Ready For The Competition

So, it is officially time for the competition, and our sixty day challenge is drawing to a close. Saturday, Polly, Erica and I will be heading up to Maryland very early in the morning, and the festival  begins at 10, with the freestyle competition at 2, and the awards being given at 4pm. 

Polly enjoyed her week off while I was in England, and I think it actually did her some good. She came back the past two weeks and really made some leaps in her education, and I'm pretty sure that she's ready for the challenge. I got her adjusted by Dr. Goldsmith one more time, just to make sure that her body was feeling up for the extra work, and we got the go-ahead to continue, albeit with attention paid to how fast and hard we ask her to work. 

I would say that I'm a secretly competitive person, because I seem like I'm pretty laid back about competition, but I take it very seriously and expect for my hard work to be rewarded appropriately! I know that the challenge is about showing the progress of the horse and the relationship between myself and Polly....but I still want to win!!

I'm also very serious about presentation, because I feel strongly that if you look the part, you're more likely to be considered professional, prepared, and impress the judges! This is for every public appearance, regardless of the level or type of activity. It's like going on a date, you don't wear your regular jeans and a semi-dirty t-shirt, do you? No! You wash your hair, wear the most flattering clothes you have, and try to make the best first impression. 

In response to that, Polly has enjoyed more than a little spa time this week in preparation for the competition! Not to give away any trade secrets, but I did dye her tail....and gave her a little root treatment for her grey hair patch on her mane! I do this for my horses before major competitions, it helps get rid of the sunburn streaks in the tail, and it looks fantastic!

She has been preparing for her freestyle, and while I can't reveal the whole plan, I can tell you that we will be doing a five-minute bit to Pharell's "Happy", which I thought was appropriately fun, sporty and good for a girl that is looking for adoption!

The last bit of good news is that Polly was vetted this week, as we were considering keeping her in our program at EWS, and all of our horses have to pass a vet examination before they can enter into training. We like to make sure that they are physically ready to become sport horses before we ask them to work. Great news! Polly passed!! She has wonderful flexions, x-rays and good heart/lungs/breathing, so she will be returning with us after Saturday's festivities. I'm delighted to keep training her, and excited to see what I can do with a little more time. 

Trainer's Challenge Obstacles Revealed!

Polly following me onto the bridge

There are only a few more days left until the Trainer's Challenge, in fact, less than a month remains! With thirty days to go, DEHFR released the full list of obstacles and skills that will be required on the 20th of September. My professional division certainly requires a pretty good list of stuff, and Polly and I have set to work accomplishing all of the tasks.

I already had an inkling (from looking at photos of previous challenges) that there would be pool noodles and baby pools involved, and both of those things are a little tricky to get used to, so Polly has been experiencing those for a while now. However, in just a few short weeks, she is to have mastered the following: a simple change, a rein back, a turn on the forehand, a figure eight at the trot, and a square halt, and that is just for her freestyle!

The freestyle is followed by the Obstacle Challenge, which is a little more complicated. It will be composed of ten of the following fifteen obstacles, each of which is assigned a point value (based on the difficulty). We each have five minutes to complete as many of the following: teeter-totter bridge, turn on the haunches/forehand inside a hula hoop, walk through a smoke machine, walk over a tarp and under a noodle curtain, go through a kiddie pool with water, shoot a target with a squirt gun, jump a small cross rail, back through some hay bales, open a mail box, drag bottles behind the horse, mummify a person, a trot to halt transition, side-pass over a pole, load into a trailer, and trot through a barrel pattern. Of course not ALL of these will be required, but all of them are fair game!

So, in the past week or so, Polly and I have increased the frequency that we practice specific movements. She is now comfortable with the baby pool, both on the ground and under saddle. All of the obstacles can be completed by leading the horse, but of course it is superior to ride them if possible. She has had the pool noodles on her stall door for several weeks now, and she has finally stopped squirming when they touch her, so that's good.

Yesterday we took a mini field trip to the farm in Keswick where the Equine Welfare Society is based. Polly has been at my farm, but a trip in the trailer was good for her to learn that travel is not stressful, and that it can be fun! She hung out in a big stall while I rode the other rescue horses, and then at the end of the day got her turn. We build a bridge just for her to practice on, and she was super. She was very blasé about the whole thing. We started on the ground, with me leading her, before I hopped on for some riding. She then hopped on the bridge and hung out a little, getting some peppermints and some pats for her efforts.

It was good to have Erica watch Polly go, as she hasn't seen the mare since we picked her up almost six weeks ago. When you are very close to the training process, sometimes it can seem like there is no progress, but an outside perspective can remind you how far you have come! I realized that Polly's training is actually going pretty well, considering we have only been together for a short amount of time. There are a lot of horses that would not do as much for me as she does after only a few weeks!

I am heading to England next week, so Polly will get a little time off. She will still get groomed and handled every day, and probably will gain some weight! I am not terribly upset about this, although we always think that time without work is less valuable than the alternative, I think that it will probably benefit her to have a quick break, for both her mental and physical state. She is getting a crash course in how to be a sport horse, so she might enjoy a little breather!

Until next time!

Learning To Learn

Polly after one month of work, and hills! Looking much more filled out. 

The biggest challenge we face with neglected, abused, or horses that have been living outside of the working population for a long time is not about teaching them skills or tricks, but it is teaching them to learn. Whether it is a horse or a person, their ability to progress through their education is based less on athleticism or intelligence, and more on the ability to process information and learn.

Learning is the act of acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing, existing knowledge, behaviors, or skills, and usually involves synthesizing different types of information. Of course, it does not happen at all once, but continues on a curve (hopefully an upwards curve!) and builds upon and is shaped by what we already know. The ability to learn is built largely upon the student's ability to understand that there IS an answer somewhere, and their persistent quest for that in order to achieve either success or a reward. 

Polly is working more on the lunge line now.

With horses, we use a system of pressure and release, so when we ask a horse to do something, we encourage them to find the answer that results in the release of pressure. However, horses that have been abused, neglected, or mishandled, do not necessarily understand this learning process, because history has taught them otherwise. 

Unfortunately, a lot of horses have been shown through experience that handlers and riders are irrational, unpredictable, and inflict intentional or unintentional discomfort to their horses on a frequent basis. Therefore, taking a horse that has years of information about humans in this way and telling them that you are rational, forgiving, and ALWAYS release pressure when they find the right answer, and ONLY implement pressure when you are asking for a response, well...this is sometimes a difficult task!

Bath day!!

Polly has been here officially for a month now, three weeks of which she has been in work. I was out of town competing for one of those weeks, and her struggle is certainly the idea of listening to me, and learning to learn. As a ten year old that has probably never been treated fairly before by riders, she has lots of experience ignoring her rider, and generally not enjoying the educational systems that she has had to deal with. 

She has a good nature, and an overall willing attitude, but she definitely is a self sufficient animal (which is probably why she has survived thus far) and does not seek guidance from me as much as my competition horses do. 

Her chiropractic adjustments, electro stimulation and bodywork have done wonders! She is so much more comfortable now, and I can tell you that even the first morning she showed us that her back was feeling better than ever by bucking and leaping and imitating a Lippizaner in her field!

Polly: July 13

Now that I know that her physical issues are being resolved, I can begin to really focus on her ability to learn, and press her to trust me a little more each day. 

We have been working on the lunge line before every ride, for a short time only. This reinforces her ability to listen to my voice commands, and to move her body freely without feeling constrained in any way. That way, when I mount, she's already thinking about listening to me, and perhaps a little calmer for her warmup on the circle.

Polly: August 13!

The other exciting thing is the changes in her body! Just having a short little workout every day, plus the added hills in her turnout have already begun to change her body into a fuller, more muscular looking horse. With the new schedule of coming inside during the day, as well as some great nutrition from Cavalor, her coat has taken on a new deep red hue that is quite lovely, and her hair is much softer thanks to daily curry sessions and weekly bubble baths. 

I haven't had the chance to get somebody to come video our rides, but I did film a little of her lunging session today....which I will add to our Facebook page later! We are working over poles and very small jumps, just to get her thinking about her feet, her balance, and her timing as she moves forward with her training. Until next time!

Bodywork Discoveries

Polly looking pleased after her bodywork session

In my last blog, I shared that Polly had suffered a setback a week ago, in a manner that seemed very out of character with my previous experience with her. She negatively reacted to my request to move laterally under saddle in a way that was disproportionately upsetting to the task that was at hand. She became mentally distressed in a rather extreme way to a very simple request, and I was left with no options other than to assume that it was the result of physical pain, or the deep memory of physical pain. Therefore, to rule out the possibility that she was actually in pain during work, I asked my chiropractor and bodywork specialist, Dr. Rob Goldsmith DVM, to come out and take a look at her to see what he thought.

Dr. Goldsmith came out this afternoon, and I can report that we have a good plan for progress and moving forward! We discovered that Polly is suffering from pretty severe pain in her sacroiliac joint, as well as her left hip joint. Sacroiliac pain is extremely common amongst horses that have had a racing career, and can usually explain why a horse is unwilling to use their hind end in an athletic manner. Her left hip pain correlates to her unwillingness to move off the right side and bend that way properly, as going to the right involves weighting the left hind leg properly.

Acupuncture needles on Polly's bum!

When we began, Dr. Goldsmith would apply pressure to Polly's left sacroiliac joint, and she would all but collapse on the ground. At the end of her session, she was successfully able to hold her ground to the pressure and stand up without exhibiting any signs of pain or weakness, which is very encouraging after only one session!

Polly was adjusted using chiropractic techniques, and then Dr. Goldsmith applied specific acupuncture needles to the muscles surrounding her hips, sacroiliac, and her larger gluteal muscles. When these needles were inserted without any drama from Polly, we then proceeded to the electro-stimulation, where an electric pulse is sent through the needles into the muscles, causing them to contract with the pulse and resulting in therapeutic relaxation of the affected tense or injured muscles. I myself get electro-stim, acupuncture and chiropractics regularly, and can tell you first hand that they benefit me greatly! None are painful in any way, but make your painful and tight areas feel so much better after a session.

I shared with the doctor about my experience with her under saddle, and how it seemed very out of character for her to react so vehemently to anything, as she was generally a very quiet and amenable horse. He said that given the fact that we do not know her history at all, she could have been out of work for many years, and in fact probably suffered some amount of muscle atrophy from her previous situation. 

When a horse enters into work after extended amounts of time off, muscles obviously become sore, even if it's just a little bit of work. I've been keeping her work to a ten or fifteen minute maximum per day, but she also has been experiencing a much more hilly terrain than before, and simply being turned out in a hilly field overnight can be a workout for her. A tired or weak muscle can sometimes experience spasms or seizures, which can also sometimes pinch a nerve, causing extreme pain in the affected period. This could very much explain her rather vehement reaction to a simple maneuver, as perhaps it was causing her very much pain!

I am glad to have found a physical issue, and to have come up with a treatment plan. We are going to proceed slowly, and see what kind of feedback she gives us as far as the recovery of her hip and sacroiliac. I do believe that it was not a manifestation of a behavioral issue, because she has otherwise been a real gem to work with. Hope to update you soon with positive things!

Pressure & Response: Differing Reactions

First of all, apologies for the lack of updates on Polly's progress. I was out of town all last week, competing in Millbrook, New York with my two Eventing horses, and Polly got to spend a little while luxuriating in the field with my thirty-year-old pony, Hershey, while I was away.

The subject of today's blog is Pressure & Response, which I think is a highly important thing to contemplate when training horses. First of all, our entire training system is built on the idea of implementing pressure and releasing it when the desired reaction is achieved. We squeeze our legs when we desire forward motion, and release when the speed is right. We apply pressure with our hands on either reins or lead shanks when we want to direct the head of the horse, and release when we have the positioning or change that we want.

Horses are taught, from day one, to understand this teaching and learning system, although the key is that many of them are not taught correctly in the beginning. Many horses learn to be dull to the aids due to riders who are insufficiently quick with the release of pressure, and thusly become more difficult to ride because they don't respond when we want them to. In fact, most horses learn at some point or another to tune out some of our cues, because of their training or their environment or other factors.

There is also the concept of mental pressure, because that is the other half of the equation. It is the trainer and rider's job to know exactly how much pressure they can apply to each horse without going over the edge, before asking too much and blowing their mind. Every horse has a threshold of how far you can push when asking for a new task, a new movement, or just a new level of trust. It is extremely important to know where this threshold is, and to balance your behavior accordingly. It does no good to the horse to never ask them for more learning, but it is costly should you go beyond their mental capabilities.

Polly loves hanging out with her (rather larger) buddy, Leo. 

The weekend before last, prior to my departure for Millbrook, I decided to ask Polly for a little more, and because she was behaving very calmly for everything I had thrown at her thus far, I did not anticipate any problems. She is quite crooked in her body, and has an odd, nervous relationship with the bit. This is not unusual for racehorses, and I just wanted to slowly introduce more lateral work under saddle, which simply means I wanted her to start responding to my legs in a steering way versus a gas pedal way. As I go around a corner, I want her to bend around my inside leg, and my outside leg forms a solid barrier to shape my circle, etc. 

In my efforts to get her to have a smooth contact with the bit, and to bend to the right, she suddenly became very, very upset, despite the fact that we were simply walking around the arena as we have many times before. I was puzzled, but kept calmly asking for her to bend her body to the right, but she become inconsolable, and soon lost her ability to process information correctly. The more I asked for anything, the worse she became, ultimately working herself into a frothy sweat of nerves. 

When this type of thing happens with an otherwise calm and willing horse, I can only assume two things: that what I am asking either causes memories of horrific pain, or the motion itself is causing physical pain right now. Her reaction was so violently opposed to what I have seen of her personality that I simply could not assume that it was anything other than mental or physical trauma. 

Checking out the pool noodles attached to her stall door.

Unfortunately, I had to leave soon after this incident, which I would have preferred not to let her stew on in my absence. Upon my return, she has certainly seemed more nervous under saddle, which tells me that I have awakened some deep physical or mental discomfort inside of her, and it is now my job to work through it. I cannot, with good faith, ask her to do something if it is genuinely causing her pain!

My first instinct is to get her examined by my wonderful bodywork specialist, Dr. Rob Goldsmith, DVM. There are any number of physical things that could be causing Polly pain during her work, and with the help of Dr. Goldsmith, we can use chiropractics, electro-stimulation, and various other body adjustments to help her feel more at ease. I regularly use this sort of treatment for my Eventers, as they are athletes that need help to feel their best. I find that horses off the track usually need some help before they can fulfill their potential, because their prior job is so demanding at such a young age. 

Dr. Goldsmith will be coming on Friday afternoon to have a look at Polly and we will see where we can go from there. Until then, she is working on the ground, playing with some more lunging, some games with tarps, and has been introduced to the pool noodles, which I have hung on her stall door. This makes it so she can explore them on her own time, and has to walk in and out of her stall through them, so she will soon think they are no big deal. I will certainly update you on the discoveries from Friday!

Day Ten: Expanding Her World

A little schnoodling during a ride never hurt nobody!

It has been ten whole days since Polly arrived at my farm! I actually can't believe how fast it has gone, she feels like a part of the family already. I've been working her a little bit every day, only for about fifteen minutes at a time. I spend a lot of time grooming her and working with her on the ground, but her strength and fitness are pretty low, so I don't want to physically push her beyond what she can offer. Because she is going from no work at all to working every day, I want to keep every session fun so that she feels like everything is easily accomplished. She's got a great work ethic, and I don't want to spoil that in any way. 

She's gotten much better about coming out of the stall and standing still for her grooming and tacking. Initially, she was a little fidgety, but she's learned that getting curried, combed and brushed is pleasant! She ties well both plain and in the cross ties, and just hangs out. I'm teaching her about lateral movements in the easiest way possible, by starting on the ground. When I ride, I'm going to need her to yield to my leg, for turning, for opening and closing gates, and for various other things. So I use my hand or my finger in the same place where my leg would be, and start her education that way when she's standing in the aisle for grooming. I also do that in the stall when I'm cleaning it, and she's starting to get it. In the beginning, she would get a little grumpy, "Why are you poking me!?" but now she just steps over and looks at me like, "Is that the right answer?"

This week, we started working on her understanding of the contact, which, accordingly with her previous career as a racehorse, is tenuous at best. I worked as an exercise rider for a few years, and it helped me understand how to ride thoroughbreds after they race much better. They are frequently very crooked, and are only taught to lean on the bit instead of soften and carry themselves. When you are galloping them, you teach them to use your hands to balance themselves, and in fact a horse that increases speed into the contact is somewhat desirable. Obviously, this is pretty much opposite of any other career, and so there is some re-educating to be done!

She is only walking and trotting still, because she isn't quite strong enough to canter in a coordinated way, but we are successfully coming into a frame in the walk, and sometimes at the trot. She is a bit crooked, tending to go around with her head bent to the right all the time, so I am working on her ability to bend around my left leg, effectively stretching out the right side of her body a little more. She doesn't totally get it, but she tries so hard, she will soon!

Today, we went on our first off property exploration! I have been keeping her mainly in the arena and going on walks around the farm, but she has not cared about a single thing yet, so I figured we could step it up a little. I live on a great dirt road, and it has a lot to offer. It's mostly quiet, but there are cars, trucks, farm equipment, joggers, bikers, people walking dogs etc that frequently appear. A good way to get exposure to all sorts of weird things while still being in a fairly quiet environment. Another bonus is that the land around me is very open and horse friendly, with over 2,000 acres in conservation easement with trails, gates, jumps and all open for me to ride on!

So Polly and I went on a little hack a short way down the road. She didn't blink an eye when the cars went by us, we had a dog freak out and bark at us from behind an invisible fence (which she totally ignored) and we went to check out the neighboring cows!

I'm not sure if Polly has ever seen cows, but it's a good skill to have. If she is going to ever have a career that involves hunting, going on hunter paces, or even going to local shows, she's going to have to see cows and keep her head on! There are a lot of horses that have permanent cow fear, especially thoroughbreds, so I wanted to get this out of the way. She certainly stared at them as we approached, but while she stopped and gawked, she never spooked, spun, or panicked. She went forwards towards them when I asked, and when we got close, she didn't care at all. One of them came particularly close to us, and she just looked at her with benign interest. 

The whole point of all this piddling around is that I think Polly should get more out of this trainer's challenge than just the ability to complete the competition. I want to prepare her as best I can for any career, and for any rider. So, I'm not just focusing on pool noodles and walking over tarps (although that will come!), but riding her in the same way I would any other horse in training. I also think that slow and steady work will eventually come to more fruition than throwing a ton of stuff at her really quickly. When her muscles catch up from walking up and down the hills in her paddock, she'll be all ready to attack some more serious work. Until next time!

Day Four: Riding Commences

Polly is dressed and ready to go!

Polly has settled right into the swing of things here at my farm, and clearly thinks that she's landed at the Ritz, and is totally loving it! I think that she must have had some sort of attention previous to this, because she's all about going in the stall, scarfing down her breakfast, munching on hay, and enjoying the overhead fans! I found out that she also loves peppermints (but doesn't know what the heck a carrot is) which is a typical racehorse trait. I never thought I would have to train horses to understand treats until I started working with OTTBs!

She's a very easy horse to handle in the day-to-day interactions. She leads well, with only a little bit of impatience when it comes time to get into the stall for breakfast. She is working on understanding tying, both in the cross ties and plain tying to some string on the wall. I have yet to see her panic about anything, even when she gets confused or upset about something, she never seems to lose her mental cool, which is a pretty priceless attribute. She does pace a little bit in her field, but she does not get worked up about it, I think it's more of a calming habit for her. She paces for about five minutes, seems to be soothed by it, and will return to grazing. 

After our first day of lunging a bit in the ring, I decided, based on my interactions with her thus far, to take my chances and just hop on her for the third day. We know that she has already been ridden in her life, as she did race five years ago, so it's not like I'm breaking a complete baby, but I always proceed with caution when beginning to ride a horse that has an unknown history. For all I know, she could have had some terrible riding habits at the track, or indeed not been ridden since the day of that race five years ago! As you can see from the picture above, I began by letting her walk a little while I hung off the side, in the fashion that I do with real babies. That way, you have your weight on their back, but in the case of an extreme explosion, you can easily dismount to the side. 

However, my worries were all for naught! As you can see from her facial expression, Polly was perfectly pleased to be ridden again. She was a bit fiddly about the mounting block, but I just stand quietly on the block and let her circle a few times, and when she halts of her own accord, she gets a peppermint and a big fuss. That won't take long until she figures out that standing still is the way to go!

The first day, I simply walked her around her own paddock for about ten minutes. It's important, for the first ride, to have familiar surroundings, and to keep it short and sweet. Not only does Polly not have the physical fitness and strength to do lots of exercise quickly, but it keeps the idea of working with me fun in her mind. She only has to do a little bit, it's easy, and she gets peppermints and lots of petting, what's not to like?

Today, I took it a bit further, and I walked her down to the arena, and mounted her there for a little session further away from the barn. She was quicker to figure out standing at the mounting block, and in fact stood very quietly after I mounted (munching on a peppermint!) until I asked her to move forward. OTTBs have a hard time with the whole "mounting" thing in general, as exercise riders are usually thrown on while the horse is moving around the shed row. Sometimes they stand still while being mounted, but most of them don't understand the idea of holding still or definitely the sensation of having the saddle twist while one foot is put in and the rider mounts. 

We walked around the ring quietly, and I steered her over a few poles. She was thoroughly unimpressed, and I could feel her saying, "Look lady, I don't know why you're being so cautious, I've clearly done this before!". She's such a willing partner, it's great fun to work with a horse like that. So, we trotted a little. Once around one way and once the other way! Then I dismounted and we walked back to the barn, because, once again, I want her to come away from each session thinking that it was interesting, easy, and there were lots of rewards and praise. That way, when I pull her out of the stall tomorrow, she will look forward to it.