Equine Lifestyle

Those of you who know me know my commitment and passion about understanding the “whole horse.” So, I’m planning a series of essays on embracing a natural equine lifestyle. I’ll publish this in future Gazette issues as well as on my web site www.silverfiddleranch.com. In this essay, I will set the stage on how and why I got involved and what it means to me and my horses.

Since I’ve had horses, they have lived in a herd—although in a much smaller physical space before moving to Silver Fiddle Ranch. I’ve been pursuing what is often called “Natural Horsemanship” for many years. Three years ago, I became interested in the natural hoof care movement primarily because my barefoot horses were not doing as well as they had been before moving here. Their training was progressing as I was gaining more and better ideas on how I could help them in their learning. But their hoof health and their body conditions were not right, and I didn’t quite know if it was something about my horses or what I was doing. Finding a solution to what I was seeing was a necessity before embarking on serious training and trail riding—two aspects of having horses that I want to continue to enjoy. A horse who is moving improperly—or who hurts—is not a happy horse and is a horse who will break down before reaching any level of potential.

The most observable problem about my horses’ overall health was with their hoof health. Abscesses, under run heels, long toes, stumbling, moving in a way that was just “off” but with no clear picture of where that “offness” was coming from. Feedback from people I trust pointed to problems in their feet. This led me to learn about the natural barefoot movement and find resources that might lead me to a solution to their soundness issues. Along with many useful web sites for learning about barefoot hoof care, I found the American Association of Natural Hoof Care Practitioners (AANHCP) and The American Hoof Association (AHA), which are organizations for learning both the theoretical and practical aspects of natural hoof care. Through bringing my horses feet back to soundness with the help of two natural hoof care practitioners, I learned some important lessons about barefoot trimming: that not all trimming methods are the same, and that the trim alone does not ensure a sound and healthy horse. I had not realized that soundness and health was a “Whole Horse” endeavor. Not just the feet, but diet, physical, emotional and spiritual health, along with creating and maintaining an environment where my horses can live for optimal overall health. Horse keeping and training for health is a complete equine lifestyle that includes natural barefoot trimming, natural horse keeping, feeding horses as naturally as possible, and handling and training them in a stress-free manner. This has turned into a huge endeavor but one which anyone who cares for horses can achieve.

The components of creating a natural lifestyle for your horse include balancing the care of their physical, emotional and mental needs along with their spiritual needs. These are areas that I will cover in detail in future essays and for now, suffice it to say there are any number of ways to go about it. I’ve found some ways that have worked for me to achieve some balance for my horses and these are what I will be looking forward to sharing. The following are some of the topics for future essays.

Horse Keeping: Our horses’ physical, mental and emotional needs are taken care of 24/7 by keeping our horses in a “paddock paradise.” Jaime Jackson, founder of the AANHCP, has studied the wild horse for decades. He is well regarded as an expert in the field of the wild horse foot. His book Paddock Paradise discusses the wild horse model and explains how you can go about recreating a territory for your horses to live in that will simulate the rich environment found in the wild. In future essays, I will go into the detail of how my paddock paradise is organized and how the planning and laying it out with the features described in Jaime's book have resulted in positive changes in all of my horses’ feet and their overall health.

Natural Hoof Care: Natural hoof care is a hot topic these days. There are as many ways of trimming a horse’s foot as there are people doing the work—some real good, others very damaging. My horses have had both with some nasty results for their overall health but then finally positive results with a way that has honored my individual horse’s natural feet. Finding the right way—the way that accounts for the horse’s natural way of being—is the important fact for horse owners to understand. Doing no harm to the horse, not using invasive or shaping techniques to force the foot into a standard frame, and finding someone who can help you with regular trims or learning yourself how to trim your horses are areas that I will discuss in a future essay.

Handling and Training: For horses to be mentally and emotionally healthy, they need stimulation and socialization with both other horses (as in a paddock paradise) and with people.
When horses are with people, they need to be handled in a way that honors their needs and acknowledges their intelligence. This means a training method that engages their mind in ways where learning is a pleasure, is non-forced, non-invasive and non-threatening. We want our horses’ lifestyle in training to be as stressfree as it is in their natural living environment. We do not want our training method to break our horses’ spirits. We want them to be with us, to be able to make decisions about what we are asking, and to know when those decisions work for the both of us. The people who are my teachers—Harry Whitney, Shea Stewart, Ross Jacobs, and Peggy Cummings—acknowledge the horse’s mind and spirit. No tricks, no gizmos and gadgets—just good clear communication and understanding that complements a natural equine lifestyle.

In my future essays I will enjoy helping you learn more about your horse and finding that balance between their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs and how this can take you to a new and better understanding of both yourself and your horse.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES...

This past summer I’ve accumulated a number of mantras that I use to remind myself of how I want to feel when I'm working with my horses. These mantras are phrases that I often think on and that I believe have meaning both to me and my horses. A few of these you've probably heard before—maybe not—but anyway, here are a few that I ponder often:

• Working in balance
  
• Directing a thought
  
• Trusting in patience
  

Riding through softness

Thinking about Briosa brings to mind the mantra working in balance. Briosa is happily moving freely on the trails now. For those of you who read my summer post, after riding with Harry Whitney in March, Briosa and I spent time with Ross and Michèle, and then Shea, in late spring. As summer came along, I took her to ride with Peggy Cummings. Briosa was a real trooper. Never worried, she was curious and showing me her willingness to want to work together. Peggy, as usual, was fantastic! Her coaching on body posture and balancing under saddle for both horse and rider is unsurpassed. A review for me was much needed and it set me off on a more balanced seat for my summer riding. When riding with Peggy, I discovered how important it is to be truly balanced for your horse to find his potential, and for you to stay safe when riding the trails. When I put myself off balance, like on my tailbone (one exercise Peggy had us do to discover the effects of good and poor balance), Briosa told me I was off balance by becoming off balance herself. This of course put me more off balance. She clearly mirrored my riding skills revealing how much I could improve to help the both of us. This reflective mantra on working in balance kept me thinking on this throughout the summer for all of my horses and client’s horses.

Milagra (Briosa’s mom) and I have had some revealing handling and riding experiences this summer, much in regard to directing her thoughts. Milagra is the kind of horse who absolutely and obviously tells you how she feels about the world. I’ve had her since she was a yearling, so we know each other well (she’s ten this year). Sometimes she comes off as a real grouch which has in the past bothered me greatly! Placing a saddle pad on her back, she often would pin her ears and crinkle her nose in disgust. She’s certainly telling me—no words needed—about how she feels with what I am going to do. For those who question, much body work and checks for soreness had revealed nothing wrong physically. We were dealing with a mental block or a patterned behavior where she was just not feeling good about things. It took me awhile to “get it” though. I’d so often think, “what a spoiled brat!” and then get angry and react to her frustration. Not a very productive way to handle the situation, for sure. After thinking hard on where her thought might be that is causing her such concern, I just keep in mind that she doesn’t really need to feel this way (after Ross drilled this into my head: how a horse feels can often be very obvious—look for that feeling! Rejoice when it is obvious!). I decided to not react to her but instead respond to her negative feelings by redirecting her thought to a different place as I was working around saddling. (As Shea says so often, just redirect her thought and she will go there.) Milagra is so responsive anyway that I simply directed her mind to look away in the opposite direction from where she was thinking (about me with a very nasty expression). By flicking my fingers at her focused eye, I sent her eyes and thought away from me. When she focused away as I asked her to do, to my surprise and joy, the nasty expression went away! This was a powerful message - get the horse’s mind going where you want to go, or where you want them to think, and things can really change for the better! The great thing about this kind of work is that the horse remembers, and pretty soon issues with tacking up—or whatever bothers them—just kinda go away (but always make sure there isn't something wrong physically first!)

Progress with my gelding Sancho also took some positive turns in large part because I’ve learned to trust in patience. I had a friend (Teresa) over from Nevada who wanted to take a ride. Theresa’s a good hand with a horse—very soft and forgiving, but certain and direct with what she asks. Sancho is a horse who gets very (very) worried and when he’s worried, getting his thought can be a huge challenge. I had Teresa try him out. Teresa was so patient with him—keeping him moving but stopping and getting a step back as soon as he would show worry. Or, she would redirect him via what some people call a half-halt, which to me is just moving his hind quarters over getting an inside bend to his neck to slow his tempo and get a change in his thought from that. I sure was pleased that Teresa was following through on things that I had been working on, and with her patience she sure accomplished a lot! I learned from Teresa about trusting in patience and trusting in what I’m doing as my horse really does want to do what I’m asking— even in his most worried state. And Sancho is a great teacher for this! I ride him now with my “trust in patience” mantra in mind, and he responds in kind. More on Sancho next issue as I’m determined—with patience—to help my friend Sancho out in his life.

Riding through softness has found a home in my daily thinking and has been my clear and ever-present mantra taken from all who I ride with and from messages transmitted by all of my horses as well. When I ride in softness, my horses in turn respond in softness. What a beautiful feedback loop that is! Softness with Sancho changes him from a prancing washing machine trot/pace (yeah, he’s been likened to a washing machine in the past) to a soft, yielding smooth paso llano. Softness with Milagra gives me flying lead changes and a gait as smooth as glass. Softness with Briosa puts her in a state of true bliss and balance where her beautiful, animated gaits shine through. Applying all of my mantras to my wonderful mustangs, Gracie and Isabella—who are progressing well on their ground work—have ensured that they will continue their training from a point of view that considers their inherent willingness to partner with a human. You just can’t have anything better than that!