As an equine fitness enthusiast, I occasionally end up helping students develop rehabilitation programs for their horses after injury or prolonged layup. This is never a bright time. Faced with wasted muscles or lower legs mottled with inflammation or hooves with sections missing, owners look at their steeds warily. How will they ever perform normally again?
By Jec A. Ballou
When I rode in Germany, my instructor was almost militant about the fact that I should be able to carry a whip equally well with each hand. By well, he meant that I should not tighten my wrist, yank on the rein, or get disorganized when changing directions and switching the whip over to my other hand. And, maybe most importantly, he meant that I should USE the whip.
What counts as calisthenics? And why do they matter? Luckily, someone interrupted my rhapsody during a clinic last week praising the value of calisthenics for developing equine athletes. What exactly did I mean by calisthenics? the student asked. She was probably not alone in wondering, lost as I was describing the power of these exercises.
When Western Dressage first established itself, we instructors struggled to describe the requirements of a “working lope” clearly enough for students. We wanted to be sure to differentiate it from the stilted gaits seen in the Western Pleasure discipline, and yet it was also not the animated jumping-across-the-ground canter of the traditional dressage world.
Many of us make our horses stiffer with our attempts at kindness. Aiming for light and forgiving rein contact, we sometimes make the mistake of too much looseness, which feels erratic and unclear to the horse. Rather than improving our horse’s balance and physiology, we cause him to fall apart immediately following moments of correct movement.
Source: Research Radio by Equine Guelph | with Dr. Steven Roche
At some point, every rider has endured a hair-raising, nail-biting moment of time when one’s life flashes before one’s eyes due to a wildlife critter that would under normal circumstances seem adorable and charming. In these moments, though, wildlife seems like one of life’s great cruelties.
Teaching is a funny business, especially when one endeavours to teach something as elusive as horsemanship. It’s a cruel pursuit of seeing students achieve success for a few seconds and then fall apart just as quickly.
The topic of love came up last week, which produced a sobering dose of self-reflection. It probably came up because it’s the one thing that unites us all to the selfless and expensive concept of owning horses, an endeavour that leaves most of us asking, “Why do I do this?” far more often than it answers that question.
For most horses, it is in the area of strength that they can — and need to — make the most gains. Evolution has given horses remarkable aerobic adaptations. Generally speaking, they make rapid gains from cardiovascular exercise and their bodies handle aerobic demands efficiently. Their musculoskeletal system, however, lacks the same adaptability.
