Me and Mush

We are on a different type of journey at the moment. I haven’t really figured out why we’re struggling and how to best solve the problem, but I hope we’ll get there one day. Let me explain.

Shah loves hacking out with other horses and we never have any problems as long as he can follow them. In fact, as long as he can follow anything (person, bike, horse, whatever) he’s perfectly fine. But as soon as I take him out on his own he’s a bit of a wreck. Normally I wouldn’t be too worried, being consistent and persistent with this type of problem would in most cases help. The more you take them out on their own the more they settle and the more they enjoy it. Not in this case! I’ve been trying hacking out on our own for most part of a year now and he’s exactly the same. Add to that his napping problem and the picture is quite glum. The most bizarre thing though is that if we turn right at the gate and go one way he’ll be ok, nervy but ok. But if we turn left he just will not go and he will nap within 200 metres. When he naps he doesn’t just stand still, we spin, back up, rear and buck, up and down the verges. As it’s a lane with traffic coming past, not constantly but quite often, I have to be careful as I don’t want him to spin out in front of something! Luckily he’s not perturbed by the traffic at all.

So far I’ve just lived with it, gone right when we’re on our own and left when with others. But I’ve now decided that this is something we need to work through. After three hacking out lessons with our NH trainer, two sessions on our own where we only did 200 metres, mostly in other ways then forwards we finally had a good 200 metre session the other day where he only hesitated once and then actually went forward.

I’m not saying the problem will now go away but it’s taken a lot of effort and time to try and find the best method of working through it. In the meantime I’ve read lots of advice about balking which has been interesting.

Our first attempt was the good old ‘give him a kick and smack and ride forwards’ advice. This lead to a 1,5 hour fight between us, leading to absolutly nowhere but frustration and anger. I was ready to give up at this point.

Our second attempt was to try the advice of giving Shah the choice of either working hard in the sand school or going out for an easy walk. Horses are by nature laid back and only wants to do as little as they can get away with so by giving them the choice they should (in theory) work out what’s easiest and then make the best choice, which in our opinion is the easy hack out. 1,5 hour later and after about 10-15 trips back and forwards between the school and the gate, Shah decided he liked running around in the school much more and continued to show off his huge trot and fast canter rather than opting for the slow hack out. End of that idea.

Another method that I’ve been told work well is to just sit and wait them out until they are so bored and have no more choice than just move forwards. Must admit I haven’t tried this. Arabs are the most enduring and persistent breed there is and I don’t fancy sitting still on the road outside our stables for hours on end. Someone once told me the story of a great horseman who’d sat on his horse for over 5 hours at one point where it had napped. He was prepared with a thermos and book, and the horse never napped again! Problem is, there are too many helpful people around here that would come out and try to offer help so I doubt we’d be able to do it. Plus Shah has the most tremendous stamina, I’m not sure 5 hours would be even close to what I’d need to do.

So, with the hacking out lessons (my trainer on the ground behind us, telling me what I’m doing wrong) we’ve focused on my reactions. I need to ride with more leg, less rein and much more mental focus. Shah had worked out that if he backs up onto the verges and into things (gates, hedges etc) I back off. I was in no uncertain terms told that I can’t eve let him start doing it, so it’s quick leg on to disengage his hindquarters as soon as I feel him starting to go. Using disengagement to stop the engine he can’t go sideways or backwards, and I then have to use our usual Parelli methos for forwards going (smile with all cheeks, legs, heels, smack yourself, smack him) but doing so in a calm and rhytmical way rather than my usually frustrated way. I also have to think forwards all the time, planting my eyes firmly in the direction we’re going. It’s hard, I have to be so confident, but it does work and I have to show Shah that I know what I’m doing, there’s nothing scary down the road where we’re going and I know that once we’ve worked through the problem I will again have a lovely horse to ride out with.

I can thoroughly recommend the books by Mark Rashid. He’s an excellent horseman and the stories he write about make so much sense. I’ve read two of his books, Horses Never Lie and Considering the Horse, both brilliant and I’m currently reading a third book, Tales from Ranch Horses.

It is every horse owner and rider’s worst nightmare. Ending up in hospital after a serious riding accident, wondering if you will ever ride again. Or do anything else for that matter. Everyone that ride horses know they will fall off, several times, probably hundreds of times if you ride regularly. But the older you get the easier your bones break and they take longer to heal.

So I was really sad to hear about a serious riding accident last week where my horse’s owner (and good friend) had come stuck underneath her horse while out jumping. Well, the horse fell and rolled over her, she didn’t fall off the horse. That’s often the problem if you’re a good rider, you don’t fall off unless the horse comes down. She is in a serious condition with lots of broken bones and damage to her internal organs. But she’s alive, and she’s now in a stable condition.

It’s dampened the mood on the yard. We’ve all started to think more about safety – well, I have anyway - I’ve bought myself a pair of stirrup cages and a new helmet. Although there wasn’t anything she could have done to prevent it happening – apart from staying at home in an armchair in front of the fire with the dogs on her lap!

Riding is a dangerous sport. We all know it but the buzz it gives us is too good to stop. I guess it’s the same with all dangerous sports.

As we enter November I have been asking myself if horses get SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder? Shah always gets grumpy this time of the year and November tends to be his worst month. He hates the change in weather, the colder and wetter days and he hates having to wear rugs.

I had the EP around for a visit yesterday and Shah was a real grumpy so and so, pulling faces all the time even though he had some hay to keep him busy. Luckily the EP is used to that and although he pulls faces, Shah doesn’t actually follow up with anything nasty these days, apart from a few half hearted nips. He was also difficult in the school the other day when I tried to do some groundwork with him, bardging  and running into me, and doing his small rear ups.

This made me wonder if horses are emotionally affected by the change in weather? I’ve noticed over the past three years that Shah always gets worse in November. As he’s an Arab, bred to run in the desert, he loves sunshine and warmth, the hotter the better. So when our horrible winter comes he doesn’t want to know. I wonder if there are any herbs that you can get to help – I wouldn’t be able to put him under a solarium for very long

The issue with rugs is slightly different. He hates rugs because he doesn’t like to be touched or to have anything put on him (saddle, girth, numnahs, etc.). I think it has something to do with him having very thin skin. Arabs in general have thinner skins that most horses (only the Akhal-Teke has thinner skins than Arabs) which is why they are very good endurance horses, especially in hot weather. I suspect that Shah might be on the thinner end of the scale, and coupled with abuse he’s become more sensitive than other horses. I am trying to improve his sensitivity with the approach-retreat method, but it’s taking a long time. It’s worked very well with his headshyness, but is taking a lot longer with the rest of the body and we go back a few steps every time he gets grumpy again.

I found this research on the web about SAD in horses. Intersting to see that I’m not the only one who thinks that horses are affected by the seasonal changes. It seems that light therapy might have helped some horses that were involved in the research. Hm, do I get a pig lamp, a solarium, light strips…….