Thoughts on - Bravery and the single Mum

The last time I rode a cross country course, I was about six weeks pregnant.  My gorgeous girl is now 6 months, so that was quite a while ago!

An instructor friend of mine said he was taking a group out to Kooralbyn to do some cross country.  He said some of them were beginners and they wanted to work on their seat and do some of the intro jumps and maybe some prelim stuff and would I like to come and take some of them.  Since I am still new to coaching, I only have a small client base and thought I would have a few of my students come along, and take my two competitive horses along.

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So off I went, two horses in tow, all the way out to Kooralbyn for the weekend.

Now, as I said, it was quite a long time ago that I actually rode a cross country, and, I had upgraded my horse, who usually jumps big, and she hooted over the brush about two foot higher than necessary, and, I simply cant jump that big! so, I fell off.  And, got carted off by the ambos.....  I was fine, bit stiff and sore, a few bruises and such, but not too bad really.  Scared myself silly, since I had only found out I was pregnant days before.

Of course, I forgot about all this in my planning to go to Kooralbyn.

I even scoffed at myself when I got butterflies coming over the last few rises before you pull into Kooralbyn.  I told everyone how I must be reacting like Pavlov's dogs, because I felt like I was coming to a comp, where I always got butterflies over those two hills.

I got on my horse, lovely girl that she is.  She never refuses, always jumps clear, and she is just a really lovely ride.

My group was all saddled up and we were ready to go.  We walked over to the course, did a bit of a warm up, and they all popped over the pre-intro, the intro, and a couple did the pre-lim pipes.  They did really well, I smiled at the couple that had that look in their eyes, you know the one, the OMG can I REALLY do this? Really? are you SURE?  and over they went any way, so brave :)



                                                                  Sarah and Bizzy (That horse can JUMP)

Once they had all had their turns, and were ready to move on to the next, I popped my girl into canter and cantered into the first jump.  OMG, three strides out, and then, they kicked in.  Those butterflies were back.  Thank god for my horse, or I would have stopped at the first little pipe!  "Don't be silly", I thought, and round I went and came into the next size up.  Again! there they were again!  those sneaky little butterflies!

                                                                          Kelly and Sky



By the next set of jumps, I was starting to feel worried, what am I going to do?  I don't know if I can actually do this anymore!  and I'm trying to show these students how to do it!  I pushed on, and jumped a few more, but ended the day really feeling a bit disappointed in myself.  I always used to get scared prior to competing, but, now that I have kids, and a baby, the fear is nearly overwhelming.  Its amazing the amount of disastrous thoughts that can go through your mind in two strides.  Thoughts of children growing up without their mother, or not being able to see them while I recover in hospital . . . . . .  gosh it is terrifying.




The next day, I rode my other horse, he is a lower level horse, who is not as trustworthy as my mare, but he is still capable of jumping more than what i was going to face him to.  Most of my students had only been there for the first day, so I only had one with me, and her Mum on another horse as camera girl.  I am glad for that, because I know them quite well, and was quite comfortable to let them know that I was scared!                                                                                                                                                        


                                             Kelly and Mocha
                                                                      

Bronte and Sky

He turned out more trustworthy than I remember, didn't stop once :) even though the first time at each jump, I am sure I must have looked awful, by the third go, it was feeling great again.



So, we did ok that day, I felt better by the end, but definitely need a few more runs before we go off to a comp again.  Just jump it, and jump it, and jump it, and jump it, until . .  the butterflies are dead, and my wings have returned.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Nelson Mandela

The reason for it all :)

Improve your horse riding - sensitising vs desensitising

Whenever you are in contact with your horse, you are teaching him something.  This may be consciously, or unconsciously.  He might be learning that he can rub his nose on you when he likes, or, that if he stomps his foot you feed him, or, that if he puts his head down low you will stop pulling on his leadrope.  Some things we want to teach him, some things we dont realise we have, until it gets out of hand.

You may not know it, but letting your horse rub against you when he feels like it, tells him that he is in charge of your personal space.  Over time, it will turn into giving you a shove, pushing in front of you when you are trying to lead him, barging you to get to his food, and will end up with a horse who does not respect you as the "herd leader".

I often find people are sensitising, when they want to be desensitising, and desensitising when they want to be sensitising.

Sensitising - is when you want your horse to respond to a stimulus.  eg, move off the leg.

Desensitising - when you want the horse not to respond to a stimulus, eg fiddling about his head to get the bridle on.

How can we get this wrong?

Horses are fast learners.  You may think you are doing one thing, when in fact, the horse sees something different.

To sensitise a horse, you give a stimulus, then stop when you get a response, that is his reward.  To desensitise, you give a stimulus, and KEEP giving it till the horse STOPS responding, then you stop, that is his reward.

To use the above examples, if I want my horse to be sensitive to the leg, then I need to use it and increase the intensity till a response happens. As SOON as a response is given, preferably at the same time as the response is given, then STOP using the leg.  It is very easy to find your self kick kick kicking with your leg if your horse is lazy, or doesnt move forward easily.

However, this is the worst thing you can do.  If you kick, and kick , and kick and kick, and get no response or little response, then give up because your legs are tired, then your horse has become or is becoming,  desensitised, not sensitised.  The more you keep doing it, the more desensitised he will become.

If you are going over a jump, and you tap on the shoulder with the whip every time, regardless of what the horse was doing, then, your horse will stop having a response to the whip at all, and you will need to find another way of making your horse go forward.  If not, you will end up with a horse that gets slower and slower and slower, and eventually becomes a "stopper".  They really are not a "stopper" but they have been so desensitised, there is no longer a forward response.

A horse like this can be retrained, but it takes good timing, and an understanding of how to re-sensitise the horse to your forward aids.  

An example of sensitising when you want to desensitise, is the horse that is difficult to bridle.  You try and put the bridle on, the horse moves his head up slightly, you may not even have noticed, but you bring the bridle down to re-arrange it.  The second time, he takes his head a little higher, and you turn to your friend and say something, not realising, you moved the bridle away again.

Now his head is high enough you have to stand on your tip toes, and he moves his head slightly, you get off balance, and again, drop the bridle.  you have now taught your horse to put his head up when you want to put his bridle on.  This is a difficult one if you have a tall horse, because he will always win, you have rewarded him for putting his head up.

Once this has happened, you HAVE to follow him, no matter how high his head goes, CONSISTENTLY, to teach him that you will quit once the bridle is on, and not before.  Once a horse has had a few wins like this, it will take a while to retrain, and every time you get lazy and let him move his head up without following it, you will reinforce the bad behaviour.

When you are teaching your horse, which is all the time, think about what you are trying to do, what is the behaviour you want to reward?  Can you think of other situations and work out whether you want to sensitise or desensitise? How would you do that?  Here are a few to think about
* washing his face
* picking up his feet
* pulling his mane
* walking past barking dogs
* going through water

Have a think about each one, are you trying to get a response or stop a response?  So, would you keep giving the stimulus? or give it once and stop as soon as there is a response?

Then, pick something you have trouble with, and practice it. You might be surprised how fast you can change a behaviour.

Kids Corner - Sitting Pretty with Kelly Tombs and Colleen Kelly

As seen in the "Local Horse" magazines

Sitting Pretty!
Improve the way you sit with these 10 fun points….
By Colleen Kelly and Kelly Tombs

So you want to learn how to ride?  There are many things to learn, and the learning never stops.  Even when you have been riding for twenty years, you will still feel like you have more to learn. 

When you are getting started, there are a number of things that are key points for success.  If you can get these basics under control, you will have a lifetime of enjoyable and most importantly SAFE riding ahead. 

If you have ever been to a trail riding school where you hire a horse for an hour, they have probably taught you to kick to go, pull the reins to stop, pull his head to go left, and pull his head to go right.  When you have your own horse, or a horse you ride regularly, there is a much easier and kinder way to communicate to your horse what it is that you want. 

These basics are things you can work on and get better at no matter what level you ride.  Even a Grand Prix dressage rider can improve their balance, and many include these types of exercises in their riding routine everyday. 

Lets look at the top ten points you can work on.

How to hold the reins
How do you hold the reins?  Do you hold them like you are playing a piano? Or like you are carrying a cup of hot chocolate – with your thumbs on top?

The rein should be gripped between your thumb and the second finger, quite firmly, so it doesn’t slip through your hand.  It should run down through your hand, and out between your little finger and your 4th finger.

And…make sure your little fingers aren’t open and point out, or you could hurt them!

How to Turn
Turning is actually much easier than you may realise.  Horses have a really good sense of where you are, and are very much affected by little movements in your body.  Try for yourself, walking at a nice march, then, rather than pulling on the rein to turn, just look where you want to go. 

If you want to turn right, look over to your right.  Exaggerate it if you don’t get a response straight away, turning your shoulders as well.   It’s very important not just to pull on that inside rein!

How to sit
Why don’t you get one of your friends on the ground to help you out here!   Ask them to have a look at your belt and make sure it’s level to the ground.

It’s important that your tailbone feels pretty heavy.   Leaning back or leaning forward can be quite dangerous.
Have a look at your helmet, and make sure it looks level to the horizon.  

Shoulders
It’s so hard to know if your shoulders are level!   So, let’s just forget about it!  It’s much easier instead to concentrate on your elbows and make sure your elbows are level to the ground.  It’s so much easier than trying to get your shoulders level. 

A great way to improve all of your upper body is to pretend to lift someone or something onto the horse.  With the sport of vaulting (gymnastics on horseback) we lift other riders onto the horse, this is amazing for fixing your posture, especially your shoulders!

Feet straight
Keeping your feet straight keeps the horse straight.  Imagine you’ve got skis on your feet, and you need to keep them level and straight.   Or, you can imagine that you’re a push bike rider, and that the stirrups need to be on the balls of your feet.   This will become more and more important as you do advanced sideways work, as the advanced riders help their horse go sideways by pressing on that stirrup a little.

Leaning forward
Leaning forward might be OK in jumping (so long as your heels are down), but if the horse stops suddenly you can get flung forward!   A great tip is to learn to stand up in the stirrups.   Standing up FULLY straight up and down, just like you would when you’re standing on the ground.

And, make sure your toes don’t point out.   If you’ve seen people point their toes out, then have a look at the top eventers.  They sure don’t point their toes out, or their spurs would be on all the time.  Turning your toes out makes you lean forward even more.

Level seat bones
Are you a bit confused about where your seat bones are?  You are not alone! 

If you know where your tailbone is, and you know where you pubic bone is, then there are also the other bones that you sit on, on the left and right.

If you want to know if they are level, imagine you are wearing a belt.  Is the belt level from back to front, and left and right.

If your seat bones were torches, where would they point?  Would they point down to the ground? They should! Or would they be shooting out behind you?  When you are on a circle where would they point? Would they point down or would they be blinding the horse in the paddock next door? 

It is interesting once you become aware of these, how much you can improve your riding by fixing this alone.

Bent elbows
Ever been told to keep your hands still?  Well to help that happen you need to learn to have soft, loose elbows.   A great exercise is to sometimes do rising trot holding the saddle. That will help your elbows move, and keep your hands still.   But make sure you’re safe when you do it!

See what your chest does to the horse
Try this out…walk your horse around and drop your chest, sitting sort of “lazy and slumped”.  You’ll soon feel the horse’s two front feet get heavier than the two back ones.   Then raise your chest again, and you’ll feel the two back feet get heavier.   It’s amazing!   When weight is on the two front feet it’s called “on the forehand”.  When weight is more on the back feet it’s called “engaged”.   Engaged is good…on the forehand is bad.  And you can so easily fix it by seeing how much your chest affects the horse!

10 Clean your teeth on one foot.

Last by not least, and exercise you can do every night.  Clean your teeth standing on one foot with the other foot out in front of you!  It’s an exercise that’s come from the very best people in the world to help with your balance.  And the trainer that trained the United States Dressage Federation Horse of the Year does it every morning and every night…so why not try it?

Good Luck, and enjoy your riding.  Come and watch some of the clinics coming up in your area! J

Colleen Kelly and Kelly Tombs are both Official Trainers with the International Society of Rider Biomechanics. Kelly is based on the Gold Coast and Colleen conducts clinics Worldwide. You can follow them on www.facebook.com/colleenkellyriderbiomechanics and www.facebook.com/postureseatbalance .   Pics by Charlotte Reeves Photography www.charlottereeves.com.au

Improve your horseriding - Clinic Gold Coast

Thoughts on - sitting trot

Sitting trot is often one of those things that takes years to master, and everyone has a different idea about how to make it easier.

I had an interesting experience just before i stopped riding with my pregnancy.  I headed off to my last dressage comp and thought I may as well give my prelim horse a start at novice and see how he goes.  It is a local club, that is pretty low key, so is a great place to bring on horses without too much pressure.  

My mare is lovely and has been competing at the levels that require sitting trot for a while, and she is easy to ride, nice and forward, so I just need to keep her rhythm, suppleness, make sure her back is lifting, and she is looking for the contact, and it all comes together well.   My gelding, (the prelim horse) always gets better marks than her, has much better movement than her, but really doesn't move as correctly as her.

Somehow it slipped my mind that I needed to do sit trot at novice, which I had never really practiced on him.  Two days before the competition,  I thought I better give it a go.  

He has much bigger movement than my mare, and I knew it was going to be harder because he is not a very forward horse, and so I have to concentrate on getting him to be responsive and forward first.  After running through the test a couple of times, I realised this was not going to be easy.  I went through all the different "tricks" that I had to try to make sitting trot easier, but it was not happening at all.  This was compounded by the fact that I had a little belly, and my tummy muscles had already started to relax due to the pregnancy.  I was starting to wonder if I should bother at all.  I was bouncing all over the place, feeling like I was going to fall off, his ears keep going back, and he kept coming back to walk.  

If it wasn't my last comp, I think I would have withdrawn him, we were that bad.  

Competition day came, and we did a lovely prelim test, my mare's tests went nicely, and his novice test was our last ride of the day.  We warmed up, I am sure my sit trot got worse and worse as we went, then we got delayed into the ring for some reason, so I had to wait, and re-do the final parts of my warm up again about fifteen minutes later.  I was starting to get very worried, and quite self conscious that people might be looking at me bouncing all over my horse. 

Finally we went into the ring . . . I was thinking, "we just need to make it to canter, canter is good, just make it to canter, we can do it".  The trot part of the test felt like it went forever, going from walk back to trot felt terrible because he is so sluggish, and I needed to push push push, which puts me off balance and makes my sit trot worse.  I am trying to do tiny little rises every now and again to get my balance back, I am sure the judge wants to tell me to get off.  I finally come down the centre line to halt, with a big sigh of relief, and I give the judge a look of "OMG! I am soo sorry you had to watch that, I promise to be better next time".  

I go out to my friends who all say "that was great" and I am sure they are lying, yeah right, that was so bad, I am so embarrassed.

So, while I began this post wanting it to be "tips for how to improve your sitting trot" I just don't think I have enough of a hang of it to advise you, dear reader.  If I only had one horse, and it was my mare, I would feel completely confident explaining to you how to do it, because I feel great on her.  However, then I get on him, and feel like a completely useless sack of potatoes.

I can however, give you a couple of the ideas that I have used with success, and a promise that as I improve my own sit trot, I will keep you updated with any more insight I gain.

Having just started to ride again, bub is now 9 weeks old, i began my "improve my sit trot on the boy" plan on Thursday.  This is how my plan goes . .

1. warm up at walk, make sure I have rhythm,  then start to do small circles, bending, keeping forward an rhythm through the change of direction and circle size.   This will supple the horse, and cause the horse to come into the contact.

2. warm up rising trot, using shortening and lengthening rein, keeping rhythm throughout the changes, stretching and building on suppleness, and asking the horse to look for contact.

3. Shorten and lengthen strides.

3.  Either leg yielding on a straight line/circle or, turn on forehand/ turn on the haunches

4. once I have a supple back that is lifting, then I can start working on my sit trot.  If the horses back is not lifting, it is difficult for me, and painful for the horse.

5. I start by sitting for three strides, then back to rising.  Sometimes I will stand in the stirrups for half a circle, to make sure my weight is in the stirrups properly, then back to sitting for three strides.  Throughout the time I am making sure my thumbs are on top, my elbows are at my sides, and my thumbs are even as are his ears.

One of the key things with getting your three strides right, is to lead with your belly button.  If you are leading with your belly button and your heel is the lowest point, your thumbs are on top, then you just need to develop the strength to go for longer.

Once you can do your three strides, WITHOUT THE HORSES TROT CHANGING RHYTHM then you can move on to more strides.  Just add an extra stride in, then another then another.  Don't rush it, it is more important to keep your rhythm than go for longer.

There really is no point just banging around on his back for ever and ever.  He must develop the strength to maintain it, and that begins with rhythm, suppleness and contact.

For me right now, I have to build on my own strength, only doing short periods of sit trot, and slowly building it up.

In saying all that, in his novice test, he came fourth, so it can't have been as bad as it felt, perhaps it was just because I was not fit enough . . . .

Update on Sitting Trot - 26/2/11

I had a couple of lessons the other day with David Quick.  One of the things I wanted to work on was my sitting trot, find out if it was me or the horse causing the problem.  So, I showed him what we were doing, felt like I might all off, and he said it was fine.... hmm.  Apparently my sitting trot actually looks far better than it feels.  One of the things he did point out however, was that Mocha is extremely lazy, and I am constantly battling my instinct to nag nag nag with my leg.

He encouraged me to try out some spurs, which I was very wary of, because I feel like my legs are not still enough to use them correctly.  He gave me some great advice on how to use them effectively, and all of a sudden, Mocha was a MUCH easier ride.  I was able to sit still, and think of my legs as separate from my seat quite easily, rather than finding myself doing the push push push with the seat and the tap tap tap with the leg, and getting slower and sloower and sloooower . .  

While I am still of the belief that I just need to do more training on "forward", it certainly makes it a lot easier having the little bit extra "back up" aid.

I have also been using some of the visualisations I discovered in the "posture release imagery" site I found the other day.  It makes it a lot easier to get your body to do what you want without being forced.  Something to do with the language of your subconscious being pictorial.  Anyway, I will be doing a post on that stuff soon.

Between developing a better "forward" button, getting better at visualising, and practicing a little at a time, is really helping.  Just keep in mind, the most important thing, is to first have RHYTHM, that makes everything else easier.  Without rhythm, you cannot move onto the next steps of the training scale, this is the same whether it is dressage, jumping, or just wanting to ride in better balance with your horse.

A friend was kind enough to film my novice test the other day, which meant I got to see my sitting trot for myself.  Now, coming into the test, I was again feeling like I shouldn't be there.  The first half of it felt terrible, but by the second half it came together.  We got some very good marks, and finished up well, however,  I was concentrating so hard on not bouncing around all over the place I did have an error of course.  Bummer.

Watching the video back was very interesting, it certainly reminded me of why I love my horse so much, he is super gorgeous, and, I don't look as bad as I feel.  Which is nice to know :) Maybe I can relax a bit more next time, which may even make it easier too.

Happy riding everyone!

Personal Horse Story - The story of Scooter and why I chose "Save a Horse Australia" as a charity

You have probably seen a lot of the fuss at the moment about the sale of horsemeat for human consumption.  This industry is an awful industry, and the cruelty to horses is unbelievable to say the least.  I recently posted a petition on my FB wall against the sale of horsemeat for human consumption, which prompted someone to ask "who would sell their best mate and work mate for meat?"

This is a very logical question, as I am sure no-one who is a horse lover would intentionally sell their horse for human consumption, however, from personal experience I do know it can happen by accident.

It is for this reason that I would like to share with you the story of "Scooter".

Scooter was one of my first horses, those of you who have read a little bit about me may remember my first horse "Caddillac" (yes DD) who was a polo cross horse, and threw me at every opportunity.  Well, when I was living in Wagga and studying Equine Science, one of the jobs I did for work experience for my degree was driving Pacers.

I loved this job, if you have never driven one, try and find a way to have a go one day.  It is one of the biggest adrenalin rushes I have ever experienced.  You are so close to the ground, and right behind the horse watching the power of their hind end, you really get to see how fast and how powerful these amazing creatures are.  I was lucky enough to drive on the actual track a couple of times, including one time with an older horse who actually held the track record, and he really let fly!  (I wasn't supposed to do that, it was an accident)

The trainer I worked for was a good friend of mine's (Whitey if you are out there :) Uncle.  They treated their horses well, and always tried to find a good home for them when they had finished racing.  One day Whitey rang me and told me that "Scooter" was ready to finish up, and did I want him?  Of course I did!

I took on Scooter, I can't remember how old he was, but not very, and of course he had not been broken to saddle.  So, that was my first project.  I had never broken in a horse before, so it was a great opportunity to learn on a horse that was dead quiet, and already used to lots of gear.  It didn't take long at all, and within about a week, I was riding him around the paddock.  He was a really kind natured horse, and soon enough I was taking him on trail rides, up and down steep hills, over small jumps, through creeks and easily traversing anything I put to him.

I had not had him very long when I decided to move to Queensland, maybe three months or so.  Moving to Queensland is not a cheap exercise, and moving two horses just was not financially possible for me.  I had to make the decision to sell one of them, and Scooter being the newest and easiest to sell I decided to sell him.

I put an ad in the paper, and had two or three people come out to see him.  Two people wanted to buy him, one was a young girl who wanted him as her first big horse, and the other was an older gentleman who had been leasing a horse but had to give him back soon.

The girl was lovely, but, as we all know, green horse green rider is not really the best mix.  The old bloke came out for a ride with me, took him up through the forest, up the hills, through the stream, over the logs and showed me that he rode very well, and Scooter was quite happy to do everything asked of him.  During the ride he told me all about the Paint horse he had been leasing, and how the owners wanted to take him back, and how he was devastated because he was his company since his wife had passed away a year earlier.  He even took me to see the Paint, because I wanted to see what condition it was in, if it was well looked after etc, and I wanted to feel confident that he would be a good owner for Scooter.

He also told me that he was on a pension, and wouldn't be able to pay the $500 I was asking, but he could pay him off at $50 a fortnight.  A good home for Scooter was far more important to me than the money, so I agreed to that, on the condition that he would feed and agist both horses for me for about four weeks while I went to Queensland to find somewhere to live, and a place to take Caddillac to.  I was very happy with the arrangement, because it meant I could go with no worry about what to do with Caddy while I was away as well.

So, a week later I left for Queensland, and had a relaxing holiday, as well as finding somewhere for my girl to live.  I found a great pony club that had facilities, as well as stables etc, applied and was accepted that I could bring her up there.  It was about August/ September at this time.

When I came back to Wagga to pack and get organised I went to see Caddy.  She wasn't there, and neither was Scooter.  As you can imagine, I started to panic.  I drove to where the Paint horse had been, and he was not there either.  By this time I was in such a state, I did not know what to do.  A friend of mine offered to take me out the see the local "Horse Dealer/dogger" to see if he knew anything.  It had never occurred to me that these people even existed, naive as I was.

We drove out to the dealers place, and there sitting on the back of a truck smoking a "rollie"  was the old guy I had sold Scooter to.  I was freaking out completely, charged up and demanded to know where the hell Caddillac was?  He told me to settle down, and stop freaking out, and told me where she was.  He said he had moved here because he found somewhere cheaper to keep her.  It did not occur to me to ask if Scooter was there as well, I just assumed.

We drove to the address he had given me, which was a paddock that backed onto a house about 500m away.  I could see Caddy, she was still in her winter rug, even though it was the middle of the day and getting close to 30 degrees.  Again my level of panic started to rise as I looked around the paddock and realised there was no grass at all.  It was all weeds.  As we were walking up to her, a car screeched up beside us, a lady got out and started hurling abuse at me!  How dare I abandon that horse in her paddock!  The horse has been starving and never has it's rug off and she has been throwing her bits of hay!  I could not understand what was happening?

I pulled her rug off, and could not believe what I saw.  Caddillac was now a bag of bones, her coat was dull and matted, with bits missing out of it where the rug had rubbed her raw.  I will dig out the photos and add them in here later.  I also took numerous photos of the ground, to show there was no grass at all.  She was literally starving to death.

It dawned on me to wonder what had happened to Scooter.  We went back to the horse dealers place and confronted the old bloke.  He told me it was none of my business as he owned the horse and could do with him what he liked, he had been making his payments and there was nothing I could do about it.

After doing some research, I found out that the Japanese market for horsemeat was booming at this particular time, and the average horse was being sold for about $1000 for meat, so he had doubled his money.

I went to legal aid, I tried to file a claim against him, stating that he had defrauded me, that there was cruelty to Caddillac, and tried every angle I could think of.  At the end of the day, I had nothing in writing regarding Caddy, and he owned Scooter, so bad luck.  He had no obligation to keep Scooter, nor to disclose to me what he had done with him.  As long as he kept up his payments, there was nothing I could do.

The lovely lady who owned the paddock where Caddillac had been dumped, luckily agreed to feed her up for a couple of weeks so she would be strong enough for the truck trip up to QLD.  I am so grateful to her, that she fed and cared for Caddy in those couple of weeks before she was well enough to come up on the truck.

When she arrived at the Pony club, she was a mess.  It still took another couple of weeks before she looked anything like herself, and she never quite fully recovered. I wonder if the stress and anxiety of the situation ever left her completely.

As for Scooter, I can't imagine how he must have felt.  He was such a trusting gentle horse, and it would have been terrifying for him.  One of the classes I took involved dissection of horse legs, which were purchased from the knackery.  I have seen exactly what damage these horses are subjected to when they are taken to the knackery.  Their legs are covered in bruises and cuts, some of them would be lucky to be still walking by the time they are killed.

Please take the advice of the lady who asked the question "who would sell their best mate for meat".  Please make sure you are certain where they are going, and please do your best to ensure they will be loved and looked after.

The "Save a Horse Australia" horse rescue and sanctuary do a great job of placing horses into "forever" homes.  They ensure that if the horse is no longer wanted, or is unable to be kept, that it comes back to them and a new home will be found.  They do an amazing job, please sign the petition, and please support horse rescues all over the country.

Improve your horse riding - shoulders back

How many of you find it easy to keep your shoulders back?  For some people it is easy and natural, they don't have to think about it, but for the majority of us, it is something we have to work on and train our bodies to do.

One of the things that makes us lean forward and round our shoulders is fear.  When we are nervous or scared, often our first response is to lean forward, grip with our knees and grab the neck.  If you watch people riding for the very first time, no matter what age they are, they will spend a lot of time crouched forward, and you need to convince them to relax and sit up straight.

Only a few weeks ago I was giving a lesson to a new student, and the horses in the paddock next door decided to have a big gallop around.  It was a very windy day, and the girl's horse started to put it's tail up, go into a lovely piaff but with his nose in the air and generally pay no attention to the rider whatsoever!  Her first reaction was to lean forward, grab on to his neck, grip with her knees (heels come up), and look scared (it was also her first ride on this particular horse, although she is a fairly experienced rider, she had no knowledge of how this horse would react).

I tried to explain the "emergency stop" fast, but of course, as soon as we are scared, it is very hard to change your bodies automatic reactions, and also to actually listen to instructions.  Your brain goes into "reptilian brain" which is instinctive and reactive, rather than logical.

The problem with this is, that if you try your emergency stop and you are leaning forward, looking down, and your heels are up, YOU WILL FALL OFF!  It is VERY important that you look up, push your heels down and even a little forward and lean back slightly.  Test it! get someone to try and pull you off your horse, try it with your heels up vs down, shoulders slumped vs chest up.

So how do you change your fear response?  Changing an instinctive response is not an easy thing to do. It takes awareness, time, and practice practice practice.  Please read "thoughts on unconscious incompetence" for more information as to how to bring things into your awareness.

Have I gone way off track?  What were we talking about again? that's right! Shoulders back :)  ok, so the reason I brought all that up, is because I want you to start thinking about how that response feels to the horse.  The horse is a prey animal, we are a predator.  Often times this fear reaction happens when the horse is scared too, then we clamp on to his neck and throw our weight forward, do you think this makes the horse feel more or less scared?  I think it is the Parelli people who talk about this in further detail, and it is fascinating to understand further the behavioural principles behind why we ride the way we do, and why certain movements will elicit the correct response from the horse even though they have never been "taught" it.

Refining this response, when your horse starts to get a little bit faster than you want in your trot circle, are you tilting forward?  When your canter starts to be a little bigger than you want, do you lean back or forward?   When you go into a jump that is a little bigger than you are comfortable with, do you wait for the horse to jump? or do you find yourself in front of the movement?  Does your horse stop at jumps regularly?

Even the slightest tilt forward will affect your horses ability to engage the hind end (put more weight on the hind end).  There has been an example given where someone has used four bathroom scales, and a saddle stand to see what affect it has, and has shown that as soon as you round your shoulders, you put a whole lot of extra weight over the front feet.  Armed with this knowledge, we can now use this as an aid as well! lean back a touch when you want to slow down or stop, BEFORE you use the reins.  If you do that every time, pretty soon your horse will be stopping without reins at all!

Round shoulders will also affect the way your elbow and arm moves, and will make it more difficult to have that lovely "elastic elbows" feeling of connection between your horses mouth and your hand.  You will find it harder to find the rhythmical forward and back movement we talked about in the "hands still or moving" article.

Make it your first response to look up, sit back, and lean back a touch!


Exercises to improve your shoulders


Sometimes the easiest way to fix a problem is to exaggerate it first.  REALLY round your shoulders, then bring them back, feel the difference?

The problem with bringing your shoulders back is it can make your shoulders tense and block the nice flow of energy down your arm to the reins.  So, another way to do it, is to think of something else instead.

I often use the thought of bringing my shoulder blades closer together, and lifting my breastbone.  This also has the double benefit of engaging the small muscles that hold your spine, which will give you better posture in the rest of your life as well.

I also use a fantastic visualisation that is amazing.  This one picture in my mind has made a huge difference to me personally, she talks about the Spanish Riding School.  I was in Vienna about 18 

months ago, so this particularly hits home.  If you have seen pictures of these amazing Lipizzaners and their riders, you may remember the gorgeous jackets they wear.  They have a double line of gold buttons down the front. Think of the proud way they hold themselves, and think about those gold buttons, do they point down to the ground as the rider slouches? NO!  Of course not! so, when you are riding, imagine you are riding in the Spanish Riding School to an audience of hundreds of European Royalty, and make sure they can see the gleam on all those golden buttons!

Good Luck, please let me know how you go with this, and feel free to request what you would like to see next!