From: Ruth
Hi jessica, and welcome back from your travels. It's great to get horse sense again! It's a wonderful resource. I'm writing about a problem with my 1/2 arab former Country Pleasure horse. A trainer and I are working together to retrain him for dressage. I've written before about how he will stiffen against the bit and just take it, being a motorboat while I just hang on, doing half halts for all I'm worth and to no availaable. You suggested that this might be an every-other-ride kind of thing, where he stiffens up because he's sore after being asked to do new things.
His resistances seem to be getting worse, however. He does three things: grabs the bit and goes like a bat; flings his hips to the inside and twists himself up like a pretzel, which results in an interesting gait we call the crab, but which won't be rewarded in the dressage ring; and the newest, he fakes a canter depart but there is no go there--he just does a little skip to bring himself above the bit and then settles back into a disconnected version of whatever he was doing before the skip.
As a result of the pretzel and the skip, he tightens his neck into his shoulders. I have found some significant muscle knots in both shoulders--no idea how old they are.
I am long lining him and longeing him, and he does well at both those disciplines--will relax and stretch for the bit like a happy horse. Under saddle, however, we're just not communicating.
I had been using a gag bit; he does not seem to like it. I'm back to a d ring snaffle.
Any suggestions you have for his successful retraining would be much appreciated. Thanks!
It sounds to me as though there are a lot of different things going on with this horse. Let me suggest a few, and you can see whether they ring any bells with you.
Horses like to take the line of least resistance -- that's why it's so easy for an experienced trainer to work with a horse by setting it up in ways that make the right thing easy and pleasant, and the wrong thing difficult and unpleasant. Horses prefer praise to anger or frustration -- your horse isn't deliberately trying to make you angry, or deliberately trying NOT to canter just because he's perverse. He doesn't want to canter, and is desperately trying to avoid cantering, even though the avoidance is causing him discomfort and trouble, and, IF EVERYTHING WERE NORMAL, cantering would be easier for him, physically and mentally, than not-cantering. He's trying to tell you something, in the only way he has: through his body. Let's see if we can't figure out WHAT he's trying to say!
Horses can "resist" -- not do what you ask -- for several reasons. You can be asking incorrectly, although that's unlikely in your case. The horse can fail to understand what you want -- again, unlikely. The horse can be incapable of doing what you want -- but he CAN canter nicely on the longe and on long-lines, so it isn't the canter as such that's the problem here (although the canter under saddle with a rider may not be possible -- more about this later). I would bet that your horse is doing what he's doing for the same reason that most horses "resist": they can't say "Ow, that hurts me, stop it!" All they can do is push against the pain ("he's pulling on the bit") or try to run away from it ("he just keeps cantering faster"). The rider has to figure out what has gone wrong, and where.
Pain is my first thought -- this sounds like a horse that is in physical pain when he is asked to canter. If you've already found muscle knots in his shoulders, you'll need to do something about them. Try using direct pressure (unmounted, no tack, and your thumb is the ideal tool) for twenty seconds at a time, as often as possible. Follow this up with crossfiber friction as soon as he will allow it -- and that may take several days. As long as those knots are present, he is going to have muscle spasms when he tries to move in a particular way, or tries to hold his head and neck in a particular position for any length of time. If you've ever had a bad cramp or stitch or muscle spasm, you know just how painful that can be!
Check his back for soreness -- in fact, have your vet check him thoroughly. Horses that hurt somewhere -- like that sore neck! -- usually move badly, trying to protect the painful area, and as a consequence, make themselves sore and lame elsewhere. Hind-leg pain can manifest as back pain, and vice versa. You need to know what you're dealing with.
The fact that he is unhappy about mounted work and cantering in particular, while he goes easily on the longe and on long-lines, makes me VERY suspicious of the saddle fit. The first thing I would do is have someone who is knowledgeable in such matters LOOK at the horse and the saddle and evaluate its fit.
(You are also welcome to go through the horse-sense archives -- there's quite a lot of information there on saddle fit, if I remember correctly. )
In the meantime, at least check to see that the tree is not twisted or broken, that the width of the tree is appropriate, that the points of the tree aren't digging into your horse's shoulders. Arabians and half-Arabians are notoriously difficult to fit - - many saddles dig into their shoulders.
Here are some basic guidelines. The saddle gullet should be clear -- daylight showing through it -- from end to end, when you look at it standing behind your horse, AND when someone else looks at it standing behind the horse when you are in the saddle. Sitting in the saddle, you should be able to put your fingers between the pommel and the horse, all the way up to your rings. And you should be able to slide your hands under the panels at walk and trot without feeling any pain in your fingers -- if they are being crushed, then so are your horse's shoulders.
Be sure that your saddle is positioned correctly on the horse's back -- slide it backward until it stops by itself. Many people hurt their horses without meaning to, just by placing their saddles too far forward. Look at your saddle from the side: the lowest point should be the center. If it's the cantle area, the saddle may be too far forward! When the girth is tightened, there should be a good handspan between the horse's elbow and the girth. If the girth is up against the horse's elbow, the saddle is very likely to be too far forward. Even an inch or two can make an enormous difference in your horse's comfort -- with the saddle too far forward, the horse's shoulders will be pinched every time he reaches forward strongly with a front leg. Horses in this situation drop their backs and move with short strides, and often try everything to avoid cantering, in an attempt to avoid the pain that they know is coming. If you force them to canter, they will often run as fast as possible to try to get away from the pain.
If you want to retrain this horse for dressage, you have two jobs on your hands. First, you must take away what is hurting the horse. The first part of job 1 is relatively easy: work out those knots, and any others that you find, adjust or change the saddle so that it fits, and go to the gentlest, easiest bit you can find, so that he won't run away from pain in his back, and run INTO pain in his mouth, then back away from that and compress himself into a mass of muscle spasms. Once you've done that, the second part of job 1 is more difficult, and will take longer, perhaps many months: ride him forward, focus on walk and trot and good transitions until he is 100% happy and comfortable moving into his bridle with a lifted back, on soft contact. You need to change his movement patterns and his reflexes and his habits -- Country Pleasure horses are so often hollow and stiff! You can do it, but it will take time and patience.
Second, you have to teach him that he can safely move the way you want him to, because now it won't hurt. This is a more difficult job than you might expect, because he KNOWS that cantering will hurt, just as you KNOW that going for a walk with a rock in your shoe would hurt. If you were helpless to change your own shoes, and were forced to walk with rocks in your shoes, and were left with blisters and bruising that became more painful each time, it would take a real leap of faith for you to put those shoes on and go for a walk, even if someone assured you that the bad rocks were gone.
You can't reassure your horse -- you have to show him, by arranging everything so that he is comfortable, and then by keeping him calm while you ask him to do something that he THINKS will hurt, even if you know it won't. Even when the pain is gone, you'll have to keep reminding him that it's gone and that he is fine. And -- again, think of yourself and those bruised feet -- just taking the rock away isn't enough, the body has to HEAL before all the pain will be gone.
So, here is my two-part suggestion for retraining.
1) Check his back, his legs, his mouth. Get rid of the pressure points. Ask your vet's advice -- that thorough vet-check may help a lot, whether the main problem is in the horse's back or in his mouth -- especially if the horse is having trouble with his teeth (always a possibility). Adjust or change tack until it sits correctly and he is comfortable -- you can't do ANYTHING with him, mentally or physically, until he is comfortable. Then, while you are retraining him, be sure that you never ask for more than a couple of minutes of intense work or work with his head and neck in ANY fixed position. Let him stretch -- nose on the ground -- every two minutes. In another month or two, you can make it every three minutes, but for now, with his history and his muscle spasms, he needs all the help you can give him. Regular stretching is essential -- and you'll get MUCH more work done when he can focus on you, he isn't in pain, and he isn't worried about the next muscle spasm.
2) "Retraining" for any horse, but especially a horse that is having such a major career change (CP to dressage!) doesn't mean "doing walk, trot, and canter, only in a slightly different way. " "Retraining" means starting all over, from the ground up, and teaching the horse an entirely different way to move, developing muscles in different ways, and creating new neuromuscular reflexes. You have to start with the baby basics and work your way up through the stages of training, because although this horse IS an adult, he is, in dressage terms, absolutely untrained. In fact, he's worse than untrained, because he has already learned to move in a particular way, and now needs to learn to move in another, better way.
Take your time and don't skip any steps. He needs to learn to lift his back and use his hindquarters and march at the walk, move out at the trot, and EVENTUALLY canter -- but in the meantime, ask for very little at a time, focus on quality of work rather than quantity, stretch him down every two minutes, and praise him whenever he even THINKS about doing something that you would like him to do. And there's a big payoff for your patience: the more slowly and deliberately and carefully and considerately you work with him NOW, the less time it will take to teach him what you want him to learn.
Good luck!
Jessica
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