Event Preparation

I’m three weeks away from an event planned 8 months ago. Preparation was well underway until mid-February, when my area was hit with an ice storm so significant that a state of emergency was declared. Besides going two weeks with no power or internet, the horses were of course out of work. Additionally, the ground went from saturated with water, to literally frozen overnight. As this is not my first rodeo, I knew that the likelihood of hoof and postural issues related to the icy ground was significant. 

While I took a very proactive approach to managing the potential issues, I still had two of my three riding horses end up with abscesses. Cue several weeks off each, with treatment and recovery.

My third riding horse is coming back from two years of broodmare status, and has some neural tension and postural challenges from carrying and birthing two big, spectacular foals.

So, here I am, several weeks away from this event, feeling rather unprepared. 

As I brought each horse in to work yesterday, I reflected on my options. Do I train hard, try to fit in as much “work” as possible to be “ready”?

The fact of the matter is, no matter how hard I train, these horses will not be more “trained” in the next 3 weeks. In fact, pushing hard right at the end would likely cause more problems than it would solve. The potential for physical and mental discomfort, and the subsequent backslide in quality of work, is highly likely.

As my big, hypersensitive, emotional hanoverian mare had her first ride back yesterday and was really in her feelings, I made the choice to follow the “the slow way is the fast way” philosophy and spend 25 minutes on walk-halt-park transitions, and on establishing a relaxed, stretchy walk. We walked for the entire ride. While perfectly capable of doing advanced work, there’s simply no point without relaxation.

My less-talented but more emotionally secure mare showed up with good quality work but needs fitness. If I try to push past her fitness level, I will lose the quality I spent years establishing. Instead I did short intervals of harder work, with lots of stretching walk breaks in between. We need fitness, and fitness takes time. I can’t rush that process without sacrificing my principles.

The young, talented, mentally-sound mare needs bodywork. I spent her session working on her body, and free schooling. Developing fitness and helping her release her body will gain me far more than riding time at this point in her development. She’s trained, and not going to get more trained in the next three weeks while her body is in her way.

This is the same approach I take when preparing for horse shows, and especially in the warm-up AT the horse shows. It’s not the time for training, it’s the time to ensure the basics stay correct, the fitness is there, and the details are as clean as can be.

To be honest, for an overachiever like me this is not easy to do. Experience tells me that this is the right choice, hard as it may be. I know that my horses will arrive at the event with relaxation, healthy bodies, and as much fitness as can be had given the circumstances. Accepting the things that are out of my control and sticking to my training principles in preparation will always be the right choice.

Most Basic Tool

Oftentimes in clinics or lesson situations I hear a common question:  How do I know what to work on?  It’s a great question, and of course there are a whole lot of ways to answer it.

One of the things I like to suggest to my students is to ask themselves a simple question:  “What is the most basic thing that is not functioning right now.”  Here’s an example of what that might look like.

In a lesson last week, a student and I were preparing to begin work on shoulder-in.  Her basic walk-trot-canter was going very well, excellent topline connection and transitions were improving.  We had focused the previous week on thinking about loading the hindlegs in down transitions within the gaits (big trot, little trot) rather than just shortening the stride.  Shoulder in is a naturally related exercise at this level of development.

Off we went, expecting this to be fairly easy.  8 meter circle to prepare (this student happens to ride a pony), and viola!  Shoulder in!  Except not. There was a turn, an attempted half-halt, a protest from the pony (loss of topline connection) and a desperate attempt from the rider to salvage the hot mess and continue in something shoulder-in-like.  Wruh-wro.  

I suggested she abandon the shoulder in and try starting it again, in walk now rather than trot, focusing on just turning onto her track and bringing the shoulders in.  Preparation good, turn good, then again with the pony protest and subsequent rider desperation.  Pretty common circumstances, really.

Take 3.  Back up another step in the process...circle, onto the line of travel, half halt.  Pony protest.  Aaaahhhh...now we’re seeing something important.

Back up one more step:  Walk-halt transitions in sequence, 4 steps of walk between halts.  Pony protest.

That’s the winner.

That’s the most fundamental piece not functioning.  If we can’t do walk-halts with a good topline connection, there’s exactly zero chance of us getting a good shoulder in.  Why?  Because the reflex responses to build the exercise aren’t functioning.  If the building blocks aren’t there, you can’t piece them together to build the bigger picture.  That’s all there is to it.

So the homework for the student was to go back to walk-halts, and when those were functioning well, add a layer...bring the shoulders one step in.  When that’s successful, add steps down the track.  My best guess is that this will be resolved by the time I see her again next week.  Clever rider and pony, they’ll clean this up quickly.

So, the next time you’re struggling with an exercise, think about it in small parts.  Which piece is not as tuned up as it could be?  What simple thing can you work on to make everything else easier?  Do you and your horse understand the various tools being used to build out a more complicated exercise?

One last thing.  This lesson was a great reminder for me as a rider.  I thought about it the next day and found I was able to tune up my own riding and get real benefits.  That’s one of the delightful parts of being an instructor…the opportunity to learn from students!

The Gap Between Language and Understanding

I spend quite a bit of time observing other equine educators, be it by watching video tutorials, reading articles, watching clinics, tests from horse shows or “winning rounds.”  Basically I’m obsessed and a huge geek.  I’m also jaded and have no time or patience for things that lack congruence.  

Many years ago I went to audit a lesson where my eventing instructor at the time was riding with his mentor.  This clinician was (and still is) a HUGE name.  He writes flowery language about harmony and balance. I mean, it’s the stuff we love to hear about how the process should go.  I expected to enjoy the lesson, but part way in he instructed the rider to “Grind your seat bones into your horse’s back and he will round his back up into you.”  Say WHAT now?!  That one sentence was it for me.  If you don’t understand fundamental biomechanics of the animal you’re training (or the concept of reflex responses in muscles suffering an assault) then I don’t want anything to do with you.

How can it be that a person with this sort of ability to use the language of good training in written work completely misses the basic concepts when it comes to execution?  Honestly it’s a pet peeve of mine, mostly because it is tremendously confusing to folks who are trying to learn.  If the words and the execution don’t match, the student can’t actually learn what good work is.

I see so much of this in dressage, where words like biomechanics, self-carriage, lightness and balance get tossed around while the rider’s bulging biceps and red face tell the truth about what’s actually happening.  Or, the conversation may include concepts like throughness, engagement, and impulsion, when the horse is behind the bit and dropped in its ribcage with hind legs trailing.  How are students of horse sports supposed to understand what is correct when a huge percentage of the teaching population doesn’t know what it is either?

It’s time to do a better job teaching teachers, so we can elevate the quality of work in our industry, and better support the horses who show up every day doing their best to meet our expectations. Remember, they don’t really care if they “progress” or not, so it’s up to us to learn everything we can about them and work to make this process healthy for them.

The Beginning is The HARD Part!

The Beginning is the HARD part!

Last winter I attended my Son’s first band concert. He was 12, in 6th grade, and had never picked up a trumpet before he began in his school’s band program 3 months before. At the concert the band leader did a masterful job introducing to the audience the process of learning to play music for the first time. He had students demonstrate specific skills to the audience, and the band played simple pieces that highlighted each step along the way.

At the very least my son has a small music background. He learned some basics in elementary school, and took piano lessons for somewhere shy of 2 years. He understood the basics of reading music, and knew the difference between a whole and a quarter note, for example. Many of the other kids started at zero.

Think about it. The beginning is the HARD part. You look at a sheet of music with lines and dots and it means literally nothing. You pick up a piece of metal, with levers and slides and buttons and have no idea even how to make a sound.

The progress this band made in 3 short months, from zero to Jingle Bells, where each section played a different piece, is ENORMOUS. Much less impressive to me was the delightful music the most advanced band played, where musicians with years of practice and skill created a harmonious and enjoyable medley of Charlie Brown Christmas tunes.

So what, you say? Well, the “what” is the respect for the beginner. When was the last time YOU took up something new? Do you remember that first day on a new job where you couldn’t even figure out the phone? Or a first tennis lesson where learning how to hold the racquet and position your body to the net was all you could accomplish? I remember my son’s first day on the ski slopes, where he couldn’t stop or turn, and we spent half a day learning those skills...and the 2nd half of the day on progressively more difficult runs until he was whipping around like he’d done it all his life. But the beginning was the hard part, and until he mastered the basics the advanced skills were completely unavailable to him.

In most forms of education, the basics get no respect. When was the last time a Kindergarten teacher was highlighted for their accomplishments? A beginning soccer coach? The college kid who taught my son to swim was ridiculously fantastic at what he did. Was he rewarded for his expertise? Nope.

Look at University professors, and the pay gap between them and the Elementary school teachers. If those university students hadn’t been taught to read and write, think critically, and do basic math, University professors would have nobody to teach. But Elementary school teachers earn a fraction of the pay for doing the more essential and difficult task.

There’s no “Street Cred” in teaching beginners, or in my profession, starting young horses or beginner riders. And yet, if we do our job wrong, the next teacher has a much, much harder task. Where’s the respect? I’ve watched people look down their noses and refer to beginner programs with elite disdain, then get on a horse and fail to demonstrate the very most basic skills that keep people safe. Where is the opportunity to highlight beginner instructors in industry? It seems most publications only have room for show results. Do you remember the person who taught you the basics? Have you ever thanked them?

I know I’m on a bit of a rant, but time and time again horses and humans enter my program without fundamental skills and understanding, and I believe that if we paid more respect to those teaching the basics, we’d see those basic skills valued and taught with more reliability. Who doesn’t think that’s a good idea?

Schooling Show Observations

Even as I sit down to write, I question if I will post this.  I work hard to stay on the positive tip, and try no to bring the light rather than fighting the darkness (as guided by MLK Jr), but the events of this year have really brought clarity to the fact that silence is compliance and I’m not comfortable with complicity. So, here goes:

A group of students and I signed up for a local schooling event hosted this weekend.  As our horses haven’t been out much with Covid, I made sure schooling was available to ensure our horses were appropriately prepared to have a positive experience. We rolled in on Friday afternoon, super excited to get out and have a great time. While all of our horses are relatively green in the discipline we were there to show, all are well-schooled and experienced with outings. We all signed up below our level of schooling, again to ensure a positive outing.

We entered the schooling ring and walked into complete and utter chaos. There was a mix of horses schooling, from big fancy warmbloods, to darling humble ponies, and everything in between. My immediate observation was one of extreme stress across the vast majority of horses, not even speaking of the riders. It was a stunning exhibition of dangerous riding, and was truly an accident waiting to happen. While we walked on our horses amidst the chaos, we witnessed several near accidents as riders were not appropriately identifying fences they intended to jump. There were horses and riders going literally in all directions. One of my students had a random horse slam into her. There were loose horses (both from riders falling, and randomly from the stabling). There were barking dogs alongside the arena wall, and there was a complete lack of schooling ring etiquette.

I lasted two half-laps around the arena, dismounting after a shouting woman with dogs in a baby carriage flapped her arms wildly at the edge of the arena and sent my lovely but not especially confident large young horse shooting into the wild traffic. In this environment there was no chance I could effectively work through my usual process on this guy, in order to continue building our baseline confidence and expand his horizons. I helped him through a couple sticky moments, and got one big deep breath before I exited the arena in utter shock.

Before it seems like I am being critical of the riders involved, many, if not most, were working under the guidance of an instructor. There were several large groups of riders dominating the schooling ring with little to no consideration of the rest of us. Instructions like “bend him” were being shouted across the arena, and some students were spoken to with some incredibly derogatory language and tone.

What astounded me was the sheer lack of horsemanship being displayed. There was desperation in the air, horses and riders putting out fear, and stress, and bewilderment. From my perspective as an instructor, I always consider that the buck stops here.  If my students aren’t more than prepared, they don’t enter the ring. If they need me shouting from the middle of the arena, they don’t enter the ring. If they don’t already know how to do the job we’re there to do, they don’t enter the ring. Do I support with observations and tips, of course, but I’m not there to teach them, I’m there to coach.

Needless to say, I scratched my rides. One of my other students did too, as her horse has a rather large bubble and would not have responded well to being bumped into by other riders and given the likelihood of that we exited with him as well.

Two of my students stayed, and we waited until the arena was less chaotic to school them. Even still, one expressed concern that if she came off of her horse, she ran the risk of being trampled. 

Today at the actual event, it was fascinating to see and listen to the coaching. Riders working hard, giving it their all, yet not actually having the tools to be successful. I saw many combinations without the basic skills to move through the ring in basic balance and with fundamentals I believe to be essential. Again, I don’t blame the riders, they’re doing what they’ve been taught.

What makes me sad, is that these students are spending the time and money to pursue a sport they clearly have great passion for. It takes significant resources to arrive at an event like this, and many folks are doing this in lieu of something else like a vacation or another big purchase.  They’ve spent months training just as hard as anyone with better instruction. They love their horses as much as anyone else, but they’re being conditioned to blame the animals and themselves for any lack of success.

Our industry is failing our students, our horses, and our professionals. The social license to operate is closing in on us, and with scenes like these becoming more and more commonplace, we can anticipate regulation. We can choose to regulate from the inside or from the outside, the choice stands with us.

Learning From Students

One of the greatest gifts of being a riding instructor is that I have the opportunity to present material to a variety of different horse and rider combinations. This poses many challenges, and many opportunities. Not every exercise is suitable for every combination, of course, but many apply across several. However, not every rider learns the same way. So the same exercise might need to be presented in a variety of ways to be effective for a variety of people. This is of course one of the challenges, but also an opportunity.

I attended a clinic with my mentor last fall, and one of the huge take-aways for me was a different longing methodology. It was transformational for my horses and I was excited to share it with my students. What was just fantastic to me were the questions they asked me. They were not questions I had asked, or had explained, by my own trainer. The things that were hard for them hadn’t been the things that were hard for me when I learned it.  It forced me to think really differently about how I was doing what I was doing. I had to break the process down further, really get specific about my instructions, and even went so far as to draw a diagram.  Don’t worry, I’m not at risk of switching to a career in art, but it was good enough to help them understand.

I have to say that was one of the clearest examples of learning from my students I’ve had to date. Through their questions, I developed a deeper understanding of something I was using effectively already. It not only made me better at teaching the technique, it made me better at executing the technique.  

I know that teaching isn’t for everyone, but it’s certainly a great way to develop a greater depth of understanding. It’s also essential if you decide to teach, that you develop different ways to get the same information across.

I was blessed to ride with an exceptional horseman in his later years. He was a Swedish gentleman, with Olympic gold medals to his name, and students who had achieved enormous competitive success. He was so passionate about educating that he continued to teach well into his 80’s.  He was a true master. He was also not a native english speaker, and sometimes had only one way to say something. I am still learning today what he meant by some of the phrases he used, because my level of riding or my interpretation of his words were not sufficient at the time.

The Baron was also the man who informed me that I would be a teacher. Yes, informed. I had no interest at the time. I enjoyed the riding, and was doing a bit of teaching at the time but had not honed my craft by any stretch. He told me I would be a teacher, and he was right.

Because there’s no gold standard teacher training, at least not in this country, there wasn’t an option for me to learn other than “on the job.” I’m grateful for all of the riders who helped me learn to teach, and who continue to challenge me to improve every day.

Choosing Your Downside

Choosing your Downside

They say that there’s an enormous amount to learn when you’re working with horses, and very little of it has to do with horses. It’s not uncommon for me to say something while teaching, and then immediately think of where I need to apply that principle to my own life. For example, most everything I know about being a parent I learned from working with horses (and from Brene Brown, but I digress…). I was raising horse babies when my own son was an infant, and there was no end to parenting lessons learned watching my small herd raise their own foals. 

A topic that has come up again and again recently is the idea of choosing a downside. Often when we’re making decisions in life, we do our pro and con list, or we think of things we want and things we don’t want. It stands to reason that because nothing is perfect, when we make a choice FOR something, we are also inherently choosing something less ideal that comes with the package.

Here’s an example: It’s not uncommon for Adult Amateurs or “returning riders” who have been away from horses for a long time to go to school, and establish careers and/or families to experience some level of anxiety or fear when working with horses. Maybe it’s nature’s way of reminding us of our mortality when we have more at stake and less of a sense of invincibility. Either which way, with some life experience we can have more awareness of what’s at risk, and as such riders may need a horse with a bit less sass and a bit more predictability. That’s a fantastic choice, because keeping riders safe is essential. However, along with that upside commonly we have a horse with a less sensitive nature, and that can mean less of that “desire to go forward” we hear about in dressage circles.

That lack of desire to go forward can lead to a few things…riders working too hard, repeating their aids or using louder and louder aids to get the desired response. Of course, this leads to other “training problems” and will ultimately result in limited advancement, because big, visible aids are inherently slow, and advanced work happens as a result of quick responses to subtle aids (along with 3,247 other things…).

So, is that bad? It could be. Is that a downside we can choose, and learn how to mitigate with riding skill, it sure is. Is that a better downside than a more sensitive horse who can be very responsive and is also possibly more spooky or reactive in scenarios besides riding? Depending on the individual horse and rider, yes it is. 

It’s important to recognize that we’re choosing that downside. Yes, we’re choosing calm and inherently safe, but along with that we’re likely choosing a horse that requires some motivation. That’s 100% fine, and being aware of it makes it even better.

I started this little story by saying these concepts cross over into real life, and they do. One of the most clear examples is in dating…when you choose a calm, centered person to date, they might not get as excited about the positives, just like they might not get as excited when things are tough. That’s great for some people, not so great for others.

Choosing a home, or a farm, or a car, or a career comes with the same tradeoffs. Rarely do we get EVERYTHING we want, so if we can choose which downsides we’re ok with, we’re going in with eyes wide open.

Perhaps I’m telling on myself and my nature here, because when I’m faced with challenging circumstances or frustrating situations I often remind myself that I had some choice in the matter. “I chose this” is a phrase I’ll say to myself when I’m overwhelmed because I’ve (once again) taken on too much, or am uncomfortable with the direction one of my choices has taken me. You could call that being controlling, and sometimes I do think of myself as such. A more positive framing might be that I like to have a sense of my own agency. I don’t like feeling like my life is just taking me on a ride. My personal preference is to make conscious choices about my path and see what happens, knowing I can always choose again.

So if you’re facing a decision, and you’re writing your “Pro” list, consider if it’s helpful to associate a downside that comes with that upside, and think about if you’re willing to say yes to that downside. Maybe there’s a way to mitigate it, or maybe you just have to accept it. Either way it’s an interesting thought experiment and might change the way you look at these choices.

Return to (Rider) Fitness

It has not been an amazing three years for my personal fitness. Even before the Covid reality, one of my personal struggles has been maintaining my fitness regime. I certainly have the blessing of an active lifestyle full of horse chores and access to hiking paths around my home. That being said, during Covid I transitioned away from riding multiple horses every day and into spending more time at a desk while I reinvented my personal business and supported the creation of an Inclusive Equestrian Nonprofit,  and I just wasn’t getting my steps in. I know I’m not alone in this and while I’ve discussed bringing my horses back into work I thought it would be interesting to spend a few minutes with my observations on how I’m feeling bringing myself back into fitness.

I always appreciate the opportunity to empathize with horses. I think I am pretty tuned in and honestly probably err on the side of going too slow, but even still whenever I take on something new it always helps me to consider the horses as I experience the new thing myself. As far as fitness is concerned, one of my greatest observations today is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic strength, and the development of intrinsic strength overtime.

When I think about intrinsic strength I think about surfers. There they are, literally riding the wave allowing the movement of the water to move through them. While I’m not an avid surfer (I’ve literally never surfed) I would imagine the worst thing you could do on the surfboard is brace. If surfers were to use their large superficial muscles (the ones that make you look strong in the bathroom mirror) to attempt to brace to balance on the surfboard, I imagine they would most likely get bucked off. It turns out it’s all a little deep musculature that allows you to stay in the strong position externally, while your joints (or as the Baron would call them, your “links”) have the opportunity to allow movement to move through you. Vanity muscles on the outside don’t do that job. It’s the intrinsic muscles, the ones down close to your spine, that allow you to be stabilized and flexible at the same time.

So, while I have some good basic fitness from things like walking up and down my hill, hiking with my dogs, and doing my horse chores, my intrinsic fitness is honestly just not the most amazing at the moment. That shows up very clearly when I am increasing the demands of my exercise routine. I find that I have to go outside of my center to balance to do the movements, which means balance exercises like side planks are a little bit wobbly and I don’t have access to the range of motion I  will when that intrinsic strength is improved. Most importantly, when I’m doing challenging exercises I struggle to do it without losing my postural alignment in my spine. That postural alignment is essential for access to the intrinsic muscles, so it could become a vicious cycle without careful attention.

So what? Ultimately, to do an exercise effectively you have to do it correctly, and as it stands right now I’m not quite strong enough to do the exercise 100% correctly. Does that mean that I am not achieving the benefit? No, I certainly am deriving benefits from the exercises, but if I am not conscientious about overburdening my system, I do have an increased likelihood of injury. Because I am struggling to do exercises biomechanically correctly, the system is more fragile, and it is more likely that I could injure myself if I’m not attentive. The workaround for this particular problem is to do less, expect less, and pay close attention to when I’m starting to fatigue, no longer recruiting the muscles I intend to target, or am losing range.

I find this so interesting to observe in my own body, because of course this is exactly what the horses experience as they are developing strength or coming back into fitness. It’s completely relatable and it is a really solid reminder about taking the time it takes for the horses to develop their intrinsic strength both in general, and over the course of a lifetime. Paying attention to this during any given period of training is also an essential skill for a thoughtful equestrian. The value of an exercise is in doing it correctly, and if you can’t do the full version correctly, you can modify and do what you can do well while you build strength to do it better.

I think of all the gadgetry and the devices that get slammed on young horses, soft horses, older horses and struggling horses which restrict their movement while they are at work. Horses balance using their head and neck and when riders use restrictive devices they eliminate the opportunity for the horses to use their natural balancing mechanism. Not only does it freak me out from a safety perspective (taking away the ability of the horse to catch itself if it trips, stumbles or spooks), but also I think about how these horses are not given the opportunity to balance extrinsically where they are strong while they develop intrinsic strength and improved balance. It’s a bit of the cart before the horse and will actually short-circuit the ability of the horse to do its work biomechanically correctly. Returning to my point about myself, I am being cautious and thoughtful about my own fitness and how I progress, because overdoing or working mechanically incorrectly is the fast path to injury.

Exercise is supposed to increase longevity and make us healthier, but like anything else if it’s not done well or correctly it can have the opposite effect and create physical trauma. In the case of bad coaching mental and emotional trauma can happen as well. So, as I increase my body weight exercises from a 15 minute routine to a 30 minutes and I notice the fatigue coming, I think about what it’s like for these horses to not only be required to exercise, but to do so carrying the weight of a rider. In far too many circumstances the horses are expected to do so without the appropriate physical development that allows them to do so correctly and in a way that promotes health and longevity.

What is Horse Welfare-Based Training?

When I was a young rider, starry-eyed and full of dreams, with little to no actual, practical experience to back up my passion, I had no information with which to determine if a suggested training methodology or approach was valuable or beneficial to my process. In fact, I didn't know there was a process. I knew that I saw people having various levels of “success” in the barn around me, and the horses and riders responded differently to different teachers and methodologies. I watched elite riders on TV (those 2am VCR recordings of show jumping and dressage competitions, and my absolute favorite, The Rolex Kentucky 3 Day Event were watched over and over, and yes I still have stacks of VCR Tapes).

At any rate, I had no data, research, or information to base my perspective on. As a bold and ambitious but fundamentally clueless kid, I used the loudest voice in the room to guide me…my horse. The truth is, at the end of the day, the opinion of the horse is the only real opinion that matters, but not all horses are quite as clear as my first horse was in voicing that opinion. As hard as it was to deal with sometimes, I’m grateful to this day to have had a horse with a huge opinion so early on in my career, as he sent me on a very different path of information-seeking than my contemporary young riders followed.

What my horse approved of were trainers who I would now say were horse welfare-based. I can use that terminology now, but what does it really mean? I certainly wouldn’t have known then.

To me, horse welfare-based training means that the training program is designed with the best-interest of the horse in mind. This program must consist of a variety of elements that are reciprocal and all work to serve the same end goal: The Welfare of the Horses in the Program. 

Our program covers several topics that current equine welfare research indicates are essential to the well-being of horses, and that we find contribute directly to the success of our actual training program. That is to say that putting effort and attention onto learning about and adequately managing these areas improves our training ease and outcomes. These topics include:

• Equine Lifestyle Management

• Equine Nutrition

• Equine Hoof Care

• Equine Dentistry

• Equine Bodywork 

• Functional Groundwork

• Equine Fitness Development

• Rider Emotional Management

• Rider Mental Wellbeing

• Rider Fitness Development

• Progressive, Functional Training 

You may notice that Training is the last item on the list. It’s quite a large category, and is essential of course and thoroughly integrated into the entire process. It is, however, pretty impossible to mount a successful training program without the other steps in process at the same time.

I use the word successful again here, and immediately I think to myself, but what does “successful” actually mean? Honestly it’s different for different people from the micro perspective, but in a macro way, success to me means that the horse remains well during the process we choose. One student in our program may want to showjump 3’ and success to them means achieving that goal, while success to another may mean horse camping without any incidents. Both are amazing goals and the path to achieving those goals has more in common than not, but doing either one successfully in my opinion means arriving at the goal with a happy, healthy horse, who is comfortable and confident, and capable of doing the job requested with minimal stress and no mental/emotional/physical damage. If we can’t meet that metric, the simple act of jumping around 3’ is a pretty hollow win as far as I’m concerned.

A guiding philosophy that has served me well throughout my career comes from Baron Hans Von Blixen Finecke, a Swedish riding Master who taught my Mentor, Peter DeCosemo, who remains my greatest teacher.  The Baron says in his 1996 book “The Art of Training: Lessons From a Lifetime With Horses”: 

Horses are complicated live mechanisms systems of muscles and bones controlled by the nervous system and with a will of their own. They were never created to carry riders on their backs–nor did they invite us to try it. The idea was always ours; we never asked for their permission, we just went ahead and did it. So we must take responsibility for how we go about it.

It can be argued whether or not we have the moral right to impose ourselves in this way and to this extent on a fellow species. In this day and age, when people are quite rightly more concerned about their plight, I am sure many would vote against it. The argument in our favor would be that most of us do, after all, look after our horses well. We feed them, house them and, generally speaking, see to their immediate needs. So, in a sense, I suppose one can say that we are justified in what we are doing. Maybe it is fair, then, that they give something in return. Without us, they would be lost. Without them, we would be poorer.

Therefore, what we must have in mind in our training (which is teaching them movements which are quite unnatural to them), is to make the procedure as fair, painless, and helpful as possible. To make them work for us we have to make them understand us in such a way that they enjoy what they are doing because we motivate them and reward them when they try to oblige. We must teach, not bully!

…

To teach, we must have a curriculum. If we want to have an influence on our horse, in order to develop him physically and mentally toward higher performance, we have to work with – and stick to – a system, which leads to the goal with a reasonable degree of success. It must, as far as possible, be based on facts. We must learn about our “raw material” – horse and rider – with regard to the mechanism of movement as well as the psychological reactions during the normal process of training.

With that philosophy as a baseline starting point, we can dig into learning about our “raw material” in a holistic way. Access to information and research has exploded since the Baron wrote his books, but even then being evidence-based was an essential piece of the training puzzle.

As we move forward into deepening our understanding of our horses and ourselves, we can be sure that the facts will evolve. That is the way of science. If we are doing this well, we learn and test and grow. The essential piece is to remain open to learning, and to hold tight to a philosophy while allowing the details to evolve.

They say one lifetime is not long enough to learn to ride a horse, and nearly 35 years into the process I have to concur. For me this means that the joyful endeavor of being in relationship with the horses and the people who love them will always be fresh and real, and will keep my mind and body stimulated for years to come.

As we venture down this path of learning about horse welfare-based training together, please understand that the path is in fact the “thing”, not the destination. Do not rush, there is no “there”.

Observation (Dr. Dyson Lecture)

Some time ago I attended a wonderful Webinar hosted by World Horse Welfare, with Dr. Sue Dyson as the keynote educator.  Dr. Dyson has a rich history with horses, a diverse career as a competitor and veterinarian, and many, many research studies under her belt.

Recently Dr. Dyson has developed an ethogram (a catalog or table of all the different kinds of behavior or activity observed in an animal) for observation of pain in the ridden horse.  Historically, pain in the ridden horse is not something we’ve been able to quantify, but with extensive research, Dr. Dyson has developed a list of characteristics, which when seen in certain quantities, are indicative of a horse in pain.  It’s groundbreaking research, and it’s my genuine hope her work will change the way ridden horse behavior is perceived.  

At the end of the Q and A, in answer to a question I do not remember, Dr. Dyson made a call for owners to “observe your horse!” This hit a chord with me, because it's a fundamental element of  my training program.

It’s rather difficult to know what to do with your horse, if you don’t know where you’re starting.  There are several things I do on a daily basis to evaluate where I am with each individual horse, here are a few:

I take an ABSURD amount of pictures and video of my horses.  I mean ABSURD.  I take pictures of them standing in the field, of their feet before and after trims, video free schooling, and now that I have my PIVO, I video most of my rides.  Seriously, it’s insane.  HOWEVER, I can also now show empirically the changes in my horses over time.  Want to know what their habitual resting posture was in the field 18 months ago?  Got it.  What did their trim look like this time last year?  Gimme a sec, I’ll pull that up for you.  Wondering how their most recent trim affected their movement?  Standby, here’s video of the day before and the day after.  

So, what am I assessing?  To start with, absolutely nothing, I’m simply observing.  I want to know what IS, not make a judgment about it.  I started using the phrase Non-Judgemental Observation quite a few years ago, and I think the Non-Judgmental part is key.  If I attach a value judgment to it, it suggests what I see is either positive or negative.  I don’t really care about that, because it’s just one moment in time.  I prefer just to notice what I see, so that I can make a plan.  Sure, I have an ideal in my head, but horses and the training process are multifactorial so I can’t make clear-cut assertions about one moment in time.  All I can do is allow my observations to suggest one of the many optional paths, and see if the path I choose changes what I see.

I mentioned above some things that I track:  Habitual resting posture, hoof morphology, loose movement, and under saddle work.  Other things I pay attention to are harder to document unless you’re much better than I at keeping a training journal, but are equally important and a part of my daily observation practice:  What’s my horse's mood when I go out to get them from the field?  Are they walking in keen and alert, or draggy?  What is the sound of their footfalls?  Are they even, or is one step consistently louder than the others?  What areas on my horse’s body are sensitive to grooming?  What area do they encourage me to groom?  Noticing these things will allow me to observe for my current “normal,” guide my bodywork and training decisions, and notice when things change.  This is key to tracking behavioral changes in your horse, which can be used as indicators of pain, as per Dr. Dyson’s ethogram.

No single one of these observations will tell me everything, and rather often I don’t know what the observations “mean” straight away, but they do help me to begin to build a story about the horse which in turn allows me to better understand them, the challenges they face, and what I might be able to expect about their individual training process and needs.  In addition, it gives me the info I need to track early warning signs of possible maladies.  

To be fair, it takes quite a lot of time to begin to “see” horses.  It’s easiest to see things that are external (a horse standing with one hind leg always out behind them, for example, or preferring one canter lead over the other) but quite a bit harder to train your eye to see things that are more internal (like posture, core engagement, intrinsic vs extrinsic balance), but those are things we need to develop an eye for  in order to approach our horses with a level of sophistication that can truly result in optimization.  Like any other skill, it takes time, but is well worth the effort.

One last word on Non-Judgemental Observation:  One variable that is constant with your process with your horse is YOU.  A massive part of being a successful leader and trainer is the ability to observe yourself so you know what you’re bringing to the table each day.  More about this in the future!

One More Thing! I’ve put together a mini-course on Non-Judgmental Observation.  This will be available to folks who subscribe to the newsletter I’m developing. This weekly newsletter will include 5 topics, ideas, or training concepts that have been present throughout the week. Subscribes will receive first-access to news, events, courses, and any other opportunities we offer. We hope you join us on this new adventure!