Do a 180! Or even a 360!

With cold weather here to stay, at least for a couple more months, not only is this a good time to get educated by watching videos, auditing clinics, and reading, it is also a good time to think about our relationship with our horses.  A couple of weeks ago, I suggested that you turn off your brain—now I’m suggesting that you turn it back on!

What I’m thinking of is taking a look at things from a completely different perspective.  For instance, if you have the mind-set that your horse hates arena work, you already have certain expectations of how your time in the arena is going to go.  We all know how our mood and attitude affect our spouse or children, and of course it affects our horses too.  You head to the arena, after grooming and tacking up your horse, somewhat less cheerfully than if you were heading out for a nice hack or to jump cross-country.  You may be a little resentful at having to ride inside, or that winter is dragging on, or that you can’t find your favorite winter riding gloves.  Make no mistake, your horse has picked up on your mood.  This may be manifested, for instance,  as your horse being sluggish and unwilling to work, or being squirrelly in an attempt to get your attention, or being cranky and resentful that you aren’t thoroughly grateful to be spending some time together.  

Our relationship with our horses is just that:  a relationship.  It needs to be fed and nurtured and not taken for granted, like all relationships.  Can you envision how different it would feel, if instead of saying to yourself, “Poopsie doesn’t like arena work”, you were to say, “Poopsie and I  have an opportunity to work on our serpentines” or lateral work, or drill team maneuvers with a buddy, or simply spend some time together.

I encourage you to sit with both these scenarios.  Try them on for size, and allow yourself to feel how your energy changes as the scenario changes.  Then think about how your relationship with your horse is affected by your energy.  And that’s just the beginning!

Raise the roof and help the horses!

Hey all—here is a very worthy cause to get your New Year off to a great start!  Please make a donation—any amount is much appreciated!
www.LendaHandtoRaisetheRoof.com <http://www.LendaHandtoRaisetheRoof.com>
Happy New Year!

Turn off your brain!

This week is my week to do the CEGA blog posting.  Kate, Barb and I have structured some of our CEGA responsibilities on a three-week rotation, and the blog posting is one of them.  Sometimes, a topic comes to me pretty easily.  Sometimes, I feel like I have to just sit down and start typing, then my brain starts working.  The funny thing is, when I am writing, it is actually much more productive if I shut my brain off, and just let the ideas and thoughts come out my fingertips.  It is when I am over-thinking that I get into trouble.  

And so it is with riding.  I consistently find that two things are true when riding.
 

1. Over-thinking gets me into trouble, or at the very least, interferes with the feel that I am striving to develop.  
2. Sometimes, I have to just go through the motions of grooming, tacking up, and hopping onto my horse, to sort of prime the pump and enable me to have a really good ride.
   

This is precisely what happened to me yesterday. I had ridden Sid, my really fun, solid, reliable little Standardbred.  Good conditioning ride, no expectations of anything else.  We had a blast.  

Then it was time for me to ride Monarch, my Thoroughbred, who is also a great amount of fun, but let’s just say that he tends to be more “highly aware” than Sid.  And once again, right before I got on him, the neighbors across the road decided to try setting off some bottle rockets.   Another neighbor was walking down the road with her three unruly dogs and a little kid who was pulling one of those noisy plastic sleds.  Oh boy. Combine this with the fact that I hadn’t ridden Monarch in over a week, and my mind was full of the possibilities for things to go wrong.  So you see, I was already in defensive mode when I mounted Monarch.  

How silly!  As it turns out, we had a great ride!  I was aware that I was defensive and over-analyzing the situation, and just decided to trust myself and my horse.  I worked on getting Monarch’s attention on me, and not on the sled or the dogs, and I did some deep breathing and relaxation exercises for me so that I could be back in my body and less in my mind.  You want to lean on my leg, Monarch?  I will give you ONE good nudge with my leg to get off me, and that will be that.  And I will expect you to respond appropriately. You want to accelerate in the trot and start flying around? Nope.  ONE good half-halt will suffice.  Then you will resume that nice one-two, one-two cadence.  I focused on feeling, and not on thinking.   The results were fabulous.  Monarch really liked me being clear and not nagging him.  He was reaching out for the bit, flicking his ears back and forth, and responding much more willingly and quickly.  I really liked being able to communicate with Monarch in a clear, way that left no room for misinterpretation and that relied on feeling rather than thinking.   

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful New Year, filled with fun times with your horses!

Cold weather reminders

It is officially winter here in central Vermont! Plenty of snow, single-digit temperatures, the works.

When winter reappears each year, drivers have to "relearn" how to drive on icy or snowy roads. I find that it is helpful to apply the same "relearning" attitude to our horses.

As I have been working on horses in the past couple of weeks, I am beginning to see the same cold-weather phenomena pop up as happens every year. These include things like tight hamstrings, tight/reactive common calcaneal tendons (that big tendon that runs down your horses hind leg), muscle spasms, and general reduced range of motion. Sound familiar? I'm betting you feel some of the same sorts of tightness when you struggle out of bed on a cold, dark winter morning.

What this translates into is allowing your horse (and, incidentally, yourself) more time. Try to spend a few extra minutes grooming--remember that grooming isn't just about making your horse pretty; it's also about checking for lumps and bumps but also getting his blood moving. A deep grooming can do a lot to loosen your horse up before you work him. And it will do a lot to loosen you up, too!

Take the time to hand-walk or ride your horse on a loose rein at the beginning of every ride. Allow him to stretch and begin to move freely. If you have the time to lunge him for a couple of minutes before you get on, so much the better!

Make every effort to ensure that his feet are in good shape. Loose shoes, too-long hooves, ice balls in the hooves; all these will compromise how your horse moves, which can be a disaster for a cold, stiff horse.

Pay attention to whether or not your horse needs blanketing. I know many folks who don't blanket at all, and I know many whose horses have entire wardrobes of blankets and sheets. it really depends on what your horse will tolerate in terms of the cold. A cold horse is a stiff, tight horse.

And my personal favorite: STRETCHES! Remember to stretch your horse after you ride--and take a few minutes to stretch yourself too!

A lot of winter maintenance is about just that: trying to maintain the level of suppleness that is easier to achieve in warmer weather. Yes, it takes a little longer, but it feels worlds better when you're done! And knowing that you're doing all you can to avoid sprains and strains for your horse and yourself will help keep you warm this winter--I guarantee it!

Winter!

Suddenly, it has become winter here in Lincoln.  If there are outdoor chores left undone, you can forget about it until Spring. They’re buried under the snow.  We went from a dusting of snow this morning (about 2 inches on the ground) to about 9 inches of fluffy white stuff now.  And it’s still snowing!  Great fun for riding bareback and watching the horses clean themselves by rolling in the deep, clean snow.  And the mud is covered up!

November

I have a confession to make.  Are you ready?  I LIKE November.  

Those of you who don’t live in the Northeast are probably thinking, “Big deal.”  But for those of you who live in this climate, I can almost hear the gasps of shock.  

Why do I like November?  I’ll tell you.  I have thought for a long time that November gets a bad rap.  October foliage is a tough act to follow, sure, but November is quite lovely too, with the varying shades of silver and brown.  And the visibility in November is spectacular!  Being able to look deep into the woods offers a perspective we don’t get the rest of the year, not even in springtime.  Also, my daughter Hannah, one of my favorite people in the world,  was born in November.  

Mind you, I have not always been a fan of November, and I still don’t enjoy the endless days of rain  and gray that we can get.   But overall, I really like the whole hunkering down for winter feeling—more cooking, making sure my horses are tucked in and cozy for the night.  Nothing like the sound of rain on the roof while listening to my horses contentedly munching their hay, then going back in the house for some nice hot soup!

So many things in life come down to perspective.  You know, the whole glass half full/half empty thing.  It can be so easy to focus on the negative aspects of anything. Think about your horse.  For instance, do you have the mindset that,”My horse doesn’t like ring work—he gets so bored!” Is it your horse that doesn’t like it, or is it really YOU who gets bored? Or maybe you spend a lot of time wishing something about your life was different—a different horse, different place to live, different job.  All of these may be valid things in your life that need changing.  But two thoughts come to mind.  It’s easy to spend a lot of time wishing things were different and imagining how much better our lives would be if they were.  Wouldn’t this time be better spent enjoying what we have, and finding the beauty in it?  And it is so easy to spend time wishing for a change, without actually doing anything about it.  Not a very satisfying way to live!

I invite you to consider that your glass is half full.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Just do it! No, really.

I recently had a truly fabulous trail-ride on my horse, Simon.  No big surprise there, you say.  Regular followers of this blog know that I have raved about Simon more than once. He is my Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome—a 17h1” dark bay Bavarian Warmblood.  What made this ride so memorable was the variables that were thrown in.

1. We were in the middle of a nor’easter that weekend, complete with a temperature of 37 degrees, high winds, driving rain, a few inches of snow, the works.  But my horses had already been in their stalls for all of the previous day, and Simon was clearly antsy.
2. I decided to bring along my Border Collie, Beck.  Now, if you know anything about dogs, you know that Border Collies are very high-energy—a tired Border Collie is a happy Border Collie, and I try to  bring Beck along whenever possible.
3. I was wearing my winter riding boots, which meant I couldn’t wear my spurs, as they don’t fit those puffy boots.
4. And oh yeah, I had taken the flash noseband off Simon’s bridle, which had the potential effect of allowing Mr. Wonderful to ignore the bit a little more effectively.
   

What the heck, I figured, it’ll be fun! And besides, I was at the Fair Hill Three-Day Event last year, when the weather was absolutely horrific.  They had temps in the 30’s for the first three days, and pouring rain.  But they got out there and did their job.  I resolved after that weekend to never again complain about riding in a little inclement weather.  As the saying goes, “There is no bad weather, only bad clothes.”  

We set off up the  road, all of us happy to be outside, even in the teeth of the nor’easter.  Simon was high-headed and looking around, shying and spooking a little, being silly. Beck was bouncing in and out of puddles.  As we made our way up the road, the wind picked up and the rain came down in buckets.  When we got to a neighbors driveway, her four golden retrievers came barking and charging down the driveway toward us.  Mayhem ensued. Simon bucked and spun around,trying to bolt for home,  Beck charged off after the four goldens, and I was rather abruptly woken up out of my la-la land state, which is where I often tend to go when riding.  Meditative and relaxing, sure, but not always the most useful place to be on a horse.  

I sat up, took up some rein, and insisted that Simon pull himself together.  I called Beck, who mostly ignored me (it was too much fun to be big and tough and chase four dogs all at once), but then came back to me, and we continued up the road.  

For the rest of our outing, I had to be at my most alert, trying to ride every stride, and not get lulled into inattentiveness.  I insisted that Simon pay attention to me, and kept changing up what I was asking him to do, so that he always had at least one ear flicked back at me, checking in to see what was next.  He was that best possible combination—highly aware, light, responsive, forward.  It was wonderful!

Just do it?  Well, just do it for me meant making myself get out there when it would have been so easy to stay inside by the woodstove with a book. The tipping point for me was asking myself whether I would feel better about myself if I stayed inside for the morning, or got outside and worked my horse.   And just do it for Simon meant shut up and listen, with me insisting on the correct response the first time I asked him for something.  We returned to the barn feeling really pleased with ourselves.   

Here’s to pushing ourselves and our horses to become just a little bit better with every ride!