Magical patience

Once upon a time there was an old man named Yu Gong, he was almost 90 years old. In front of the entrance to his home were two big mountains which made it very inconvenient for his family to come and go. One day, Yu Gong said to his family, “These two mountains in front of the entrance, they are just too inconvenient, why not get rid of them?”

His son and grandson heard this and they said, “What you say is true, tomorrow we shall start to do it!”

His wife felt it was too difficult to move a mountain and said, “Do you guys see how tall those mountains are? How can you move such large mountains? And where will you put so many rocks and stones?” 

They all replied, “We only need to work hard, and then we most certainly shall be able to move those mountains. We can take all the stones on the mountains and put them into the sea.” On the second day, Yu Gong and his family began to move the mountain. His neighbor joined them and happily they went to move the mountain together. They weren’t scared of strong winds or if it was raining, in summer they didn’t mind the heat, in winter they managed the cold, and everyday they worked non-stop. Many people thought that the project was ridiculous and said to Yu Gong, “Is it really possible to move the mountains?”

Yu Gong replied, “We will move the stones on the mountain little by little and it shall become smaller. If we work everyday non-stop, why should we not be able to move this mountain?”

There is a happy ending to this story, the heavenly emperor heard about how hard Yu Gong was working and asked the mountain gods to move the mountains away.

I had a bit of a project myself over the last couple of years with a young horse that really was extremely troubled about going out into the big wide world away from my fields. Taking her out for a walk, day after day in rain, shine and wind seemed quite a bit like moving a mountain one stone at a time.

Magic is rising 3 now, she is already a huge dark bay warmblood and has been fantastic in all respects, except for being very frightened about things out in the countryside, especially living animals, large and small things that move.

I don’t do a whole lot with my young horses before they are four or so but I do like them to be able to go for short walks in hand away from their field and friends from as early as is possible.  Before they can do this they need to lead well, stop, back and turn in order to manage gates.  Out in the big wide world they will have an introduction to traffic on my lane and get to meet ponies, cows and donkeys out on the New Forest, just a short walk away.  I much prefer to get this done before introducing a saddle and rider.

For Magic there was nothing simple about this idea, she was terrified of pretty much everything outside the field.  I went very slowly and wasn’t too concerned about this for the first couple of days but started to get a bit puzzled when things just didn’t improve.  Days turned to weeks, which turned to months and still Magic was very, very concerned away from the field. 

So I had to put my thinking hat on.

The keystone to Mark Rashid’s work, and central to what I aim to teach myself, is softness.  By this he is talking about both muscular relaxation (so that the horse will move readily without excess tension) as well as mental availability.  What we mean by availability is that the horse is a willing partner in our activity and, more than that, we are striving for a connection between the inside of the person and the inside of the horse.  That’s what Mark is talking about when he uses the word softness. 

The principle is that if the horse is soft you are going to be able to take that softness with you wherever you go as it’s a physical and mental state of connection.  So it followed that if Magic was struggling so much away from home I must have missed out something at home in our ground work.  When the horse seems fine at home but explodes in a new environment we talk about this as a horse being “light” but not “soft”, quite often when a horse is “light” everything looks and feels as if its OK but it all unravels when in a new situation.  Generally speaking it pays to go back and look at the relationship between you and your horse in more detail at home to find those tell-tail signs.

By now a year had passed, about 5 months of that over the winter had been spent taking Magic on short walks with a relatively small amount of progress to be honest. Then we stayed at home for the summer, partly to see if she was just too young mentally to deal with the questions asked by the big wide world and also to take the time to build the relationship further with some gentle long lining and attention to our basics of ground work.

In Autumn 2009 I decided to raise the subject of going out into the big wide world again.  By this time I was very happy with the relationship between us, Magic did seem to be very soft most of the time and there was a good deal of trust between the two of us.  So I was a little disappointed that things outside were not really any better at all. Going for a short walk was manageable but not especially pleasant.  However, as I was now really happy with all our groundwork I couldn’t see any option but to stick with it until we started to see some progress.  And that’s where I was reminded again of the story about moving the mountain one stone and a time!

The single most important thing I learnt from Magic is that some things can take a really, really, really long time.  Even though this was a young horse that had certainly had no bad experiences to do with going “on the trail” she really needed a lot of time to build confidence that it was going to be OK out there.  There were no particular separation anxiety issues to do with the other horses, it seemed to be a case of very genuine fear about things when out and about.

Now, in February 2010 she has definitely turned a corner.  She can go out for longer walks and cope with a wider range of things that happen such as the feral ponies, donkeys and dog walkers.  The explosions turned to balking and shying which turned to snorting which then turned to heavy breathing and now I know when she is challenged as the rhythm of the breathing changes.  I also get the feeling that she is much better able to control herself and does not need to resort to an instinctive behaviour as soon as she is challenged in some way. 

In total the project to get her walking out fairly calmly has taken 2 years work. Interestingly Magic is still not as confident, nor can she go a far, as her field companion of the same age went happily on her first ever walk out. 

In my work I frequently meet people who are having problems with hacking out, or trail riding.  Having had this experience with Magic I am coming to think that some horses really, really struggle with this.  Very often traditional horse training methods would back a horse at 3 and only once backed would the horse start to go out for walks.  Normally the horse would have a rider to think about as well as the new stimuli of the outside world.  I wonder if many horse just can’t cope with this amount of new information all at once, they need to understand what is expected of them when they go out, then repeat the process with the saddle and then again with the rider.  This doesn’t apply to all horses but for some I think its critical and fixing the problem later on could be even more time consuming that it was for Magic at the outset.

The are some other general observations and things that were clarified for me by this experience:

• Softness - Immediately before we had a big breakthrough I felt a very definite increase in trust between the two of us.  The feel changed. I trusted Magic not to explode in front of oncoming cars and I think she trusted me that I was not leading her to certain death.  I would describe this as the two of us getting on the same page and a lot of more softness was the result.
  
• Courage – there are times when there is no benefit in pushing a horse a little bit further as they are already fully stretched with what they have going on right now.  It would be dangerous and counter productive to try to do more.  But there are times when its essential to push further because you won’t get any learning until you do.  That means that both the human and the horse will be pushed beyond their comfort zone for a time.  Its easy for us humans to put that off as it’s a challenge but an essential one to progress. Courage does not mean that we are not frightened, just that we are able to deal with that fear and still function.
  
• Leadership and boundaries – In a potentially dangerous situation like this its essential that you are in charge and have clear boundaries about space (i.e. the horse cannot jump into your space if frightened).  I noticed a big improvement when I stopped worrying so much about how Magic was feeling and if she was OK and started being really clear about speed, direction and destination.  Kathleen Lindley described this type of situation beautifully by talking about how women tend to lead by consensus and men tend to just say what it is that we need to do.  A simple example would be that when a group of women are deciding what time to break for lunch they will check with everyone that 1pm is going to be OK.  A man is more likely to say “lunch is at one”.   We need to have a “lunch is at one” attitude with our horses, they often appreciate that.
  
• Time - I have ridden horses at the yards of some professional trainers and quite often there is a well schooled horse there that you will learn “cannot be ridden out”.  I wonder if these are the Magic’s of the world that really struggle, many people don’t have the time to invest in fixing the issue at the outset. 
  
• Breeding - Magic is a very specifically bred German dressage horse.  Could it be that even in a relatively short space of time we are artificially breeding horses that excel in their field (exaggerated movement in the arena) but accidentally we are breeding out qualities such as courage in the outside world, or we are just breeding more neurotic horses? If you read Temple Grandin’s book, Animals in Translation, you will find examples of how selective breeding can influence temperament in extremely short periods of time.
  

Sometimes I think that people want progress very quickly with their horses. Sometimes we can make a relatively simple change and there is a huge and immediate positive response, but not always.  What my experience with Magic has taught me is that sometimes you just need to work away at an issue one stone at a time and then when you are least expecting it you find that you have managed to move a mountain.

A festival of anatomy - Hilary Clayton

I had a great weekend at the Horses Inside Out conference (Feb 13/14 2010) and hugely enjoyed listening to Hilary Clayton give a full day of lectures covering the horse’s limbs, back, neck and exercises for mobilizing joints and strengthening muscles. 

There was far too much content covered to even try to put it all down on this page but there were a few points that I found particularly interesting:

Range of back motion

I’ve been interested in the amount of (or lack of) movement in the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae since Dr Dave Siemens introduced the concept to me that there is very little movement in this section of the back.  Hilary Clayton has used cadavers to estimate the range of motion in each joint of the back.  I Googled to see if I could find a picture similar to what she showed us in her slides and found a very useful diagram at the following link: http://nicholnl.wcp.muohio.edu/dingosBreakfastClub/BioMech/BioMechbend2.html

If you scroll down to “Degrees of motion of selected intervertebral joints” you can click through to a version of her detailed finding  about the motion found in cadavers.  There is only an average of 5 degrees of motion between each thoracic vertebrae and a picture at this link shows how this movement cumulates to give the overall movement of the spine.

My take on this is that its important to remember that the movement of the thoracic and lumber sections of the spine is relatively limited but that there is a movement in this section when you consider the compounding effect of a bit of movement at each joint.  The maximum amount of movement takes places between about T10 – T14.

It was also interesting to see the calculations for the axial twist of the spine (the movement that a foal makes to suckle that’s equivalent to us twisting the head to the left or right leaving the ears and eyes on the horizontal.)  There is no axial twist possible at all in the joint between Occiput/C1 and a 110 degree movement possible between the joint of C1/C2.  This anatomical fact is often mentioned by Mark Rashid as he uses the ability of the horse to twist at C1/C2 to help him release brace at Occiput/C1 in some contexts.

What supports the weight of the horses’ structure and the weight of the rider?

The simple answer is the ligaments. Hilary Clayton quoted some research by Zschokke who took all the muscles off an equine cadaver leaving the ligaments in place.  Even without any muscles the structure could still support the weight of a rider.  The conclusion is that muscles affect function but not integrity. 

The role of the abdominals is to;

• Stabilize the trunk
  
• Support the guts (which weight a few hundred kilos)
  
• Flex the back and the lumbosacral joint.
  

They are not specifically part of the mechanism for movement.

Muscles along the back

Running along the back are the long back muscles, the longissimus and the deep back muscles, the multifidus and the iliocostalis.  If the horse experiences back pain the multifidus will be turned off and will atrophy.  The deep back muscles are very important for stabilization so its really detrimental when they are turned off.  The interesting part is that the muscle will not automatically start to function again when the pain has been resolved.  So it specifically needs to be activated by suitable exercises.  Narelle Stubbs and Hilary Clayton have developed a series of exercises in the book ‘Activate Your Horse's Core: Unmounted Exercises for Dynamic Mobility, Strength & Balance’ which she spent a whole session of the day talking about.  There are some relatively simple, dismounted exercises that anyone can do with their horse to help activate appropriate muscles. 

Pliance system saddle mat

Hilary’s team have been doing some testing of saddle fit and rider balance using a Pliance System saddle mat.  This has 128 sensors built into a pad that can be placed under the saddle. It shows the amount of pressure at each sensor with a colour coded system.  Not only can the pressure of a poorly fitting saddle be assessed but also the impact of a rider leaning backwards or forwards, mounting or turning.  Interestingly, the impact of poor saddle fit was softened by a sheepskin pad more than any other pad that was tested.   Apparently reindeer pads have the same effect and are cooler!

Rein gauge

Another interesting piece of research that Hilary has conducted, and developed over a period of time, is using a rein gauge to measure rein tension.  She discovered that the tension alternates during the phases of the stride, in the trot the diagonal stance phase (weight on the ground for one diagonal pair underneath the body) has greater rein tension and the suspension phase has less tension.  Interestingly it didn’t feel like this to the rider to the extent that they originally thought that the readings must be incorrect.  The horses were tested without riders and the same pattern emerged.

In Mark Rashid’s work we talk about softness in the reins and a steady contact. For what its worth, there is a slight fluctuation in the feel about 3 times a second.  I think as riders we average this feel out and look for the overall feel and softness of the contact but if you concentrate on it you can feel the differences between the stance and suspension phases in the trot.

Bitting study

In a study of bits and bitting, Hilary looked at 4 different bits; a single jointed snaffle, Sprenger Ultra KK, Boucher and a Myler comfort snaffle.  A number of different behaviours were shown by the horses when some rein pressure was applied to the bit.  These included desirable behaviours such as a quiet mouth and gentle chewing.  There were also less desirable behaviours such as opening and closing the mouth (which produces a clanking noise), raising the bit closer to the cheek teeth (and even holding in the teeth), drawing up the tongue under the mouthpiece and finally raising the tongue over the bit which seemed to form a cushion between the bit and the hard pallet. 

There was no pattern as to which bit all horses liked or did not like or which behaviour was shown with any particular bit.  Hilary was of the opinion that it was the pallet pressure that the horses did not like and she suggests that this is why many of the horses liked the Sprenger Ultra KK bit.   You could argue that any of pallet pressure, tongue pressure or bar pressure could be causing the problems. 

X-rays did clearly show the very small amount of space in the horses’ mouth between the tongue and the hard pallet.  There is not much room in there.  X-rays also showed the “Mickey mouse ears” formed by the single jointed bits.  These are little curvatures at the joint of the bit which could clearly be seen to make contact with the hard pallet.   However I got the impression that there was no clear evidence that the horses consistently reacted badly to this, it was more than the x-ray showed that the contact surface with the pallet was smoother on the Sprenger and Myler bits. 

This research is useful in that it provides some great x-ray video of the actual behaviour going on inside the horses mouth (you can see this at the link below) but does not help me to understand from a scientific point of view why it is that so many horses seem to get on very well with the Rocking S bits.  I can only think that the stability offered by the design of the rings on the side of the mouth assist with stabilizing the bit so that the movement is not so uncomfortable on bars, tongue or pallet.  (See more info about this bit at http://www.markrashid.com/forsale_bit.html).

You can see http://cvm.msu.edu/research/research-centers/mcphail-equine-performance-center/publications for a full list of Hilary Clayton’s research and books.  A particularly useful link is http://cvm.msu.edu/research/research-centers/mcphail-equine-performance-center/publications/usdf-connection-1/ where you can see the bit research and x-ray videos of the behaviours discussed.  There is also research on a host of other subjects such as mounting problems, sway in horses and the effect of head and neck position on balance, all of which were referred to during the day.