These are all vital and important questions, and nothing to be overlooked lightly. It is very easy for us to fall back on the reliance upon a vet being able to care for every ailment our horse might face, but the vet won’t be the one to spot the problem in the first place, and because of that it is necessary to have the knowledge to know when your horse is just kicking at flies, or when your horse is kicking at a colicy belly. And, there is always that time when your horse gets a serious injury and the vet has left for a 3 day weekend with no one reachable last minute.

All magical thoughts that came to my mind, as I was pushing with all my strength while trying to reserve some sense of tact and gentile with the suture needle. Horse skin is thick! As my horse was occasionally moving his leg, just enough to deter me in the beginning to *just do it* but not enough to frustrate me or keep me from getting the job done.

And in the end, once the last stich was in, the knot tied and the string cut, as I was putting the finishing touches on a job made in hopes to avoid scar tissue and nasty proud flesh, I reflected on the curiosity of the situation. It might help for you to understand, this was one of my four year old geldings, one of the horses who had the fortunate and not-so-fortunate luck to have been growing up while I was living 2000 miles away from home. They got to enjoy as wild a life as a horse can enjoy on 15 acres in Wisconsin. One of the horses who gets daily pasture attention but has yet to live up to any full time occupation or even part time formal schooling. And here he was, standing quite modestly with his nose to the ground waiting for me to finish stitching up his leg. Like I mentioned before, do you have the relationship with your horse that allows you to treat him without tranquilizers?

So, I hope this post inspires you to go out and check your emergency kit. Make sure it is well stocked and has the important essentials. This goes beyond vet-wrap and wonder dust. Do you have things that will be needed in an absolute emergency? Talk with your vet and create a really sound emergency kit! And learn how to be effective in an emergency situation! Ask your vet if you can help assist on calls and learn some hands on skills. Read medical books, many are put in layman’s terms to help make it easier to study.

And last, but not least, build a relationship with your horse. Does he trust you implicitly? Or only when you have enough arm-power to push him around? Draw reins will be of no help to calm and control if your horse gets caught in the fence…

For those in the know, Philippe Karl is one of the modern Masters of Classical Dressage. For those who do not know, he will just seem a foreign concept. Perhaps it is time you learned more about this modern Master of the Equestrian Arts…  Now you can read his article “Taking Over Equestrian Culture” online.

And, in case you weren’t privy to the show live or watched it previously, or maybe you just want to watch it again… here is the winning video of Reiner Klimke riding Ahlerich to Gold at the 1984 Olympic Equestrian Games.

Dani Writes :

“I am currently exercising a very difficult horse. He is not vicious, but is very difficult to catch.
When i go into the field, I approach him quietly, give him a pat and slip the head collar on. He NEVER moves away from me when I do this. I can then calmly lead him towards the gate of the field. However, sometime before i get there he stops. He plants his feet and will not move forwards, or to either side. The more i pull on the lead rope, the more he walks backwards. If I stop, he stops. If I try to walk close to his side in order to flick his hindquarters with the end of the lead rope, he turns them away from me. He never appears scared, in fact he normally sighs a lot during this encounter, as if bored with my attempts! From that moment on, it is almost impossible to get him to move on, even with food. Eventually, if I persist, he turns and trots away. I can then walk up to him again, without him moving away, and can do the same as before, but he always stops again. The article above did not help my problem, but after reading the one about resistance, I believe he is demonstrating weight resistance. I can only go to him once a week, so can’t even lead him in and out a few times a day without riding him, so that he doesn’t link my catching him to him doing work. Any ideas how I can get him to walk all the way out? Any tips would be very helpful!”

Hi Dani,

I hope that I am understanding the question correctly, I got a little confused when you mention that if you persist at asking him to move, he eventually turns and trots away from you. I am wondering if you mean that you do not have him on a lead, but simply by the halter? Or perhaps he protests strongly enough to get out of your hands?

Horses are very patient creatures, they don’t live on the same kind of ­time clock that we do. They do not wear watches, but instead simply live in the moment rather than being caught up in the concerns of commitments, appointments, work and so on. Lucky them! We are a mismatched pair in comparison, when often our lives run by the time clock. We rush from one thing to the other based on the consequence of a minute’s passing. If we are two minutes late it were as if the world were coming to an end, there is no room for give. Many people live on a much more relaxed schedule, but it is rare when we live the same as the horse does, with no regard to time keeping track of the progress of our lives.

Because of this, it is very easy for the horse to take advantage of our time commitments to simply protest long enough that we either get too frustrated, get too late, are too tired, etc. If I were to tell you it will take 20 hours straight to fix the problem, you would probably throw your hands up in the air and consider it too great a task to be achieved, but if I were to say the same to the horse he would likely ask me what an hour was and why it mattered.

Weight resistance can play a part, but you have to keep in mind that anything that is expressed in the horse’s body first began in the mind. Weight resistance is easily overcome if you are able to find the original cause, which is the horse’s mind. Sometimes we are given horses to work with that we do not know their history, and not that it is any great help because we cannot change what has happened but only move forward from where we are now. Without understanding where the horse came from we get to wander through the dark at times guessing where the issue is, how it is related to the hurdles we are presently faced with and so on. At least with a history we get a small flashlight to probe around with possibilities and rule them out first.

Weight resistance is only a symptom and not the cause. Because of that we still have to address the cause before we can solve the symptom…

I’ve had a similar encounter with one of my horses, fully dedicated to the art of postponing work, leaving the pasture, going anywhere that I had determined, or otherwise complying with being led in any direction. First he would feign that he had to pee, so there he would stand all spread eagle, as I waited patiently for the inevitable.. only, it never arrived. He would have stood there for hours. Just dallying the day away. Initially it was quite unnerving and I was convinced something was wrong with him, and that he did in fact have to urinate but was somehow unable. After several vet checks, he was all clear, not one thing wrong with him. In fact he could have been the epitome of health at that point. Go figure. Back to square one. I could get him out of the stance if I asked him to step to the side in either direction, but then he would immediately resume it just one step later.

Jerry seemed to understand perfectly what he was doing. He never looked upset, and like you describe, almost gave an impression of being bored. Great, so now I have a horse who not only will not move, but he is consumed with boredom as a result of my efforts to alleviate the problem!

You have to remember, we tend to create areas of habit for our animals. The pasture is for eating, sleeping and otherwise relaxing. The barn is for grooming, graining, farrier and vet interaction. The arena or trail is for work (or play…). All the in-between areas tend to have little or no distinct meaning. Our own life is laid out like this. Home is where we eat, sleep, relax. Work is, well, where we work. The car is what transports us between the two, but the road we drive on doesn’t have much personal meaning to us. We haven’t interacted at every place along it and so we don’t have a negative or positive opinion of it. The same goes for the horse, he understands perfectly well where he is headed, and can choose to resist that, but the road to his work hasn’t been defined as work, play, rest, food, etc yet. For some horses it is very well defined as food, as demonstrated by the horse dragging his owner down for a bite of grass along the way.

The key to solving an issue such as this, is to break the line between where you work and where you play. Your ultimate destination, and the need to achieve it, has gotten in the way of a perfect opportunity. Remember, every interaction you have with the horse is a training session of some sort. It applies the same way with people, every interaction they learn what they can or cannot do. Your horse has at some point learned that he can get away with this, and you haven’t paid enough attention to the small signs leading up to it until they have finally planted their hooves in the dirt and refused to move! That is okay, let it be a lesson in paying closer attention to the small details. But now what does one do to correct it? That is very simple!

Take the chance to play with him. Don’t make it about getting him up from the field, that is already a battle he knows he can win, by doing absolutely nothing. Make your interaction about something much smaller that you can accomplish. For example, make it about getting him to shift his weight from side to side without moving a foot and on a light connection. That can then evolve into getting him to take a step to the side with one foot in one direction and then back into the other direction. Again, make sure you keep your connection light. You want to think of the connection like a phone, you want to be able to hear your horse as well as talk to him through it, and if you yell (use a lot of force or effort) he will be less inclined to listen and you won’t be able to hear what he is saying over the tone of your voice.

The key here is to make it a fun game, think about discovering something new in this. Be observant! What else can you learn from the exercise? All too often we get caught up in training the horse and we forget that he has a lot of wisdom to impart on us as well, if we only listen, if we allow ourselves to be curious. What would you do with him if you were only a kid still? When we become adults we understand the idea of work all too well and forget about playing.

Don’t make it about getting him to leave the pasture. Make it about the interaction between you two. When the relationship is solid between you two, in that you are listening to him and he is listening to you (the first part of that is the most important, we can focus on getting the horse to listen to us but it is a moot point if we aren’t listening ourselves, that has to come first!), everything comes easy. You don’t even have to think about working for it, you just think about it and it happens. Whether it is catching him or doing flying lead changes. That is the one trick that most instructors cannot teach, which is how to build a solid relationship with the horse, how to listen to the horse, and that is why instead they sell methods to training the horse. If you can listen to the horse everything comes as easy as breathing.

I hope this helps, would love to hear back about your progress!

Erica K. Frei
Author “Centered Self, Centered Horse : A Simple Guide To Horsemanship“

So, I found this handy little online test to see what kind of rhythm we have. This Free Online Rhythm Test should be done in Internet Explorer browsers, or with an external metronome if you don’t have sound on your computer.

What were your results? My Rhythmicity Index (RI) = 68.5 < < < <

What was yours?

Oh, and they even have an online video demonstrating how to do the test.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Why such a quote? I see so often the want for change to come through negativity, we point fingers, we criticize, complain and so on. This certainly can work, if it is on a large-scale basis, I think here of the protests surrounding Vietnam. But what about on the local level, on the scale that does not involve the entire country, but parts of it spread throughout every community? i.e. Horses.

We are afterall, struggling with a surplus of horses that are filling and overfilling rescues, being turned out loose when the owners give up caring for them, or starve to death at their owner’s hands. It used to be that we heard of the struggle to save horses from the meat buyers at auctions, but with the recent outlaw of horse slaughter in the US, that is mostly a distant echo in our not so distant past. We still hear stories of horses being trucked to Canada or Mexico for the same slaughter fate, but less and less as it has become more expensive to haul horses thanks to fuel prices.

How do we create change to affect horse owners and breeders, to impact them on a level that brings about responsible ownership, care, training, retirement of older horses, as well as the knowledgeable insight to breed quality horses vs. large quantities of horses. Can this be a change by only a handful of people?

What if that kind of change were to become a national expectation? What happens when we go to a fancy restaurant? Do we eat with our hands, talk loudly or argue over our meal, wear our pajamas in and bring a child who is not only out of control but has a cold on top of it, evidenced by the green snot half-dried running out of their nose. No. We do what is expected at a fancy/expensive restaurant. We get dressed up and prepare for the evening out, we do our hair, put on make-up, we use formal table manners, and leave the kids with a baby-sitter.

How have we come to the place that our expectations of the kind of care involved with horses, and responsibility, is of such low or non-existent expectation? And how do we change it?

I cannot agree with the means, but one person has taken it upon themselves to bring embarrassing (or abrasive) awareness to people who in her opinion are making dire mistakes. The Fugly Horse Blog has brought about a lot of attention, I think perhaps the most common remark I hear about it is that it is entertaining and funny. Where did I miss the comedy? I can’t help but feel that it is a bit like a school teacher who yells at you for getting it wrong and slaps you on the wrists, but never explains how to get it right.. Do you think you are safe from her judgment? Probably not, at least not if you appear online in any way, shape or form. Is it the best way to exact change, or is it simply a compass that point due north? Do we really feel motivated to help make changes after reading all the negative remarks? I certainly don’t, I feel like throwing in the towel and walking away.

But how do we bring about change in our own individual ways? Maybe we can learn something from other people who are trying to do just that…

Making A Difference : With Hanna Cooper

Twenty Five Days To Make A Difference

Top 10 Ways To Make A Difference In The World

iEARN : International Education and Resource Network

Strive 4 Impact : Jonathan Kraft

“Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful.”
~Author Unknown

No lie, these wooden horses are built not only for adults, but for some serious equestrians. Want to build up or maintain your physical fitness through those not so endearing winter months or when your own horse is laid up with an injury? How about practicing posting, sitting the canter, handling the reins, riding like a jockey and more without putting your horse through the process like a guinea pig? This wooden horse was built to handle it all!

Frankie Lovato, Jr., who invented and builds the wooden horses, has also supported Therapeutic Riding Programs by donating whenever possible. They use his wooden horses with much success during all seasons! In the October 2008 Horses Magazine he was spotlighted with the following article.

“My name is Frank Lovato and I am a retired professional jockey. Over my 25 year career, I rode in over 15,000 races and had 1,680 winners. What may be even more interesting is that I build horses for people to ride indoors! I named them the Equicizer and they are playing a very serious role in many people’s lives. Maybe you are you thinking, “Why in the world would anyone want or need a mechanical horse for in their home?” You may be surprised to learn why and who is riding off into the sunset right in their own living rooms these days.”

Read the rest of this article and more about Frankie Lovato, Jr. and his Wooden Horses!

Even Craig Cameron has gotten in on the action, showing off the various uses of the Equicizer! Watch the video below, or subscribe to the Equicizer’s YouTube Channel!

All deadlines aside, I wanted to make an update on how the project is progressing. My dress, which I’ve mentioned previously, is beginning to make it’s appearance in the world. We’ve been doing daily fittings as we slowly construct and create it. While it is based upon a high-fashion dress by Emanual Ungaro, it will have it’s own variations and unique qualities, the least of which being that we had to make adjustments so it doesn’t get caught up on the back of the saddle.

I thought it might be a bit more entertaining if everyone could see some behind the scenes…

And for some more visual… me and *Tanjobi playing with some ideas for our ride, of course the final ride choreography will only be revealed after the event.

And for those wanting still more, you can attend the Académie du Spectacle Equestre in France and learn the many arts of horsemanship and beyond.

Battuta seems full of life and full of the oddities that fill it… (don’t forget to scroll the pictures by putting your mouse to the far left or right of the screen)