Thumbs Up Horsemanship LLC

05/13/2022

Also seesawing causes a visible head wag which a good judge will ping you for. You're not fooling anyone!

See-sawing.

A sadly still common trend among many riders, who utilize see-sawing the reins to get their horses "in frame". Many of these horses are also trained completely backwards, ridden from the hands mostly, with the constant nagging and jabbing of the legs and spurs and practically no seat aids whatsoever.

To look at a horse and think "Yes, I will saw on the mouth and create a round, in-frame, supple and willing horse" is beyond delusional. All the rider is doing is shortening the neck, creating tension in the jaw, activating the wrong neck muscles, dropping the base of the neck, dropping the back, creating a stagnated gait, limiting vision, breathing and swallowing if the horse is BTV (which it usually is). Not to mention they usually have the mouths tied shut to quiet any indication of pain.

Nothing about any of that is healthy, supple or has anything to do with collection/roundness/dressage.

Horses aren't only ridden backwards, but their training is often backwards as well with riders jumping on the back of a 3 year old and trying to wrestle it into a "frame", effectively destroying the way of going for that animal, any willingness to soften to contact, and creating a domino effect of tension throughout the entire body.

It takes time to develop an athlete, and in the hands of a truly skilled rider, obtaining proper collection happens not in a matter of weeks or months, but YEARS. Don't think you can bypass any steps with heavy hands and short-cut gadgets.

If you see-saw on your horse, please get yourself a lovely pair of scissors and cut your reins off. There is no excuse, in this universe or the next, for anyone to do this to their horse.

Also, How a horse is ridden directly affects the health of the back (and other areas of the body) which affect how a saddle is fitted, or needs to be fitted. Understanding how the horse is ridden is a key element in understanding the impact the rider has on the saddle.

04/19/2022

Ride photos from No Frills are up!

03/31/2022

03/26/2022

I haven't been posting much original content, but this day was too good not to share. Cantering ba****ck in the ocean is amazing, and Lucy and Lilly were awesome for their first beach trip.

03/24/2022

03/23/2022

03/18/2022

THIS! 💥
Wonder why your horse fights draw reins, a harsh bit, etc??

Because you need to go back to basics and get rid of all the band aids!

ANY horse should be able to flat in a plain snaffle. Work on yourself. Educate yourself. Keep those hands steady and follow the horse’s mouth
♥️ that is all ♥️

03/03/2022

The racehorse’s mortal enemy…

The very conformation adaptations that make a horse so fast are the ones that make it imperative that he is fully prepared to face any athletic demands placed on him. You see, horses do not have any muscles below their knee and hock joints in their legs…that’s right, it’s nothing but a complex combination of bones, tendons, and ligaments supporting the entire weight of a racehorse in full stride. While muscles are stretchy, especially once warmed up, tendons and ligaments are not. This is part of the genius evolutionary design of a horse that allows the massive muscles up high to leverage the kinetic tensile strength of sinew down low and convert it into raw speed with minimal effort, relatively speaking.

But what happens when the muscles reach a point in their exercise where they can no longer produce the level of effort required to continue to propel a horse who’s still trying his heart out?

The F word… FATIGUE

With fatigue, the horse’s forearm muscles, the flexor muscles that are holding up the fetlock, relax their tension, causing the tendons and ligaments to absorb more of the mechanical stresses of running. The fetlock droops towards the ground, delaying the breakover of the foot (even worse if the foot has a long toe and low heel like so many racehorses do) and puts unnatural strain on the tendons as the hoof tries to roll over the toe at the end of the stance phase of the stride. At the very least this is a recipe for tendon strain, at the worst the consequences can be catastrophic.

Fatigue comes in four varieties: (1) lactic acid buildup; (2) fuel depletion; (3) structural fatigue; and, (4) metabolic fatigue. Any of these can begin a cascade of failure that can see a horse receive a career ending injury, or worse. If you can delay fatigue so that it doesn’t show up during the time that a horse is training or competing, you’ve defeated it, and made your horses exponentially safer in the process.

Each form of fatigue has its own set of causes and remedies…

Lactic Acid Fatigue: Lactic acid appears when fast twitch muscle cells are firing rapidly burning glycogen as fuel anaerobically, without oxygen. This type of muscle action is powerful, but inefficient and produces waste products in the cells including lactic acid. Lactic acid fatigue is essentially muscle cell paralysis due to the accumulation of lactic acid in and around fast twitch muscle cells.

The best way to combat lactic acid is through thorough training. A horse’s body will adapt remarkably to withstand the stresses it faces if they are brought on gradually enough that no bodily systems fail before the training effects take place. In the case of lactic acid, it is through sustained workloads producing medium to high lactic acid levels that produce changes within the muscle cells which allow the horse to delay the buildup of lactic acid to fatiguing levels.

Fuel Depletion Fatigue: In a fast moving horse, the fast twitch muscle cells are doing much of the work. The fuel source for these types of muscle cells is called glycogen, and it's stored in the bloodstream and within the muscle cells themselves. Not only do these fast twitch muscle cells rely on glycogen for fuel, but another, more important organ does as well…the brain. When glycogen stores start to dwindle as is the case when a horse has exerted himself in a race or strenuous workout, the horse’s body has a mechanism to prevent the stores from being completely depleted, which would have disastrous results for the brain, and it works by shutting off the muscle cells’ ability to burn glycogen. Without access to fuel, the muscle cells can’t fire and the horse slows down.

Preventing this kind of fatigue is pretty easy…make sure the muscle cells are filled to the brim with fuel. If a horse is trained properly, and fed appropriately for the work he is doing, he will gain weight, not in the form of stored fat, but in the form of muscle mass, aka fuel storage.

The next two types of fatigue have the same remedy, and therefore are closely related…structural fatigue can best be illustrated by thinking of a paperclip being bent back and forth until it breaks. Any repetitive motion performed in excess of the body’s rebuilding capabilities will cause breakdown of the structures bearing the burden of the exercise. Likewise, metabolic fatigue is a breakdown in the body’s fueling systems caused by overtaxing races or workouts followed by insufficient rest and recovery time.

The cure for both of these systemic overloads is patience and rest. Taking care not to progress too quickly on to heavier workloads while allowing plenty of time between taxing efforts will allow the horse’s body to respond favorably to increasing demands, becoming stronger with each stage of training.

02/14/2022

02/02/2022

Felix has a nice warm shed to sleep in, but he prefers napping in the snow ❄️

12/17/2021

“I’ve been doing it this way for years!”

When folks justify their skills by saying they’ve been doing it for years, decades, their whole life, etc., I grieve the lost years of potential progress.

I don’t train horses the same way I did 10 years ago. I don’t even train the same way I did 2 years ago. My path is littered with abandoned methods, tools, and paradigms. And though I have a rather successful track record helping horses rehabilitate and develop, I am constantly searching for ways to do it better.

I also find that the horses I encounter today as a whole seem softer, smarter, and more balanced than the horses of my past. For that I thank my own dedication to growth as a horsewoman… not some mystical force that has graced me with better horses.

It excites me to imagine the level of horsemanship we may all find 10 years from now if we commit ourselves to a path forward instead of a stagnant satisfaction with current methods that have been “working fine for years”.

11/21/2021

The circle of energy should flow from;

1️⃣ the active hind legs,
2️⃣ over a swinging back,
3️⃣ arriving in the mouth,
4️⃣ traveling along the reins to the rider’s hands, where it may be modified to create movements, transitions, half halts etc,
5️⃣ through the rider’s supple body and adhesive seat to the rider’s driving aids (legs),
6️⃣ into the activity of the hind legs.

And so on, round and round.

11/19/2021

Lauren and Silky got perfect weather for their trail ride today!!

11/13/2021

Eryca and Lilly have come so far in their jumping together!

11/03/2021

Fall is here!

10/27/2021

Bob and Scout have been trailering in to trail ride. Here they are after their first real gallop in the wide open. I think that smile says it all!

10/27/2021

Rain rot is a pain! But it can also signal underlying problems and even be an indicator of Cushing's disease in horses. A common myth is that's it's caused by fungus, but it's actually an opportunistic bacterial infection.

https://www.paulickreport.com/horse-care-category/rainrot-sign-nutrition-imbalance-equines/

Wet conditions and opportunistic bacteria combine to produce rainrot, also known as rain scald, a skin infection that can wreak mayhem on a horse's coat. Once thought to be a sign of neglect, especially inadequate grooming, rainrot is caused by a specific pathogen taking advantage of a compromise in...