Equine-Humanistics

Marco

Marco was a Lusitano/Arab. The son of two horses that loved to go so he was into all adventures with gusto.

I had the greatest privilege of being Marco’s person. I was the only person to ride him, and we had an understanding that he could lead but he had to keep it within boundaries.

This he did both in the saddle and on the lead. If we were hiking, he was always in front but within the allowed rope. He made it easy to get towed by his tail on the hills which was fun.

Training story

Previously I had done quite a lot of groundwork on a beautiful, athletic, sensitive Holsteiner 2-year-old. He walked, trotted, cantered, and jumped in a beautifully relaxed self-carriage. He then went off for a few months’ life experience with a Natural Horsemanship trainer while I was in New Zealand over Covid.

When I next got to see and work with him, I was surprised that his balance and symmetry was still intact which was not what I usually saw after this kind of training. Of course, I wanted to know what this trainer did different. I asked but no one could tell me anything different, so I looked on YouTube and watched his clinics.

All the same exercises, disengaging, moving hind and front, shaking the rope, and backing all looked the same except long periods of time spent standing at the end of the rope while the guy talked. If the horses moved forward at all he approached them and stepped the offending legs back. Could this be the difference? It was the only thing I could see that was different.

Re-enter Marco – my horse to experiment on. It was a horrible windy day. In a round pen on the lunge line, I let him move a little which he always did with great gusto then from a distance caused him to stand facing me.

We had a great understanding so I could move him back a step at a time to cause squareness from a distance. He would stay for a while then move up whereby, I would move him back. When, after 5 to 10 mins, he would settle square I then let him move off and play at canter which he loved. This we played for about an hour, the canter got more balanced, and the halts got more easily square. I thought that was interesting and probably useful for horses in the future. I then took him to put him back in his pasture which was 3-400yds away. As we walked along, I realized that for the first time in our lives Marco was not politely leading me he was totally matching me. I was gob smacked that an hour of that exercise could make that kind of change.

This was the beginning of ‘Squaring Exercise’ which I did on every horse to see what kind of change it made for them.

The gentle diagonalized moving back and the long periods of peace afterwards seemed to reset the nervous systems in a good way.

Charlie

Charlie is a huge, kind, forward moving Holsteiner jumper who was imported from Europe.

He was used in a ‘dealing’ barn as a ‘lease’ horse until he was too anxious and unsound to function. A friend saved him, and he came to me.

The moment you got on he was ‘off and running’ head up, back dropped and if you gathered the reins, it got even worse. If you cantered more than one round of the ring his back end acted like a jack-knifing bumper pull trailer that had lost its left wheels.

The journey started, where was the place he could get calm and organized enough to start rebuilding his body and nervous system?

It was not riding for sure. Lunging he was not cadenced or connected to his back end, not to mention what was going on in the neck. I could not effectively work him ‘in hand’ as he had such a phobia about the rein contact. I sifted through my ‘toolbox’ of training ideas until I found an exercise that I could maintain for long enough that he practiced none of his anxious habits.

Walking very slowly around the arena fence with him on the arena side, picking a speed that felt more like we were about to stop than go. If he did speed up and go past, I just slowed down and acted like I was going to go the other way. The fence stopped him from going around me and he would have to start to disengage to follow me, I would then continue in the original direction. I did this so slow and for at least an hour or more a day until he was relaxed and matched me. I then joined up rein contact to the exercise until he could walk and halt with no anxious agenda. This I kept building on until I could ride, walk, trot and canter but always keeping it within the parameters I had built in the fence walking. Everyday started and finished with fence walking.

1.5 yrs on now he is a very happy, sound, calm, successful hunter, and equitation horse at the A shows.

Bert

Bert was sent to me by dear trainer friends in Missouri. They are very educated, lifelong horse people that know a nice horse with potential when they see one.

He is a handsome, paint thoroughbred, a good mover, 16.2hh, and around 6 or 7 yrs old. He had been started in the barrel racing world by people whose understanding was “If you ‘run’ your horse everyday he will get better at running” This involved putting the accelerator to the floor from mounting until you pulled him up and got off.

This was hardwired into his nervous system and no matter how much flatwork and quiet work I did he still never considered or dreamed he could slow down until I pulled on the reins. If I sat there doing what I considered as ‘nothing’ just following him he always gradually got faster. Bert lived out in the gelding herd of around 15 horses on 30 acres. He regularly came in with skin off his knees, forearms, and chest from either a kick by other horses or from running into the wooden fences.

The goal for Bert was to be a show hunter or equitation horse. He was a beautiful, athletic careful jumper, good mover and lovely to look at so huge potential.

Over the months I made progress towards this, but I knew and felt it was not enough and would not hold if he wasn’t in a careful program. I needed him to ask me if he could slow down – how would I get him to ask me that?

I had an idea. One day I took him on a long relaxing trail ride then came home and went to the 60’ round pen (good footing and safe walls).

I started at walk, held the buckle of the reins, and rested my hand on his withers, sitting as invisibly as possible, and going in his comfortable direction (right).

He got faster and faster until after 15 or so rounds we were cantering and still speeding up. When my bravery ran low, or I thought he might wreck I touched the inside rein to direct him. When I perceived that the escalation was leveling out, I started to talk to him and give little ‘die off – slow down’ indications through my body. After 6 – 10 rounds of ‘Whoa buddy’ I felt him look back and question what I was doing – here was just a glimmer of what I wanted. I took gently on the reins while still talking, stopped him and got off immediately, cooled him out and put him away.

The next day we did the same routine, and we did not even get to the gallop before he considered me. I got off and put him away. By the 3rd day my body and voice aid worked – he had discovered how to slow himself down.

Interestingly from that time on he did not get hurt in the pasture – he had learned how to stop himself before meeting the back end of another horse or a fence.

He went on to become a very nice dressage horse in Florida.

This was my first ‘conscious’ experience of rewiring the nervous system.

Pixi

Pixie is a four-year-old Kentucky mountain saddle horse around 15 hands.

She came to me through a friend who is developing a high-end horse rescue in Kentucky where she buys nice horses that need help in some way to be able to function happily and peacefully in our domesticated horse world. Pixi was owned by a well-meaning farmer who had bought her and started her education to be a good trail horse. 

Unbeknownst to him, the saddle he was using was a very poor fit and was causing all sorts of problems in Pixi’s body which she absorbed and still went - showing her good character and willingness to please.

When I started riding her the pattern the ill-fitting saddle had caused in her body and nervous system was very strong and because that was her first experience being ridden there was no previous experience before that saddle to fall back on. Because it hurt to hold her thoracic up between her shoulders, which enables the front legs to operate freely, she had devised a way of not swinging through her scapula and just moving the lower leg enough to catch herself as she moved forward. This made for a very stumbly on the forehand movement. The journey to functional movement started with chiropractic body work, and slow in hand groundwork. This was to build her confidence to keep her body back, hold herself up, weight her loading leg, and be confident to lift the moving leg into the air and swing it forward both in straight lines and in lateral movements.

Once I started riding, I kept it to the walk and mostly out on the trail, gently managing straightness and balance and just showing her possibilities without telling her that she had done anything wrong especially since she was so willing to go and be okay with how she felt.

We did long slow rides with times of getting off and hiking so that her body got a break especially if I felt she was tiring in anyway. I was careful not to push her to the point of fatigue. I am now four chiropractic treatments and five months into this program and this last week I have felt the most amazing change in her body where she says I can now hold myself up, I can stay straight, and I can move in a comfortable way. This again confirms to me that it takes 5 to 6 months to change the nervous system. What is the first idea they choose in how to respond when we ask them to move.

Seager

I was in my early 20’s when Seager came into our lives. He arrived on a cattle truck and was unloaded into the stock yards. A Clydesdale/Warmblood cross 4-year-old he’d never been touched, just herded onto the truck, and shipped to us.

He was around 15.1hh and very well built and strong.

The showjumping season was over, and winter was coming, my goal was ‘how quickly could I get him quiet enough that my Mum could ride him’. I was into it, 5 – 6 hours a day, total saturation training as gentle as I knew. By day 3 he was saddled and leading and on day 11 he was safe enough for Mum to ride. We ended up keeping him. He was a good mover, loose and supple but with that a bit all over the place, like riding a drunk spider. He was kind and sensible so we quietly persevered.

Right about that time Nuno Oliveira came to NZ to teach a clinic. I had been exposed to his ideas of Classical training and realized what an opportunity this was, so I signed up and took Seager.

Four days of riding in a 20m x 40m arena with 7 other people in school formation. I was 3rd in the order, we walked school movements for 30 – 40 mins. Shoulder-in, quarters-in, half-pass with straight walk at the ends of the ring then the same the other direction, over and over, very slowly (or at least that’s what it felt like to me). A little trot or canter at the end of each day. By the end of 4 days the change was nothing short of amazing. So steady, so balanced, so straight, so within himself. It was better than any drug could be, I was sure.

Surely, I could recreate this in every horse. Which I could to some degree, but none were as amazing as Seager.

Roll on 40 years, 80,000 more hours in the saddle and lots more education, I realize the reason Seager was easily able to change that much was the lack of ‘damage’ in his body and nervous system. He had not been handled or led until 4 years old and then not taught with huge trauma to his neck.

Lady Giselle

Giselle is a 4yr old, 15.3hh, TB who raced once as a 2 yr old and came to me through the Retired Racehorse Program. She is sponsored through the ‘Center for Equine Awareness’ whose philosophy is that nothing is to be done ‘at the expense of the horse’.

This encourages choosing actions that do not cause physical harm or mental anxiety.

This is the goal of all horse trainers & owners, but it is practiced at differing levels due to training knowledge and competition expectations.

If we erase any competition/performance expectations and only focus on physical and mental health and comfort what does the path look like?

Giselle’s journey with me started in late May 2023 when I picked her up from Horse Woods Haven in Columbia Kentucky. HWH is a high-end horse rescue/ashram operated by a friend who I regard as very knowledgeable about horse conformation, movement, and mental aptitude. I trusted her to choose a horse.

Giselle had been in the HWH program for 4 months. She was functional in the herd of 8 horses, attaching herself to an older mare but felt some anxiety in the stall showing that she may have been severely disciplined.

In the pre-trip home assessment and loading practice I noticed an inability to bend and turn tightly to the left.

On further examination there was a raised area at the end of the ribs approaching the lumbar area. It made sense that she was protecting this area.

She was very willing to follow me into the trailer bravely but then nervous about turning around. If I touched the lead, unexpectedly, she flew back then came forward again willingly.

I wondered if this was caused by some human patterning as the immediate forward was not a normal horse response.

We practiced only right turns to get her positioned in the trailer and she was happy.

The 4-day trip home went well. She had three weeks to settle into her new home, in by day out of bugs and heat and out with girlfriends at night.

We began the body and nervous system rehabilitation. Beginning with leading, what do I notice?

When I am on the left side, she will push her shoulder into me and pull her neck off to the right. When relaxed it is barely noticeable but when anxious it is a strong pattern.

To start teaching another idea, I gently teach her to move her shoulders/body to her right and I released when the neck comes left. I do this anytime I see the neck right of her body.

I also use modified Fence Walking and let her bring her head across in front of me to the fence then I send her quietly along the fence. In dressage terms this is counter shoulder-in. I watched the lumbar area and saw there was limited functional movement, and the hind end often goes off on a tangent.

Leading on her right side her pattern was to go ahead and around me. There were many repetitions when I’d say, “don’t go faster than me”, “do you notice I am stopping” and/or “we are going the other direction get yourself turned around”. Kindly but clearly defending the line in front of me until she found her place of peace matching me on a parallel line beside me. This was done in the arena and to and from turnout to start with. When very few corrections were needed, we ventured out on hikes in the desert.

In the desert there was lots to look at, especially as our 2 mini donkeys came with us, and the racehorse ‘homeward agenda’ appeared giving me more information about what to focus on when back in the arena.

Her willingness to stay straight slowly improved. There were less sideways deviations of the neck and shoulders, and she matched me for longer distances. I was able to do more effective small ‘whoa and go’ transitions. This started to ‘connect’ the hindquarters more and I started to see lovely changes in the movement of the thoracic/lumbar area.

She was staying connected to me and listening for when I prepared to ‘whoa and/or go’. She would get herself ready to join me without ‘cheering from me’.

I felt she was ready to do more on raising the base of the neck and acceptance of the bit. For this I used Jean luc Cornille’s in hand method.

Walking at her shoulder I held the reins together at the withers in one hand. I would gently take the slack out of the reins and encourage her to accept the contact. Then asked her to walk, halt, walk, halt etc. This started to connect the ends of her together and I could see and feel some lovely moments as her shape continued to change.

During all this process I would ride her at walk, once every 10 days.

I thoroughly remember the first ride. She had no understanding of how to turn left. Any contact on the rein was met with rigidity and I could not feel movement in her back. After the work on moving the shoulder from the left side, the second ride was much better. We now had left turn. Each ride was better. The ride after doing the JLC in hand work was different because the feeling in her back and her ability to be ‘moved’ and positioned by the seat and legs was starting to be possible.

I did not ‘train’ her in the rides. I just tested what the groundwork had made available in her comprehension of how to handle her body.

The next pattern that got my attentions was the twist in the hind legs in the weight bearing phase. It was more evident on the right hind turning left.

Looking at her hind feet they did not look level or correct. She had a little flare on the inside and was rolling over the outside.

Was this because she had not been using her hindquarters correctly or were the feet causing the twisting? My gut feeling was that the body caused the feet. We added hind shoes with more support on the outside heel to help all the parts to come together.

In Circling Exercise, I noticed a significant asymmetry in how Giselle would set up the turns behind. Going right it was more available to step the left hind out and back to set up the right hind crossing.

Going left the right hind stepped out and forward making it impossible for the left hind to cross in front so it had to step behind. This showed me why she fell on left shoulder and turned right more easily.

Slowly but surely we were working out the puzzle of what was available to her to gymnasticize symmetrical movement.

Giselle has a break over the winter while I am in New Zealand and will start up again in April when she will be 5 years old. 

Mason

Mason is a saint in a horse suit who tried so hard to work out his job and human that he gave himself a nervous breakdown.

He is a TB off the track, 17hh and was in his mid-teens when he visited me.

He had been beautifully trained to be a Preliminary Event horse and was the nicest horse to ride on the flat. He was very balanced, symmetrical, and responsive.

At around 10 years old Mason changed owners, just like many horses do, to teach another rider all he knows. It is an amazing feat we expect of ‘schoolmasters’, to follow the aids they know are right and ignore the ones that will cause anxiety and imbalance.

Mason had not had enough different riders to perfect this skill, so although his new rider was very kind and methodical, the imbalance and anxiety grew over the years. His body got contracted and crooked which made him afraid of his surroundings – he blamed what he was looking at for how he felt.

I was dedicating a summer to train any horse that turned up with my Equine-Humanistics to see if it worked on all horses. Mason arrived in the spring, afraid and suspicious of his surroundings. We started ‘Fence Walking’, first in his stall and pen to learn the boundaries then out and about. The barn isle first, a step at a time with big pauses to learn to ‘look and see’ and be OK. My aim was to help him stay straight, with his neck forward (not up and contracted) until he processed his surroundings and not blame them for the tense feeling in his body.

The first week it took 1 – 2 hrs to go 4 – 500yds. The next week we got up to ½ mile around the property, every day picking a new place to explore. I was careful that I was always between him and whatever he found scary.

The practice for the horse is when s/he meets something upsetting that s/he can process and regroup. If this is done repetitively and the anxiety remains low, you are rewiring the nervous system. The next place we ventured was out into the desert.

Mason had a major ‘homeward agenda’ which needed help. By this time the Fence Walking had worked up to a normal walking speed with periods of very slow and stopping only when he needed to process new things.

The outward trip was lovely. As we turned for home the anxious homeward agenda appeared. He expected me to take hold of his head and neck and he would then turn into ‘the racehorse’ pulling against the rope and pushing his shoulder into me.

This became quite the choreographed dance. If he passed me, I initiated a turn back in the direction away from home. To do this he was not allowed to cross in front or behind me with any part of his body.

This turn caused him to disengage his body away from me giving an alternative to pushing and pulling. After some repetitions I could just do the beginning of the turn and if he slowed down and moved away, then I would pick up the forward walk again.

It did not take him long to learn that if he matched me, I would keep going and he did not have to pause or turn. Soon he settled and the relaxation and straightness came back into the walk. Occasionally I would ‘do a half halt in my body’ to see if he was still with me and if he was, we continued. The 2 weeks of walking around the farm had set him up well to learn it quickly. On our second trip to the desert, he was a very happy camper.

Now to put the new learned confidence into the riding. Starting in the ring, can he be steady? Can he be straight? Can he pause and process without losing his straight relaxed body? We just repeated the whole process again under saddle – the thorough groundwork made riding progress quickly.

Out in the desert, if he stayed at a consistent walk without getting unbalanced or speeding up, he could cope. Early, well understood half halts was all that was needed.

If the anxiety went past a reversable level, which did happen twice, getting off and doing 200yds of walking in hand got him relaxed enough to then hop back on and resume successfully.

With this program, Mason is now back competing successfully. Able to get to the cross country start box without turning into an anxious wreck.

Fabio

Fabio is a handsome Trakehner x Gisborne bred. When he came to us, he had, unbeknown to us, a severe shoulder injury probably from a fall or doing the splits. It had caused considerable shoulder asymmetry.

We embarked on a long journey of rehabbing his body, which, was tricky enough in itself, but added into that was a big phobia of going new places on his own or being tied anywhere on his own.

The summer leading up to covid we lived behind the sand dunes of Uretiti Beach in Waipu. Fabio got to go hiking and riding through the bush to the beach. His past life anxiety (or some people might say it is the Trakehner part) caused him to worry and leave if something was scary. He did that first and would maybe think about it later.

In my mind this is not practicing useful life skills, so we worked on replacing that pattern with something more useful for him.

Squaring is what I chose. If something concerned him, could we halt and very gently move back until he was square, balanced, calm and standing on all 4 feet facing the concern. There did not have to be a scary moment to practice squaring.

Sometimes we would do it to see how easy it was to get to balanced today and how long could he stay before he tired and had to move?

After a few months he started to make serious change both physically and mentally. The shoulder asymmetry lessoned and while ridden he could process his environment and get himself to a relaxed mind much quicker.

Walking on the beach one day I wondered what would happen if I used ‘squaring’ to get him in the waves. Usually, the process of getting horses in the breaking waves involved riding out when the waves retreated and ‘hanging on for the ride’ when the next wave hit. This was repeated until they were desensitized, or we were swimming while the horse went home without us. I started on the lead and headed straight to the waves. 

He faced the waves; I was facing him with my back to the waves. As the wave came, I gently backed him, so the wave did not reach us. As the wave dissolved, I backed up leading him forward, if I felt any apprehension in him, we halted and started very gently back. This I repeated until I could let the wave wash over my feet, and soon he was curious to let it get to his feet. I kept building on this pattern and after 2 weeks he was happily standing out in the waves letting them break on him with no concern. 

In the weeks following we noticed that the sea was his happy place. He loved it and would willingly head that way. 

The forever questioning part of me asked ‘Why was this so on a horse that was basically suspicious of everything?’ Was it because no anxiety had been experienced in the learning to go into the sea or was it that no use of submission to trap him was used or both?

I experienced the power of teaching without anxiety or entrapment.

Julio, Marco & Latte

During 2018 while in NZ, I attended the ‘Spirit Horse Festival’.

One of the presenters there was Ren Hurst, young in years (maybe 30) and old in wisdom, she shared her life story.

Having just finished writing her autobiography “Riding on the Power of Others”, her story was of being a ‘balls to the wall’ western trainer in Texas, where horses gave her a place in life when nothing else in society and family made sense.

She talked and wrote about questioning ‘how ethical is it to ride horses?” Her questioning led her to create an amazing system to heal the damage domestication has done to horses, and then to an effective way of helping troubled teens who are again, victims of forms of ‘domestication’.

It was very moving. I could personally relate to everything she said.

My journey has been tamer and spread over 50 years but I could feel all the emotions and questions she talked about. She has concluded that it is not ethical to ride horses and has chosen that path.

She formed a sanctuary and is taking care of the 13 horses she had when she made this decision.

This really got me thinking…

Two months later I attended a 3-day horse dissection with Sharon May-Davis. Sharon is a highly regarded scientist who through dissection studies ‘how horses work’. She gives special attention to what is internally causing unmanageable lameness or behavioral patterns.

I observed an 8-year-old mare who had an explosive behavior pattern when ridden and intermittent lameness. This was all thoroughly documented before she was humanly euthanized and dissected for 3 days.

The multitude of abnormalities we found was shocking. Some were genetic flaws, some management (teeth and feet) and the amount of arthritic change in so many joints was astounding.

I came home from this totally altered in how I looked at and thought about horses.

The next week I left for Colorado to ‘resume’ my life as a horse trainer. How would I do this with what I had learned?

I still wanted to be a horse trainer but how could I do better? Could I ride ‘not at the expense of the horse’? Was this even possible?

I had 3 horses of my own at that time, I had bred them, and they were middle aged. Every year I got them in shape to trail ride and generally play around with.

My horses were often last on the list and got no attention when I was busy or too tired so their fitness to ride was always questionable.

This spring I made a promise to them – I would not ride them until they were totally fit and strong. I made a plan that involved 6 weeks of hiking them up the mountain 5 days a week with some groundwork as well. It was fun. The more I did the more they loved to go, meeting me at the gate when I got home and marching off up the hill. It was quite lovely.

After 6 weeks I added in 10 mins riding after the groundwork. They felt amazing. It was a very different feeling from when I got them in shape by riding them. This gave me more food for thought.

I managed to do this for 3 consecutive years and every year they felt better.

Was this because of the improvement in pre-riding fitness? Were they slowly healing from the years that I rode them when unfit? 

Milo

I first met Milo in Jan 2023. He’s a 7yr old, 13.1hh, 3/4 Morgan pony who had been recently purchased by my childhood friend Vicki.

I was visiting her at the beginning of a 2-month tour of New Zealand sharing the Equine-Humanistics.

Vicki’s retirement dream is to collect deserving ponies that are nice types and through them, introduce children to ponies and riding.

Milo came from a guy who started Standardbred (harness racing) horses. Milo was his first venture into starting a pony for kids to learn harness racing. After a year he deemed him a failure—his stride was too long and he was way too fast. He was in too much of a hurry to do everything.

In August 2022, Vicki went to see Milo. He was extremely anxious and tense. He did not flee to show his anxiety, but kept it inside him trying very hard to do everything asked.

He had been ridden very little, which showed, but still obeyed all commands and boundaries although obviously scared. He pulled her heartstrings and she had to take him home.

They started life together gently. Catching, grooming, and hanging out. She just gave him an easy daily routine. Then began a little riding in a bareback pad.

He was obedient but still very tense. When children started riding him, he began to have his voice. The first place was at the mounting block where he would not stand.

Once mounted he was off. He went as fast as possible, and according to him it was the riders’ job to slow him down—lots of constant pressure on the reins was needed.

It was at this point I came to visit and started to help him.

We started with Fence Walking around and around the arena. Once he understood to walk and halt matching us beside him, we started to time halts at the mounting block. The moment any anxiety started to show, we began Fence Walking again. In the 3 days I was there, we did 6 sessions totaling 10-12 hours. This ‘saturated’ him enough that, ongoing, 3 sessions a week progressed him quickly in getting much calmer. It built a trust in him that we were not going to push him into anxiety.

The goal was to mount only when he stood quietly and gave permission. It took a month for him to believe he would be OK and give permission but from there his confidence built fast.

Milo was to be Vicki’s 7 yr old granddaughter’s pony. Anytime she visited, Milo got lots of fence walking with her. By May, when she took him home, he would let her catch, groom, saddle, fence walk, mount, and ride him quietly around the farm.

Milo confirmed that it takes 5 to 6 months for the nervous system to integrate a new idea and if you are careful and diligent to not ever practice the ‘old’ pattern the change can be huge.