dressage detox (reprinted with permission from jme)

It's about time. Riders and trainers have long complained about the decline of horsemanship in general and dressage in particular, especially as concerns competition. In recent years, only the most spectacular, showy performances have been rewarded at the expense of correct dressage and, more importantly, at the expense of the well-being of the horses. The situation is becoming toxic - for horses and riders. It's time to clean house.
Granted things are unlikely to change when these riders are backed by serious money and corporate sponsorships, but we have to try something to bring the standards back up to some meaningful level.
Grey Horse Matters sent me this link from Philippe Karl's website and I thought I'd pass it along to those who might be interested. Philippe Karl is one of the too few truly classical voices out there, and someone I have great respect for as a horseman. Of course, the Petition only addresses the German Equestrian Federation, however, this organization sets the standards to which we are all eventually subject due to its powerful influence on the FEI. A change in the German system might just positively influence the FEI and other national federations, including the USEF and USDF. I have signed the Petition, and I hope you will consider signing too and possibly forwarding to horsey friends or post on your own blog...



Thanks, jme, for allowing me to reprint this. You can go read many excellent articles on horsemanship on jme's blog, Glenshee Equestrian Center.

And don't forget to read the petition and sign if you agree.

Petition: Reforms of the FN rules

To read the Petition and sign, click here.

another rainy day and more random thoughts

I haven't been able to ride yet today due to rain, but the horses seem to be enjoying the break from the heat, and the fields are drinking in the rain as it falls.

My husband called this morning in some distress because when it rains the turtles get active, and he had stopped several times on his way to work to rescue turtles on the road. His distress was over a turtle he was unable to rescue - he stopped, pulled over, and as he was walking out to move the turtle from the other lane to safety, a truck came by and purposely veered out of its path to run over and kill the turtle.

There was not much I could say that made things better. Perhaps the turtle was sick and a quick death was actually a good thing. Maybe the man will have some sort of awakening later today about his hideous behavior. Or maybe my husband will be moved to some new revelation after witnessing such cruelty. It's very hard to make sense of the things people do sometimes, or what ripples the acts might set in motion.

Here on November Hill, I had to smile when I went out to feed breakfast. It's a rainy day and donkeys must have been in dire need of some activity. I found every lead rope that had been hanging in the barn aisle dragged out to the grass paddock. There was a blue one, a green one, a purple one. Three fly masks that had been hanging in the barn aisle had also been taken out and were soaking up the rain. Two brushes were out there as well.

I wish I'd seen if both donkeys were busily cleaning out my barn aisle, or if Redford did it all on his own!

On another note, I have discovered a wonderful online magazine called Horses For Life.

In an interview with Phillipe Karl, he says:

As soon as the horse is giving his mouth and is flexible in the neck, the rider should train a proper extension of the neck, in order to gymnasticise the whole body in the forward movement. But, each time the horse stops giving his mouth, he is saying: “It is too much, I am contracting, and out of balance,….please stop this and restore the right conditions”. When the rider doesn’t care about that, he tries to manage the horse by mediocre means – using force, tight nosebands, running reins, over-flexion etc.

In fact the fundamental thing is: through a lively mouth (understanding, relaxation, balance, attention), bend the neck, extend it, raise it, as the horse needs and according to what you intend to do. This is more important and more difficult than being obsessed by ONE position, supposedly the good one. The official doctrine is that you will create balance by forward movement. [My rebuttal] is that you don’t teach a young child to stand on his legs by forcing him to run.

There are many gems in the interview, and many of the articles are fascinating. So far I haven't done the paid subscription - but there is a fair amount that you can read for free.

Karl calls his training philosophy the "school of lightness" and I found a lovely video that shows a bit of what this means.

I've been doing a lot of reading recently about bridle fit, including tightness of noseband, bit placement, and weight of reins in the hand, and how this applies to creating bend and flexion. Lightness and freedom is what I'm after, and I'm disappointed to say there's a lot of the opposite going on in the dressage world.

finally - shifted the a.m. routine

I've been struggling mightily to get myself up and in a mindset to ride in the a.m. as mornings are the coolest time of day here and will be for the next few months.

It's been harder than I expected. I was feeling slug-like anyway, so last week I took 3 doses of one of my "tune-up" remedies, hoping it would help. It did.

Then I decided to add morning yoga in so I'd get some stretching and moving done before heading out to the barn. Amazingly enough I've been finding good yoga classes free online. You have to Google around and find the ones that might work for level and preference, but it's been great.

This morning, it was much cooler than it's been being and I decided if any time was right to push myself out the back door, this was it.

Keil Bay went into a sort of shock when I walked out with a clean white dressage pad under my arm and put the beet pulp pitcher in the feed room. Cody and the pony saw me setting out saddle and bridle and figured they'd go back out to graze, but Salina stood by the tack/feed room door and gave me the "you are doing this all wrong, are you having some sort of senior moment?" look.

When she realized that wasn't it, she looked mildly disgusted and went out into her paddock.

Keil got over the shock pretty quickly and stood quietly in the stall while I tacked him up. I told him quite plainly that there was to be no hard work today. We both needed to do lots of walking and get ourselves back in gear.

He followed me from stall to arena and I mounted without batting an eye (or fidgeting with the mounting block for 10 minutes!).

One thing that surely made the ride good was the yoga class I happened onto this morning. It was focused on opening the hip joints! I have never done the pigeon pose before, but whoa - that one truly does open the hip angle and stretches things out.

We had a very nice walk session. Keil marched around like a panther after the ride, which is his way of letting me know he likes doing his work for the day and being free to enjoy the remaining 23 or so hours eating, grazing, drinking, sleeping, eating, grazing, etc.

They were all ravenous for the slightly late breakfast tubs, but I've decided until this new routine really kicks in for ME, if breakfast tubs are served a little bit late, so be it.

I got back inside just in time for lunch. Hopefully I can maintain this routine through the summer. I'll report back on how it goes. :)

horse forums, commitments to our horses, and taking JOY

There's a discussion in process on a horse forum I read having to do with the issue of making a lifetime commitment to the horses we own/ride. The original poster asked for thoughts on this, with her own perspective being that we owe it to our animals to provide that level of commitment. The question wasn't posed in a judgmental way. It was simply asking for discussion on the issue.

I'm sure you can guess where the discussion is going.

A number of folks feel that yes, making a lifetime commitment is a value they hold true. A few more agree, but make the concession that sometimes things happen and we can't live up to our commitments, so we do the best we can finding new, good homes for our horses.

There are a few who point out that horses need jobs and thus need to be sold/traded/given away in order to keep them "happy."

And a few others who feel the rider needs the freedom to own new horses more suited to the rider's increasing skill level and thus can't be expected to "collect" and pay for all the horses ridden and owned at the lower levels.

The most interesting part of the discussion to me (from a psychological point of view, mostly) is that the people responding most vehemently are those who have sold/given away/rehomed horses and feel they are being judged for that.

By my reading of the various comments, no one has judged them. I actually went so far in my own response to state that everyone has different values and perspectives and while I don't agree with the practice of trading horses regularly, I can't project my values onto everyone else.

Several people commented they would keep horses if they owned their own property. Since they don't, they can't. And I made the point that we BOUGHT our property BECAUSE of our feelings about the horses who share our lives. We could never afford to board them for the rest of their lives, so we chose to give up things like family vacations, new furniture, and expensive clothing and cars in order to create a situation that fits our values.

It's fascinating to me that when people are not secure in their own behaviors, and someone else discusses, in a neutral non-judgmental way, their differing practices, the insecure folks turn it into judgment.

Being a psychotherapist, I can't help but think: hey, wait a minute! You're the one judging your very own self! If you feel judged, maybe it's because your actions don't match up with your inner feelings.

Own that and move on.

It's difficult for me to read all the advertisements for "free to a good home" horses. If someone has fallen on hard times and are doing the best they can to relocate their horses, I feel badly for them. On the other hand, if someone has ridden a horse into the ground showing and competing and now the senior horse needs medication, special care, and they want someone else to do that for them, I get angry.

But I come from a viewpoint of seeing the horse as a partner, a family member, and a sentient being who deserves my lifetime commitment.

It's completely alien to me to view a horse as a vehicle for sport or even pleasure, but certainly if used to that end, I'd feel I owed them a loving retirement home, with me. If the horse was such a wonderful partner, how could I part with him?

My husband tells me I should just stay off the forums.

I get some good information on various forums. I also get reminded of how complex and sometimes downright irrational we humans can be.


*******


And then, I get a comment from Sheaffer on my "june" post, that prompts me to go back through my own archives for a quote:


Just for fun, my family invented a religion like the Shakers we called Stillwater. I'm eldress, and we have a big celebration on Midsummer's Eve. It's really a state of mind. Stillwater connotes something very peaceful, you see, life without stress. Nowadays, people are so jeezled up. If they took some chamomile tea and spent more time rocking on the porch in the evening listening to the song of the hermit thrush, they might enjoy life more.

Stillwater believers are very hedonistic. Life is to be enjoyed, not saddled with. Do you know that lovely quotation from Fra Giovanni? He was an old monk from away back who wrote to his patron, 'The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy.' That's the first commandment of the Stillwater religion. Joy is there for the taking.

-Tasha Tudor, from The Private World of Tasha Tudor


I think that's my solution to reading the forums. :)

Take Joy!

more on our resident black snake

I was checking water troughs this morning and noticed something long and black lying by a tree root in the sun. It was the black snake! As soon as I walked over, it crawled to the nearest tree, slithered up the trunk and in through the wire mesh we have wrapped, and sequestered itself in the "nest" formed by the three tree trunks!

Where is Dickens when you need him? He was nowhere to be found, but my daughter ran inside to get my camera so we could take some photos and identify the snake.



At first I thought it was a black racer - but I think it's a black rat snake due to the keeled scales. It was very alert to me and where I was, but what a smart place to settle in, safe from cats and donkey hooves. I think it has been injured slightly just by its left eye, probably the mark of a certain cat who thinks he's a mongoose.



The black rat snake eats rodents, frogs, lizards, and other snakes, so he is welcome to stay and help maintain balance in our little ecosystem.