Rehabbing the injured horse

Movement is medicine.

Once you get through the initial acute inflammation stage of an injury and have worked with your vet to decide on a treatment plan, gentle movement to meet your horses needs help the healing process along. 

Depending on the type of injury will depend on how long to reintroduce the movement, what type and how much. Some injuries won’t need too long of a spell, while others may need a good couple of months. 

A lot of the injuries I’ve worked with in my training career have been old injuries that are from their racing career (lots of standardbreds and thoroughbreds). A couple have been paddock injuries especially as foals. A handful have happened while being ridden (at least with these injuries you know what happened). Quite a few have been due to poor training and breaking, being put in a frame too young, not been shown how to move freely and not being able to develop freely within the frame. 

I’ve only worked with a couple of freshly injured horses. With fresh injuries, working with your vet and giving the adequate spelling for the type of injury is key. Don’t do any bodywork on fresh injuries and acute inflammation. It is more likely to do more damage than good. 

With old injuries, gentle stress on the horses body that improves their posture, engages their core and increases their freedom of movement - in combination with a good body worker - is key to your horse thriving. 

When we exercise our horses we are creating an environmental stress that the horses body is adapting to. If it's too much stress, the horse’s body will adapt negatively to protect the body. Just the right amount of stress can encourage the body to adapt in a positive way where they are more functional and expressive in their movement. 

Horses with old injuries need even less stress (lower impact work) to ensure the adaptive process improves their functional movement. 

Whenever you introduce a new movement, old injuries will generally temporarily flare so you want to provide adequate support, rest and spelling to allow their body to adapt to the new workload. Topical treatments can also help in this instance. If they are coming back into work after a spell, especially more than a couple weeks, they need to be brought back into work slowly to reduce impact injury.

If I am dealing with a horse that has behavioural issues like bucking, rearing, biting and sometimes bolting, I do assume there is an underlying physical issue or old injury that needs to be addressed and managed - no matter how many vets and body workers tell me they can find nothing. If they have ever raced, trained to race or trained by a professional, I assume they have some level of injury or musculoskeletal trauma. If they are over 15 I assume they have some level of arthritis. 

If you are managing an injury or bringing a horse with an old injury back into work you need to ensure:

• The level of concussion on their body is minimised. This includes jumping and the types of surfaces they are ridden on.

• The amount of stress on their body errs on the side of caution. It could mean a good period of time of in hand work on the ground before you even consider riding, or a good period of time just walking.

• The type of exercises you do improve and engage the horses overall posture and musculoskeletal health. 

The best way to help rehabilitate your horse is to slowly progress the muscular development and fitness. Enrol in the Green to Self Carriage Course to learn exactly how to apply these exercises to scale strength, suppleness, and improve their recover time frame.

How to ride "on the bit" correctly

We recently spoke about WHAT riding on the bit actually is (missed it? Read the blog here).

Now it is time to understand the underlying dynamics and conditioning we need to consider before putting it into action.

How to put my horse on the bit?

The horse being on the bit is a combination of:

• establishing acceptance and willingness to follow bit pressure,

• understanding how to communicate flexion without tensing the neck against the bit pressure,

• and the conditioning for the horse to be able to hold the posture required for them to stay on the bit.

And I’ll give you a little secret for free:

On the bit has less to do with the arc of the neck and more to do with the flexion of the hocks.

The straighter the hocks, the straighter the back, the more resistance and pull you get into the bit. If you teach the submission to the frame aid without the hock flexion your horse will lack forwardness, throughness and impulsion. It will still be working on the forehand and will be working either behind the bit or heavy in your hand.

When you are truly & correctly working your horse on the bit, your aren’t controlling the angle of neck flexion, but instead the angle of hock flexion.

How to keep my horse on the bit?

Then keeping your horse on the bit has do with keeping them sitting into their haunches, hocks flexed.

This is why the conditioning is so important and why having your horse on the bit takes a while to develop and hold well with consistency. Our expectations is the difference between me going for a run and me going for a run lifting my knees. They need to learn the poise, posture and lightness of a dancer and then build the muscles to hold that extra effort for periods of time.  

How to get my young horse on the bit?

If you’ve just got yourself a young horse and realised that they aren’t as soft and easy to ride as your dressage school master, you’re not alone!

In the naivety that was my youth I thought all horses knew how to work on the bit and the ones that didn’t were because the rider didn’t know how to ride. How wrong I was!

In fact so wrong that I’ve written a whole course on the skills and prerequisites a horse needs to be able to work on the bit.

There is a lot to cover with a green horse in establishing relaxation, balance and suppleness, understanding of the aids, work ethic. Also the depth of frame often required in entry level dressage by far requires movements of an educated horse, such as leg yield, shoulder fore and canter through simple changes.

To be working your horse on the bit at a competition you want to be training at least one level higher than you are training. Most professional riders you will compete against will be training 2 levels higher. 

To teach a green horse to work on the bit, we believe it is important that you as a rider are educated in riding true self carriage and not just pull the horses head down. For the horse, they need to develop the strength and power of the haunches to sit deeper and flex behind and engage their core so they can relax and swing over their back.

Once these 2 skills are developed, “on the bit” happens naturally and easily. 

A little tip for free: green horses are great for eliciting the gaps in our own understanding and knowledge so you if are stuck on something, review the basics and see where you have missed a core piece of the puzzle in your own understanding and ability.

Riding on the bit requires skill and education, and can’t be achieved overnight. However, with the right effort and training, it will become natural and will look effortless flawless - bring those high dressage scores (as long as the judge likes your horse’s coat colour, of course!).

related blogs

Is Your Horse Fitter Than You?

One of the common issues I see as a horse riding instructor is that my students horses are stronger, fitter and more powerful than they are. Well, let's truly be honest, when you are working with 500kg plus animals, they are more than likely going to at least be stronger and more powerful than you, if not fitter. Even if it is a 300kg animal you don't really want them to know how much stronger than you they are. I laugh when people talk about dogs being too strong for them to handle, which are at their heaviest 50 - 100kg, but which is still obviously a significant weight.

The key is not to be bigger or stronger, nor bully them into submission, but to create a channel of self expression through disciplined behaviour. Set parameters and boundaries in what you see as acceptable behaviour, follow through with consistency, and allow them to express their individuality constructively. This establishes you as the leader they want to follow and can trust instead of the dictator that they must follow or will suffer. 

One of the first goals I go about with a new student is to break down the power struggle and try to find a level of cooperation between horse and rider. I find a battle of the strongest is rarely successful because it has never worked for me let alone my students. 

Tips for establishing cooperation

Discipline

The easiest way for establishing a good working relationship is setting some boundaries and expectations. I choose to do this in a non threatening and easy to apply way. It needs to be consistent with each and every time you are handling your horse. It also needs to be done with compassion. The idea of bullying a horse into submission is dated, we don't need that for submission - in fact it works against us for true submission. Clear, well established boundaries are all that is needed. 

A horses behaviour is an expression of their personality interacting with their environment. 

How a horse reacts to an environmental stimulus is firstly defined by its' personality and secondly how it has been conditioned to react to stimulus. You can help set a standard for how you want your horse to work with you but you cannot 'make them behave'.

Consistency is the key.

If no matter how the horse behaves you react with calm, compassionate boundaries for what is acceptable and what is not, you are not only teaching your horse how you want them to behave you are also showing them through your demeanour. You can unintentionally set in action a cascade of poor behaviour if you:

·        React emotionally

·        Don't clearly define the behaviour you expect (or don't know what behaviour you should expect)

·        Don't follow through on these expectations

·        Are inconsistent with setting these boundaries

·        Allow other horses or people dictate that horses behaviour more frequently than you

Developing a relationship with your horse

This is a tricky one. You don't develop a relationship with a horse in a day, or a week, or a month. You establish it over a lifetime. Every interaction positive or negative is affecting your relationship with your horse. How you react in difficult and stressful situations teaches your horse whether or not they can trust and rely on you. How you guide your horse through difficult times is the crux of your relationship with your horse.

This is where having clear, established boundaries really come into their own. If you have established your expectations in a non-stressful, relaxed environment, followed through on these expectations to the reward, you can quickly and easily define your expectations in a stressful and over stimulated environment, channel the excess energy into focused energy and positively work through the situation. This then also reinforces your good leadership skills and the horses' trust in you to make good decisions for their well being.

You can actively take control of a situation that makes your horse uncomfortable and navigate them through to a positive resolution. Each time you can do this you are strengthening your relationship and your horses trust in you, your trust in your horse and your confidence in yourself to work through difficult situations with your horse. 

Know your why 

What is your why? This is an important part of your relationship with your horse.

If your why is at the detriment of the mental, physical or emotional health of your horse you are breaking their trust in you and breaking down your relationship. However if you are providing just the right amount of mental and physical stimulation to make them feel confident and good in themselves they will willing work with you in the development of their training.

Take the time to define why you are dedicating countless hours of work, training and money towards your riding. If your why is to get recognition or get a ribbon at a certain competition, this can mean that you compromise your horses physical, mental or emotional well-being and they will know what you are doing is not in their best interest. If you can confidently say your horses mental, emotional and physical well being is your primary objective the rest will come. Your horse will feel good for the mental and physical stimulation and will actively engage in their training with you. Best case scenario they will also look after you and teach you - if you are willing to listen and learn.

Level up your skills

"Take a small step, normalise the behaviour, level up, never miss 2 in a row" Darren Rowse

Sometimes in training we are aimlessly shooting for the stars without a strategy of how to get there. It is important to dream big but your goals get a lot harder to achieve without a solid strategy.

Define the first thing you can do to work towards the big goal today and do it! Do it until it is a normal part of your routine. "Its just what I do." Work on that goal for 3 months until it is properly integrated into your routine and don't compromise this small goal more twice in a row. You will also be experiencing an ebb and flow between your horse being one step ahead of you and you being one step ahead of your horse. Keep working on improving your skill set. Understand the foundations and continue to revisit. Ride anything and everything you can. 

"You can't steer a ship 50 degrees at once, but if you move 2 degrees, then another 2 degrees and continue like this, years later you end up in a very different place from where you began. As long as you are steering in the right direction, your impact and progress is made over time" Illy

Get fit, get a strong core and get balanced in the saddle

If you want to be fit enough for your horse you need control of your core for an independent seat. You gotta get loose if you want to dance. One thing that I notice about my own riding (and I will be honest in this - it was so hard for me to learn but it was huge in getting me to where I am today): 

You have to be able to balance and move independent of your horse if you want to be a competent rider with a sticky seat. I have memories of YEARS worth of lessons with my instructors trying to teach me how to influence my horses movement with my seat and I just remember thinking this is impossible, there is no way I can do that and so relied on control of the horse with reins instead of creating an integration of movement through a cohesion of our bodies working together.

The thing I eventually learnt is that you had to let go of control to gain control. Trying to control the horses by griping and tensing is simply ineffective when you are trying to dance. Secondly I had to teach my body to be more sensitive to the subtleties of my horses movement. If I could only feel big shifts and evasions and imbalances then I would only be able to counter-correct movement. When I learnt to pay attention to each stride and each flex of a muscle I learnt how to get control of my seat and work with the horse with my seat. 

Make sure your horse isn't fitter than you

Don't lunge your horse 3 times a week if you are unfit and don't have the time to ride. You are only making your horse fitter and stronger than you are. It is better for your horse to be unfit and out of work than to try and keep them fit and not yourself. Optimally it would be great if you could both be fit together that would be ideal but life happens and that means sometimes we have to negotiate on a few things. The first to go is generally our self care. 

Equestrian Movement is passionate about self care and optimal health and believe it is pivotal to being an effective horse rider. We are athletes and you need to treat yourself as such.

Is your horse fitter than you?

Remedy that with our training programs: 3 Weeks to Improving Your Riding