Stone Ridge Stables

02/03/2024

I highly recommend joining any of the Science of Motion online studies. Once you add science to your training and your horse will thank you too!

A New Body of Knowledge.

A change of tension anywhere within our physique is instantly signaled to everywhere else in the body, both mechanically and chemically. The horse’s physique reacts to hoof adjustment, but not necessarily as the theory expects. The horse’s primary survival reflex is to protect his body state. The horse’s initial reaction will likely protect his physique from the change. The ones who can help the horse benefit from hoof adjustment are the rider and the trainer who live with the horse and know his habits, reactions, and mental processing. Only this deep relationship with the horse permits us to follow the horse’s adaptation to hoof change. In case of mild discomfort, there is no lameness or inflammation. It does not mean that the hoof adjustment works. If the discomfort is on the forelegs, the horse might try to reduce the impact forces, lessening the hind legs’ propulsive thrust. The horse might try to shift the weight on the toes, contracting and lowering the neck. A horse can express discomfort in many subtle ways that only the rider and the trainer can identify.
A hoof adjustment could be beneficial, but the horse’s physique might not be coordinated to benefit from the hoof correction. Expectations theorize that the horse will adapt to the corrective shoeing. The reality is that the horse will compromise to protect his familiar dysfunction. The compromise might convert logical corrective shoeing into more severer dysfunction.
For instance, the horse in the picture carries excessive weight on the forelegs. The right foreleg should be off the ground into the swing phase in this stride sequence. The left hind legs should remain on the ground, ending the propulsive phase. All the weight is on the right front leg with a knee no longer in stable alignment. Corrective shoeing rounding the front shoes to improve the brake over would worsen the dysfunction.
A mild discomfort of the front hooves might not cause lameness, but the horse will try to please the rider while protecting the discomfort. A common strategy for the horse is holding the thoracic spine in isometric contraction. The movement does not go through the thoracic spine, reducing the foreleg’s load. A few months ago, I referred to the case of a horse who had extreme fetlock dorsiflexion due to isometric holding of the thoracic spine. Recreating proper thoracic spine function returned the fetlock dorsi and palmar flexions within the safe norms. In a matter of months, proper training did what corrective shoeing was unable to achieve through years. The reason is that the thoracic spine dysfunction canceled the expected benefits of the corrective shoeing.
It is unlikely that a hoof adjustment would benefit the horse’s gaits and performances without the trainer’s experience and the rider’s work. Dr. Gian Piero Brigati restores soundness and competitive activities on Jumper horses in Italy through specific hoof adjustments. Dr. Brigati does not decide the adjustment based on the hoof structure and deformation only. Dr Brigati analyzes the horse’s motion and performance over the jump and advises the rider on necessary riding and training adjustments.
The horse’s physique does not always follow the rules, and only the rider and the trainer who live with the horse have enough understanding of the horse’s mental processing to pick up the signs that could prevent irreversible damage.
Today, a large body of knowledge allows riders to efficiently coordinate the horse’s physique for the athletic demands of performances. Properly using this knowledge can prevent injuries. Arthritis is irreversible, and prevention is more efficient than drugs such as Hyaluronic acid, which accelerates the development of arthritis. I have helped horses benefit from the hoof work, reducing the load on the forelegs a thousand times, and a thousand times, I have helped horses from improper hoof work, reducing the load on the forelegs. The main teaching of new knowledge is the capacity to protect the horse from expectation. The expected response to an adjustment is just a hypothesis, and if the horse expresses discomfort, we need to reconsider the hypothesis before lameness occurs.

The new body of knowledge is new. It cannot be integrated into classical literature as it often contradicts beliefs created when understanding the horse’s body function was elementary. Approaching the problem from advanced education of the thoracolumbar spine expanding to the hooves is more effective but demands more knowledge than theorizing the mastery of spine function from the hoof capsule.

Jean Luc

Science of Motion 2024 Programs

Simple upgrades our understanding of the horse’s physiology and body function to actual knowledge. The purpose of knowledge is to be applied, and to succeed in the practical application, riding, and training principles need to evolve with knowledge.
https://www.scienceofmotion.com/documents/simple24.html

Master One studies human and equine bodies at a deeper level. The horse’s physique and human physiques have previously unknown capacities. The term fascia, for instance, has been known for decades, but understanding how fascia connects the whole physique and how to train fascia opens the door to sounder gaits and performances. https://www.scienceofmotion.com/documents/masterone.html.

Master Two explains the athletic demand for superior dressage movements. Master Two is the course that everyone should enter. Knowing about the athletic difficulty of higher-level movements allows one to distinguish riding and training techniques, preparing the horse’s physique for the effort or hampering the horse’s ability to perform at his utmost potential. Not every horse can execute Piaffe, Passage, Canter Pirouette, and Tempi Changes, but every horse deserves an education supporting the horse’s potential and preventing injury.
https://www.scienceofmotion.com/documents/mastertwo.html

10/21/2023

This right here! Growth happens outside of our comfort zone!!

The Comfort Zone
Jean Luc Cornille
“Inside of every seed is the DNA of an entire tree and the blueprint of a forest that will grow out of it. You are a seed. You do not ‘have’ what it takes to fulfill your purposes; you are what it takes.” (Jordan Viera)

The question is, why do we perpetuate pre-existing notions that defy the evidence of reality? Why do we turn off our intuition and expect that tradition will fulfill our purposes? We are what it takes to become a good rider, but our DNA is unique. We can feed it with knowledge, but we cannot force it into a posture, which does no fit our physique. There is no rider’s position; there is a coordination that is proper to each individual. Saddles placing the rider in the “right posture,” are pre-existing notions that defy the evidence of reality. So are training techniques placing the horse’s neck in a third level or FEI frame.

Our comfort zone is a litany of antiquated theories to which we have been forced fed under the name of tradition. We are even menaced of ex-communication if we question tradition. This is tyranny; this is the destruction of our senses and intelligence. This is abuse from which we have a hard time to free ourselves. There is no comfort in the comfort zone, not for the horse, not for the rider. The comfort zone is just words, formulas, statements, principles, which became familiar because, paraphrasing Joseph Goebbels, “If you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” We are manipulated both mentally and physically. Our Central Pattern Generators CPGs) involved in locomotion adapt to the discomfort giving us a familiar physical impression.

Our CPGs involved in locomotion can relearn proper motion but only through the practice of proper motion. The difficulty is that while the parts of our brain monitoring our body, such as the cerebellum, feel ease and effortlessness in a better way of using our body, our central pattern generators are used to the old way and resist innovation. There is a conflict within our nervous system that lasts until the CPGs have been reeducated to the new pattern. The same conflict occurs in the horse’s nervous system. The horse’s brain registers the ease and effortlessness associated with better coordination of the body, but central pattern generators remain wired the wrong way. The brain explores, but the nervous system resists.

Moving away from the comfort zone is a laborious and complicates task. “Go easy on yourself. You are clearing thousands of years of outdated conditioning.” (Tohungia Kara) Thomas Pain explains why taking conscience of the problem is a problem. “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.” On a positive note, Ralf Waldo Emerson assures, “The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.” Maria Angelou kindly advises, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better” But Voltaire exposes the complexity of the human nature, “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” Even knowledge has its illusions; “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is an illusion of knowledge.” (Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018)

The horse’s willingness permits such an illusion. If talented enough, the horse performs movements despite the training techniques unrelated to the proper function of the horse’s physique. The horse has done that for centuries, and humans have taken the credit. Charles Darwin noticed that “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” The trend opens the door to approaches using comfortable words, “simple,” “thoroughness,” “stretching,” “relaxation,” which are not even closely related to the horse’s function.

In 1896, Jean-Leon Gerome explained his famous painting, “The naked truth coming out of the well.” “The Lie travels around the world, dressed as the Truth, satisfying the needs of society, because the World, in any case, has no wish at all to meet the naked Truth.” Our ancestors did not lie. Indeed, their wisdom, when updated to actual knowledge, is a portal to the truth. The interpretation of their intuition, as well as their literature, was influenced and limited by the scientific knowledge available at their time. The lie started when an advanced understanding of equine dynamics and functional anatomy, demonstrated the inaccuracy of traditional beliefs. The teaching of our ancestors satisfied the needs of the equestrian society, and riders and trainers had no wish at all to meet the naked truth.

Submitted horses willingly try to execute the move with a dysfunctional physique. Many became lame, and as the difficulty of the performance increases, even more, became lame. For many horses, lameness is the price of our comfort zone. Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, it takes courage and a touch of genius to go the other way. We are the seed; we have the genius in our DNA, but we have to have the courage to question pre-existing notions that defy the evidence of reality.

When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground burrowing the seed, but the seed grows, became a tree, which provides oxygen, houses wildlife. If we have learned from the elder to respect the tree and the life, we can further the elder’s wisdom, and we can upgrade the wisdom with actual knowledge, we can explore in the unknown, we can push the limits of the possible. “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” (Arthur C. Clarke).

Nancy Deuel identified in 1990 the limb kinematics peculiarities predisposing the horse for the superior flying change. “The higher-scoring horses increased the contact duration of the hind limbs and decreased the length of step and time between forelimb impacts to prepare to execute the lead change in the succeeding airborne phase.” (Nancy R. Deuel - Canter lead change kinematics of superior Olympic dressage horses - 1990) The ones comfortable in their comfort zone rejected the finding stating that it was impossible to increase the contact duration of the hind limbs. It is indeed impossible acting on the limbs, but if we venture beyond the usual paradigm, limb problems cause back issue. If we explore the thought that limb kinematics are directly influenced by back dysfunction, we can correct limb kinematics abnormalities addressing the thoracolumbar dysfunction. We can venture further and improve limb kinematics abnormalities through subtler education of the back muscles. We can increase contact duration of the hind limbs; we can correct limb kinematics abnormalities leading to navicular syndrome and other issues, we can prevent hocks problems. We can, we can, we can. The journey out of the comfort zone is rich, pertinent, and unlimited.

Want to learn more? Learn about our Online in-hand dressage course https://www.scienceofmotion.com/documents/in_hand_dressage_therapy_courses.html Or Upcoming 2024 courses online https://www.scienceofmotion.com/documents/science_of_motion_2024.html

05/10/2023

Started the horses on grass this week and have some expecting parents staying with us in the back field until their goslings are hatched…. Living the good life! 😍

04/30/2023

04/22/2023

This will be full of useful information!

Preventing Cervical Arthritis Zoom Webinar
Saturday, May 20th. Starting at 11 am Eastern time

They say it is genetic, and there is nothing you can do. We say genetics is a predisposition. There is still the need for abnormal forces to develop the problem. Reducing impact and compressive forces can prevent the development of osteoarthritis. The hypothesis is worth to be studied. Elizabeth Uhl, DVM, Ph.D., Dip, ACVP, and Michelle Osborn, MS, Ph.D., have investigated 10 cases. The 3D equine skeletal computer model confirmed that cervical hyperflexion was a source of compression. Elizabeth and Michelle will show and explain their findings.

“Always go too far because that’s where you’ll find the truth.” (Albert Camus) The equitation allowing cervical arthritis prevention is not in the correct aids and book dogmas. You need to enter the world of biotensegrity. Every fiber of our physique talks to the horse’s body. It is an intelligent and respectful equitation. Ronda Hanning and Jean Luc Cornille will explain how to evolve to biotensegrity.
https://www.scienceofmotion.com/documents/preventing_cervical_arthritis_.html

03/11/2023

Good reading!

Quiet Legs

Decades ago, I removed my spurs. Research studies suggested that lack of forward movement was not due to insufficient propulsive activity of the hind legs but instead, the incapacity of the thoracolumbar spine’s muscular system to properly transmit forward through the thoracolumbar spine, the thrust generated by the hind legs. Basically, lack of forward movement was due to spine dysfunction instead of lack of a hind legs’ activity. The thought behind removing may spurs was that keeping my spurs, I would likely address problems increasing the hind legs activity instead of concentrating on the thoracolumbar column dysfunction.

It was amazing how fast the horses adapted to the no-spurs situation. In fact, very soon, they responded with greater accuracy to any touch of my legs. At first, I attributed their calmness, subtleness and higher sensitivity to the fact that they no longer feared the sharp contact of the spurs. Equine research had already demonstrated the wrongness of Gustave Steinbrecht’s “spurs attacks.” Jean Marie Denoix DVM, PhD explained that having two heads, on inserted higher on one vertebral body and the other lower on the adjacent vertebrae, backward movement of the rib stimulated by the contraction of the muscles situate between the ribs, “spurs attack,” compressed and therefore altered the mobility of the two vertebrae connected to the rib.

Further studies demonstrated that the old concept of the rider’s legs stimulating muscles engaging the hind legs was unrelated to equine functional anatomy. The muscles situated under the rider’s leg are the re**us abdominis and they don’t engage the hind legs. The rider’s leg touch in fact sensors, which are designed to feel touch. Theses sensors have the capacity to feel a fly. ”Protection against external parasites involves feeling their presence and taking appropriated action.” (Carol A Saslow) In its more elementary form, the touch of the rider leg is interpreted by the horse’s brain as a forward movement signal. This is the simple concept of conditioned reflex. The touch of the rider’s leg is compared in the memory with previously stored stimulus and recognized as an indication of forward movement. The message is transferred to the cerebral cortex and the cortical decision is “go”. The cortical decision is integrated to the elements of the brain such as the olivary nuclei or cerebellum, which monitor the horse’s body state, and the cortical decision is adapted to the body situation. If the body state is a dysfunctional spine, the message “go” is resisted by fear of discomfort or pain. This very basic understanding of equine perception exposes the infantilism of the belief that if the aids are properly applied, the horse responds executing the correct movement. Instead, the horse response is always a compromise between responding to the rider’s aids and protecting existing muscle imbalance, morphological flaw, weaknesses, memories, or other issues.

“Once, we humans, have divised ways to measure the physical world, it became apparent that our perception of “reality” was a constrction of our human minds and not a faithful physical replica.” (Plato) Our sensors functions as filters which pass only a minute proportion of physical energies. Our brain uses this fragmentary information to construct a view of the world that was advantageous to the survival of our primate ancestors. With education, the horse’s brain constructs and refines responses to nuances in direction, duration and intensity of the touch of our legs.

Once chaotic stimuli created by the spurs were no longer disturbing the horses’ perception, the subtlety and precision of their responses suggested a sensitivity beyond the scope of conventional beliefs. Carol Saslow’s recent study provides the scientific answer. “Using stimuli developed for gaging human tactile sensitivity, we were surprise to find that horses sensitivity on the parts of the body which would be in contact with the rider’s legs is greater than what has been found for the adult human calf or even the more sensitive human fingertip. Horses can react to pressure that are too light for the human to feel. This raises the possibility that human instability in the saddle results in inadvertent delivery of irrelevant tactile signals to the horse. And a consequent failure in teaching the horse which signals are meaningful. Horses deemed insensitive to the legs (dead- sided), may simply have never had the chance to respond to consistent, light and meaningful signals. Similarly, the seeming ability of a well-trained horse to have extrasensory perception for his rider’s intentions may be instead its response to slight movement or tightening that the rider makes without awareness. “ (Carol A Saslow, Understanding the perceptual world of horses, Applied Animal Behavior Science, 78 (2002) 209-224) ,

There are riding techniques as well as saddle designed that result in inadvertent delivery of irrelevant tactile signals to the horse. Basically legs instability result from seat instability. Saddle with high cantle and enormous knee pads often lead to rider rolling on the back of their seat bone and lifting the knees into the contact of the knee pads. The aberration makes then squeezing the thigh above the knees moving the calf away from the horse flanks. In order to have contact, riders have to squeeze the legs disturbing the horse’s sensitivity with intermittent and strong physical contact. Riding techniques emphasizing such approach as well as techniques such as kicking with the heels, causes disturbing stimuli in an area of the horse’s body that is highly sensitive.
Jean Luc Cornille

03/09/2023

I highly recommend Science of Motions online courses.

The new PAB video, "On Fascia" is posted. Fascia enables all body systems to operate in an integrated manner. The work of our gluteus maximus and upper thigh muscles prestresses our body for work. The tone of our muscles that are directly in contact with the saddle and, therefore, the horse’s back influences the tone of our whole physique, including the freedom of our shoulders and forearms. Jean Luc https://www.scienceofmotion.com/documents/pab_biotensegrity.html

02/03/2023