As promised on Monday, I wanted to circle back and discuss “The Tree of Knowledge” that Presto spent many hours tied to last weekend.

The practice of tying horses out alone is an old one. The cowboy set in particular has been doing this for a long time. Sometimes they use a telephone pole set into the ground, sometimes it’s a special metal pole high tie, sometimes you’ll see someone sling the rope over the rafter of an indoor, and sometimes, if you’ve got a good tree, you can use that too.

The important part is that the horse is tied to a point that is high – above it’s head. This way they can move around however they want and not become entangled, but they also can’t get any leverage to really hurt themselves if they go to pull back. A horse that’s tied at body level can break just about any tie apparatus and do a lot of damage to it’s neck/back, just because the force it can exert at that angle is tremendous. A horse that’s tied to something well above it’s head can’t get much leverage at all.

The point of it is not to torture the horse by leaving it tied for hours, it’s to teach the horse a) to tie reliably, b) patience, c) how to self-soothe.

To me it’s extremely important that any of my horses be able to tie reliably, and be able to be left unattended for at least brief periods of time. This is a skill that, for my lifestyle, is absolutely vital. A horse that can’t do this will eventually get himself or his human into trouble one day, and likely hurt himself in the process. Teaching a horse to tie reliably, from a young age, is doing that horse a real service for the rest of his life, IMO.

It’s also extremely important that a horse learns that once he’s tied, he may as well just stand there and chill. As soon as they’re tied they should put it in park, take a breath, and wait for something else to happen, whenever that may be. Not on their schedule, but on mine. No pawing, no dancing back and forth, no pulling back when they decide they’re done waiting. And more importantly, no worrying about what else might be going on around them. Rudeness and tantrums get you nowhere.

They also learn that no matter what happens or how they act, no one is going to come get them. They might be stressed out about it at first, but over time they figure out that their shenanigans don’t work, so they may as well just relax. That’s self-soothing. They’re not getting their relief from another horse, or from a human… they’re using their own brains to realize that they’re okay by themselves. That’s a skill that goes a long way in getting a horse to be more confident in all aspects of it’s life.

I was first introduced to this concept when Sadie went off to the cowboy for breaking. She was NOT reliable about standing tied, and had learned that she could sit back and break just about anything. It really stemmed from the fact that she was just unsure of herself in general and lacked confidence, especially when she was alone. When she got to the breaker she spent many hours tied to his patience tree, especially those first couple weeks. She pawed, she paced, she had temper tantrums, she attacked the tree, she tried to pull back, she tried to lay down, and made a general menace of herself. And you know what happened?

Nothing.

No matter what she did, she was still standing there at that tree by herself. It didn’t take long before he could take her out to the tree and she would just stand there quietly in the shade until he came back, content to take a nap. She didn’t just learn how to tie or how to be patient, she learned how to simply exist within herself, not relying on outside comfort. The lessons went a lot deeper than tying. I made a mistake by not teaching her those things earlier in her life, and I’m not going to repeat it with her son.

I am a big fan of the concept of patience trees, or as I like to call it, “The Tree of Knowledge”. Because it’s not really just about patience at all.

I still come across people that think leaving a horse standing tied for hours is inhumane. If the horse is standing with it’s head tied high (ie no slack in the rope, forcing the horse to hold it’s head higher than it normally would), or if the horse is left all day with no water, or if it’s unbearably hot and there’s no shade – then I would agree. But if the horse has no real reason to be physically uncomfortable, then he has no reason to be upset about being tied. He’s more comfortable standing there than he would be standing for hours in a trailer, yet we don’t think trailering is inhumane (ok, I’m sure someone out there does…).

Presto spent about 3 hours each day tied to the tree. At first he was quite mad. He’s pretty solid about being tied so I never saw him try to sit back, but he has not yet learned that the world doesn’t revolve around him and boy did he pace and paw. Eventually the behaviors started to lessen, and he began to accept his fate. He didn’t perfect his patience skills just in those two days, but I think he definitely learned a little bit about how things don’t always operate on his terms. The barn owner built me a high tie in the indoor at home that he will soon become well acquainted with, but I wanted him to log his first few hours on the tree – my favorite place to tie.

I also would not have put him out there if he hadn’t learned some basic ground rules beforehand. First and foremost, he had to know how to give to pressure. I don’t think you should ever tie a horse (anywhere, under any circumstances) that doesn’t understand the very basics of yielding to pressure. He’s also been required to stand tied for decent periods of time with me in attendance, so standing still isn’t a foreign concept either. We built up to it in a way that I felt was fair to him. The only thing different was that this time he had to do it alone.

Some people don’t agree with this approach, and that’s ok. Different strokes for different folks. But for me it’s been a really valuable method that has made a big difference in my horses, and that’s why I do it. At the end of the day, it’s my responsibility to make the horse into a solid citizen, and that’s a responsibility that I don’t take lightly at all, especially considering I’m the entire reason this horse is even on this planet in the first place. I’ll do the best I can with the lessons I’ve learned from past mistakes, and hope that he learns what he needs in order to have the best possible life, no matter what.

As exciting as Presto’s version of our weekend adventure was (at least the water jump parts of it), Henry’s was a little bit more grown up and serious.

He is such a grump about sharing his trailer, I swear. Every time I looked in the rearview mirror to check on them, Presto was blissfully tearing chunks of hay out of the net and Henry was just standing there staring straight ahead, ears half pinned. He likes to act as if he doesn’t like Presto, but let me tell you who was the first one neighing for his long lost BFF when we got there and I left Presto tied to the tree.

First up on Saturday was a quick and very sweaty dressage lesson. Since bringing Presto home I’ve temporarily stopped our regular every-other-week lessons at the dressage barn near me, just until I feel a little less squeamish about writing that double board check. It’s been a couple months since we had a lesson, and a really really really long time since we had a dressage lesson with my regular eventing trainer. I swear, she is meaner than the nice dressage trainer man at home. He is really good at making me always stay calm and patient, but she doesn’t let me get complacent. It’s kind of a nice balance.

The main focus of the lesson was getting Henry extra forward and in front of my leg, something that has kind of always been an issue. I know I don’t always ask him for as much as I really can, and he’s perfectly happy to bumble around putting forth as little effort as possible. She made us trot and canter our big jiggly butts off. It’s almost like I need to get him a little too forward for a while, until he’s seeking to be a bit more forward-moving on his own. He was definitely in front of the leg, and shockingly (I know, right?) everything was a lot better. We’ve got homework. It’s called impulsion.

After that was when we went and grabbed Presto and ponied him over to the water. Honestly I can’t decide if my favorite part of that whole scene was watching Presto flop himself down in to the water repeatedly like a baby hippopotamus, or seeing Henry’s face on the video.

Poor Henny. His life is really hard, y’all. Somebody call the ASPCA.

Sunday was the “clear round” jumper show, which started with crossrails and went up throughout the day. In the morning I just hung out and watched and helped jump crew a bit, and stayed within eyeshot of Presto hanging out at his tree. He was hardcore glaring at me while I pretended not to notice. Y’all think Henny has good mareglare… you ain’t seen nothin yet.

Around 11 I went up and grabbed Henry to tack him up. The plan was to do one Training round and one Prelim round. I haven’t really been jumping him at home much at all… the ground has been a bit too hard for my taste, so we’ve just been hopping over a handful of little fences once a week, at most. It would definitely benefit my riding to be able to jump more, but it’s more important to save Henry’s legs and feet. He knows his job pretty well by now. It does mean I’m a bit rusty though, especially at full Prelim height.

It was hot and humid by the time I got on, so I did a very short warmup. Like 5 mins of trot, a few laps of canter, and then I jumped the little 2’6″ warmup oxer twice. Henry knows the deal by now. He seemed pretty happy to be jumping, too, after that dressage torture the day before.

This was my first time jumping real courses on him in his new PS of Sweden hackamore, with the plain leather curb strap. The first hackamore test run last month at the Scissortail show was in the other mechanical hackamore, with the chain strap. The mechanics of the PS are different too, since the “shank” part of the PS hackamore is swept back much more than a traditional hackamore. It hangs differently, further back from the mouth, and there’s less leverage, which I like because it makes it feel more like a middle ground between the sidepull and the regular mechanical hack. I thought that the mechanical hack with the chain strap was a little too much whoa, but I wasn’t sure if the different mechanics (ie lessened leverage) of the PS would mean that I might need the chain back. I also wanted to get Trainer’s opinion of how he jumps in it (I love it, but ya know…) so I waited for her to finish giving a XC lesson and then went in for our Training round.

It was probably the best round we’ve had in a while. In the hackamore I’m really able to ride Henry a bit more “up” in front, and he doesn’t feel like he wants to just ball up and go up and down like a carousel horse. He’s more forward, in every good possible way. And because of all those things, I feel like he really pushes off the ground a lot better and uses his body, especially his hind end, much more correctly. He still rubbed a few, because Henry is the most minimalistic horse in the world, but they stayed up, and the clear round was good for a blue ribbon. Trainer gave her thumbs up to the hackamore.

I was the last Training round to go, so all the jumps went up right after that. There were only two of us waiting for Prelim rounds, and as soon as they finished with the course I went back in. We had our choice of two different courses, but I just stuck with the same one we’d already done. My brain doesn’t need any additional challenges, thanks.

When I went in and picked up the canter Henry even gave a very sassy little head twist, despite the heat and humidity. I think he was happy to be back at it, doing something fun. Since it’s been a while since we’ve jumped some height, a couple of the oxers looked maybe a little big to me, but not too bad. I guess I’m getting used to the size now. Of course, I tipped my shoulders just a teeny bit at the base of the first vertical and he ticked the rail with his front toe. Whoops. He was really good though, even when he locked on to another fence in the rollback and I really thought he was going to try to jump it sideways. He ate that course up and jumped the crap out of some of those fences. Enthusiasm. He has it. Well… for jumping, anyway. Maybe not anything else. Except food.

I did find a bit of a big distance into the two stride oxer-to-oxer in and out, which did not make his job the easiest, but he self-corrected and hopped right through with no problem. He jumped the bigger fences better than the smaller ones. Knock on wood, but Henry feels really good right now… strong and capable and happy. I know I always say that he’s worth his weight in gold but I think he’s actually worth at least 3x that. How many horses can pack their amateur’s butt around a Prelim stadium course one minute and then the next minute be ponying his dumb little yearling brother around the field? Henry is perfection in a plain brown wrapper.

I ended up having to load them and haul home in the rain, but I’m glad we got our rounds in before the deluge started. What a great weekend for both of my boys!

Oh boy, did Presto have another very exciting weekend! Well, some parts of it were more exciting for me than for him, but he still had his fair share of fun.

My trainer’s barn was having a schooling jumper show on Sunday, so I decided to make a weekend of it and have a dressage lesson on Saturday too. And of course, if I’m gonna take Henry down there for the weekend, why not throw Little Brother in the trailer too? So Saturday morning, bright and early, I loaded both boys in my trailer together for the first time.

Which we should all get extra credit for, because I don’t have functional butt bars at the moment and was wondering how the hell that was gonna work, trying to load two by myself. But these kids are saints, so it was as simple as leading them both out together, having Henry self-load, and then leading Presto into the other side, leaving them both to make faces at each other over the hay net while I went around and shut the ramp. I am lucky to have two easy loaders/haulers. That could have been way harder than it was. The next big thing for Presto to learn is how to self load, so I can just point both of them at the trailer and not have to worry about it.

After the two hour drive they unloaded just as easily, and Presto pretty much went straight to the Tree of Knowledge to get an education in patience while Henry and I watched some other lessons and then got ready for our own. I’ll talk more about the idea behind the Tree of Knowledge in another post, because several people have already asked about it after seeing my Instagram stories, but let’s just say that Presto was none-to-pleased about it at first. He stayed out there for a few hours total and while he definitely settled way down, he was mad and certainly did not give up entirely. Gotta give the kid props for perseverance and stamina.

After Henry and I were done with our lesson, we went and rescued grabbed him from the tree and ponied him around the XC course a bit. Mostly I wanted to get him in the water, because they’re never too young to start learning about that. He was a little hesitant at first, standing on the edge for about 30 seconds before giving up and plopping one foot in. And once that foot was in, he had a total change of heart. He charged into the water, smacking it with his feet and making big splashes. He looked like a little kid in a pool. I wish I’d been able to video that part, I was cracking up.

We crossed the water a few times and then I let him stop to drink. After that he decided he wanted to roll in this magical pool of amazingness, so I let him. And he rolled. And he got up. And he rolled again. And he splashed. And he rolled. I was laughing so hard I had to go get Trainer and bring her back over to watch.

So, no worries there… Presto LOVES water. We even walked up and down the little tiny side of the bank. It’s so small, a step up trailer is bigger, so it’s a good little “intro” to the idea of stepping up and down. Up was easy, but he was a little impressed with the first time down. I’m pretty sure you can see him saying CANNONBALL here.

After that it was less exciting and he just plopped down normally on the second attempt.

On Sunday he spent a few hours in the morning turned out next to Trainer’s geldings, who were absolutely mesmerized by him. They did not understand his submissive baby chomping behavior at all and just kept trying to eat him. Poor kid.

Then he went back to the Tree of Knowledge again for a few hours. He was definitely less enthusiastic about his protests on Day 2, and mostly just seemed put out. Welcome to life, kiddo. Isn’t the first time, won’t be the last. He never quite gave in completely and just relaxed, but there were no major theatrics or meltdowns, and he got to stand there and watch/hear all the goings-on of the horse show.

After Henry was done with his jumper classes we went for another quick pony around the XC course, this time over to the little row of ditches. He just trotted right over, no big deal. Honestly, Henry was spookier about them than Presto was. We just might have a baby event horse on our hands here.

It was a great learning weekend for Presto, and fun to be able to take the boys somewhere together. Hopefully getting these types of experiences early in life will make him a way more solid citizen later on. For a yearling he’s already pretty darn good.

Oh, and this kid is in a growth spurt like you would not believe. He just keeps eating and eating and eating, but he’s only getting TALLER, not wider. He ate an entire bale of hay on Saturday! I don’t even know where it goes! Maybe some day he’ll decide to fill out a little?

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!