As usual, I've been on my morning meander through the internet, catching up on various blogs, doing the clicking that leads me from one thing to another thing to yet another, and enjoying all the information that unfolds as I click and read.
Today I was quickly caught up in a post about the use of Gumbits, a small "treat" that is apparently being used to deal with the grinding of teeth in horses.
It caught my eye because Keil Bay has occasionally ground his teeth under saddle. His previous trainer both told me about it and demonstrated it when I first looked at him. He didn't grind during any of my trial rides, and as it turned out, he has ground them with me three times since he came to live with me, 6 years ago. All three of those times were when I was riding in a lesson, following the instructions of a trainer. My sense was that when pushed hard to do an exercise (not the same one), he resorted to the grinding.
He also did the grinding fairly regularly when ridden by my trainer.
My response to the grinding was to ride him in such a way that did not lead to tooth grinding. That led me to go against the recommendations of my trainer at the time: instead of entering the arena with contact and warming him up doing walk, rising trot, and canter, I came in and rode him on the buckle using walk, sitting trot, and then a big fun canter. Instead of insisting that we drill movements over and over, I began to leave the back arena gate open and take little "mini-hacks" in between our arena work. By accident, I discovered that he loved to pop over baby jumps, and so we used that as a way to insert some fun into the arena work as well.
As it turned out, my doing these things not only led us away from the grinding of teeth, but led to the most beautiful, light, relaxed, classically correct rides I've ever had on any horse. And for Keil Bay, it led to a trust that I would not ride him straight into resistance and then rely on his kindness and general safeness to wrestle him through a movement, but would do everything I could to ride him into relaxation, and only then would we try some of the more difficult movements.
But still, even given all that, even given the fact that he has not ground his teeth in at least two years, I wondered this morning if I'd had the Gumbits to use when we were dealing with this, would I have tried them?
This is what the company says about the product:
GumBits was conceived and developed by two Atlanta women in a quest to aid in the daily training of their dressage horses. By promoting the salivation process, they eliminated the teeth grinding which often can occur during the intense training of high performance sport horses.
Not only does GumBits encourage chewing activity, trigger salivation, and eliminate teeth grinding, horses love the sweet taste. GumBits are made of all natural FDA approved ingredients and is safe and palatable.
I tuned in to the line:
eliminated the teeth grinding which often can occur during the intense training of high performance sport horses.
What is it about the intense training of sport horses, in particular dressage horses, that leads so often to teeth grinding? Apparently the Gumbits are being used to address the grinding of teeth, to create "foam" at shows, and to make the training sessions more pleasant.
My take on teeth grinding is that it is a symptom of something. Dental issues, tmj issues, ulcer issues, pain/discomfort issues, or perhaps the only way a horse can "resist" a style or session of riding that is physically or psychologically (or both) uncomfortable.
Does using Gumbits therefore mask a symptom we need to be paying attention to? What does it say about the show scene if creating foam via a treat in the horse's mouth is used as a way to make it appear the horse is "on the bit?" (don't get me started about the whole "on the bit" thing)
I can easily imagine Keil Bay loving a sweet treat. And maybe it would cause him to salivate and forget all about whatever it is that pushes him to grind when being ridden a very specific way. But if I give him the treats, am I simply masking a bigger, deeper issue?
Where is the line between creating a dressage "facade" and actually doing the slow, kind, layered work of training that leads to a relaxed, happy, balanced horse that both looks AND feels good doing his job?
Certainly, to a large degree, the answer to this question depends on one's riding goals, as well as one's philosophy about what constitutes solid horsemanship. While I know what my own answer is, I concede that there is no one right answer - we are all where we are on our paths, and so each person's answer might be different.
The critical thing is that we each think through scenarios like this regularly, to examine our goals, to look at, step-by-step, the pros and cons of what we do in our work with horses.
Often we do things simply because it's what the majority of riders and trainers do. And we use the justification that, hey, it works.
I maintain that by questioning things, and most importantly, by listening to our horses, and letting our horses be our trainers, we end up with a much greater depth of knowledge, and even more, a much greater connection to the animal carrying us around on his/her back.
I would love to know what readers think about this.
