A well schooled horse should have the following characteristics:
1)calm
2)attentive
3)an educated mouth
4)suppleness
All of these can and should be addressed in the schooling of the horse.
Calm
What calm means might be obvious. The horse should of course not be worried, stressed out, unfocused, etc. A prerequisite for the horse's calm is that you as the horse handler or rider are calm, which also means that you should be in the moment and not mentally still at work, angry, frustrated, sad, worried, stressed, etc. Easier said than done sometimes, but an ideal to strive for constantly.
Attentive
You can of course not communicate with your horse using light aids if you don't have your horse's attention. When you ride, the communication is mainly made through touch by your hand (via the reins and the bit) and the legs.
Through your hand you can ask the horse to shift his/her weight to the front, rear, left or right, or any combination you need. Through your legs you can either allow or inhibit the horse's movement by controlling the play in the hip, knee and ankle joints.
An educated mouth
A horse with an educated mouth is a horse that does not hang or pull on the bit, or withdraw from the bit.
Suppleness
Basic suppleness in the horse means that the horse can bend his neck both towards and away from the direction of movement, which means that the horse can turn without using his neck for balance. Suppleness also means that the horse can move in his/her best gaits in walk, trot and canter: long strides and slow rhythm.
Thursday 27 January 2011
Wednesday 19 January 2011
Movement disorders
In Sweden we have the expression ”it warms out”. It is usually used to describe a horse that moves unevenly in the beginning of a riding session. My question is does it really ”warm out” or does it just get numb?
The idea that the pain that causes the unevenness subsides came out of an experience I had during my student prom. On the prom the gallant young ladies, in way too high healed shoes, came into the rest room with faces twisted by pain from soar and tender feet. Some were even so desperate that they took off their shoes. Just to realise that there was no cold water cold enough to bring down their swelling feet to original size. They had to press down their feet into the shoes again, and with tripping steps towards the door they straightened themselves up to in order to make an effortless entrance when the door swung up to the ball room...
Horses are prey animals and any signs of weakness is a signal that no predator overlooks. Therefore, horses are experts at covering up early signs of pain. They have four legs to distribute weight over and can switch between them. Until that day when there is no leg left to lean on and we have one, to us visible, lameness.
At the beginning of our early training sessions my mare did not move rhythmical in the right lead, she looked lame. When she moved freely in the pasture you couldn't see any signs of unevenness. What happened to her was that she put a substantial part of her weight on the right front leg. On a curved track it was clear how difficult it was for her to lift her leg and still keep her balance. She barely lifted it off the ground, took a short step and it looked like she was limping. She needed both help to rebalance herself and retrain her muscles in a good way to move with ease.
Her behaviour got me thinking about another concept we have here called ”rein lameness”. Can a horse be ”rein lame”, meaning that it moves evenly until the rider takes the reins? I think it is possible and that it depends very much on how the reins are taken. If the reins are taken in such a way that the horse must resist the contact by tightening its muscles I do believe that that can result in movement disorder.
The essence of this post is that movement disorders do not need to go all the way to lameness if we as riders take in the information we sense (or feel in the butt!) as we ride.
It is by comparison we can notice the differences. Many riders, have in retrospect, actually said that they noticed a deviation from the normal but since nothing was apparent to their eyes the rode on... Be sensitive, take a moment to consciously feel your horse, then you have time to adjust the course before the movement disorder becomes an issue for the vet.
The idea that the pain that causes the unevenness subsides came out of an experience I had during my student prom. On the prom the gallant young ladies, in way too high healed shoes, came into the rest room with faces twisted by pain from soar and tender feet. Some were even so desperate that they took off their shoes. Just to realise that there was no cold water cold enough to bring down their swelling feet to original size. They had to press down their feet into the shoes again, and with tripping steps towards the door they straightened themselves up to in order to make an effortless entrance when the door swung up to the ball room...
Horses are prey animals and any signs of weakness is a signal that no predator overlooks. Therefore, horses are experts at covering up early signs of pain. They have four legs to distribute weight over and can switch between them. Until that day when there is no leg left to lean on and we have one, to us visible, lameness.
At the beginning of our early training sessions my mare did not move rhythmical in the right lead, she looked lame. When she moved freely in the pasture you couldn't see any signs of unevenness. What happened to her was that she put a substantial part of her weight on the right front leg. On a curved track it was clear how difficult it was for her to lift her leg and still keep her balance. She barely lifted it off the ground, took a short step and it looked like she was limping. She needed both help to rebalance herself and retrain her muscles in a good way to move with ease.
Her behaviour got me thinking about another concept we have here called ”rein lameness”. Can a horse be ”rein lame”, meaning that it moves evenly until the rider takes the reins? I think it is possible and that it depends very much on how the reins are taken. If the reins are taken in such a way that the horse must resist the contact by tightening its muscles I do believe that that can result in movement disorder.
The essence of this post is that movement disorders do not need to go all the way to lameness if we as riders take in the information we sense (or feel in the butt!) as we ride.
It is by comparison we can notice the differences. Many riders, have in retrospect, actually said that they noticed a deviation from the normal but since nothing was apparent to their eyes the rode on... Be sensitive, take a moment to consciously feel your horse, then you have time to adjust the course before the movement disorder becomes an issue for the vet.
Thursday 13 January 2011
Only one aid at the time?
What aid or aids do you use to ask your horse to turn to the right?
Do you use five aids simultaneously? Perhaps you put your weight to the inside, open the right rein, bend your horse around your inner leg as the same time as you with your inner leg activates the horses inner hind leg, with the outside rein you allow the bend but are ready to resist if the bend gets to much plus use it to keep the outside shoulder in place, and use your outside leg to make sure the haunches are kept in place. Oh, and don't forget to look in the direction you are going!
Or do you open the inside rein and that is it?
Do you really need five aids at the same time?
I don't think so. If the one aid is not working, why should more aids work better? Horses are not stupid animals, but at the same time not intelligent like humans (I have so far not meet a horse that have written a book about riding, although they seem to have read them all!). Compared to humans horses have a different kind of intelligence, and the simplest way to communicate with the horse is to use one signal at the time. If the horse understand, he will perform the task you ask of him.
To use one aid at the time is not only the simplest way to communicate with the horse, but also a flash of genius regarding the education of the rider. To develop equestrian tact, you have to find the quiet place where you don't give aids to the horse but listen to the answerer from the horse. If the horse don't turn to the right you know what aid didn't work. The one you used. You then have the opportunity to train the horse to that one aid.
When I have established aids to ask the horse to turn to the right (one aid to ask the horse to perform the turn with the weight on the forehand, and one aid to ask the horse to perform the turn with the weight on the haunches), turn left (also here two separate aids), move his weight to the rear, and one aid to ask for forward movement, then I have the language I need to train my horse to do whatever I can dream about.
When you use five aids at the time, you also make the assumption that you as the rider know better than the horse himself how he needs to use his body. When you use one aid at the time you open up for the horse to use his body as he needs to.
Who do you think have best body control and awareness? You or your horse?
Do you use five aids simultaneously? Perhaps you put your weight to the inside, open the right rein, bend your horse around your inner leg as the same time as you with your inner leg activates the horses inner hind leg, with the outside rein you allow the bend but are ready to resist if the bend gets to much plus use it to keep the outside shoulder in place, and use your outside leg to make sure the haunches are kept in place. Oh, and don't forget to look in the direction you are going!
Or do you open the inside rein and that is it?
Do you really need five aids at the same time?
I don't think so. If the one aid is not working, why should more aids work better? Horses are not stupid animals, but at the same time not intelligent like humans (I have so far not meet a horse that have written a book about riding, although they seem to have read them all!). Compared to humans horses have a different kind of intelligence, and the simplest way to communicate with the horse is to use one signal at the time. If the horse understand, he will perform the task you ask of him.
To use one aid at the time is not only the simplest way to communicate with the horse, but also a flash of genius regarding the education of the rider. To develop equestrian tact, you have to find the quiet place where you don't give aids to the horse but listen to the answerer from the horse. If the horse don't turn to the right you know what aid didn't work. The one you used. You then have the opportunity to train the horse to that one aid.
When I have established aids to ask the horse to turn to the right (one aid to ask the horse to perform the turn with the weight on the forehand, and one aid to ask the horse to perform the turn with the weight on the haunches), turn left (also here two separate aids), move his weight to the rear, and one aid to ask for forward movement, then I have the language I need to train my horse to do whatever I can dream about.
When you use five aids at the time, you also make the assumption that you as the rider know better than the horse himself how he needs to use his body. When you use one aid at the time you open up for the horse to use his body as he needs to.
Who do you think have best body control and awareness? You or your horse?
Thursday 6 January 2011
Self carriage and responsibility II
Both humans and horses are born with a built-in capacity for self carriage. The foal will find its own self carriage within an hour after birth, and then it follows the mare and the heard in all gaits. In humans, it takes 10-15 months to get up on our feet and achieve self carriage as bi pedals.
When the child starts school and when the horse starts to be ridden it alters the conditions for the natural self carriage. The free play of childhood is changed for to a more sedentary daily life for the child. The horse on the other hand will have to learn to manage both equipment, the riders weight and requested work.
In my 9 year old schoolboy the increased sitting has affected his ability to sit up straight. He now easily ends up sitting with his back in the characteristic c-curve, something that does not happen to my 6 or 2 year old, no matter how long the are sitting.
Fortunately the 9 year old just needs soft guidance to how he should carry his head, a soft stroke on his back to remind him of the upward direction and he carries himself again. When the c-curve has become prevalent or the vulture neck, as I call it, is a permanent position the straightening of the back is a matter of re-learning and that takes time.
For the ridden horse the degree of self carriage tells you how well the breaking in and training is done and it is now I want to tell you about Lena's Yeats. He was 11 years and worked as a riding school pony when Lena bought him.
I remember a movie clip from a test ride where Yeats trotted on with a completely rigid spine, his leg just propelled under him and his neck poked straight out of his body. He carried himself through the superficial muscles and he was stiffly held throughout the body. The quality of his self carriage was low, as in the human c-curve.
Now, three years later, Yeats has reached the point where his postural muscles carry him and the superficial are free to move. He carries himself without leaning on to the bit (if the rider carries herself and don't use the reins to hang on to!). He approaches the piaffe, a movement, if it's well done, shows the horse's ability to carry himself with the strength and quality that will lead to a front end so light that he might end up in a levade.
Self carriage is something that is trained, in both horse and human, so that the individual is able to meet the demands of given tasks. We develop our self carrying capacity with a knowledge about our bodies and an ability to percieve what happens within ourselves as we do what we aim to do.
In regard to the horse, the rider has a responsibility to train the horse systematically, both to give the horse opportunity to learn the signal system and to allow its body to gradually strengthen to be able cope with the demands.
Many riders who buy young horses have no systematic training of the horse and ride their young horses as if they were in self carriage already. (All to often using draw reins or some other stringy attachment.) Many established riders may very well have a systematic approach to training, but unfortunately a contact with the horses mouth, which starts at minimum 1000 g instead of 300 g ... and then the mutual self carriage is merely a mutual suspension.
When the child starts school and when the horse starts to be ridden it alters the conditions for the natural self carriage. The free play of childhood is changed for to a more sedentary daily life for the child. The horse on the other hand will have to learn to manage both equipment, the riders weight and requested work.
In my 9 year old schoolboy the increased sitting has affected his ability to sit up straight. He now easily ends up sitting with his back in the characteristic c-curve, something that does not happen to my 6 or 2 year old, no matter how long the are sitting.
Fortunately the 9 year old just needs soft guidance to how he should carry his head, a soft stroke on his back to remind him of the upward direction and he carries himself again. When the c-curve has become prevalent or the vulture neck, as I call it, is a permanent position the straightening of the back is a matter of re-learning and that takes time.
For the ridden horse the degree of self carriage tells you how well the breaking in and training is done and it is now I want to tell you about Lena's Yeats. He was 11 years and worked as a riding school pony when Lena bought him.
I remember a movie clip from a test ride where Yeats trotted on with a completely rigid spine, his leg just propelled under him and his neck poked straight out of his body. He carried himself through the superficial muscles and he was stiffly held throughout the body. The quality of his self carriage was low, as in the human c-curve.
Now, three years later, Yeats has reached the point where his postural muscles carry him and the superficial are free to move. He carries himself without leaning on to the bit (if the rider carries herself and don't use the reins to hang on to!). He approaches the piaffe, a movement, if it's well done, shows the horse's ability to carry himself with the strength and quality that will lead to a front end so light that he might end up in a levade.
Self carriage is something that is trained, in both horse and human, so that the individual is able to meet the demands of given tasks. We develop our self carrying capacity with a knowledge about our bodies and an ability to percieve what happens within ourselves as we do what we aim to do.
In regard to the horse, the rider has a responsibility to train the horse systematically, both to give the horse opportunity to learn the signal system and to allow its body to gradually strengthen to be able cope with the demands.
Many riders who buy young horses have no systematic training of the horse and ride their young horses as if they were in self carriage already. (All to often using draw reins or some other stringy attachment.) Many established riders may very well have a systematic approach to training, but unfortunately a contact with the horses mouth, which starts at minimum 1000 g instead of 300 g ... and then the mutual self carriage is merely a mutual suspension.
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