In this episode, Jec talks with Robin Foster, a certified applied animal behaviorist and a professor at the University of Puget Sound in Washington State. Foster cites an interesting study on grooming by Lea Lansade, a researcher in France.
Somewhere along the path of their learning journeys, many riders including myself became conditioned to constantly observe and correct the horse’s head and neck position. We were taught that if the horse’s head/neck was in a desirable frame, it meant everything about our ride was going well. This led to over-prioritizing the front end of the horse, often at the expense of addressing all the other critical components of a horse’s body mechanics. Without realizing it, we spent the ride fidgeting with the bit above all else.
By Jec A. Ballou
Perhaps one of the most delightful aspects of riding is the way it steadies and focuses our human minds in those moments we sit astride. For myself, anyway, I savour the monastic contemplation of the first minutes of a ride as I consider: What does this horse need? Every session originates from how I can improve the horse’s physical well-being, and this requires a good deal of paying attention.
My conversation last month with renowned trainer and veterinarian Gerd Heuschmann did not lead where I thought it would, having started with muscles but ending with books. He said he believed many of the disappointments in modern training are due to students no longer being committed to the scholarship of dressage. In addition to physical practice, he wishes for them to read and study and think deeply. But most riders don’t see the point, he lamented.
Jec Ballou interviews Gayle Ecker, director of Equine Guelph at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
It sounded like one of those Zen riddles intended to puzzle my 13-year-old brain until it staggered upon some flicker of enlightenment. “Forward does not mean faster,” my dressage instructor annunciated, her exasperation rising. And then with the next breath she waggled her longe whip towards me to assist in creating a forward-but-not-faster movement.
Get in the habit of performing a fitness test every six to eight weeks. This will be your check-up and time to assess which cross-training exercises to utilize over the next several weeks.
In the physical training of a dressage horse, the greatest gains to be made are in the areas of strength. Being a low aerobic sport with limited endurance or speed components, dressage relies on the acquisition of strength and flexibility more than other fitness markers to improve performance.
My friend Carmen’s adorable daughter Simone is, against all logic, horse-obsessed. I, too, suffered horse obsession as a child, but unlike Simone, I lived on a farm, so my craze seemed mostly normal. Simone, however, lives in a condominium in a high-density neighborhood in a populated metropolitan area. Neither her parents nor friends share her equine enthusiasm; it developed in her apparently out of the blue. This charming little blond-haired girl now has horse pajamas, pony colouring books, Breyer models, a wooden stable, horse-themed Valentine’s cards and cookie cutters, etc. She is afflicted so severely that all the non-horse people around her can only scratch their heads.
In this episode, Ann Firestone of Save Your Ass Long Eared Rescue joins Jec in California-to-New Hampshire phone conversation. Ann has been ardently devoted to this mule and donkey non profit for years.
