Right Start Dressage LLC

03/01/2026

A wonderful day with Colleen Aiken learning about biomechanics.

12/26/2025

You don’t ride the X-rays

"When I first got out of veterinary school and started looking at horses prior to purchase (usually referred to as a “vet check” or a prepurchase exam), the horses usually fit into one of three categories.

The first category was the horse with no problems noted at the time of the exam. That decision was usually pretty straight-forward. I’d look at the horse and if I didn’t find or see any problems, that was usually that.

The second category was for a horse that wasn’t sound at the time of examination. I wasn’t always sure WHY the horse was limping – determining why a horse was limping is a lameness exam, not a presale exam. If the horse was limping noticeably, usually that was enough, and particularly if I could find the reason why (say, an arthritic joint).

The third category was what used to be referred to as, “Serviceably sound.” That is, the horse may not have been perfect, he might have been a little stiff going in one direct, but he had been doing his job for a long time and, in my opinion, he could probably keep doing the job that was asked of him for a good while longer. But today, in this day of X-raying every bone, pushing, prodding, flexing, and making SWAGs (SWAG = Scientific Wild-A** Guess) about the future, I’m often left wondering, “What happened to that horse that was serviceably sound?”

About two years ago I was asked to give a fourth opinion on a 20-year-old warmblood horse. The horse had been through the entire diagnostic gamut: MRI’s and bone scans, ultrasound and X-rays of most every bone in the horse’s body. She’d had expert opinions from hospitals and radiologists. She wasn’t moving 100% sound and all of the diagnostic tests and all of the expert opinions confirmed that the horse should never be ridden again (I know because I saw the reports).

As you might imagine, I wasn’t immediately sure what I could bring to the table, what with all of the diagnosing and opining that had already gone on. Nevertheless, I ran ma hands over her legs, felt the slight swelling in her stifle joints, and I noticed the stiffness when I flexed her legs. This sweet, patient mare never objected to anything that I did and never fought back against anything I asked. Next, I asked to watch her move. She certainly didn’t have a full, easy moving gait but she moved willingly: happily. So I asked, “What do you want to do with her?”

The owner, who obviously cared about her horse enough to float the budget of a few small countries, said, “I’d like her to be able to give lessons to kids.”

“Why don’t you give it a try?” I said.

The owner, furrowing her brow, responded, “But what about all of the reports?”

I said, “Don’t let her read them.”

Today, three years later, the old girl regularly and happily gives lessons to kids in a riding program. She doesn’t go very fast or for very long, and it helps her to get a pain-relieving drug from time to time. But she’s got a job, she’s the apple of the eyes of any number of kids, and she’s, well, happy (at least as far as anyone can tell).

ANOTHER ASIDE: A saw a 18-year-old gelding who had been through MRI and blocking and X-rays and medication and shoeing changes as a result of a hoof problem that just wouldn’t let the horse move without a slight forelimb limp, especially when the horse had to go in a circle. I travelled a good bit out of my practice area, looked at all of the data, and asked the owner, “What do you do with him?”

The owner said, “I take him out for walks on the trail two or three times a week.”

And I said, “Why not just give him a little bit of pain reliever when you go out on the trail and let him walk around this nice arena the rest of the time?”

“But won’t the pain reliever destroy his stomach?” she asked.

“No.”

That was four years ago. I saw the owners at a lecture I gave a year or so later and everyone was happy. As far as I know, his stomach didn’t explode, and things are still going well. It’s a good situation for everyone.

The reason that I bring this up is that to me, it seems that the business side of the horse world is suggesting that the only thing a horse owner should be satisfied with is perfect or “optimum” or “ideal” or some other bit of linguistic innuendo that suggests that a horse just might have some hidden problem lurking beneath his skin that’s going to result in imminent death or disaster. It seems to me that the business world is trying to sell horse owners on the idea that there are only two choices for a horse: perfect or disaster.

I think that the relentless search for perfection in horse health is mostly terrible. I think that constantly worrying about horses, spending hours on the internet looking for information about what might go wrong helps deprive a lot of horse owners of the joy of horse ownership. If your horse looks at his side, it usually doesn’t mean that he’s twisted his intestines. If your horse is on a good diet, it’s extremely unlikely that he’s on the edge of some nutritional cliff, about to fall over but for the good fortune that you’ve had in finding the latest supplement. Worrying about your horse too much can lead owners to seek out unnecessary testing, to waste money on veterinary (and other) visits, and to look for comfort from endless interventions and products.

Of course, it’s good to be aware of your horse’s health. But there’s a difference between being worried about your horse when he’s sick or limping and being constantly worried about him becoming sick or lame. Excessive worrying about a normal horse is a real problem: mostly, for the horse owner.

YET ANOTHER ASIDE: A 70-year-old client came to me with her 19-year-old gelding. She’d been given the horse from a riding school and she was concerned because she had been told that the horse was limping. I watched him trot – there was a slight limp.

“What do you do with him?” I asked.

“I like to walk on the trails with him on the weekend with my friends. Or maybe every other weekend.”

I could feel a slight enlargement at his pastern – I was pretty sure he had a bit of osteoarthritis (also known as “ringbone”).

Here’s a partial list of things that I did not recommend: X-rays, bone scan, MRI, joint injections, joint supplements, special shoes, liniment, PRP, or stem cells.

Instead, I pointed to her husband, 75, and said, “How’s Fred? Is he getting around the same way he did when you were married 50 years ago?”

Laughing, she said, “No.”

“Want to get rid of him?”

“Only sometimes” she smiled.

I told her to keeping going on nice long walks, and perhaps give him (the horse – I don’t prescribe medicine for people) a pain reliever if he’s limping a bit. Things have been going great for several months – in fact, I saw them both just the other day. It’s a perfect situation for both of them. Nobody is perfectly sound, including Fred. But everybody is serviceable. And happy.

So what’s “serviceable?” I think that it means that the horse can do the job that’s being asked of him without suffering. Horses will generally go out and try to do their best – that’s one of the things we love about them. It’s our job to take care of them, but it’s not our job to make everything perfect: that’s an impossibility. A horse can be less than perfect and still be wonderful.

Here’s Mark Twain’s idea of a good horse. “I preferred a safe horse to a fast one—I would like to have an excessively gentle horse—a horse with no spirit whatever—a lame one, if he had such a thing.” (Roughing It, Chapter 64).

I don’t usually see things as black and white. I tend to think that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I don’t think that a horse is either good or bad. There are lots of good horses out there that might have a little flaw or imperfection but who will also be the best horse anyone could ever ask for. Don’t overlook one of them simply because he’s not somebody else’s idea of perfection. He might not be perfect, but he can still be serviceable… and even still be great!"

📎 Save & share this article by David Ramey, DVM at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2021/08/09/what-ever-happened-to-serviceably-sound/
📸 © The Plaid Horse

12/18/2025

The benefits of having fit horses are almost too numerous to mention. Fit horses will have fewer injuries, longer careers, more rapid recovery time, and be better able to cope with all the demands of travel and horse show life. Whether your goals are maintaining fitness, increasing fitness, or enacting a rehabilitation program, many riders overlook probably the most underutilized fitness technique: the mindful walk.

A proper walk, one with forward momentum that positively pushes off all four limbs, has so many benefits. When beginning a ride, this walk will get your horse’s blood flowing and limbs loosened, diminishing risk of injury and strain in the workout to follow. While at the walk, you can establish boundaries and keep your horse focused and listening and set the tone for the full ride. By changing your outlook on the walk and using it as a tool to your advantage, you can develop a more productive ride and improve your horse’s performance. You can include exercises like ground poles to improve topline and allow your horse to think through exercises for themselves.

If you’re looking to increase your horse’s fitness or rehabilitate from an injury, incorporating a second walk into your horse’s program to focus on strength and mobility is more beneficial than you might think. Especially if a horse is stalled during their horse show or rehab regimen, a second ride at a proper walk can have on not only your horse’s physical strength, but their mental well-being as well. By having a second ride only at the walk or focused at the walk, you’re not stressing or straining the recovery or fitness process- you’re providing more natural motion to increase muscle strength while minimizing impact and risk of injury.

Start at a working walk, putting your horse in the bridle, and complete all the movements your horse knows how to do. Practice walking forward, extending and shortening the walk, working at a medium walk, performing a haunches in, leg yield, half pass, haunches out.

Bending their necks aids in loosening their muscles—ask your horse to come around as far as they can on both the left and right side until they soften. Once they complete at the halt, begin working on this exercise at the walk. This will help them learn to listen, and can also help to identify pain responses.

Backing up can illuminate any weakness or lameness issues—if your horse cannot back up in a straight line, that is an indication of something to work on. When horses walk, they rotate their pelvis underneath them, so that when they walk off correctly they can get their weight off of their front end.

Things to note when completing walking fitness: keeping your horse six feet off the rail and riding straight, rotating the footing you work on: working in the arena, in the grass, and on pavement. Performing the working walk on concussive and various surfaces (including but not limited to rings, grass, pathways, and driveways) can help to build muscles around all injury-prone areas in your horse’s legs.

If you can’t include a second ride, give yourself as much time as you can to walk at the start of each ride and warm-up carefully and mindfully listening to your horse.

📎 Save & share this article by Abby Funk at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2022/09/13/mindful-riding-walking-fitness/

12/10/2025

For the third time this year, a horse I know is being put in the ground.

Not one of my herd, but one I've worked with and whose person has put immeasurable blood, sweat, tears, time, money and energy into trying to help. At the end of the day, they could not. It is not the horse's fault. It is not the human's fault. Cards were dealt in no real fairness to anyone; the situation was what it was, and it became very clear no amount of anything was going to change it.

But what is really bothering me isn't the passing of the animal, it's what the person said to me when they called me to let me know it was happening. "I don't even want to tell anyone because somebody is inevitably going to tell me that I should have done more."

When I made the decision to euthanize my young cob several years ago, I told no one. It was a horribly painful decision after a long road of diagnostics, trial, error and the inevitable realization that he would never be A) comfortable or B) safe. A bit of time passed and word finally reached the woman I'd bought him from. My phone lit up with a string of angry, vitriolic text messages accusing me of keeping horses for convenience and disposing of them when they were no longer useful. I was told I should have sent him back to his breeder to live out his days. I was told how horrible of a horsewoman and a person I was. It was awful: at a time when I was already questioning myself, already racked with guilt, already wondering "did I do enough?", it was a deeply unkind cut.

To be plain, there is a grotesque moral superiority around "saving" horses. Around letting them live at all costs. Around taking the unwanted, the downtrodden, the cast-offs and the lucks-run-out's and turning them into "something". Sometimes that "something" is a ribbon-adorned show animal. Sometimes that "something" is just a well-fed pasture ornament. Either way, there are people who delight in telling you all about how bad the horse was before and everything they did to fix it.

And then tell you why you didn't do enough.

And the reality is: all of it is about them. It has nothing to do with the horse. The horse is just a vehicle, a vessel, a container for their ego.

We are not helping horses by spending extraordinary amounts of money on this's and that's to keep them going through significant health issues.

We are not doing it for the horses when we "rescue" troubled souls only to leave them troubled because we can't find it within ourselves to help them change how they feel about the world.

We are not here for the horse if we can't take off the rose colored glasses and recognize that not every animal can be saved. Not every animal can be fixed. Not every animal can have a quality of life worth living.

I have dug the holes. I have cried into manes. I have walked other people's horses on that last trip because they couldn't bring themselves to do it. I have spoken with vets in support of making that decision. I have been the listening ear on those phone calls when someone just needs to hear that they are doing the right thing. That they've done enough.

I will never question someone's decision to perform this final act for a horse, because it is truly FOR the horse.

12/09/2025

Good recommendations.

❄️ 𝐇𝐨𝐭 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐱𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬 ❄️

Unfortunately, I come from a long line of Minnesotans which means I am deeply rooted in the arctic tundra of the upper Midwest. And up here, our winter is about as long as our sunmer so we need to rely on some cold weather conditioning to optimize our competition season.

And while there really isn’t enough research to set strict, evidence-based rules about what counts as ‘safe’ winter riding weather, it is important to consider due to potential health implications of exercising our horses in the cold. So I pulled together some research from published studies on how cold weather can impact horse health and I turned that information into the general guidelines I personally follow to guide my winter riding decisions. Since a lot of people are navigating the same questions this time of year, I figured I’d share them here!

🫁 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡
A study evaluating cold weather exercise in horses (Davis et al., 2005) used eight healthy adult horses in a cross-over design and had them exercise at either 77°F (warm; 25°C) or 23°F (cold; -5°C). The exercise performed in this test included 5 minutes walking, 5 minutes trotting, and 5 minutes cantering three times each week. This study found that breathing cold, dry air during moderate–high intensity exercise caused measurable airway irritation and can produce bronchoconstriction and inflammatory changes in otherwise healthy horses. Additionally, repeated exposure is believed to contribute toward chronic airway conditions such as equine asthma.

🛡️ 𝐈𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
The previous study (Davis et al., 2005) also demonstrated a likely mechanism for immune suppression following strenuous exercise in a cold environment. Further research (Davis et al., 2007) evaluating horses exercising at similar temperatures supported this research and found an altered immunological response for at least 48 hours following exercise in cold weather. Both of these studies found that exercising in the cold amplified the expression of cytokines that suppress cell-mediated immunity. The concept of immune suppression following strenuous exercise is not new and could predispose these athletes to viral infections of the respiratory tract.

💪 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬 & 𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬
Cold weather can also impact the muscles and joints of the horse. While the work has yet to be done in horses, research in other animals and humans has shown that when muscles and nerves get cold, they don’t fire as quickly or efficiently (Racinais et al., 2017). Horses may also tighten around their joints or ‘brace’ with opposing muscle groups as a natural way to protect cold tissues. This is why a slow, progressive warm-up is so important in winter. Getting the horse’s body temperature up helps their muscles move more freely, improves coordination, and reduces the risk of strains or awkward, compensatory movement - especially during more technical maneuvers or intense work.

This is supported by a study (Dixon et al. ,2010) which found that humans who immersed their legs in cold water (54°F/12°C) for 45 minutes had decreased power on a vertical jump. However, this decline in performance could be negated by a 15-minute dynamic warm-up. These findings stress the importance of an intentional and lengthy warm-up prior to cold winter exercise.

✅ 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡
These are just a few examples of how cold weather can impact our horses, but they are important to consider when determining how to safely but effectively condition them this winter.

🔥 Warm-up is key. Walk at least 15–20 minutes before trotting or cantering.

🌡️ Monitor the temperature. Reduce intensity as temperatures drop to minimize immune and respiratory stress or risk of injury.

🐴 Observe your horse. Watch for coughing, stiffness, or changes in performance.

I hope this information helps to guide your equine exercise practices this winter! Stay warm out there!

Cheers,
Dr. DeBoer

Davis MS, Malayer JR, Vandeventer L, Royer CM, McKenzie EC, Williamson KK. Cold weather exercise and airway cytokine expression. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2005 Jun;98(6):2132-6.

Davis MS, Williams CC, Meinkoth JH, Malayer JR, Royer CM, Williamson KK, McKenzie EC. Influx of neutrophils and persistence of cytokine expression in airways of horses after performing exercise while breathing cold air. American journal of veterinary research. 2007 Feb 1;68(2):185-9.

Racinais S, Cocking S, Périard JD. Sports and environmental temperature: from warming-up to heating-up. Temperature. 2017 Jul 3;4(3):227-57.

Dixon PG, Kraemer WJ, Volek JS, Howard RL, Gomez AL, Comstock BA, Dunn-Lewis C, Fragala MS, Hooper DR, Häkkinen K, Maresh CM. The impact of cold-water immersion on power production in the vertical jump and the benefits of a dynamic exercise warm-up. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. 2010 Dec 1;24(12):3313-7.

10/28/2025

Excellent tip. Their book is update and available for a special introductory price now.

The canter is probably the trickiest gait for a young horse to master in the confines of the dressage arena, as the engagement and balance are still being established.

However, it’s in the competitive dressage rider’s best interest to focus on the quality of this gait since so many test movements are based on the canter, such as canter pirouettes, tempi changes, half-passes, and zig-zags.

When transitioning into canter, from trot or walk, emphasis should be on the horse ‘pushing from the hind legs that are placed under the body, rather than launching off the shoulders. This is vital as it educates and enables the horse to develop incremental levels of engagement.

The best way to improve the horse’s canter is to not keep cantering. Instead, ride frequent transitions into and out of the canter (e.g. canter-trot-canter or canter-walk-canter) as well as transitions within the canter pace itself (e.g. working canter – medium canter – collected canter). During the upward transitions, the horse is encouraged to ‘push’ more from the hind legs, and during the downward transitions, the horse is encouraged to ‘sit’ more on the hind legs. Both of these qualities will improve the horse’s balance and carrying capacity, and add quality to the overall frame and canter gait.

- For more help with the canter, we have linked to a post in the comments.

- Check out our newest book on Amazon (which is currently on sale until 4th November). Link also in the comments.

Illustrations created and copyrighted by How To Dressage. Do not copy.

10/23/2025

Very good visual.

Qualities that make a good leg-yield:

✅ The horse moves both forwards and sideways on two tracks.
✅ The rhythm and tempo remains consistent.
✅ The horse's body stays straight with the shoulders about one hoofprint in front of the hindquarters, and a very slight flexion at the poll away from the direction of travel.
✅ If in trot, the horse's inside legs pass and cross in front of the horse's outside legs.
✅ The horse moves freely forward, working through his back without tension or resistance, and the balance is uphill.
✅ The contact is elastic and consistent.
✅ There is a clear start and end to the movement.
✅ The positioning of the leg-yield remains the same throughout the movement, without steep or shallow variations.

To find out more about the leg-yield (including the aids and how to ride it), check out our newest book on Amazon. Link in the comments. (Please note: The price of this book will increase on the 4th November.)

Illustrations created and copyrighted by How To Dressage

10/11/2025

Focus on the elbows