Being Hurt means Quality Time

Because Calvin ripped his face open, I've had to go out and treat his wound every day. Holy hell it's hot, this last week it's ranged from 90-105º where Calvin is located. I board Calvin 35 mins away from my house, the upside is that it's cheap. The downside is that it's far and there's traffic at certain times. Some days I get there before 9am, which is really nice, but some days I bear the heat around 11am and we are both miserably hot.

This is the other pasture adjacent to Calvin's (they only feed alfalfa, hence why he's not in it). I took this shot when it was 105º outside and all these horses are standing in the sun. There's some perfectly good shelter in the middle with shade, but nope, they're just content roasting. I don't get it!

So hot in fact, that Calvin is sweating just standing and eating. It's worse under his mane (ladies with long hair understand this problem) and his chest. His poor buddy, Quest, sweats even more due to wearing a fly sheet. It's lose-lose though, either get eaten by flies or sweat with the fly sheet. The flies don't normally bother Calvin too much, his tail has finally grown to a useful length to swat them away. Although, the worst part about his injury is that I'm having to deal with keeping flies out of it, so gross. Would the world really be worse-off if flies didn't exist?

I was able to ride him a few times this week since on some days I was able to get there early enough to beat the heat.  I have to ride him in the halter still because his injury is still so raw, which means we are training differently, such as re-learning steering with a halter and based on legs/seat alone. He's doing pretty well, the only problem with the halter is that if he decides to be an idiot I really don't have any control. Luckily, it's been so hot that he doesn't have much idiot in him.

We rode in the big arena today with 2 goals. 1) That Calvin will not ram my knees into the railing and 2) To not be an idiot because of the halter. There were two other girls there, and we don't really have much experience with other horses riding in the arena with us because I come at odd-hours. However, this experience was on a weekend so lots of people were out riding. I wasn't sure how Calvin would behave with horses walking/trotting/and cantering by him since a little over a year ago it didn't go so well. I didn't need to worry though, he was absolutely amazing. He didn't try to run after them and was okay being by himself and doing our own thing. He liked to watch the other horses, but made no attempt to be near them. 

Checkin out the other horses

I think he's actually growing up! They were doing crazy stuff too, they were barrel racers so they were galloping past him and cranking on their horses' faces (linked video gives a great example of how rough barrel racers can be). Not all barrel racers are that way, but the people around here sure are. It's painful to watch, but nothing I can do about it. People don't realize you can actually have a better horse when you don't yank on their mouth and spur the crap out of them. Anyway, despite the craziness around him, he was very well behaved in the halter and he listened very well, good boy! 

Bath time! I let his mane grow out to protect his neck from flies since they are the worst this time of year, come cooler temps that mane is getting snipped again, I can hardly wait. 

Accident Prone Horse

Calvin hurt his face. Where he gets these cuts I haven't the slightest idea, but if there's something sharp in his pasture he will find it. The other day he had a tiny scrape on the side of his face. I figured hmm, I'll fly spray it to keep the flies out and we'll be good. Well I come out yesterday to find that he has itched the living crap out of it and now it's a completely open wound.

After rinsing

Ugh. I tried to think of my plan of attack: if I call the vet she will stitch it, but I *know* he will itch them out, as this is what he did the last time he cut his face open. I cleaned it out, dressed it with some anti-inflammitory/infection cream I also had from the last time he hurt himself, and then sprayed blu-kote on it, then finished with fly spray to keep the nasties out. As much as he's prone to these stupid nicks, I'm just glad it isn't worse. I think he's the perfect example of "curiosity killed the cat."

His injury would get in the way of the bit, so I rode him in a halter on trail. That was quite the experience, I forgot how hard it is to ride a very opinionated horse in a halter. He'd be going along straight and then just randomly veer off into the brush...don't ask me. Anyway, his cut didn't effect his riding performance at all, but we just walked/trotted on the trail. Here are the pics.

Hmm, what is Calvin looking at way up there? Other horses of course

Some much needed shade

Happy horse

No more accidents okay Calvin? Sheesh.

The State of Competitive Dressage

Recently, there has been a major focus within horse-circles on dressage competition. First, the infamous stallion Totilas was retired a few days ago at the age of 15. To those unfamiliar with horse ages, 15 is pretty young when the average horse lives until mid to late twenties, with some into their thirties. He's been breaking records since 2009, so this was fairly shocking to the dressage world. It wasn't shocking to those of us watching how Totilas was trained, however, and it's no surprise he wore out at such a young age.

How would you feel going around with your chin cranked to your chest?

Edward Gal, Totilas' trainer, utilized what's called Rollkur to train his horses. This was banned by the FEI because as you can see from the above pic, it's cruel. However, these trainers renamed it "low deep round" or LDR and say it helps the horse loosen up and stretch those muscles....yeah right. Even non-horse people can see that the horses are clearly distressed. Whereas dressage should be about harmony between horse and rider and look effortless.

Dressage from 1936 Olympics, quite the difference from today's horse and riders

Most people agree that Rollkur or LDR is abusive and should be banned. However, the dressage judges at these world events keep rewarding horses clearly exhibiting distress and pain. Here's a pic from the first place winner at European Young Horse (5 year old) championships:

Clearly just hauling on this poor mare's face

What message is this sending the horse community? Clearly, that LDR works at winning despite the clear protests from the horses. 

Here's a picture of Edward Gal showing in Aachen this year, he was disqualified for his horse's mouth bleeding due to "biting his tongue."

Even this picture is infuriating. You've been eliminated and your still cranking on your horses mouth despite KNOWING it's bleeding? Then he makes this gesture, what is he implying here I wonder....Disgusting.

Unfortunately, we've so veered away from the classical principles of balance, kindness, and subtle communication in modern dressage. We see some relief from this with the champion Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro, who embody much more of what dressage should be. Yet I still believe she's even too restrictive on her horse's face and mouth. However, judges at the top levels are still rewarding trainers knowing they use abusive principles to train their horses. These judges love the horse's flash and pizzaz, rewarding big huge movements. Much has to change in the modern dressage world, and unfortunately it doesn't look like much is changing anytime soon. To me, the example picture below looks like something that dressage *should* be striving for: 

The difference should be very clear. This horse is performing the piaffe (trotting in place) and he's correclty engaged in the hind end (haunches tucked under). Not to mention the rider has very soft contact on the mouth, and in this picture in this moment she is not even pulling his mouth. I hope someday more people realize what happy horses working actually look like. Another reason I keep out of the show ring.

Dressage Practice

Now that Calvin's very good at stretching down and has a pretty solid topline, we've started focusing our work onto straightness and transitions. I've mentioned before how he likes to bulge left, which is very problematic when your leg is about to be crushed into the railing when traveling to the right. It's funny, because I'm starting to notice bad habits I do that don't help him out. For example, I lean a bit to the left when tracking left, which causes him to dive in the corners. If I sit up straight and tall, he's much more balanced.

A little too good at stretching down sometimes!

I've been trying hard with his trot to canter transition. I always teach horses to canter from a walk, that way they don't take 50 trot steps and finally canter, they just jump right into it. He'd never learned to canter from a trot, so it was basically trot faster until he eventually cantered and I'd praise him. Now that he knows that he can canter from the trot, I'm trying to smooth it out. Instead of continuing to trot faster and faster, I'm asking him to pick up the canter right away from a medium trot. Again, I notice in myself that the reason he's rushing into the canter is because I was impatient. If I act as though picking up the canter is no big deal, then he will think the same thing. It takes lots of practice, but the goal of course is to have it be effortless like the horse in the video.

Since he's my first horse I've trained from scratch, it's pretty cool to think everything he knows in terms of riding is because of what I've taught him. I don't need spurs, he goes in a soft rubber bit or a french link snaffle, and he's traveling long-and-low without the use of draw reins or tie downs. It's a slower process, and I have no doubt that if I rode 4x/week then he'd be further along, but life gets in the way :)

Aren't we cute? <3

Dressage on the Average Horse

I came across a great article the other day about doing dressage with the "ordinary" horse. I'll link the article at the bottom of this post and encourage others to read it in its entirety, but I'll just share my thoughts and summarize.

 All of us horse owners are biased to think that our horses are more than average, but dressage definitely has a certain type or look that dominates competition. That "look" is flashy, high stepping, floaty movement. An example would be the gelding SPH Dante, who sold at the P.S.I auction for 2.8 million dollars. His movement is spectacular, but 2.8 million dollars for a GELDING spectacular? Hard to understand that logic. Regardless, it's easy to see why he'd fetch a high price tag:

*drools*

 

SPH Dante Welfenadel - Dormello from P.S.I. Auktionen on Vimeo.

For those of us who don't have a few million laying around to throw at horses, we have to stick to the "average" movers. Average is defined by not being naturally balanced and cadenced with flashy movement. However, the foundation of dressage is not about pizzazz, it's about correct horsemanship and training. A quote from the article that really resonates is:

"The measure of a system is not how it works with the most talented, but how well it works with the least talented.” 

Dressage works really, really well with any type of horse. That's what is great about dressage, there aren't any movements that the average horse can't do. The article gives many examples of horses that definitely are not bred for dressage excelling at competition. If your goal is not competition, then you've developed a very sensitive, balanced, and well-developed horse. 

Calvin isn't flashy. He's not built like what one typically looks for in a dressage horse: his back is too long, he's slightly downhill, he's slightly butt-high (which may disappear in a few years but who knows) and he doesn't have flashy movement.

Great hooves though :)

 But ya know what, if we work hard enough we can move up the levels and do Grand Prix (advanced) movements. When people think Grand Prix Dressage, they think of only elite competitions such as the Olympics. But Grand Prixs are just advanced tests that can be done with any horse. The Olympics are typically dominated by the flashy horses, and Calvin won't ever look like Totilas:

... but that's okay, because with enough work and training he *can* do the same stuff, but in a more  average way. As the article says, the ordinary horse doesn't know they are ordinary. If we approach dressage like our horse is a superstar and set high expectations for ourselves, we'll likely end up with a superstar. 

My Superstar <3

For the article "The Hero 6: In Praise of the Ordinary Horse" click here.