Schive Equestrian

18/02/2025

Superstar Garthfach Vex making light work of a 1m10 course today! I don’t usually have the opportunity to practice my show jumping as often as I’d like, so it’s nice to be able to get some practice in on a pony that will hold your hand on the way in when you are feeling a bit rusty 🫶🏼. This special boy is looking for a new home. Further details will follow soon.

07/01/2025

Just some musings I had whilst on this hack…

Allowing a horse to make mistakes creates smarter, quick thinking, confident horses who learn to use their own initiative instead of relying on ours…

One example of putting this philosophy into practice is what I have been doing with this horse whilst hacking out..

This horse is a horse who lacked in confidence when taken out alone. He would go into ‘freeze’ and plant whenever he was worried… He felt as though he had the hand brake on for the duration of a hack…

Each time I take him out wherever possible, I make sure to ride him on a completely looped rein, which provides him with the freedom to pick and choose which side of a track he would prefer to continue on.

It’s so easy for us as riders to look ahead, pre anticipate maybe uneven terrain and make the decision on behalf of our horses to switch to the other side of the path, as a way of ‘protecting’ them and trying to make life easier for them.

When we think and act in this manner, I believe we are severely underestimating the intelligence and learning capabilities of the horse and also denying them the ability to make mistakes and learn from them… It is also another form of micro managing.

The first few times I allowed this horse to make incorrect decisions on these hacks, resulted in a few sticky and slippy moments.. However what I noticed is after a number of weeks, these mistakes became less and less… He actually started to develop his own discernment in terms of the type of terrain that is slippery, uneven or difficult to move through.. As a result he started to become more and more sure footed and confident as he began to seek out the best possible position to be in on a track. His own initiative and conscience started to develop and as a result so did his confidence in himself.

I believe this same logic can be applied to many things we do with horses… Jumping being another example. I always used to have a strong belief that it was down to the rider to be able to ‘see a stride’ and to set their horse up perfectly in order to reach the jump at the right place. In this present day I see it differently…

I think a horse who is learning should be presented to jumps and have the rider ‘help’ as little as possible. As long as the rider has developed a good rhythmical canter, the responsibility to get in at a good distance should be given to the horse… Yes there will be a number of times the horse gets in short, or takes a long one and it doesn’t look so pretty… However, just like with my hacking example, after a few repetitions and mistakes, as long as you sit quiet and stay out of their way, you will find the horse begins to get smarter and starts to think for themselves in terms of being able to self adjust on the way into a fence… This is how a horse can start to develop a ‘fifth leg’ so to speak and can actually start to ‘save’ their rider when they make mistakes (which are inevitable).

P.s just an add on to clarify that this kind of learning should only be happening around appropriately sized fences, so such mistakes do not result in an experience which will put a horse or rider in harms way…

02/01/2025

Very interesting. I to have noticed a pattern over the years in the context of when a horse will yawn. As one example, any horse I’ve trained that’s had problems around mounting and the mounting block, I have noticed they tend to yawn incessantly once they are finally able to stand quietly next to the block. I’ve always perceived such behaviour to be an indicator that these horses do this when they anticipate pain/discomfort of some sort, as it usually happens in the quiet waiting time, that that gives them the opportunity to react to what is about to come (someone getting on them).

The pain/discomfort could be anything from ill fitting tack, ulcers, muscular problems, a horse who is anticipating being ridden in a way that creates too much pressure and not enough release, a horse anticipating being ridden in a way that creates brace and tension (as brace and tension does not feel good!), or even just a horse who has had someone continuously mount them with an incorrect mounting technique, so they now associate mounting with discomfort due to that. I don’t think I’ve ever perceived yawning to be a positive thing in the work that I do… I know I’m working along the right lines when such horses yawning becomes less and less in the time I’m working with them. If it does not decrease with time and disappear altogether, I would then advise the owners to delve deeper into what could be going on in the body…

Here’s a throwback to a popular post I wrote a few years back on this topic. Make sure to read through the comments to, as there is a lot of insight from some well respected professionals there.

https://www.facebook.com/share/14zcS6qjKU/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Confusing signals ??
Thought I would reshare this from a few years ago as I like to update anything new to add.



Processing, calming, releasing, relaxing, tired, sleepy are all words that you as an owner might hear throughout a session with your horse, be it training, bodywork etc

But are we using the words to casually without ever taking the time or study to understand the complicated and subtle signals that belong to the language of the horse, remember humans for alot of horses may have led to stressful encounters, they have a great memory so we are often interpreting the feedback they give and often it's passed around information rather than studied information

And we need to ask the questions however uncomfortable finding the truth may be for only when we are aware can we further our knowledge in helping the horse

As someone who has worked mainly with positive reinforcement for the past 20 years, watching the horse is part and parcel of how I daily interact with my and other horses, and mainly I would see these behaviours around what I considered a more stressful time for the horse eg feed time etc in fact I watch the foals now and they are still unsure of me so lots of yawning and w***y dropping will ensue as they know feed is coming and wariness so stress twofold. I was never satisfied with the answer of processing or releasing tension I wanted to know processing what and who or what caused the tension???



And horses do get stressed and have to like every other animal release that to allow the levels get back to normality in fact in times of high stress eg running from something their stress has to go up to a certain level to be able to regulate back down (again how many horses are worked in such a way that they never have the chance to come back down)

So we need to distinct these behaviours as on the lower end of the scale its mostly self soothing and on the other end of the scale dissociation or tuned out.

We often say anatomy and biomechanics are top priority but if we include behaviour as a priority for if your end goal is a yawn and not the question why that happened in the first place The you will forever be focused on the ending and not the reason why



And I am not saying its all bad but what I am saying is its not magic if a horse starts yawning two minutes after I have walked in the stable I am well aware I may be the cause, if a horse is incessantly licking the owner or a salt lick, then I know they are still worried about me, if a horse starts staring off into the distance I know they are trying to dissociate from the situation they are in...I am aware that my work however much I want to the horse to be a part of it Sometimes I may make them a little uncomfortable it makes sense as I am asking them to change the way they have been stuck for sometimes a long time

We have many studies out there now with clear signals and their reasons and I like everyone else wanted to believe that the horse had the problem and the solution, but I never even bother to aim for a yawn nowadays and funnily enough the minute my focus was away from that goal I hardly ever get one from a horse and if I do I don’t make a fuss but also reflect on what I have maybe done to get such a reaction, for knowing could help the next horse



I have put plenty of videos of my own horse who was very nervous of people display all the signs leg scratching, lowering the head, looking around, licking chewing and these are behaviours that tell me I need to step back and when you think I am already maybe 50 yards away so now think of horses held on the end of the leadrope , their personal space is so big we are often taught they must not come into ours yet we never give them the same courtesy



So we have to be realists , we have to be aware we could be the reason sometimes, if we take a step back and then the horse yawns was it the work you did or was it the step back that took the pressure off. If we come from a place of knowledge and understanding then we can begin to effect change

Feedback from the horse has so many interpretations and my opinion may differ from yours and that’s OK we are all own our own journey but a horses face does not hide what they are feeling and we have to follow the science and the new studies rather than the ramblings of the 80,s guru horsemen we have to keep moving forward for the better of the horse

06/12/2024

It’s funny the things people will tell themselves in order for the reality to be more palatable for them to continue doing what they’re doing… I don’t think Isabel even realises how ignorant such a statement makes her look… How can someone who is at the top of their game in the discipline of dressage, someone who has worked with 1000s of horses over the years, be so far removed from the truth of horse behaviour? I wouldn’t even expect to hear this kind of thing from someone who knows 0 about horses… It’s just a ridiculous statement to make… What kind of lala, fairy land is she living on? 🤣 Very concerning, very telling, but not at all surprising…

Isabel Werth states that Wendy used to be happy in the warm-up but is not anymore on a recent podcast https://www.abendblatt.de/sport/article407825296/isabell-werth-ueber-wendy-das-habe-ich-noch-nie-erlebt.html

28/11/2024

A fantastic exercise where I am using jump wings set on a 15m circle, to help establish a shoulder iny/ leg yieldy type movement in walk and trot. I’m not sure whether this movement even has a technical name, all I know is from my experience practicing this will help with ALL of the following:

🔹Developing that inside leg to outside rein feeling.
🔹 Developing inside hind leg engagement.
🔹 Core activation.
🔹 Proprioception and coordination of aids.
🔹 Shoulder in preparation.
🔹 Leg yield preparation.
🔹 Thoracic sling engagement.

All of the above will help improve the horses ability to shift more weight to the hind end. It will enable you to ride better circles and school figures with softness and fluidity as the horses understanding, strength and coordination of moving off of your inside leg into your outside rein develops further.. It will help a horse who struggles with balance in the canter, as it enables you to have greater influence over the inside hind and therefore set the horse up for a better transition. There are so many other benefits to this exercise… These are just a few benefits that popped into my head right now.

As with teaching any new behaviour or movement pattern, it’s firstly about finding ways you can set your environment up for success. Setting your environment up in a way that encourages the horse to offer you the right answer. Having the jump wings laid out in this way encourages Don to explore this more lateral feeling on a circle, without too much confusion and without me having to rely too much on correction from the rein. If I tried this initially without the barriers of the wings, he would most likely be more inclined to move with less of a lateral step and instead just turn in on the circle, which is when some people might feel more of a need to use more pressure on the rein at this point.

My aim is always to be able to ride on the release of pressure… The only time I’m applying rein pressure is to bring the balance of the poll up, or to shift the balance of the outside shoulder. As soon as this feeling is achieved I go back to ‘riding on the release.’

I’m using the wings to help shape a new movement pattern in his body… A bit like stabilisers on a bike when a child is learning the coordination and balance that is required to ride with 2 wheels… Once this is established the stabilisers can come off I.e the movement can now be asked away from the wings and in different areas of the school.

Please DO NOT attempt this exercise if your horse does not firstly have an excellent understanding of basic foundational yields. (Hindquarters yields, forequarter yields). He/she should feel like a yoga ball moving off of your subtle leg aids in these movements versus a rock… Read my previous article for further details on these foundations:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/12CUFpbxJfm/?mibextid=WC7FNe

30/10/2024

It made my day to open up this months ‘Intelligent Horsemanship’ magazine and find Kelly Marks and Intelligent Horsemanship had included some words of mine regarding learning about piaffe training.

Please, if you haven’t already subscribed to the Intelligent Horsemanship magazine, I would strongly advise you consider it…

For a long time I had felt myself losing interest in and putting down the more mainstream Equestrian magazines. The reason being was that I just felt as though the types of topics being discussed, the way they were being discussed and the pictures they used were not particularly progressive and no longer aligned with the way I wanted to view horses.

The intelligent Horsemanship magazine delves into the latest science, training problems, and recipes for good horsemanship.. Thanks to this magazine I can now look forwards to turning the pages again…

23/10/2024

“INSIDE LEG TO OUTSIDE REIN.” 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️

I’m sure every equestrian in the world (who has had lessons / watched lessons) has heard these words howled from across the arena at some point in their lives…

Although it is well intentioned advice, in many cases it can create further problems which serve to be quite a road block for progression amongst horses and riders…

Whilst being able to execute these aids effectively DOES have a beautiful influence on a horses way of going… In order to execute these aids effectively and have a positive effect on the horses way of moving, the horse has to firstly understand quite a number of steps and the rider has to have the skill to deliver aids independantly…

A lack of the above, is the reason this advice so often fails and instead ends up leaving a bunch of frustrated, perplexed riders and equally frustrated horses who are uncomfortable in their bodies 😣😤.

So in terms of the horses understanding, let’s take a deeper dive into some ingredients that are necessary to have in place BEFORE truly riding from inside leg to outside rein is a possibility…

1️⃣ A horse should have an understanding of basic foundational yields. They should be able to both move the hind end and the shoulders a few steps laterally in response to your leg going on. They should not feel ‘stuck’ on anyone of their legs. Developing these yields will enable you to talk to each hind leg and each foreleg in isolation. The forequarter yields enable you to develop the feel and understanding to move the horses outside shoulder off of your outside aids and the hindquarter yields develop the understanding to influence the inside hind from your inside aids. Eventually you should aim to be able to do these yields with the smallest of changes in your body and with a clear slack in the reins.

If you can currently put your leg on in a number of ways and the ONLY response you get from your horse is to move forwards, then you really need to spend time teaching / revisiting these forequarter and hindquarter yields in order for him to start understanding a more lateral response to the leg.

2️⃣ Being able to yield to rein pressure. So whether you ride bitless, in a snaffle, a rope halter or something else, you should be able to pick up each rein individually and have your horse bending and softening through their entire neck, poll and jaw to the left and the right. Make sure you can do this from a standstill first and that you are not having to use force to hold them in the bend… Release when they release… Progress onto asking for a few strides in walk until eventually you can have your horse bending softly to the inside rein down a whole long side. Make sure you can do this with outside bend to. Finally progress to the trot.

3️⃣ Now the horse has an understanding of the above, you can now use your inner rein, leg and seat aids to achieve a correct inside bend and to move the horse off of your inside aids in order to create lateral flexion throughout the horses body.. At this point if the steps have been done correctly there should be no brace, resistance or blockages in the horses body.. The horse should begin to feel looser and more relaxed, seeking the rein down and out… All those good things. It should feel very nice for both you and the horse. You should not feel as though you need to ‘hold’ the horse into this position or micromanage him/her to stay there. He/she seeks this position because they learn it feels good, therefore it is self reinforcing!

At this point you can begin to take more slack out of the outside rein, until you can begin to feel a soft, elastic connection to the outside of his body… It should not feel restrictive.. You should not come back with your outside hand as the outside of his body needs to lengthen in order for energy to flow smoothly… If you loose energy through the outside shoulder, the skills you developed with the shoulder yields, will allow you to communicate to and shift the balance of the outside shoulder.

Once everything comes together, It should just feel as though you are simply moving the energy off of your inside aids, feeling it being met into your outside rein and then allowing that feeling to flow through into the forwards movement. You can test your ‘inside leg to outside rein connection’ by regularly giving the inside rein. If you have done all the steps correctly, the horse should remain bent laterally around your inside leg when you give on this rein.

👆🏼THIS is the true definition of riding ‘inside leg to outside rein.’

At this point you can use exercises and school figures such as spiralling in and out to further improve inside hind leg engagement and inside leg to outside rein connection.

I can’t stress enough, the outcome of the above coming together is a horse that feels soft, loose, swinging through his entire body, his steps will feel rhythmical, his back will feel lifted, he will be seeking the rein down and OUT and it will feel enjoyable and effortless for BOTH of you. If you have not achieved this feeling you need to retrace your steps and figure out what ingredient(s) are missing!

It might sound complicated, but when you break each component down individually and work on truly achieving one thing at a time, everything begins to slot together and make sense.

Attempting to ride “inside leg to outside rein” before the above has been established is like trying to bake a cake, but you don’t have any flour, you don’t have any butter nor any sugar 🤷🏻‍♀️… How can you be surprised the cake has turned out rubbish!?

22/10/2024

Some poor quality footage showing a high quality moment… Celebrating the small wins..

Freya and her pony Cleo here had been struggling with picking up the incorrect canter lead on the left rein since they first purchased her in May. I am not local to Freya and with hopes to be selected for the C squad next month, the pressure was on to try and find a solution within this one visit.

Cleo had gotten into a real fixed pattern of setting off on the right canter lead no matter what techniques were tried.. Freya had been advised to use poles in corners / jumps, she had tried lots of different things over the last few months in terms of adjusting her own posture and way of asking to encourage a different answer, more inside bend, less inside bend.. She had tried correcting the canter lead as soon as she’d realised it was the wrong one and re asking repetitively, hoping Cleo would eventually pick up the right one.

No matter what was tried, 9/10 the right canter lead was the only one Cleo was willing to offer on the left rein. Although these methods can sometimes help, unfortunately if the incorrect canter lead is routed in being a straightness / suppleness problem (which most of the time it is) we firstly need to be able to diagnose exactly where abouts in the body the lack straightness / suppleness is coming from… Without fully understanding this, certain exercises could just be cementing an incorrect canter strike off further…

After a sit on Cleo myself, I was able to identify the reason this was happening. Even when Cleo was in what some might mistake to be inside bend, (her neck and head appeared to be bent to the left, however her poll joint was actually rotated back to the right). There was what a call a kink in her body and due to this incorrect poll rotation and ‘blockage’, her weight was stuck on her left inside shoulder.

So the solution to this? At least 1 hour was spent at the walk, just guiding Cleo into a poll release to the left. The outside rein was completely left alone, in order to allow the outside of her body to lengthen and the inside rein was gently lifted up and then released on the slightest of lateral releases i felt through Cleo’s poll. Once the poll release was achieved, I then aimed for the feeling of allowing her to fall out of the outside shoulder *gasp* in order to encourage the outside of her body to lengthen. Yes for some horses and ponies, allowing them to fall out of the outside shoulder can be very beneficial!

Cleo is a typical example of a pony who will not benefit from being ridden “inside leg to outside rein” for her stage of training. True inside bend had not been established, so riding with too much outside rein too soon was actually exasperating the problem of incorrect poll rotation and therefore picking up incorrect canter lead.

Once she was able to offer a poll release and the feeling of falling out of the outside shoulder, the balance was then shifted from mostly on the inside shoulder to now more on the outside. Once we achieved the correct canter lead, I only kept her going for a few strides on each correct strike off before quickly bringing her back to a stop to reinforce the correct answer with some nuts. Cleo very quickly learned that the left canter lead was actually quite a bit more comfortable to the incorrect one she had become so accustomed to.

Freya was then able to get back on, apply some of the techniques I’ve spoken about and achieve the correct canter lead on her first ask and a few more times after that before we bought the session to a close.

It was a moment we all celebrated 😁

Freya’s next goal is to be able to ride a prelim test with the correct canter leads and hopefully be selected for the C squad!

Keep up with celebrating these little wins Freya, as one day they will add up to some bigger ones!

* just to add* Freya’s mum got in touch to let me know Freya had a ridden session at home and managed to achieve correct canter lead on the left rein 4 times out of the 5 times asked! 💪🏼👌🏼 .

24/09/2024

Well that’s another thing ticked off of my horsey bucket list..Superstar Vex made my goal of riding a bridleless jumping round possible today! This was mine and Vex’s first time jumping a full round bridleless. I only thought we would be linking a few individual fences together when I came to the arena hire… However things were going so well, I thought may as well just do the whole thing 😁

This lovely pony is with me on sales livery. His advert will be going live in the next week or so, so watch this space 😉

Oh and if anyone has the funds to buy this pony for me to continue fulfilling my bridleless dreams on, I would be forever grateful 😘

23/09/2024

It seemed strange for me taking a break from the training arena and venturing back into a competition arena...

But these two ponies made dusting off the dressage boots more than worth it. (Video highlights from both tests are posted in the comments).

Eclipse (pictured top) is a 5 year old Argentine polo pony owned by Zoe Bucknell. She has been with me on training livery for a number of months, to help make the transition from whizzy, sensitive in the mouth polo pony to soft and relaxed dressage pony. Her natural inclination towards forwards movement, means she is actually very well suited towards dressage training.

Last week was Eclipse's first ever outing in between the white boards, where we managed to achieve two 70%+ scores in the walk and trot, some wonderful comments and 2 red rosettes. The icing on the cake was the judge coming out of the judging box, to say some really nice words about how correctly she is working for this level. Eclipse's training journey to reach this point has been one that I think many would find interesting.. So I will speak about this more on a future post..

Dodger (pictured bottom) is a 6 year old
Connemara owned by Kate Jackson and is just the sweetest boy! Kate has been bringing him to me for regular schooling sessions and sometimes Kate manages to have lessons on him herself, if she finds the time in her hectic schedule 😅

Dodger originally started off as a pony who was more on the anxious and reactive side of things. It has been a real pleasure to assist Kate on Dodgers journey to becoming a more relaxed and happy version of himself. This was also Dodgers first time in between the white boards and together we also managed two 70%+ scores and two red rossetes (and sashes). It's not often I come out of a test and have only positive to say, but Dodger made that happen yesterday!

Kate will maybe be taking over the reins and has said that she might venture into the dressage arena with Dodger herself next time, so watch this space!