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NOTE TO THE READER: I have purposely gone into detail in the hopes that the reader will try to guess the cause of my training problem, and would consider how they might have responded to a similar set of challenges. As is so often the case in life, things are not always as they appear.
In Dressage Today there is a column called My Toughest Training Challenge, which I enjoy reading. The most difficult issues are generally ones that are outside of what we expect from the normal course of training, and often cannot be solved until quite a bit of thought and intuition have been applied with an effort to 'think outside the box'.
I had one such issue with my 4 year old Lusitano stallion, whom I had recently started under saddle. I’m accustomed to the challenges that the more sensitive horse presents, especially early on in their training when everything new to them is good cause for fits of excitement - whether from exuberance or fear. Dario’s grand-sire is Opus 72, a well known bull fighting horse from the last century. Bloodlines on his dam’s side also include Veiga as well as Andrade, so he is bred to be quick, sensitive and intelligent - and has not disappointed. He also happens to be a very sweet young stallion who wants to do well for his people, and who takes his job as the man about the barn quite seriously.
When I first started working with him in hand and on the lunge, I could see he had an unusual ability to focus on the work, and was quite proud when he understood what was expected and found he could do it. If, on the other hand, the work progressed at anything faster than ½ a baby step, he would have a kind of hysterical nervous fit, becoming wild eyed, running and bucking while flinging his body in every direction. In this case I would do the obvious - go back and do something I knew he could be successful at to build his confidence, and then proceed further at a slower pace.
Approached in this manner, we progressed in almost text book perfection to the point where he seemed ready to be ridden, so I asked my assistant to lunge me on him. Dario did well accepting the contact of the side reins and balancing under my weight. I had walked him many times under saddle and worked with him in hand to teach him basic rein and leg aids. The first time I took him off the lunge he went beautifully. He not only responded to my aids to trot, walk and ho, but also steered well and even reached for the contact at times. At walk, he responded nicely to seat and weight aids and consistently sought my hand. Knowing how quickly a young horse can loose focus and the importance of getting off while things are going well, I kept these first rides extremely short.
We went on like this for about a week, until one day when I got on him, he began fidgeting almost uncontrollably when I stepped into the stirrup and sat down. After some rather unfocussed walk work, I asked him to trot and he took off in a springy little protest buck. There was something in this little buck that felt more like “I really, really need you off me now”, rather than “I’m a young guy who’s a little excited today”. I make it a rule never to get off a young horse while he’s playing up or misbehaving - whatever the cause - but my intuition told me there was something really wrong, and that if I pressed him he would explode. My mind told me: “If you get off now, you’ll cause a serious training problem and he will act up for the next month”. My heart said: “This horse is severely anxious for reasons you need to uncover, and if you continue on he may injure you, and you will permanently damage his young confidence and goodwill”. I have always been sorry when I haven’t followed my intuition (and have never regretted it when I have) so I decided to end the ride. I wished to disassociate my dismounting from his misbehavior, so I asked him to halt to allow him a moment to settle his mind. Then I walked him for a minute in both directions, trotted him several seconds in the direction we had been going when he misbehaved, asked him to halt again, and got off - hoping he hadn‘t seen through my ruse and didn‘t think I had gotten off because he had intimidated me.
I assumed that possibly I had gone a bit too fast in his training (as hard as that was to believe) and that it was this, in combination with the foul weather (it was December) that was causing his stress. So I did the obvious, and took a step backward in his training to build his confidence and re-affirm previous lessons. The following day I planned to first lunge him and then briefly walk him under saddle (no trot work). When I lunged him, he was particularly naughty - running, bucking, falling in on the circle in order to thwart my efforts to keep him forward. My intuition told me it was not a good day to get on him, but I foolishly pressed forward with the program I had decided upon (after all, he had been walking under saddle for months now). He was extremely difficult to mount again (which I attributed to my assistant not positively dealing with this the previous day). As soon as I was in the saddle, he started shaking violently, acting as if he was about to take off in a wild buck or begin rearing. I did the only thing I could to remain safe and decided to pretend that the lesson that day had been all about “Ho”. I stopped him, told him he had performed a very clever “Ho”, and jumped off. I knew now I had a real training problem on my hands, as well as a serious safety issue, and I assumed I had caused it. I hoped Dario believed that our lesson had really been all about halting, but I had my doubts, and I knew if he thought he had intimidated me, I was in very serious trouble.
I did the only thing I could, which was to proceed yet another step back in our training, intending to focus on obedience as we re-affirmed old lessons. When faced with a difficult training issue I like to focus on one aspect of it that seems to be at the heart of things, and I considered obedience to be the underlying problem here. But, to my surprise - and extreme dismay - with each step I took back in training, he was equally as uncooperative. We went backwards and backwards until I was no longer lunging him in the arena and was even having difficulty working with him in hand (this was a stallion I had shown in hand with no difficulties, even when we ended up in an arena full of mares and babies at one show). Now, I found that he was difficult just walking to the arena and to the pasture, and the only place I could work with him successfully was the sand paddock adjoining the barn - so this is where we worked.
Although I now thought his behavior disobedient, he still seemed more stressed to me than defiant, so I was quite sure he had had some kind of nervous breakdown due to me proceeding too quickly with his training (and that being a sensitive young stallion, it had gone to the extreme and he had lost complete confidence in both me and himself). Since I had not been able to solve this on my own, and since I pride myself in being humble enough to seek outside input, I poured myself into trying to find the key to Dario’s loss off confidence. I went online reading blogs, chat rooms and training articles. I re-read Col. Podhajsky’s Complete Training of Horse and Rider and a very good book called, The Natural Stallion. I even watched video of Opus 72, and asked friends with Iberians for advice. Somewhere, I thought, was the answer to the training problem from hell - but it wasn’t in me.
To my utter horror, as fascinating and educational as all of this learning was, it did not help my problem one bit. I began to study Dario’s behavior in and around the barn more closely. I quickly realized he was just as miserable in the pasture as he was when I worked with him in the arena. He seemed to wish to remain in his stall all day. When I turned him out, he stood still for hours without attempting to graze. I even attempted to lure him into the pasture myself by walking well out and calling to him. His response was to gallop out to me, wag his head at me to warn me to return to the barn (obviously considering the far reaches of the pasture unsafe for a female alone) and then to gallop back to the sand paddock adjoining the barn, where he stood staring at me with a look of obvious dismay and reproach. Then suddenly it hit me: he was content only in his stall and in the sand paddock -- rather than being a sudden and inexplicable complete mental and emotional breakdown, it might just be that his feet were sore. He wasn’t lame in the sand paddock, so I put him on a lead and walked him over various other turf, observing him closely. I realized he was tender footed even on the rubber stall mats in my barn. I applied hoof testers, but couldn’t find an actual sore spot (like an abscess or a bruised sole), but I was still sure both of his front feet were very sore. I gave him bute the following day to test my theory, and for the first time in weeks he walked around the pasture grazing happily. I knew I had found the key. I pulled out the calendar and there it was - the day he first acted up under saddle, the day after which he was never the same, was also the day he had his feet trimmed by a new trimmer.
I should stop here to explain. I am a fanatic about management and about service providers, often learning to do things myself so I can be sure they’re done properly. There is only one farrier in my area whom I trust, but I had decided to remove my other horses’ shoes for the Winter, and my farrier cannot travel the distance to me for a few trims. I tried a barefoot trimmer, and after being dissatisfied with the first, tried a second, who was able do a good job with my other horses. Neither trimmer, however, seemed capable of trimming my stallion, who actually has beautiful feet and should have been quite easy to trim. The issue was that his feet are so hard the soles don’t wear down enough naturally, and the barefoot trimmers were allowing his feet to get too long, to the point where he was stumbling. This new trimmer decided that rather than lower the whole foot (wall and sole) as I requested, she would rasp the wall of his feet up about ¾ of an inch, so that the soles of his feet would wear on their own (according to her). I had real reservations about this, but I decided to allow it for one cycle.
Now, I picked up Dario’s front feet and examined them very closely. I could see that at the point of contact with the ground the wall had been filed in such a manner that he was making contact only with his sole and along the white line. His hard soles didn’t seem sore, but I suspected that concussive pressure on the white line was traveling to the more sensitive parts of the foot and had triggered a painful inflammatory response. I called the vet out who confirmed my suspicions. At this point I did the only thing a person with my nature could do - after a brief and disappointing attempt to find a trimmer I could trust, I signed myself up for an online course in foot trimming and poured myself into learning all I could so I could do the trims myself. I had always trimmed younger, unstarted horses, but once they were working, I left their podiatric needs to the professionals. I began to study the anatomy of the foot with all its internal structures, the biomechanics of the foot and leg, learned about various balance issues, and viewed instructional video of various types of trims. I combined some of the barefoot methods with some of the traditional methods to come up with a trim that keeps my horses’ feet in maximum health, but allows them to work under saddle comfortably and with good stability.
I decided to allow Dario to remain mainly in his stall for about a month while his feet grew out, and then I proceeded to trim them myself. When I rasped his feet the first time, I could see that one of his front feet was bruised in a thin line all along the area where the white line and the sole meet (confirming my theory). I began soaking it. Shortly after this - with much trepidation - I proceeded to the arena with him for the first time to begin working with him again. We started out simply, just walking around in both directions on a lead. I was greatly relieved by Dario’s alert, “Yes, Maam” attitude, and put him in his stall that day considering it a positive first step. After doing this for a couple days, I moved on to lunging in a cavesson, lunging in a surcingle and side reins, lunging in full tack, being mounted…you get the picture. We quickly reviewed all the stages of young horse learning at an accelerated pace, reinforcing all our previous lessons in a couple of weeks. We moved on to lunging the rider and removal of the lunge line. I don’t know if I was surprised or just relieved, but the horse I thought was utterly ruined before he began, the horse I considered so disobedient he was one phone call away from being gelded, was once again focused and proud - going around the arena just as if nothing had ever happened (which I suppose, it hadn’t). After our ride, I leaned over before dismounting, patted him on the neck, and told him “good boy”. As if in affirmation of all my efforts, he turned toward me and nickered very low in my ear, "brrr" - very much pleased with himself. That low nicker of recognition will be indelibly etched in my memory as an affirmation that kindness and devotion to a horse is always rewarded with like affection.
So what is the moral of my story? It’s a lesson I’ve already learned numerous times and am surprised it’s so easy to forget: that the training problem that just can’t be solved with reasonable effort, the training problem that appeared out of no where despite a sensible program - just might not be a training problem at all. Pain is the ultimate de-motivator for any creature, no less a horse, who is incapable of expressing his hurt in any manner other than refusal to cooperate. Not knowing my horse was in pain, but correctly assessing his mental state, allowed me to ultimately proceed with his training as if there had never been a problem - once the pain was removed. So what was the key to solving, ‘My Toughest Training Challenge’ -- LISTENING.
Now lets imagine the contrary. Imagine a young, sensitive horse who is fearful because of serious pain and is in training with someone who fails to recognize or explore his emotions. The trainer presses him onward, thinking the horse disobedient. Imagine the horse’s desperation, the explosion, the trainers attempts to get this ‘unwilling horse’ under control. Imagine the gadgets that might have been pulled out, the forceful and utterly futile attempts to stem the horses ‘aggression’ (yes - this horse would likely have become actually aggressive by now). The horse is moved from trainer to trainer, but by now has learned that humans, and being ridden, are to be feared beyond all things. The pain may have long been gone, but the lesson of distrust and fear remain. A talented horse with a kind and willing temperament is now considered mean, dangerous and untrainable - and actually has become just that, ruining any potential he may have had, and dashing all his owners dreams for him. How often does this happen, I wonder?
Perhaps in most instances the horse’s pain is less severe, the horse has a more stoic temperament or the horse is further along in his training, but the outcome is still very much the same (or possibly worse for the horse). Since the horse is not acting out enough to be considered dangerous, he is branded ‘stubborn and unwilling’ and is whipped and spurred until he is pressed forward through his resistance in silent pain…until one day he finally breaks down altogether. I have seen this scenario much too often and marvel at the ignorance of all around. They will tell you with perfect confidence what an unwilling creature the horse is, and how he is in need of discipline - as if the ultimate disobedience of the horse was to stubbornly break down in defiance of the trainer’s prudent training program. A horse who has become mentally stressed is accused of trying to “get out of work” by “always acting up when the work gets hard”. The horse who is physically broken will be said to have some unseen underlying congenital issue which the vet can’t diagnose, but everyone knows must be there, or to have injured himself in the pasture (the reason so many performance horses are not let out of a box stall).
So what do we do when we desire to listen to our horse, but are unsure of what the horse is saying to us? I’d like to leave the reader with a mantra, which I repeat to myself every time my schooling program isn’t progressing at the pace or in the way I had imagined, but which I believe has saved me from ever inadvertently causing any mental or physical grief to a horse: I’VE GOT TIME.
