, I scratched him on his wither like I usually do and then he took a few steps forward. I thought he was going to head off to the hay but her stopped in front of me and looked back. I get this a lot from Tari and with her it means "scratch my bum". So I scratched Polo's bum and he pulled the "that's good" face, the first time I have ever seen him do that.

Result :-)