I headed directly to the Equissentials booth so I could have them work up the repair order. I've worn my Jods so much over the past 5 years that I've actually wore out the deerskin on both my seatbones. I'd also made a small cut in the fabric just above my right knee. I was told no problem with the seatbones, they can put two big deerskin stars over the worn areas - at no charge I might add. However, I decided I'd really like a leather horse head to cover the hole on my leg, and that cost me $15. so with $10 shipping; the repair was only $25. Not bad, especially since I love these jods so much.
I then headed over to Mark Rashid's booth so I could personally thank Mark and Crissi for helping me find the right answers with G. When I took Mark's hand and said I want to thank you so much for helping us; he said "no thank you for coming to our clinic". I thought that was real nice. Anyway, I gave them a quick progress report on how well he's doing with the Rockin S Raised snaffle, and our trail ride last weekend. I told him I knew that we still had a long way to go, but the small progress I've already seen gives me high hopes for our future. Since I had a clinic to get to I told them I'd see them later in the day.
First up Bill Ormston, DVM out of Dallas Texas. Topic: Equine Gait Analysis - How to Determine if your horse is moving correctly and how Chiropractic can help. He basically started with a quick little lecture about how all movement begins with standing, and if one cannot stand efficiently, how can one walk efficiently? Them I kinda got a little lost with Gluten and glucose and how it fuels the muscles in the legs, etc. But in any event, he went on to talk about how in order for a horse to walk it uses all of its tendons, ligaments, mucles, joints and bones. The ribs, back, neck, head, tail, abs, legs, etc. etc. etc. and went on to talk about why we always have to address the whole horse. In most lameness cases that he sees, the actual injury is rarely in the legs, but in the pelvis, back, neck. shoulder. Like humans, horses compensate for injuries in other parts of their bodies. Joints: joints only get nutrients through movement. Its why vets will tell you when you're horse is diagnosed with arthritis that the best thing you can do is keep it moving. When working with arthritis in the joints, the only thing that can help the joint at that point is the use of antinflammatories and not necessarily in a drug format. There are lots of great natural products now on the market to help ease the pain. Glucosomine/Chrondrotin will only help the healthy joints; not those already damaged. Stress: This is the number one cause of insulin resistance in horses. When a horse stresses, it releases glucose into the bloodstream. When a horse is under continuous strees it releases corticosteroids which in turn keeps the glucose levels high in the bloodstream. High levels of glucose will continually release insulin into the bloodstream. One major cause of stress can be as simple as a horse standing in a stall that only has one exit or window. He said that because horses are prey animals they truly are always looking to see that they have "a way out". If a horse can mentally only flee in one direction, it can stress over it. He recommends that if people don't have a window in their stalls that they put one in. Just enough so the horse can see out. I thought this was extremely interesting. Bill then brought in two horses and had us watch as they walked and turned and then stood them square so we could try to determine if the horse was short striding and or looked out of whack. Both horses were short striding in the hind and sure enough when they were stood square you could see that their pelvis's were both out of alignment. Unfortunately he ran out of time so he didn't get to discuss how to find a qualified chiropractic doctor; and I didn't have time to go outside and watch him realign these two. Oh, he did mention that he never ever works on a horse inside or in a stall, as he wants the horse to mentally feel like its not trapped and to be able to move away from him rather than "over"him.
Next up Larry Whitesell: In Hand Work to Improve Gait - Improving Collection & Balance to Obtain Gait without losing Relaxation. Larry did an introductory chat about disspelling the myths of gaited horses - lots of stuff I knew so I won't go into here. Since its getting late, I'll post my notes and then come back and add thoughts.
- Once a hose learns to be balanced it will do the gait it is genetically bred to do...period
- Engagment of the hind end is the ultimate goal and without it, you don't have gait....period
- You want your horse to have a nice soft consistent bend: Nice easy lateral flexion in the axis/atlas only. STOP OVERFLEXING YOUR HORSE! When starting a horse its okay to ask them to flex back to your knee. HOWEVER, if you continue to do this over the years, your horse will learn to only flex the base of its neck.
- The key to relaxation is found in the axis/atlas. It's also where you find resistence and tension.
- You need to teach the horse to release their brace through the reins; recommends doing in hand ground work. Asking the horse for small releases from the bit; working shoulder in from the ground.
- Horses cannot rotate their pelvis and reach under themselves if their backs are inverted. It is virtually imposssible.
- Do not drill ground work. Only use it to teach balance and collection and to teach them to relax in the axis/atlas. (I do this by working in a square - four times in each direction).
- You have to get your horse past elementary school before you get him to college. If you're forever overflexing and repeating exercises used when first training the horse, you will never get your horse to college.
- When asking for your horse to walk off, you want them to walk off at the speed you want. You also want them to push off with their hind end. In order to do this, you need to ask them to lift their abs, which in turn engages the back rotates the pelvis and engages the hind legs. This one I’m a little on the fence about. Although you can get a horse to lift their abs by using your heel or a spur, you are only eliciting a reflex response for that brief moment as you walk off (think about when a doctor hits your knee with that rubber hammer) the horse lifts its back and walks off; however, the abs will then go back to where they were. In order for a horse to use its abdominal muscles properly, the horse needs to have a strong hind end with the ability to rotate its pelvis, which engages the abs and over time the abs get strong enough to fully engage the hindend. So although asking the horse to lift its abs isn’t a bad thing, it’s not what gets the abs working on a regular basis. Build the hind end and the rest will follow!
I truly enjoyed Larry & Jennifer. Larry has a good sense of humor and likes to engage his audience. He is on a mission to try and dispel all the gaited horse “myths”. I just hope those who do believe in all the garbage got the message. For those who follow Larry Whitesell and say they don’t do dressage? Think again. His riding principles and ground work are all based on classical dressage training.
In between clinics I did some shopping - mostly all for the G-man and stopped at some booths to talk to clinicians. One of my favorites was Rick Lamb, real nice guy. For some reason I expected him to be a little "lofty" lol. I bought his "Human to Horseman" on CD's so I can listen to it in the car while commuting and also a book for hubby (terrible, I forgot the name of it!).
After lunch which included sweet potato fries and fried oreos for desert...did someone say fried? ummm yummm I headed back in for some more clinics.
Next up was the Visible Horse with Susan Harris....Anatomy in Motion understanding the biomechanics of equine gaits. This was very cool. Not sure after seeing this if I'll ever put together my visible horse model that hubby bought me a few years ago (jeeze, I think I better do this). Here are pics of the model...tendons, ligaments and muscles on one side, bones and neck muscles on the other...
I was only able to watch 30 minutes of Larry Whitesell’s next clinic “Improving Your Gaited Horse with Work Under Saddle – Creating a Calmer, Safe Horse by Increasing Collection & Engagement. Larry truly is a man on a mission and he has a tendency to get a bit hung up on a topic – akin to a rat terrier with a rat in its mouth, lol. Since some people weren’t at the morning session, he tried to catch them all up to speed on the “myths” of gaited horses. No need for shanked bits; special shoes; feet on the dash board; seat pressing hard into the horses back, etc. etc. etc.
It was apparent that as he had promised in the morning, he and Jennifer had worked with the three riders as their horses were getting softer in the bridle, and yielding better. The Paso was really nice – she and her horse had worked with Larry at a clinic prior. The two Walkers (who seem to ride in these clinics every year) both were ewe necked, braced and couldn’t gait. Any time they were asked to gait, the black horse paced, and the white horse didn’t appear to change from a walk, lol. Sad in a way. Especially seeing that one takes dressage and the other has worked with Liz.
Next up Mark Rashid – Achieving Effortless Transitions: Understanding and Applying the Correct Aids. Had I not participated in his clinic recently, I may have left. He is very much like Liz Graves in a large format, in that he gets so involved with the rider/horse that he’s working with, that what he’s doing gets a little lost on the audience. He starts out strong, but once he gets going, if you don’t know firsthand what he’s doing you ask yourself “I don't get it”. A few people around me got up and left and I did hear them ask this question. But he did start talking about proper transitions and how the cadence of the horse’s footfalls is the key to getting them. He believes you need to always know where your horse’s feet are and when they’re ready to leave the ground. Why? Because this is when you ask a horse for a transition...when the foot is ready to leave the ground. Once in the air you cannot influence it’s movement. So how do you know? While riding your horse think about your inside leg and the horse’s rib cage. When your leg swings out the horse is bringing its inside leg up and forward, when your leg swings all the way back in, your horse is lifting its inside front leg up and forward. Mark’s way to remember it is simply IN FRONT – OUT BACK. Other ways to feel it, are in your hips. When your inside hip rises, the inside hind is coming up and forward. When the hip drops the outside front is coming up and forward.
For transitions it was all about feel. Mark asked the rider to count in her head the horse’s footfalls at the walk 1-2-3-4 as she went around the circle a couple of times. Then he asked her to start thinking 1-2, 1-2 for a trot transition. He asked her to feel the rhythm in herself and only ask with a leg cue if the horse didn’t pick up the trot. Sure enough, her horse picked up the trot. Then the canter, think 1-2-3 1-2-3 and only ask with a leg cue if the horse doesn’t pick it up. If you think the footfall beats and pretty much chant it inside your head, your body translates the rhythm to the horse. It was pretty cool. The rider couldn’t believe her horse was transitioning so well. Cassi, Marks wife, was working with the other ride at the other end of the arena as Mark worked – then they switched. So very much the same as at their 2 and 3 day clinics.
He did ask the audience if anyone had questions after each rider (they switched teams twice I think). I think if he would engage his audience a little more say like Larry Whitesell or John Lyons, he would have a bigger audience. But if he is like Liz (and I think he is) he's there to help the horse and rider so the audience is secondary.
Breathing is extremely important in the equation. You should always exhale on the transition. The exhale should last 5 strides, the inhale 4 strides. He recommends “The Breathing Book” by Donna Farhi.
When a horse starts to brace, please DO NOT PULL ON IT, DO NOT BRACE, DO NOT TRY TO SHUT DOWN THE HORSE. Begin working circles and serpentines, the more brace, the smaller the circles. Change the horse’s way of thinking. You want relaxation, not a horse bracing and/or standing still.
3 keys: Speed ~ Direction ~ Destination: If you don’t give it to your horse the horse will take it away from you.
I did pretty good as far as shopping went. For the most part everything I bought was for G’s benefit, not mine. I got a new beanbag bit warmer; peppermint molasses treats; Farrier’s Fix http://www.farriersfix.com/benefits.html ; Likit refills (almost gone already); Horseshoer’s Secret – got a good deal. For hubby I bought an Australian beeswax waterproofer for his boots and a book (ssshh that’s a Christmas present) and for me I bought a hunter orange helmet cover and ordered Mark Rashid’s new book Whole Heart, Whole Horse....they didn’t arrive before he left for the Expo so he’ll sign it and ship it to me; and Rick Lamb’s Human to Horseman on CDs.
Friday November 13, 2009
Today hubby was able to join me and it was nice to share the day together involved in something we both love....horses. We started out the morning by running to the Young Building to see Larry Whitesell at 9:30. As we arrived they were just coming into the arena. Larry started out by asking how many people had not been there on Thursday, and there were a lot of raised hands. So Larry repeated quite a bit of what he talked about on Thursday, as like I said he is on a mission to dispel all the myths of how you have to ride a gaited horse and all the special equipment you need to do it. Which was okay since Zeke wasn't with me on Thursday. Zeke enjoyed Larry, and appreciated his sense of humor. This morning they worked very briefly on getting the horses soft in the bridle from the ground and then began under saddle work. Jennifer was asked to gait her Paso around the arena and then perform shoulder in and haunches out. This grey Paso has amazing gaits and did these dressage moves beautifully. Here's Jennifer taking a minute to enjoy - doesn't her smile say it all?
Again I was disappointed in these two Walking Horses as they were both very braced. They did begin to soften as they were worked a bit. Larry asked the women to take their horses out to the rail and get them into a nice working walk. Then he asked them to gait. The black Paso went right into a nice gait, I think it was a Corto. The black Walker immediately started to pace, which in turn made the rider brace and bring him back down, and the white Walker never got out of the medium walk. Larry asked the black Walker team to work on going from the medium walk to its gait, and if it paced he said to allow him to for at least 5 strides or more and then calmly ask for him back to the medium walk. He said that many gaited riders are afraid to allow their horses to blow past their intermediate gaits so they shut them down. He said the unfortunate part about this is that you're telling the horse you want it to walk, not gait. If you are forever shutting it down when it speeds up, what does it tell the horse? It's like when you reinforce your go forward aid with a dressage whip and if your horse canters or speeds up faster than you like, you bring him down immediately. You want the horse to learn to go forward on cue. Why stop the horse from doing what you've asked it to do? Obviously you don't want your horse getting too strung out or working it for long in an inverted frame, but you do want forward with speed.
After working this a bit they started to get better, and the horse started to relax a bit more. She got him into a nice step pace here and there. The white walker? Well, he never came out of a medium walk....not even a good flat walk. I'm beginning to believe that people in the Northeast really have no clue and this is why Walkers in particular get a bad rap. I saw these two horses later in the breed demo, and with the addition of another horse that was not relaxed under saddle, with a very braced rider, they gave what I considered a poor demonstration. There were four horses in the demo that were wonderful and I can only hope that people saw the good, not the bad. To me, when you do a breed demo don't you want to showcase the best of the best? If a breed is supposed to be calm, relaxed and smooth, why put a horse in if it's not? Sorry I digress. That was about the extent of the Whitesell clinic this morning so we moved on.
We checked out some vendors and decided to go have lunch before the afternoon clinics. Rather than subject ourselves to the regular fair vendors we walked over to the Storrowtown Tavern; a 300 year old tavern that sits in the historical section of the Big E, which neither of us had ever been in. What a treat! It was a little on the pricey side, but the food was fantabulous! I had a chicken pot pie with the moistest largest chunks of chicken I've ever seen, with a perfectly flakey crust. Yum, I'm getting hungry just describing it. We'll definitely go back there as a treat. We want food ~ We want food....
We headed over to the Better Living Center, which is the largest of the Big E's buildings. We stopped at Mark Rashid's booth as I wanted to get some pictures since I wasn't able to capture any good ones in the coliseum and never got a chance to get a picture with him and Crissi in NH. Luckily they were there, as well as Timo (the NH clinic organizer) so we were able to accomplish one mission! Left to right, Mark, Crissi & Timo (the three amigos)
Then add me in the middle (the rest of the story will follow shortly I hope!)
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