Ross' Soap Box - November '09

30 November 2009,

Michele and I had a fun day off today. We visited Churchill Island and wandered around the historic houses, had lunch and watch some demonstrations of shearing and working dogs. It was a real touristy type of day. We met a volunteer working in the gardens and had a good chat to him. He was an interesting fellow who could tell us a lot of history about where we live because 4 generations of his family came from properties just behind us. But the poor bugger has contract asbestosis in his former work as an electrician, so his lungs are a ticking time bomb. It was very interesting to meet him.

Ban on Jumps Racing

Finally Victorian Racing has banned jumps racing. It has taken a long while, but they finally did it. Too many horses have died because of this ridiculous sport and stopping it is long over due. Of course, the scare mongers are already saying that it is a disaster for all racing and next they will be banning flat racing. But you only have to consider that jumps racing has been banned in all other states for decades, yet flat racing is alive and well in those states.

FEI To Allow Some Banned Drugs

There was a recent vote by the FEI on the subject of whether or not to allow some quantities of previously prohibited drugs to be allowable in horses for competition. The riders and drug companies won the day by a narrow margin to now make it okay for horses to be given some pain medication and anti inflammatory drugs. This means that it will now be possible for horses carrying low level lameness due to injury or disease (like arthritis) to be treated and competed as if they were perfectly sound.

Personally I think this is a disgrace and typical of the present FEI to bend over backwards to pressure from the elite riders and trainers who have large corporate sponsorship. I can not see where this rule change can benefit the horses in any way. Rather than proper treatment and rest, the green light has now been given for riders to use masking drugs in order to compete on unsound horses.

Once again the FEI has shown it's disinterest in the welfare of horses when the corporate dollar is at stake.

Michele's Video Clip of the Week

This is a clip that Michele has been watching almost every day. I don't get it. But I'm told it's because I'm a bloke and therefore have no soul!

The Arm Chair Expert

This is a photo of an arm chair expert. You can find them everywhere horse people gather - at dinner parties, on internet forums, at properties where horses are boarded, riding schools, girls scout meetings, pony clubs, shows, clinics, tack shops and even in your own homes. They're everywhere. Michele and I can hardly get away from them. You'll often find they even have arm chairs similar to the one on the photos. In fact, the arm chair is a give away. If you ever see a person with an arm chair like this one, you'll know what you are dealing with. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The ACE (as we call them) can be a pain in our collective bums. They prey on the horse owner who is fairly new to horses or not very confident in their own knowledge or looking for other horse people to hang around. They seek others to burden with their superior knowledge of all things horsey. In fact, without their prey the ACE withers and dies unless a new candidate can be found immediately.

I wish I had a dollar for every time a client has come to us with questions or concerns from their own ACE. Their ACE is worried about how the clients horse is going. Why would the client let us use a back cinch on a saddle or use a a side pull to mouth the horse or fit natural balance shoes or teach a horse to disengage it's hq or use a lariat or not use hobbles. There is always something.

Mostly, the ACE is not a problem for us. But recently, we have had experience where the ACE has caused a client to be concerned about their horse. A client came to watch her horse being worked and was clearly upset. When asked about why, she said that people where she boards her horse had told her that there must be something seriously wrong with her horse because it is struggling to accept the feel of the back cinch of the saddle. She wanted to know from us what was wrong with her horse. We assured her that it was just a stage her horse was going through and he'll be fine by the time he goes home. We explained why we thought he was like this and that some horses are like this and it doesn't reflect on him as a good or bad horse. All horses have their issues and this happens to be his. No big deal.

Then she tells us about how her barefoot trimmer had diagnosed a serious limb disease because of the way her second horse cocked his back leg. The trimmer said that he had seen it before in horses with a certain disease. But the trimmer did not know that the disease only occurs in front legs and not back. Nevertheless, the ACE trimmer felt it important to share his ignorance with our client and cause her further upset.

I know we all have opinions and nobody more so than horse people. But before sharing bad news with vulnerable owners, I wish people would think carefully about the effect it may have on owners and if there is any benefit to be gained from imparting their views on people. Instead of the ACE telling our client there was something wrong with her horse, it may have been more appropriate to suggest that our client ask us why her horse was so worried about the back cinch and did we think it was going to be a problem. Or the trimmer could have noticed the way the horse stood and ask the owner if he stood that way a lot and has he had any leg or back problems in the past?

That type of approach may not make the ACE sound like the fountain of all knowledge, but it is a lot more responsible and helpful to their friends. And I think it gains them a lot more respect for being aware of things, but not the doomsayer that they might otherwise be viewed as.

So my advice is for everyone to be vigilante and ever watchful of arm chair experts who lurk around corners at riding schools, park next to you at pony club, come over to say hello as you check the tyre pressure on your horse float at a service station or sit opposite you at the dinner table. If you see a red arm chair coming over the hill, run - run hard!

26 November 2009,

We just had a tremendous storm pass over and it has left some devastation behind. I think we will be cleaning up tomorrow some tree limbs over fences.

So far I’ve had no reports from people having trouble with the new web site. I hope that is a good sign. But if you are finding difficulties with the new site, please let me know.

The Hard Headed Horse

I was talking to somebody a couple of days ago about a horse that does not appear to search for new answers when the pressure is on. The horse may search for old answers and keep repeating the same response over and over again even though the old answers are not solving the problem of the constant pressure from the human to make a change.

I have seen this a lot. These horses can be tremendously difficult to train and appear very hard headed. Many people think they are thick headed and even describe them as stupid. As much as you might offer them a clear difference between the right answer and the wrong answer they continue to offer the wrong answer over and over again.

Why is this?

If we make a huge leap of faith and assume the human is doing everything right in their approach to training, there are a few reasons why a horse may be like this

A. the behaviour is so habitual that the horse can’t see past a behaviour that has worked for him in the past.

B. the horse is quick to shut out the pressure to change and becomes impervious to anything we offer. He becomes shut down.

C. some horses are so certain of the answer they are not capable of searching for an alternative response.

I also believe that there is a type of horse that we see occasionally whose inability to search for different responses is driven by their anxiety. Often their entire life – 24 hrs a day – is full of stress. They struggle with the simplest things that fill their day in the paddock or arena or in their relationship with other horses. They don’t always act like nervous horses and can be very adept at internalizing their nervousness, until they are expose to an above normal level of pressure. Then you often see an over reaction.

I think these type of horses are “hard headed” because they live their whole day being on guard and when the occasion calls for it, they flee or fight. They believe they know what to do with pressure – run or resist – because they live with it constantly. Fighting or flying has kept them alive for this long, why would they change. Changing might get them killed!

But if you consider the horse that is your average mellow fellow who has a few concerns in his days, but overall thinks life is okay. When you approach him with pressure to make a change it is not a huge leap for him to try something different because pressure is not part of his every day experience. He is not nearly so certain of the answer as the poor horse that lives a life in constant turmoil. He is prepared to try other options and it is just a matter of waiting until he finds the answer you were looking for him to try.

The “hard headed” horse is really interesting, although from a trainers point of view they are very frustrating. Perhaps some of you have a horse like this and a friend or an instructor has describe him as stupid. I know some trainers also have a tendency to think of horses in terms of smart or stupid. But I don’t believe thinking in those terms does justice or is helpful when working with horses like that. I don’t doubt some horses are smarter than others, but in the end treating them like they are stupid won’t get any trainer very far when the real reason has more to do with their temperament than IQ.

This horses fitted into the category of being unable to make changes very easily. He was tremendously frustrating to work with due to my inability to get significant changes in a short time. Each day started just like the day before and he didn't seem to retain much from previous sessions. But after a great deal of chipping away, one day the wall fell down and everything I asked of him became available. He turned out a terrific horse but only because the worry that he held all day/every day started to disappear and he opened himself up to the possibility of "trying" new options.

24 November 2009,

Horses Talk

It has been mentioned to me that the drop down menus that appear when you hover the cursor over the 'HorseTalk' button appear off the page on some PC computers. Rather than adjust the page width for the entire site, I have removed the drop down menus altogether. If you are reading this you know that clicking on 'Horse Talk' brings you to a page with a menu that drops down using an accordion style plugin. Each time I add a new item or tip it will be listed on this menu.

Working on the Essence of a Horse's Problem

I was coaching on a client today while she worked with her horse. The horse was not in the best frame of mind when it came out of the paddock. She put it in the round yard and we began with working the horse loose. The horse wanted to run ahead of the pressure and kept breaking into a trot and canter even though the owner was only wanting a walk. If the horse was blocked from running, the horse would either scoot faster or spin the opposite directions. The horse also kept pushing on the owner by veering significantly away from the fence and crowding the middle.

At first, I had the owner interrupt everything the horse was doing that we didn't want. She was blocking the trot, the change of direction and leaving the track. The horse was very fired up, so the owner was kept really busy and I could see this was going to take awhile before the horse made a good change. So I suggested that she try a different tack.

I told her not to worry about the speed or direction of the horse and that the only thing she was to try to correct was leaving the track. Every time the horse left the track she was to push him out again until he was back on the track. I told her not worry how fast or slow he was going or which direction or even if he changed direction - none of that was to matter to her - only whether or not he was on the track.

At first he cantered around and around and tried several change of directions. But the owner did a good job of focussing on keeping him on the track. After a short time, the horse began to relax and his paces softened. Pretty soon he was walking, trotting and cantering in the direction she wanted and without leaving the track. He was exactly like we wanted him to be from the start. Yet we didn't work on his speed or directions!

By focussing on just whether or not the horse was on the track he was able to find an answer that made sense to him much quicker than our earlier attempt to get him soft and relaxed. When we started, we asked for the horse to be correct in 3 different ways - speed, directions and following the track. This meant that he was constantly being corrected and blocked. It was going to take him awhile to workout the answer for all 3 things. And he was not going to relax and soften until he understood how he was to respond to all 3 things. But by concentrating on just 1 thing he was able to find the answer quite quickly which led him to being able to be correct in the other 2 things.

The horse's rushing, change of direction and wandering off the track were all caused by stress. He knows how to do these things. But his anxiety caused him to look for alternative responses. But giving him one job that he could do and feel okay about (like staying on the track) the owner minimized his anxiety and caused him to relax and engage his brain on what the owner was asking and not searching for a way out of his dilemma. The essence of the problem was the horse's anxiety, not his inability to walk or maintain direction or stay on the track. Working on the 1 job was enough to reduce his anxiety and allow the rest fell into place.

23 November 2009,

Web Site Again...

I had to make some changes and had a few difficulties getting the web pages uploaded. .

I am using an iMac to create and publish the pages, but I have looked at the site on our old PC. The PC has does not give the same richness of colours or fullness of the fonts (like the top menu buttons) as they appear on the iMac. Also some of the photos are cropped short when browsing on the PC (especially in the About Us page). These are things I will have to tweak and play with over time to get right.

I put a search facility on the site and the button is on the top menu, far right corner. However, I notice the search comes up with pages from the old web site and not the new one. I think this is an issue that will be fixed in a day or two.

Please let me know if you have problems with the site or anything that you see that needs changing.

Lesson Weekend

We managed to get a full day of lessons on Saturday, but the rain caused us to cancel all the lessons on Sunday. We had 50+ mm on the weekend!

In any case, there was a strong theme on the Saturday of horses that were being allowed to linger without making a try. The horses that come to mind have all been coming for lessons for several months. While they are doing okay, their progress is far slower than it needs to be because rider's are not pushing their horse to make a better try than it was making months ago.

There comes a time when a horse stops making an effort if the rider stops pushing the horse to do better. When this happens you have hit a wall that is the best the horse will do. But a bigger problem is that the horse may even deteriorate because they lose incentive to try. When the task you asked for were hard, in order to get better your horse needs to try. But when those things become easy and routine, the try stops unless the rider insists asking for better. That's when the horse hits a plateau or even goes backwards a little.

Don't be afraid to ask for me and don't be satisfied with a lack of try from your horse. You do them no favour by letting them be only a fraction of the horse they can be.

21 November 2009,

New Web Site

After much frustration and angst the new web site is finally published. I hope you like. Although it is not completed yet, I hope you will forward some useful suggestions and tips for making it better and more friendly to use. Of course, I hope you'll let me know if you have any problems with the site because it is not possible to test it on all browsers and all platforms.

Many things that were archived on the old web site have not made it onto this one. Some stuff will make it onto here soon and others will disappear forever.

You'll find some of the things you are looking for in drop down menus and I have added a search page which has it's own button on the top menu. There is also a side bar where I will add links to the entries that will be archived in the future.

Please take some time to look around the site and let me know what you think and what needs to be changed.

Thanks - Ross