crazy day, writing retreat, November Hill Press calendar

The day went slightly sideways when I opened the new bag of beet pulp pellets and found they were both coated in molasses and slightly burned. This is the second bag like this in a month's time, and while our feed store is wonderful about taking things back, it's a real pain to take a 50-lb. bag you've opened back down to the truck, especially when it's necessary for Salina's lunch tub, the day is already short due to daughter's riding lesson and my Proust group, and I really, really wanted to ride Keil Bay this morning.

Things got more complicated when I got to the feed store and discovered all their bags were from the same batch and were all unsuitable for feeding.

I went to the other feed store and got a different brand, which was fine, but all this took a big chunk out of the day.

I enjoyed watching my daughter jump the big horse though! And Proust group was its usual great self.

Now I'm home, nearly 11 p.m., trying to do laundry and otherwise get organized for my writing retreat, which starts tomorrow. You may remember some photos I shared of the place I usually go:

While I always look forward to my writing time away, I also find it very difficult the day or so before, and usually some little crisis occurs that makes me want to can the whole trip and stay home. It's hard for me to leave the animals, especially the horses and donkeys, even though I know they are in good hands with my husband, son, and daughter.  If I could teleport home to check on them once a day I'd be much better off!

And in other good news, my November Hill Press calendar, Partners in Zen 2011, arrived today, and it is beautiful. The quality is very good and although I must confess I'm partial to the wonderful animals featured, it will be a treat seeing them each month all through the new year.

You'll find the link to the November Hill Press store at Zazzle on the sidebar. (and eventually, links to the books at Amazon!)

I'm looking forward to starting a new novel this trip. It's been awhile since I embarked on a journey with not one single sentence in my word file. Actually this one doesn't even HAVE a word file yet - but it has a new blank book that has a couple of things taped in, and somewhere, my black Moleskine has some initial research and ideas jotted down. I seem to have lost that Moleskine! Which normally would be very upsetting, but for whatever reason, it isn't bothering me much at all.  I'll do the research again, and hopefully the black book will turn up.

the Big Bay does it again

I am SO EXTREMELY proud of Keil Bay. His trimmer and I decided that it would be useful to do a deeper treatment of Keil's hooves, especially the fronts, to address the on again/off again thrush issues he has.

We decided to go ahead and use CleanTrax. After reviewing many home remedies, a number of commercial remedies, and seeing the results from the things I've tried (generally good results but we tend to hit a wall at some point no matter what I do), I felt it would be worthwhile to go for the fairly major treatment protocol and see if we can resolve this issue.

CleanTrax is used in human medical treatments for several issues, including finger and toenail infections, flushing the bladder, severe bedsores, etc. It is non-necrotizing to tissue, which was important to me - many of the otc remedies for thrush are extremely damaging to healthy hoof tissue.

We tried to make the experience as pleasant as possible, setting the Big Bay up in his clean stall with fresh water, a huge manger of hay, and a bag of baby carrots that I planned to use as needed to keep things fun for him. We stayed with him, which helped keep him from moving around much. He spent a fair portion of the time chewing hay with his eyes half-closed as I stroked his neck and shoulder.

If you GO HERE you can see the soaking protocol we used. I wasn't sure how Keil would take to the very tall blue soaking boots I'd ordered. I considered doing a run with plain water, but then decided that it might be better to just do the treatment, expect the best, and at least if there were issues, we'd have treated the hooves while managing whatever might happen.

I'm happy to report that there was absolutely no problem at all. Keil had his hooves picked first, then I assembled our supplies while husband walked and trotted Keil Bay in the arena - the footing tends to polish off the hooves and really cleans them out.

Then I scrubbed the hooves with plain water, dried with a towel, and we put Keil into his stall.

My husband mixed the solution and put it into the soaking boots, and I stood with Keil (with halter and lead rope) with some carrots. He enjoys when I tuck the baby carrots into the hay and let him root around for them - he also enjoys me finding them when they fall to the bottom of the manger. But in no time at all, Keil had two tall blue boots on, with some wild aqua vet wrap helping keep them secure.

We listened to NPR, praised the Big Bay, and stayed right there with him for the first 45 minute portion of the soaking. When 45 minutes had passed, we had to remove the soaking boots, put plastic bags on the front hooves, then shift the soaking boots to the back feet. I'm fortunate that I have a husband who is willing to jump right in and do this kind of thing without blinking an eye. He remains calm, is good at manipulating vet wrap and following my constant instructions, and as it turned out, Keil was perfectly happy to have me at this head feeding carrots, praising, and cheering husband on through the process.

By the very end, when we had plastic bags on his back hooves and were merely counting down until we could take them off, Keil was ready to be done with it all, but even when he was finished and we opened his stall door to the paddock, he didn't rush out. I think he actually enjoyed the attention. Not to mention the bag of carrots!

One of my favorite sites for natural hoof care is Linda Cowles' Healthy Hoof.

She gives so many great tips, and has many good articles on barefoot hoof care.

zooming in for the moment on seat and the 6 points of contact

As often happens, as I was thinking and writing and focusing on the phrase "on the bit" the past two days, an email from a list I'm on popped through and mirrored some of what I was trying to express.

I'm paraphrasing, but this is the gist:

In conversation with one of the Spanish Riding School instructors, the instructor offered that the rider should never ever close the seat - but in fact should do the opposite, especially in transitions.

He noted that the SRS asks that their riders be capable of allowing the horses to come "through" utilizing 6 points of contact - calves, seatbones, and hands.

The scales of training cannot be attempted unless the rider is absolutely relaxed with a wide seat at all times - which is why it takes so long to develop into a classical rider and why time on the lunge is so precious.

If a rider tightens the seat at any time, the horse will tighten his back in response, which will create discomfort and put the horse onto the forehand and/or increase the front leg action.

He notes that with horses even a tiny bit of tension is felt as a lot of tension.

*******

The above is why I think the phrase "on the bit" can be so dangerous in its broad, misunderstood usage.

Six points of contact must be independent but at the same time utilized in harmony in order to create a horse who is "through" and on the aids.

But nothing can proceed classically without the complete relaxation of the rider, most importantly with the rider's seat. After all, this is where the weight of the rider literally bears down on the horse, onto a particularly vulnerable part of his body.

For riders not capable of relaxing their bodies completely (how many of us can even come close on a daily basis?) the horse is continually protecting his back against our tension by creating his own tension, which then brings everything we're trying to accomplish to a halt.

The focus of getting a horse "on the bit" - as it is most often used - misplaces our attention totally.

Even "on the aids" is confusing, as so many riders don't even consider the seat an aid. Think of instructions you hear from the vast majority of riding instructors: glue yourself to the saddle, plug into the saddle, etc. I see riders pumping the canter, grinding the sitting trot and the canter, posting like jack-in-the-boxes, many times while legs are pinging with every stride, and forearms are stiff. In worst case scenarios, the reins and contact to the horse's mouth has become the balance bar the rider must hang onto to accomplish all of the above contortions.

We should all be hearing instructions that focus on the relaxation of our bodies - I was fortunate that when I came back to riding I did it with a classically trained friend whose instructions to me as I went around on the lunge line week after week were: breathe, breathe out, look over your outside shoulder, let your legs drape quietly, breathe, breathe, breathe, close your eyes, feel your seat bones, etc.

The answer to every single problem I encountered in the saddle was to breathe. 

She didn't allow me off the lunge line until I could use my seat (and breath) to initiate a walk, trot, change of tempo, and halt with my seat alone. And if she saw me "scooching" at all while doing it, it didn't count!

She is the trainer who taught me to "think" half halt - as opposed to doing anything with those six points of contact. "Think" the transition. There is always the opportunity to consciously add aids, but if you "think" them first, you at least allow for the subtle energy aids that our horses understand and respond to so easily - if we only let them.

Really, if we were smart, we'd teach every new rider to "get on the relaxation" with nothing else said until they do that as a matter of course. Children are good at it - and if we make the connection for them early, by showing them that the horse or pony responds when they breathe out, when they drop their legs, when they close their eyes and feel their seat bones move, they can carry that with them as the mantra for creating beauty and harmony in their riding, and in their relationships, with horses.

So, I fell up onto a soapbox here, but when it comes to being "on the bit" or being "on the relaxation," I think this is actually not a soapbox, but higher ground. 

my take on being "on the bit"

I personally wish the entire term "on the bit" would disappear from the riding world and magically be replaced with "on the aids" which would hopefully lead to a larger focus on riding a horse lightly and softly as the result of an entire gestalt happening between legs, seat, and hands.

I was recently reading a debate about whether or not a horse without a bit (halter and clip-on reins, bitless bridle, nothing) can ever do dressage b/c there is no way for the horse to be "on the bit" if indeed there isn't one.

As we know, a horse with a good rider can create beautiful, classical, and imo "correct" movement with no bit! Because it isn't just the bit that allows this to happen.

I've eradicated the notion of "on the bit" from my brain as much as possible when I ride b/c I really want to focus on the bigger circle of movement - that I'm finding more and more comes from my own balanced seat, comfort in accepting the forward motion that happens with impulsion and schwung, which THEN circles back up and doesn't get blocked or stopped by a stiff rigid (hard) rein contact.

In other words, the bit thing sort of takes care of itself if I do my job as rider. This sorts itself into different ways of going with our different horses:

Salina basically knows the drill to a T. She moves from behind, lifts her back, and responds instantly to leg/seat aids. She creates her own contact which if you allow with a soft hand, puts everything in exactly the right place. I was referring to that the other day calling it a "lightness in the bridle" that I always felt with her when I rode her.

Keil Bay is not as easy - with Keil I have to get him into his high gear - the instant he goes into high gear and I am able to ride that gear comfortably and well, the rein contact takes care of itself. The problem is when you stay in slug gear he is not "on the aids" and goes on the forehand - and leans on the bit. It feels heavy although from the outside it looks mostly correct.

Cody is still learning, but he was trained to respond to the seat, and if you focus entirely on balance in your own body, he takes a lovely light contact and is like riding a much more advanced horse. But his balance relies completely on the balance of the rider.

The pony defies all logic - he goes okay with a bit but when he truly gets "on the aids" is when daughter rides him bareback. I suspect he feels her leg/seat aids more clearly that way and his contact completely softens and shifts.

Given that I tend to go off on my own paths with this kind of thing, melding together things I've read and things I've experienced, and things I simply *think* make sense, I consulted my copy of Dressage in Harmony to remind myself what Walter Zettl says:

"A rider must RIDE the horse on the bit, not PUT the horse on the bit... When the hind leg is working properly the horse comes on the bit automatically, but when the rider tries to put the horse on the bit with the hands, the hind leg will never swing through, and will push instead of carry."

He goes on to look at stiffness in the poll as a common problem:

"The problem of 'putting the horse on the bit' should really be thought of as getting the horse to yield in the poll. The first and foremost step is to be sure that the horse is good and relaxed.... After relaxation, the second ingredient is a quiet hand. The hand must remain still so that the horse can have the trust to go to the contact. It is generally easier to overcome the resistance in the poll when the horse is moving forward than at the halt... Think always that when the horse is doing something wrong with his head that something is wrong in the back."

And my theory is that much of the time, what is wrong in the horse's back has to do with the rider. Stiffness creates tension, which blocks the circle of energy that happens when rider and horse move into harmony of motion.

Which I know perfectly well was true of me when I came back to riding in 2002! So my journey into this has focused on getting my own body out of the way of the horse, and without ever really trying to get "on the bit" that's where I find myself when I take care of the other stuff.

today's ride

I started early so as not to end up riding into the night - Keil Bay was so impatient for me to let him into the barn aisle to tack up he kicked Cody's back door and broke one of the white cross-pieces off. I'm starting to wonder if my telling the Big Bay that I will be leaving for a writing retreat for 6 days was a gigantic mistake. All of a sudden it's crazy around here!

I was soaking Keil's hooves in warm water with oil of oregano (my fancy word is "oil of oregano infusion hoof bath") while I groomed him. Rafer Johnson was with us and decided to roll in the barn aisle. He ended up underneath Keil Bay's belly, one tiny donkey hoof in the infusion with Keil's hoof, and bless the Big Bay, he did not move a centimeter.

They are all full of beans right now - I watched Rafer roll and thought "oh no" - but it was fine.

Used the mounting block again today and popped right on. Suddenly it doesn't seem like all that big a deal! A good thing.

Today's challenge was the afternoon sun illuminating the now empty hay tent (see previous post for details on why it's empty) in a way that did indeed seem a bit scary. Keil was absolutely ears pricked blowing through nostrils each time we came around that end of the arena. I realized that with the sun blazing, we were both half blinded and what we could see looked very much like a huge, glowing silver ghost. I decided maybe this monster was real for Keil and tried to find some ways to approach without pushing him too hard.

Initially I simply made preemptive choices to change direction, circle to the inside, or otherwise avoid that specific corner. We did a lot of walking and then more big walking. After he was warmed up, we did serpentines along the entire arena, ending up so that the last one came up to the tent. Because he was so focused on the pattern, he didn't really have time to get scared, so that succeeded in getting us close without much reaction.

We then did some trot work on a big figure 8 using the entire arena. This too brought us close to the tent, but again, the repetition of the pattern lulled Keil into a working mode that allowed us to go right by the tent with no reaction.

We did some work on turns on the forehand/haunches that were pretty much perfect. Reinback and square halting were not as good as yesterday but I didn't belabor them.

We spent a little time playing dodge the donkey - Rafer was meandering around the arena, periodically crossing our path. This actually plugged in a little fun - when we encountered him I'd make a quick decision about where to go to avoid him and Keil had to act fast.

At the end of the ride, I dismounted and took Keil Bay over to the hay tent. He was truly alarmed by it. He walked nicely with me but was blowing as we got close. I went ahead to show him it was okay, and we stood together and gazed at it for a minute. We stood until he stopped blowing and then circled past it again, and then headed out. I walked him around to the other side to make sure he saw it from both angles with the sun shining in.

And I made him a little meal of warm timothy cubes and a few oats sprinkled on top, which he ate while I untacked and groomed. Of course as soon as I was done he marched right out to the scary hay tent and befriended it again.