Happy Grazing Horse Photos, and More Lead Changes

It was a beautiful morning, and I was at the barn early so decided to walk out and take some photos before riding Dawn.  First I walked out to where the boys were grazing - that's Pie on the left and Red in the center:

Pie on the left, Red on the right:

I love taking pictures of horse butts - Red closest to the camera and Pie behind him:

Red, busily eating grass:

Red, interested in what I was doing but eating is important too:

Pie, standing on a slight uphill slope:

Sweet Pie face:

Another horse butt - this time Dawn's:

Dawn is curious but still chewing:

Dawn - I worry about those too-long hind pasterns but so far (knock on wood and anything else available) they haven't given us any trouble:

Love the expression of concentration and the wrinkled muzzle:

Dawn and I had a really lovely ride today.  We rode in the outdoor arena and in the mares' pasture.  Lots of really nice, relaxed, trot and canter work.  And more lead changes - if I even let the thought/feel picture of a lead change cross my mind - bam! lead change.  Just for fun, and as an experiment, I tried doing two lead changes in a row after two canter strides - bam! two strides, bam! - in both directions on the straight side of the arena.  All these changes were done using "deep feel" I described in this earlier post: "think the way the horse itself would feel on one lead and then switch mentally to the feel the horse itself would have on the other". She seemed to be having fun with it, and I was doing a lot of laughing with delight.  The third time I asked for two lead changes in a row, she did the first one and then struggled for a stride with the second and then did a big buck instead - I think she was telling me that she was too strung out to do the change properly and that I should please wait to ask when she was in a position to do it properly - I laughed and told her that her correction of my improper technique was duly noted.  We took a break, and did some nice trotting and cantering around in the pasture - with one more lead change just for fun!

Beautiful day, beautiful horses - what more could I ask for?

Red Goes Outside

Red injured himself about two weeks after he arrived at the new barn - around June 21.  In that two weeks, we did some walking around, including making an excursion to the outdoor arena for a hand walk.  That's the last time he'd been out there, a long time ago.  Today, there was a lesson being held in the outdoor - it's visible away up the hill if you look out the door of the indoor.  Red was very interested in what was happening out there.  So, after we'd done some good walk/trot work in the indoor, I dismounted and led him outside.  He still has some difficulty going down the very steep hill - he drags his hind toes and isn't really able to sit down and use himself, but does fairly well walking uphill.

He looked around when we got out to the outdoor, and I led him on a couple of laps around.  Then I just led him to the mounting block - he stood perfectly still on a loose rein - and mounted up.  We did a bit of walk/trot work all around the outdoor arena, and he was just wonderful.  He looked at things but didn't do anything except what I asked.  Although we did a little bit of trotting, the footing was really too deep for him to be comfortable.

I couldn't have been more delighted - he stayed with me and listening, even in a strange place under strange circumstances.  He seemed pretty please with himself, too.

Horses Are Rear-Wheel Drive: Feeling the Hind Feet

I did a post a while ago about riding the hind feet.  What I was trying to say there is how important it is to feel what the horse's feet are doing - particularly the hind feet - in order to be able to influence how the horse moves by cuing at the proper time, so the horse can more easily do what you ask.  But I think there's more to it than that, based on what I'm trying to do together with my horses now . . .

First, I believe it's important, for all riders at whatever level of experience, to learn how the horse moves and what that feels like on a footfall basis to the rider.  Having some coaching from the ground can make this easier, but you can also do it yourself, by noting what the horse's shoulders, hips, back and barrel are doing at each point in a gait.  If you have someone on the ground, you can practice saying "now" or "left" or "right" when a particular front or hind foot is on the ground.  And, once you get that figured out, there's another, even more useful, thing to practice - being able to identify, and say "now", or "left" or "right" when a particular foot is just leaving the ground - that's the point where you can influence the direction and energy of that foot.

Horses are without doubt rear-wheel drive - or they should be - there are plenty of horses out there pulling themselves around on the forehand with a full-body brace going on due to how they've been trained and ridden.  If a horse is moving in self-carriage, it's the placement and energy of the hind feet that determine every motion and direction, and the hind feet have to come up under the body in order for the horse to balance and move efficiently. It's easy for us to focus on the head, neck and placement of the front feet, since that's what's in our field of vision.  But give that up and focus on the hind feel and feel their movement, and how their movement relates to the rest of the horse's body - that's where the real stuff is.

In order to properly feel the hind feet move, and where they are and what they are doing, it's important to let go of braces and blocks in your own body so that you can move with the horse and actually feel what is happening.  Letting your hips move and back unlock, and shoulders and hands move with the horse instead of pulling and bracing, will let you feel what is happening underneath you.  It's also important to eliminate pushing and leaning and driving with seat or legs, or holding with the hands - those are just blocks to movement and make it much harder to feel and influence the hind feet.  Using gadgets to cause the horse to assume a particular posture or "frame" - what a useless word that is - just interfere with developing this, since it's ultimately based on feel - feel by you of the horse and feel of the horse by you - it's all one thing - how can a gadget have feel?

Everything comes from the hind feet - lengthening and shortening of stride, backing, bend - that inside hind leg needs to step under - lateral work of all types, jumping, the moves a cutting horse makes, everything - there's nothing the horse does that isn't determined by the placement and energy of the hind feet.  The horse balances using the placement of the hind feet, and the movement comes from that point of balance.

The first step is to develop awareness of what the hind feet are doing.  The second step is to influence the hind feet by cuing softly with timing that corresponds with a hind foot leaving the group and being available to move in a different direction or with a change in energy.  The third step is to influence the movement of the hind feet by feeling in your own body how a movement would feel if you were doing it yourself in your own body and offering the horse that feel.  The fourth step is to feel the movement as if you were the horse and were placing your/the horse's hind feet in the way you want.  That's what I've been doing with Dawn on our flying lead changes - I simply mentally feel her/me cantering - left hind then left front/right hind diagonal then right front - and at that instant when the legs are off the ground I/we do the change to right hind then right front/left hind then left front and it just happens like that - no cues, no nothing - there's nothing in the world that feels that good.

It's important to acknowledge that being on any step of this progression is a very good thing - it means that we're listening to the horse and that we care what the horse is doing and saying to us, and not just treating horses as mechanical objects to be used, manipulated or coerced - it's a completely different way of thinking about our interaction with the horse.  I've been on the path to get where I'm going for about 10 years now - I may be a slow learner - my horses would say so! - and every step on the way has meant a valuable improvement in how I ride and interact with my horses.  What I'm trying to say is that we don't have to be experts or perfect to benefit from engaging with this and undertaking the journey - even beginning riders or those beginning to try to ride this way - maybe especially these people - can get a lot out of starting down this path.

Now I'm a long way from being proficient at any of this, but I'm learning and my horses are teaching me.  This mental connection I'm trying to develop with my horses is the essence of softness - the horse being continuously available to move in any direction with balance and grace - and it comes and goes between me and my horses - the connection is there and then it fades out and then it comes back, but that's what I'm looking for now that I know what it is and how it feels.

There will be a post soon about the important challenges Mark Rashid set me at the last clinic in June - to ride all my horses the same and to develop my own style . . .

Pie Feels Much Better

I'm happy to report that Pie is feeling much better after his chiro treatment yesterday.  Instead of the crabby, glaring, ears pinned, threatening to bite horse I had the day before, he greeted me in his stall today with his ears up and a pleasant expression on his face - what a change - he obviously was feeling good again.  We had a lovely ride and he was happy to move and his movement was much better.  I need to keep an eye on him and be sure to get him some chiro right away whenever he shows unusual crabbiness.  My vet/chiropractor also showed me some muscle massages to do in areas where he'd been sore, and he seemed to enjoy those today.

Pie Enjoys His Chiro (with a Note on Lyme) and Red Struts His Stuff

I've noticed over the past week or so that Pie has been extremely crabby - when I approached him in his stall he would pin his ears at me, glare and even threaten to bite.  But he seemed to really enjoy being groomed, and would even lean into it at certain points.  He was also crabby about being saddled and girthed up and was not enthusiatic about working at any gait above the walk, and also short-strided.  Time for a chiro appointment.

Our wonderful chiropractor/vet Dr. Marold came today, and Pie had a long and very thorough session. He's only one month out from the end of his EPM treatment, and I also fell off him when he spooked about a month ago, hanging on one stirrup and the reins for a while, which probably twisted him up.  He really needed to have chiro - Dr. Marold worked on him for over an hour and a half from top to bottom and stem to stern, and Pie really appreciated it - he did lots of enormous yawns, tongue lolls, head and neck shake outs and leaning into the pressure.  There were many things out of adjustment.  He had big cramps in his neck and his sternum and hindquarters were very sore - no wonder the poor guy was crabby.  He looked much happier by the time she was done, and tonight when I went in his stall to check on him he wasn't crabby at all.

Dawn and Pie both had final blood draws for EPM titers - they've both finished their 100 days of treatment (10 days of paste and 90 days of feed top dressing), and the data are useful for the clinical trial they're enrolled in.  I also had a blood draw from Pie for Lyme disease, just to rule that out.  Pie has been "visually spooky" since I've had him, despite his generally calm temperament.  One of the symptoms of Lyme - there are many others, some causing lameness - is neurological processing oddities, including unusual nervousness or spookiness.  It's also becoming clear that co-infection with EPM and Lyme is not only possible but may be more common that suspected - apparently the cellular pathways involved are very similar and if a horse's immune system is vulnerable to EPM it may also be vulnerable to Lyme.  Here's a link to a Cornell article about the new Lyme test and what it can show about the stage of infection.  And we sure have a lot of deer, and a lot of ticks.  So maybe it's Lyme and maybe it's just that Pie's a young horse - we'll have an answer to that soon.

Red continues to do very well.  We had excellent rides both yesterday and today - he's completely sound at the trot and is also now going around corners well.  It's so much fun to ride him again - I described it to someone today as riding a river - he just flows, and there's so much power and grace.  He does get tired quickly, though, so I have to be careful not to overdo things.

When I went to bring Pie in from the pasture, Red, as usual, came in with us, coming off the pasture to do so.  He walked right next to Pie - they were bumping bodies - and just behind me.  I asked Red not to nip or herd Pie, and not to crowd me, and he didn't.  While Pie was having his chiro treatment - in the indoor arena - Red stood at the gate where he could see Pie and occasionally whinnied to him and sometimes banged on the gate with a front hoof.  Red wandered off after a bit, but then came back - he stood there for most of the hour and a half Pie was being treated.

Red's been a bit more "studly" lately - it's clear his depo provera shot has worn off.  I do have him on chaste tree berry, which helps a bit.  He's very good for me and has pretty much stopped his stud behaviors when I handle and ride him.  He's also good in the arena - he still notices everything and is alert to, and easily distracted by, whatever is happening - this is apparently a stud characteristic - but comes right back to me and works well.  I was proud of him yesterday - a lady who wasn't paying attention to where she was going actually bounced her horse off his butt and Red did nothing - no kicking or anything else when he might well have.  He's still doing a lot of herding of the other geldings in his pasture, and is clearly now in charge - he comes in first at bring-in time and makes sure Pie does as well.  I like his personality now - he's full of fire, and brio and brimming with life, but very well behaved under saddle and just a delight to be around.  We'll see how he does - we can always do another depo provera shot if necessary but right now that isn't necessary.

Magical Moment: "Deep Feel"

I had a wonderful moment with Dawn this morning - it felt like magic but it really wasn't . . .

But before we get to that, go back with me to when you were a kid.  I'll bet there are many of you out there who played horse - I sure did, all the time whenever I could, from the time I was very small - did you?  I did lots of walk, trot and canter, and a fair amount of jumping courses too.  Now our two legs aren't exactly equivalent to the horse's legs, but remember how it felt to play horse and how it felt to walk, trot or canter.  At the walk, we have only two beats to the horse's four; the trot is pretty much the same; and we have two of the three beats of the canter but can do the suspension - the "fourth" beat of the canter.

Now, think about how it feels to be a horse and do the three gaits, plus a gallop, and the transitions between gaits, and backing.  It's all about the feet - where they are at what points in the gait and in what rhythm, and how the horse uses its feet to balance and move.  It's a little bit different than the feel of playing horse, but I think we humans are up to imagining how it would feel if we were the horse.

What got me really starting to think about these things was a couple of things - well, really I've been thinking in this direction for a while but a couple of things made things come into sharper focus.  First, I've been reading Bill and Tom Dorrence, and there's a wonderful set of diagrams of the horse's footfalls as the horse transitions between gaits - what legs have to catch up or slow down to get the changing rhythm, say from trot to canter.  I started imagining what those footfalls would feel like if I were the horse.  And then there's the idea of offering the horse the feel of what you want them to do - you imagine how it would feel if you did what you are wanting the horse to do with your own body.  But here's the next step - what would it feel like to be the horse doing the thing you want the horse to do and can you offer that feeling to the horse and have the horse make the mental connection and do it.

I've talked with Mark about this at clinics - the idea that you present the idea in your mind to the horse and have the horse's body be your body and the horse's legs your legs - the horse making the connection to your mind and just offering up what you are asking.  I've been thinking about this together with the Dorrences' thought of offering the horse the feel you want - so you can feel of the horse and the horse can feel of you and respond by giving you the feel you want.  If the idea of what you want to do can be presented as you offering the horse the feel of how the horse itself would be, that would be pretty powerful.

Now here's what happened today.  You know how it feels in your (human) body when you're riding your horse and cantering on the right lead - imagine that.  Now imagine how it feels to canter on the left lead.  (There should be a difference in your mental feel since the two leads have differing footfalls and have opposite diagonal "trends".)  Bill Dorrence said the easiest way to get a lead change is to just start riding as if you're on the opposite lead - offering that feel to the horse - and the horse is likely to adjust to that feel by changing leads.  I can see how that would work and could be pretty effective.  But I think Bill meant (and I think this is also what Mark was talking about, but I didn't fully understand it until now), is that the feel you're offering isn't just of what you would feel as a rider of the horse, or if you were "playing horse" with your body and doing the movement, but the feel of you and the horse together doing the movement and incorporating the feel of the horse's body, legs and feet - this is the feel you can offer to the horse - the horse's own feel as it would be if it did what you were asking - in effect making you part of and not separate from the horse.

So Dawn and I did an experiment.  We were doing some nice canter work - circles and big laps of the arena on both leads, and she was relaxed and our connection and feel was pretty strong.  (By the way, I should add at this point that I've never asked Dawn for a flying lead change under saddle until today.)  So I took her in a straight line and felt her - I'm talking "deep" feel here, not just riding on top of the horse - cantering on the right lead: how her feet and body were moving - and then "thought" and offered her the feel of her body on the left lead. . . .  Instantaneous, beautiful, perfect back to front flying change with no alteration of rhythm or length of stride - no leap, no jump, no excitement, just the feel as if she were doing it on her own in the pasture - and the lack of excitement was due to it being Dawn's idea and not something I was "doing" to her with physical aids.  No leg aid, no rein aid, no seat aid, no change of bend, no nothing.  I didn't really change the feel in my body either - I changed the thought of the feel in our bodies together - it was if I were Dawn. I can't begin to describe how magical a moment it was - I was ready to hold a party!  I know it happened, because there were several other people in the arena at the time and they saw what we did.

I think this "deep feel" I'm talking about comes down to (literally) the horse's feet, particularly the hind feet, but more about that in another post . . . I can't wait to get back to the barn and work with the boys on this sort of stuff - we won't be doing any flying lead changes (Red's not strong enough at this stage of his rehab, and Pie needs a much more solid canter in both directions), but I can apply the same concept to everything we're doing.

Offering Softness

These days, most of my work with horses is really about working with me - how I present things to the horses so they can most effectively respond and do what I ask.  I think a big part of my job is setting my horses up for success - presenting things in a way they can understand, building the links in a chain of knowledge in a way they can use, and helping them position their bodies so they're balanced and in a good situation to be able to respond to my asks.  This doesn't mean that we don't have our confusions and misunderstandings - it's part of the learning process - I want the horse to feel empowered to try things out in an attempt to find the answer I'm looking for.  But to the extent I can shape what we do to make things easier for them to find the answer, that's something I should be trying to do.

One thing I've been working on since the clinic is eliminating/toning down my tendency to be abrupt - with how I apply my aids and how much I use when I ask.  I'm fortunate that I've got a couple of extremely sensitive horses who tell me right away if I'm over cueing - with these horses almost any physical cue is over cueing.  They've been teaching me about using my intent, focus and breathing to get the job done more quietly and effectively, particularly when they know how to do what I'm asking. With a younger/greener horse like Pie, sometimes a more specific physical cue is needed initially so that he's clear on what I want, but even that can be quickly reduced as he learns.  I need to end up offering him the same softness - the same feel - as I do my other horses - this is part of learning to ride all my horses consistently, as Mark challenged me to do at the clinic. The release is in the feel - that going-with-the-horse feeling when our bodies and minds are in sync and moving together to a common goal.

One thing I've been working on with all my horses is how I take up the reins.  If I take the slack out of the reins abruptly, I get bracing.  This has showed up with all the horses - the first taking up of contact, whether when asking for softness at the halt, in backing or in taking contact while moving, almost invariably has resulted in some sort of brace on the horse's part - which means they're finding my abruptness to be a brace in itself that they're then bracing against.  I pay a lot of attention when things show up as an issue in all my horses - it's a clear signal it's something I'm doing and not specific to the horse.

Heather had me work on this some in my lessons, and I've been really working on it again - taking up the reins with softness.  If I do it right, I'm offering the horse the same soft feel I want back from them, and I pretty much get it.  I had great success with both Pie yesterday and Dawn this morning - as I took the reins up as softly as I could, they were offering me softness even with slack in the reins - it was delightful.  I'm getting to the point with all my horses that I can ride them with virtually no pressure on the reins - even with a little drape - and still get real softness and responsiveness - there's a live feel there.

Red's a little harder to deal with on this issue sometimes - he can get distracted by things that are going on and lose connection with my stream of thought - on those occasions I have to very, very softly redirect his attention to me.  He also can tend to get ahead of my thought - he's a big anticipator (this arises out of his tendency to worry about getting things right) and can start answering questions I haven't yet asked or offering up movements we were just doing even though we're no longer doing them.  These tendencies are improving as he worries less, and I have to just keep offering him the softness I want back from him while affirmatively giving him direction - but I have to do it without abruptness or overcuing - this is a real challenge for me and part of the task Mark gave me to ride all my horses the same.  I have to offer him the same softness that I offer the other two and give him the opportunity to respond in kind - muscling him into what I want isn't soft or productive - he's a horse that will mentally as well as physically brace if I do that.

I've also been getting a brace on mounting - he wants to move off and he braces when I ask him not to - I think my abruptness is having an effect there as well.  He's been full of energy lately with the cooler weather and because he hasn't been working hard under saddle as we get back into work, and he's anticipating moving off.  I need him to wait for my ask, and need to direct his attention back to me and be sure we've got softness there, and standing still in response to my ask, before I get on.  He can stand still with softness for mounting even when he's full of energy - he doesn't need to fret or worry. I have to be very consistent with him in terms of my direction and asks, but with softness too - not an easy thing to do!