Category: Uncategorized

So, aside from the bloody mouth saga that we’ve replayed like 6 or 7 times by now, another thing to come out of the LRK3DE this year was scrutiny over how tight some people’s nosebands are. In fact, a lot of people had more issue with that than they did with the blood, or think that one problem is directly related to the other. I’m inclined to agree with the latter part.

But what has been interesting about that whole debacle are the conversations that have resulted in it’s wake. Looking through the photos, it was hard not to notice that some people (no, not just one) had some seriously tight flash nosebands. The current FEI rule for nosebands is as follows:

Horse Noseband check:
FEI Stewards of all disciplines to pay particular attention to ensure that nosebands are not overtightened. It must be possible to place at least one finger between the horse’s cheek and the noseband. Nosebands must never be used in such a way that they interfere with a horse’s breathing. This check can be carried out at any time the steward feels that a noseband appears to be too tight (preferably after the test); if the steward carrying out this check finds the nose band is too tight, the steward must ask the groom to loosen the noseband so that one finger can fit between the nose band and the cheek of the horse. If it happens again the rider should receive a yellow card for not following the instruction of the steward.

One finger. Between the cheek and the noseband. Not two fingers. Not the chin, or the front of the nose. I’m pretty sure you could tighten that thing to the point where it’s bone-crushing and I could still get a finger in there on the horse’s fleshy cheek. So who gets to determine what meets the definition of “overtightened”?

There has also been a lot of talk lately about the noseband study (if you only read one thing today, read this) released last year, which showed that “A proportion of the horses were recorded having oral lesions, most of them in dressage. The tightness of the noseband showed a very clear correlation to the occurrence of oral lesions.”. So, yes, it’s been proven that overtightening a noseband can and does cause physical harm to a horse. I was particularly interested to note, while reading through the study, this part:

The median noseband tightness in all horses measured (n = 737) was found to be 0.5 fingers. Forty four per cent of nosebands were tightened to zero fingers tightness, 7% to 0.5 fingers, 23% to 1 finger, 19% to 1.5 fingers and 7% to 2 fingers tightness.

Holy. Shite. Clearly that vague rule about fitting a finger between the cheek and the noseband is not working out in the horse’s favor.

As a result of this study, the Danish Equestrian Federation has brought forth new rules regarding noseband tightness – “The tightness of the nosebands will be measured as of 1 January 2018: There must be room for a certified measurement unit in between the nasal plate of the horse (bony surface) and the noseband equivalent to a diameter more than 1,5cm. The rule is applicable for all disciplines.”. So not only are they calling for a standard measurement (not a vague one or two fingers), they also have changed the location of where the measurement should be taken. Not the cheek, but rather the front of the horse’s face.

A taper gauge has also been created, an actual tool that standardizes just how much space there must be. Handily enough, it also measures curb length and bit thickness.

New Zealand is the latest country to jump on this bandwagon, discussing possible rule changes to introduce the use of the taper gauge at their shows.

 

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I doubt the taper gauge would fit under even half of the horses’ nosebands at most shows in America, of pretty much any discipline. Overtightening of nosebands seems like, from my experience at least, something that happens across the board. I’ve done my fair share of it in the past too, having been raised thinking that the noseband should go as tight as you could get it. I definitely don’t do that anymore, and honestly probably err on the “may as well not have a noseband at all” end of the spectrum these days, but it seems to be a pretty common practice.

So the real question here is what FEI, and also USEF, might do about this. The fans aren’t the only ones noticing an issue with nosebands, some riders are speaking up about it too.

Jim Wofford wrote an article about it FIVE YEARS AGO, and if anything it’s only gotten worse since he made these observations. I’ll be honest, I’d be shocked to see any action toward standardization from USEF anytime in the near future, but maybe I’m just being pessimistic. This is nothing new – the study and the taper gauge have been subjects of discussion for years. It’s refreshing to see some upper level riders/coaches supporting changes, though.

What do you guys think? Do you see overtightened nosebands often? Do you think it’s an issue? What do you think of the changes that some countries are starting to make?

I feel like Natural Horsemanship is one of those sometimes controversial things that tends to put people either on one side of the spectrum on the other. There are those who are hardcore devotees, with a bookshelf full of DVD’s, the “official” way overpriced halter and lead rope, a t-shirt, and maybe a carrot stick or two. Then there are the folks who think it’s all a bunch of voodoo horseshit, a big waste of time, and an even bigger waste of money. I fall somewhere in between.

I first got introduced to the concept of “Natural Horsemanship” way back in the early 2000’s when I was working at a breeding farm. I spent a lot of time working with foals, very opinionated broodmares, and horses fresh off the track. One evening I found myself flipping through the channels in my barn apartment, stumbled upon RFDTV (I can’t remember now if it was a Clinton Anderson or Craig Cameron show), and it instantly had my attention. First in a “ha, wtf are these idiot cowboys even doing?” kind of way. Then I slowly started going “hmm… I wonder if that would work…”. It was something I had never seen before.

Growing up in the h/j world, at a higher end A circuit barn, we did not do much ground work. They lunged, they crosstied, they (mostly) loaded in trailers, they stood for the farrier, and that was about all that was required. If they didn’t do those things, they were sedated or twitched or muscled around until they did. Most of the horses that came through there were been-there-done-that types, used to the routine. The story was pretty much the same at the eventing barn I was a working student at later… most of those horses had either been around for a while or came off the track, which meant they knew how the routine went already, or quickly got in line. I had never really seen a method of training that focused on seeing situations through a horse’s perspective, at the base instinct level.

Working with foals, or my various cheap (usually semi-feral) projects that I picked up a lot in those days, was different. They were a fairly blank slate, and they often didn’t react to things the way an older horse would. I also started thinking that surely there had to be ways, beyond bribing with grain or subduing with lip chains, to get reluctant horses on the trailer. Or ways to get the fresh OTT horses feeling a little more settled and confident and less spooky. This is when those fateful RFDTV shows stepped in and said “Hey look… what about this?”. I was intrigued. It was definitely a new way of thinking about how horses respond to things, and why, and how to reshape their behaviors into what you want.

I threw myself into the concepts right off the bat, watching every show I could and buying several books. I started learning it, and applying it, and watching how this approach changed the horses. I was definitely buying into it, but wasn’t 100% sold. A few of their methods just didn’t do much for me, so did a lot of trial and error to figure out what I liked and what worked for me, my horses, and our situation.

Eventually I didn’t work at the breeding farm anymore, stopped buying random unstarted or auction house projects, and went back to having horses with more of a solid foundation in place. By the time Sadie was a yearling I had half forgotten and half abandoned a lot of the work, and didn’t do quite as much of it with her as I should have. When she went off to get started by the cowboy, he did a real crash course with her and taught me some of the things that he had taught her. That was my first formal training in any of this NH methodology. The basic concepts worked very well with Sadie, who as a young horse had a lot of issues with confidence and claustrophobia. She came back a much happier and better horse, and I got a good idea of exactly which parts of the natural horsemanship methods apply very well to horses that are destined for horse show life.

I will say, I haven’t worked on it much with Henry. Really I don’t need to, he’s a pretty steady and reliable horse, very sure of himself and solid in his connection with people. There have been situations pop up where some basic concepts have been applied, and there is definitely a lot of my day-to-day horsemanship that has been shaped by it (ie make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard) but I don’t go out and do purposeful groundwork or NH type work with him pretty much ever.

With Presto, we do a lot of it. I don’t work him in the round pen, at least not yet. I don’t want him running around in circles much, being a baby warmblood, and nothing that I’m trying to accomplish at this point really requires it. We’ve worked on the basic concepts of “sending”, and moving his front end or hind end away, turning, and responding to my body language just by working at the walk at the end of the lead rope. He’s learned about pressure and release, the beginnings of some desensitization, the space “bubble”, etc. Even just doing little bits of it have already proved to work very well for him. His behavior at the show was very encouraging to me, showing me that he’s getting it, and learning to look to me for guidance and think things through rather than  react.

There are still some parts of some Natural Horsemanship training programs that I just don’t like, so I don’t do them. I’m not into the constant one rein stops, or the snaking the lead rope around to get a horse to back up, or a few other things. I don’t buy a “special” rope halter, or stick, or whatever else, and you won’t find me at anyone’s clinics. I think the ideas behind the methodology are sound, but I don’t buy into the extreme commercialism, sometimes bordering on cult-like, that it has become. Over time I’ve gravitated more to Buck Brannaman’s methods than anyone else’s, but I’ve learned to take whatever works from whatever trainer and apply it, and leave the rest of it at the door. I truly have become a believer in the benefits of natural horsemanship, and appreciate how much it’s changed my perspective, and subsequently, how I train my horses.

How do you feel about natural horsemanship? Love it? Hate it? Never really played with it? I’m always interested to hear other people’s impressions!

Well, spring was fun while it lasted. To be honest we had a pretty good run this year, with a short and mild winter, and the heat was a little bit slower in arriving than it sometimes is. My only real complaint is that we haven’t gotten much rain. This concerns me, heading into what is our driest time of year. Hard ground plus a lack of grass are not my ideas of a good time for the next 5 months. Granted, there’s nothing about a Texas summer that meets any of my requirements of a good time.

With the heat comes a change in routine. Last summer I switched to riding early in the mornings, which, while REALLY FREAKING HUMID, were at least more pleasant than riding in 100+ degrees. Nothing that I have ever tried for Henry’s heat intolerance has actually helped, so I think I’m officially waiving the white flag on our attempts at supplements. Granted, I still have half-full bottles of Equipulmin and Respi-Free laying around, irritating me with their mere presence.

But last week I officially made the switch over to morning rides, which involve some very early alarms and a Henry that is a little more grumpy than usual. He was not thrilled at me stumbling out through his pasture in the dark, using the flashlight on my phone to find him, and then bringing him in to ride rather than eat breakfast. I’m so mean. I was not that thrilled about it either, but that’s just how life is when you live in the sweltering armpit of America.

Mostly though I just spend all spring making him over-fit and then coast through summer. He maintains it pretty well, and summers are his easiest season anyway, as far as work load. Between the heat and the hard ground I tend to cut way back on the conditioning rides and any unnecessary “pounding”. I did just send in a show entry though, for the June schooling show that we’ve gone to the past 2 years. That one was always kind of sketchy with the weather, because you ran XC around 1pm, in the heat of the day, and the speed was maxed out. I was happy to see that this year they’ve changed the format and now dressage is Saturday afternoon (which will be terrible, but it’s dressage so it’s terrible by default) and stadium/XC are Sunday morning. It’ll be humid, but hopefully a little easier on the horses, not being in the blaring heat of the day. We’ll see how Henry does with it. They also lowered the speed to 420mpm (minimum Training speed), way easier than 470 (maximum Training speed). He can lope along easily at 420, no problem.

The only real bummer about switching to our summer schedule is that I have less time to spend with Presto on the weekdays. Usually by the time I’m done with Henry I’m feeling rushed to get out of there so I can get to work and be showered and at my desk in time for our daily 8am meeting. That means Presto’s weekdays might now be limited to a quick grooming, saving the rest of his “work” for weekends.

Or it means that I’ll just arrive at meetings unshowered and still in my barn clothes. That’s probably more likely. Wouldn’t be the first time.

It’s a little frustrating to feel like we kind of barely got going in the spring, and now we’re already dialing things back down again. The spring season never really got off the ground, since I’ve been working a lot and stockpiling money like a crazy person to make myself feel better about the added expense of a second horse. Thems the breaks, though, and I don’t regret it one bit. Hopefully by fall everything will be a little more ironed out and stable and we’ll be able to have more of a “real” season.

Until then we’ll just be over here trying our best not to melt.

It’s probably no secret that I’m a real lover of equestrian-related technology. My Cambox helmet camera is probably one of my all time favorite purchases, and I’ve been having a lot of fun lately with the Seaver smart girth. I’ve looked into automated camera systems like Pixio and Soloshot, since I always ride alone and therefore rarely have media of it, but have never been able to justify the cost. It was easy to just pretend like they didn’t exist, purposely avoid their social media, and try not to be too jealous when other bloggers posted about theirs.

And then, because I’m pretty sure the universe loves to taunt me, I made the mistake of going to Riding Warehouse’s “New Items” page again last week. Yeah, the page that always ends up getting me into trouble. I can’t help it, y’all, I love looking at all the new stuff so I check it all the time. And it seems as if RW has been really busy upping their technology game, because there were several fun little gadgets that stopped me in my tracks.

First, of course they’re carrying the Soloshot now, both the Optic65 and the Optic25 models. OF FREAKING COURSE. The Soloshot is the camera system I wanted. My US Rider discount would bring it down to $466 for the Optic25, which, while a lot better than the sticker price of $550, still puts it solidly in the “hahahaha no effing way” territory for what is essentially a for-fun item. Owning two horses on a small budget does not leave that kind of play money left over. Still, I can’t decide if I’m really happy they’re carrying it since it makes the price more realistic, or really sad that they’re carrying it because now I get to be taunted by it all the dang time.

I also noticed that they’ve added a bunch of Trailer Eyes products to the lineup, including the Trailer Camera system and the WiFi Trailer Cam.  I’m kind of obsessed with those things. I LOVE being able to see what the horses are doing in the trailer and keep an eye on them to make sure nobody is in trouble back there. Luckily with my small little, um, vintage trailer I have front windows so I can at least see their heads and make sure they’re upright/eating hay. Next trailer, though… I will definitely buy some kind of trailer camera system. I’ve gotten so accustomed to being able to see them that now I’m beyond paranoid if I can’t, and the camera systems are pretty cheap considering.

As if those weren’t enough, I kept scrolling and saw that they’re carrying the new UHWK helmet camera. It’s a bit bigger and bulkier and less fancy than my Cambox, but has a similar front mount style and is specifically designed for a helmet. It definitely looks way better than a GoPro or the side mount cameras. The most interesting thing about it is the price – with a discount it comes in around $150. I’m far too in love with my Cambox to stray to something else, but it could be a really interesting option for those who like the design of the Cambox but don’t want to spend quite that much money. Somebody buy it and try it and report back!

Anybody own any of this stuff? Actually, don’t answer that question if you own a Soloshot. Unless you hate it, then feel free to tell me how much I don’t need it.

We won’t even talk about all the fancy new Majyk Equipe pads, or the fact that they’re now carrying all the MotionLite colors or the EQ3 MIPS helmets. I’m trying to pretend like none of this exists. Why do I even go look at the New Items page all the time? WHY? I need a 12 step program. Or a winning lottery ticket. Preferably the latter.

Well this is definitely going to be a much different show recap than you usually get around here. There was no dressage (unless you count the lap we walked around the outside of the ring while the judge was on break) and there were no jumps (unless you count all the poles he had to walk/trip over during trail). But it was a very solid first experience for Presto, who spent all day vastly exceeding my expectations.

His in-hand trail class didn’t start until 11, but it was open for schooling beforehand and I wanted to allow him plenty of time to settle in and look at all the obstacles. I was pretty sure that between the commotion of the show and all the scary stuff on the trail course, it might take me a couple hours to get him settled. So I got to the barn around 7:30, fed him, groomed him, and intended to wait until the barn workers got there so I could get someone to help me load him. He’s ridden in my trailer once before – when I brought him home – and he’s practiced loading another time, but I’ve never loaded him alone before, not completely anyway. Ie, walking him in and leaving him while I go around the back to close to ramp. He can still get a bit insecure when I leave him in general, so I wasn’t sure that this would go well. But after looking back and forth from the trailer to Presto for a few minutes I figured what the heck, lets just try it and see.

I’ll be damned if he didn’t walk right in and stand stock still when I told him whoa, climbed out of the escape door, and walked around to close the ramp. I crammed an alfalfa pellet in his mouth (the only “treats” he finds acceptable so far), tied him, and away we went.

He neighed and craned his head around a lot for the first few minutes before settling down and aggressively eating his hay. It was only about a 40 minute ride to the show, where I asked the people at the trailer next to us to keep an eye on him while I ran to the office to check in. Once I got back I untied him, dropped the ramp, and he very politely backed out, looking both ways before letting out a trumpeting “HELLLOOOOOOO EVERYONE, I’M HERE!!!” neigh. I led him around a bit, past the warmup (with it’s flapping flags), near the dressage arena, past some XC jumps, and then settled by the jump arena for a few minutes to watch some rounds.

He neighed a bit, but he wasn’t particularly worried about anything. Once he took a deep breath and cared more about eating grass than he did about looking around, I started doing some ground work – practicing walk/trot/halt/backing, sending him around me both ways, changing directions on the end of the lead rope, etc. The familiar work seemed to help relax him even more. Since XC hadn’t started yet, I walked him up and down the little bank complex a few times. May as well start getting that idea now!

By this point he was being pretty darn chill. He was looking around, but he wasn’t particularly bug-eyed about anything, was content to stand and graze, and really only neighed if another horse neighed first. So we meandered over and started looking at all the trail obstacles. We started with the easy things that he’s seen before, like all the poles, then I walked him over both bridges. He seemed more interested in pausing to eat the decorations.

Then we tackled the stuff that he’d DEFINITELY never seen before, like the curtain of garden hoses, the pool noodles hanging around a tree, a pool noodle thing that they had to walk through, and the blue tarp that they had to walk over. The first couple of times through the curtain of hoses he wanted to spurt quickly out the other side (by “spurt quickly” I mean take like 3 trot steps when one of the hoses brushed his butt, and the first time over the tarp he leaped completely over it (not gonna punish the jumper baby for THAT instinct!) but he wasn’t particularly concerned about any of it.

We were only about half an hour into the show by this point, and I was like “well, ok… now what do we do in the next two hours while we wait for trail to start?”. So we hung out and watched jumper rounds, dressage tests, and cross country. We listened to the loud speaker and the clapping. We hung out in the shade and just STOOD, practicing being patient. Every once in a while I would go run through a little ground work again, just to check in with him. We also practiced a much smaller trot than I normally ask him for in-hand… more of a jog than a real sporthorse trot. Well, as much of a jog as a horse with legs that long can manage, anyway. Finally I decided I should probably actually learn the trail course for real, and went to retrieve my map so we could put the whole thing together and do a full run-through.

I also have to say, thank goodness for the other people out there schooling the course, because for a few of the obstacles I had no idea exactly what we were supposed to do. I’ve definitely never done anything like this before, so I had to ask questions about how some of it was supposed to be done. I mean, I know we were just there for funsies, but I wanted to at least make an effort to do the right thing. Obstacle #8 especially had me stumped – it was a plastic barrel with a spinning PVC pipe attached across the top of it that apparently the horse is supposed to push around with his nose or chest. Who knew that was a thing? The first time I led Presto up to it he thought the answer was to jump over it (again… not an undesirable reaction considering his future career) but eventually he did figure out how to push it with his chest. I think I’ve spent so long instilling the NO PUSHING ANYTHING, EVER concept into him that he didn’t think that could possibly be right. Otherwise, he understood everything else pretty much immediately, to the point where he was almost blasé.

After a full practice run of the course (During which I discovered that I’ve got to go home and work on trotting circles to the right in hand – we’ve been practicing the triangle like they have at FEH, with it’s two big turns. The circle, being one long continuous turn, was not so good.) we went back and hung out in the shade by the jumper ring. Once the course opened for judging I was the first one at the gate. It was getting hot, baby horse was being really good – it was time to be done and go home. So as soon as the judge was ready, in we went.

 

He got a little excited in the trot figure 8 when there was a bunch of clapping and cheering nearby, but as far as “explosions” go, it was quite tame. I just lost his focus a bit and had to walk for a second to get him back on track. When we got to the pushing-spinning thing at 8, a horse came flying through the water jump behind him and spooked him a bit, but again, as far as “explosions” go… meh. It lasted all of 2 seconds and he settled right back down. Mostly he spent the whole course tripping over the poles and tiny logs. Babies. Their legs aren’t connected to their brains yet. He neighed a couple times too, when other horses neighed first, which is fine. Really I thought he was stellar. First time at a show, first time seeing or doing anything remotely like this… no complaints.

After we were done we went and chatted with the judge, who was quite complimentary of his first attempt at trail. Obviously he is not a trail horse, this is not his future career at all, but a) he listened b) he tried c) he intelligently thought his way through all the questions instead of getting worried or upset. These are all great life skills that he’ll need as he gets older, so I feel like the outing was 110% worth it.

Once he was finished we walked around and said our goodbyes, then I chucked him in the trailer (he repeated his morning performance of walking in, then standing and waiting when I said whoa and walked around to close the ramp – it wasn’t a fluke!), and we went home. I was so proud of how well-behaved he was, mostly because I think he just really showed me how intelligent he is. All day he looked to me for guidance, and all day he stayed polite and attentive and did what I asked him to do. There was no belligerence, he wasn’t worried, and he thought his way through everything. You can’t ask for more than that from any horse, much less a yearling taking his first trip to a show.

Oh, and he ended up placing 3rd (ok, there were only 4, but still). Kiddo has officially started his own satin collection. Well… hypothetically anyway, since I didn’t stay until the class was over and pinned. Details.