You May Be Entitled To Compensation...

It has been a strange few weeks for me. The thought I keep having is that the days are too short. Not that time is going too quickly, but that each individual day does not allow the time I need to get all the things done that I want (and need) to do. Making pots, handling ponies, trimming hooves, doing laundry, keeping up with my online learning, keeping the wood fire going, cooking, reclaiming my long-neglected garden, buying feed and hay, filling hay nets, going to lessons, planning meals, exercising, ordering groceries...

I don't know if it is the shortness of the daylight hours, or my newly regained ability to get more than the bare essentials done on any given day. I find myself going from task to task, watching the clock, aware that anything not done by 4.30pm isn't getting done because at that time I have to light the fire, go out and do the evening feeds, and then head back inside to cook for whichever humans are in need of feeding.

I have a hard rule of not doing any 'work' after dinner, something I initiated years ago. It's there to preserve my sleep, and thus my energy levels, by allowing me a few hours of quiet time before bed. No laptop, no big lights, no exercise. There was a time when I would spend my evenings making bread, cheese, soap or whatever other concoction I was into at the time. A time when I was literally afraid to stop 'doing' in case I couldn't get started again.

I've been planning this particular blog post for weeks, but I haven't had time to write it. In that time I have been practicing and musing on gentle horsemanship and studying animal communication, around creating work for the two markets I am selling at next month. The weather has been sunny and pleasant, which is unusual for this far into Autumn, creating a 'make hay while the sun shines' sense of urgency around outdoor tasks.

Today it is cold and grey outside, although we still haven't had nearly enough rain. I've decided to declare it an 'inside' day and take some time to watch a couple of online lectures and organise my thoughts on the complexities of the equine body and the idea of traditional 'breaking-in' schedules.

A Foal Is Born...

A newborn foal might seem like a blank slate, but by the time that foal hits the ground there is already potential for its structural integrity to be compromised. Depending on the positioning in the womb it may have developed postural asymmetries. Further to this, research by Dr Ian Bidstrup has found that a high percentage of Thoroughbred foals suffer birth trauma including broken ribs and crushed withers. Being that most Thoroughbred foals are the result of closely supervised births to suitably-sized mares, there is a good chance that birth trauma occurs in similar rates in other light horse breeds. Isolated cases where heavy horse stallions were bred to smaller mares have shown extensive skeletal issues from birth trauma. These findings also pop up in situations where a foal was healthy but unusually large and required quite a bit of assistance to be born.

So if you are lucky you have a fairly balanced foal at birth. But maybe the mare only lets him feed from one side, so he develops a stance that is moulded by this asymmetry. Maybe he is just better at finding the udder from a particular angle, so he favours that side for his own reasons. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

Then maybe your foal chips a hoof, or gets a gumnut caught in his frog, and spends a bit of time walking slightly differently due to the imbalance. Then maybe he gets a fright during his halter training and pulls back on the lead. Maybe he plays a bit hard one day and crashes into another horse, causing a muscle issue. Maybe he gets adhesions around his castration site.

A horse is designed to keep moving, no matter what. The equine body is a masterclass in finding a way, working around a problem, doing whatever it takes to keep that horse mobile. Whatever works, it will lean into. Over time, a tiny compensation can become the thing that keeps the whole system functional. To a point where ‘fixing’ that compensation can lead to catastrophe.

This is where one issue splits into two – long-term soundness and the capacity for ‘rehabilitation’, and the ‘breaking in’ process. I’ll start at the start.

45 Minutes

Quite a long time ago I was lucky to be introduced to what was then cutting-edge horsemanship by a very well-known horseman. He stated that it was possible to take a horse from unhandled to cantering under saddle in 45 minutes if your schedule of reinforcement was effective enough. I don’t know whether he still endorses that point of view, but I have thought about it a lot over the years.

I ‘broke in’ my first horse in 1997. She belonged to a classmate and was an Arabian-bred tobiano filly, assigned to me as I was one of the more lightweight riders in the course. From memory she was not yet two years old. We didn’t do a lot of fast work, but cantering on both leads was part of the assessment. She was not the only very young horse I started or rode in those early days. Who among us, indeed.

The ‘Breaking-In School’ went for six weeks. This was deemed sufficient time for a fairly mixed group of students to start client horses for free. Some horses belonged to other students. Some were from a local racing stable. Two riders had bad falls from their breakers. It all seemed fairly nice and gentle at the time, our course leader was a beloved local riding school owner and pony club instructor. But it was very much a time where all young horses were assumed to be sound and behavioural glitches were a result of poor training rather than any possibility of a physical issue.

The idea that starting a horse under saddle should happen within a set time frame and follow a set program is one that endures, and I can definitely see the appeal. Even if you are a compassionate trainer, your clients will probably want to know up-front what it’s going to cost them to have their baby turned into a riding horse. There is a mystique around ‘breaking-in’ and a perceived element of danger. You send your horse to an experienced crash test dummy to make sure you’re not the one hitting the deck if the first rides don’t go to plan, because in theory they have the skills to prevent the horse from trying to throw them off or at least the skills to stay on until the horse is tired of fighting.

An evolving theory is that preparing a horse for riding starts from the day you first put your hand on it. That if your foal is intended to be a riding horse, every lesson is preparation for riding. That part of the process of turning your baby into a riding horse is the development of your relationship, and this starts from day one.

I was listening to a podcast recently where one of the speakers said ‘you don’t send your husband to another woman to ‘fix him’ if you are having problems in your relationship, why would you send your horse away to a trainer to ‘fix’ the problems in your relationship with them?’.

For me, if you are not confident doing it yourself, starting a horse with the help of a skilled ‘therapist’ (coach/instructor) is the key to building relationship, building skills, and taking accountability for the horse’s mindset and safety in the training. It will probably take a lot longer than six weeks, but you’ll be well established as a partnership by the end of it.

The Body Keeps Score

There are two very important things that are common in the horse world these days that were barely heard of in 1997 – bodywork, and saddles that fit.

I remember a fellow rider expressing her disdain at another rider who had spent thousands on a saddle for her horse, saying she would never spend that much on a saddle because ‘I’m only asking for an hour out of my horse’s day, it can cope with whatever saddle I put on it’. She was a successful rider, competing at a much higher level than I was, and she didn’t believe in saddle fit.

Horse massage was for hippies with more dollars than sense. As a rider in my 20s who competed on ponies, ‘treeless and shoeless’ in my short boots, I was already ahead of my time. My hoof trimmer at that point was also a bodyworker, whose ‘laying on hands’ introduced me to the benefits of this kind of work in horses.

At that time the knowledge of how easily compensating movement patterns can be prompted, and that we can use those same tendencies to guide horses to a better way of going was several leaps of thought away.

But here’s the thing – even young horses who have never been ridden can have dysfunctional movement patterns and compensations. And even a ‘sound’ and mature horse needs physical preparation before it is asked to carry a rider. There isn’t really a way to fit this preparation into a six week ‘breaking-in’ program.

It’s easy to see a horse move every day and not see the subtle signs of compensation in the movement. The unusually high or low head carriage. The slight drag in the toe or tendency to trip over a particular limb. The crooked tail, the reluctance to canter, the slight delay in the movement, these can all be seen in the paddock. It takes a little while to get your eye in, and let’s face it, we all want to see our horses as sound. But the signs will be there.

Some horses will hop around a tight joint for years and never complain about it. Others will go along to get along until one day they can’t do it anymore. We need to be honest about what our horses are telling us because in a lot of cases there is plenty we can do to make things easier for them and safer for us.

When In Doubt, Just Ask

A good bodyworker can reveal a myriad of issues in what looks like a ‘perfectly fine’ horse, and an experienced set of eyes and hands is a great place to start your troubleshooting. Techniques like body mapping or simply asking the horse to tell you where it wants you to touch it can tell you a lot. Watching for signs of pain and tension, performing basic bodywork moves that you can find online, and being open to what your horse is telling you can get you a long way. Most horses can be helped with these techniques, and a lot can be made more comfortable for riding.

Don’t assume that your horse is fine unless you have made an effort to prove your assumption. Don’t assume your horse is fine if he is telling you that he is not. Don’t assume your horse is fine because he has had bodywork done or the vet/farrier can’t find a problem. A horse is a big animal, and there is a lot of room for things to go wrong way below the surface. A soreness in one area can indicate a problem in another. The systems all work together and support each other, just not always in a way that is conducive to carrying a rider.

By now you might be thinking, oh great, the chances of my horse making it to this age without picking up a problem are pretty much zero, why even bother trying to ride when he’s probably a big cripple?

Here’s the good news. It’s relatively easy to encourage healthy, functional movement if the problem that created the original compensation has resolved. For example, exercises encouraging lateral movement of the shoulders can improve thoracic sling function and strengthen the forehand. Encouraging relaxation in the brachiocephalicus and engaging the trapezius can improve function in the neck and strengthen the topline. You’ll need to go looking, but there are plenty of resources and people who can help.

A lot of the time the body just needs a reminder. Something as basic as allowing freedom of movement in a large paddock with company and varied terrain can encourage healthy movement. Gently bringing awareness to different muscles through touch and encouraging relaxation can be enough to initiate change. Classical dressage exercises are great for strengthening the body and improving posture.

If the worst happens and you find a big problem, something that may have always been there or that can’t be resolved, then at least you know and you can make a decision about your horse’s future welfare. This has to be better than pushing on with ‘training’ and riding a horse in pain.

Former racehorse rehabber turned horse dissectionist Becks Nairn says that in her experience, if a horse can be effectively rehabilitated the improvement will persist through a break in training. If a month or two in the paddock takes a rehab case back to square one it probably has an underlying problem that can't be fixed. On the flip side of this, I have seen horses continue to improve in the paddock for months after a period of fairly intense rehab work followed up by nothing but an appropriate diet, regular hoof trims and plenty of movement.

Much like looking after our own health, managing a riding horse is a job that is never 'finished'. By listening and learning we can elevate our experience, and theirs, and tip the scales in our favour for a successful partnership and a happy horse.

My first 'breaker', Amy, in 1997. I might not be jumping on unstarted Arabians these days, but I've come a long way.