This is bound to be a mistake--it's only natural!

Quite a few years ago I came across this crazy person named Alexander Nevzorov of the Nevzorov Haute Ecole.  Chances are if you're a horse person you've heard of him.  If not, allow me to post this incredibly over dramatic video for you.






I'm warning you though, you've got to take all this stuff with a grain of salt--both sides of it.

I mostly wanted to post this not to say (by ANY means) "Look at this guy!  Bits are unnecessary!  Riding horses is cruel!" (which, of course, if you've been reading the blog you'll know I don't agree with), but it does a pretty good job of showing clips of horseback riding at it's absolute worst.

I mean, there are a lot of people out there riding who just don't know better.  They're riding in Tom Thumb "snaffles" or whathaveyou, in tack that doesn't remotely fit the horse or them, not releasing, cuing wrong, and a whole myriad of other issues.  These are not the people I'm talking about today.  There is still hope for those people.  Many of us even started out that way.

I know I just said the other day that I don't see too much stuff that really shocks me anymore.  But there is still something that shocks me, and that's seeing professional riders, at the top of the sport, behaving this way.

It sickens me.

And it really pours fuel on the fire of this whole "natural horsemanship" freakout debate.

As y'all have probably gathered, I am not a follower of "Natural Horsemanship" (with capital letters, no less!).  I can't, won't and don't agree that ANYTHING about riding horses is "natural".

But just because it isn't natural doesn't mean it is cruel or wrong.  It's also unnatural to wear shoes with comfy support in them.  It's unnatural to live to a ripe old age.  And it's unnatural to drive a car.  Or fly in a plane.  Or even walk on cement.  Or have a dog.  Having a root canal done to save you from terrible pain is unnatural.

But I'm willing to bet most of us have done a few of these things.

It's unnatural to breed kitties down to the adorably cute and manageable size of the ones I have living with me.

You tell this cat that he isn't wanted because he isn't natural.  Go on.  Say it to this face.  I dare you.

And sometimes, natural things can be really bad.

It is natural for a horse to starve to death if he has bad teeth.  It is natural for him to get a belly full of parasites and die a painful, colicy death.  It's perfectly natural for him to injure himself out on the vast frontier and perish because he couldn't get to water.  Heck, all modern medicine is opposing the natural--veterinary and human.  Cancer is "natural", and so is blindness, cataracts, arthritis, infection, dysentery and a whole bunch of other nasty things.  Dying from all sorts of things we can cure easily these days was, at one time, perfectly natural.

As you can probably tell, "natural" has become a bit of a buzzword for me.  My favorite is when a product says it's "natural", and therefore (implied), "awesome" or "better".  As in, "all natural drugs."

You know what else is natural?

Foxglove.  Digitalis purpurea, if you're a plant nerd like me.

But that doesn't mean you should go around eating it for fun.

Anyway--life is complicated.  Nothing is really all that clear cut, is it?

So back to the video.

I don't know a ton about this guy aside from the fact that he isn't riding anymore (I guess he decided it was inhumane).  But I wanted you to watch it as an example of what you can do without a bit, spurs, various gadgetry.  Supposedly.  I can't vouch for how he trained these things.  But in the video, at least, the closest he gets to a gadget is a neck rope and a cuing whip, which he doesn't appear to touch the horses with.

His horses actually remind me a lot of Arabian halter horses.  They seem to switch on and off much like those horses do.  As a side note, I certainly wouldn't tolerate that level of fooling around and frankly his horses kind of terrify me--but I guess it works for him.

Although watching his videos reminds me of The Crocodile Hunter for some reason.

And we all know how that ended.

Anyway.

Personally I felt guilty for even riding a horse with a bit after watching this video, which I suspect was some of the point.  Then after a few minutes my rationality starts seeping back in.  I understand the bit as a communication tool.  I also understand I fear too much for my life to just throw it ALL away. 

But part of me understands that the bit is sort of a psychological safety net.

I really freaked out the first time Chev and I had a canter in the hackamore.

I had all these terrifying thoughts like, "What if I can't get her to stop?  What if we can't steer?  WHAT IF WE BOTH DIE??"

In retrospect, and basking in the glow that always accompanies doing something that was scary and NOT dying--not even having anything WRONG happen--I realized that I was being pretty dumb about it.  I know rationally that the training I've done with Chev so far has not relied heavily on the bit.  She knows seat, weight and voice cues.  So of course she turned, moved and stopped when I asked.  Why can't I just put some faith in her?  Why do I freak out a little (or a lot) when I don't have a bit in her mouth?

I think it all comes down to this idea of control that I struggle with constantly.

I know that rationally I can't "control" her, and I don't want to--but I still have a hard time relinquishing all mouth control.

The people riding in this video are riding with the kind of contact that produces bone spurs in the mouth.

I suffer from TMJ and various other jaw disorders, and I can only imagine the kind of pain something like that would produce.

This is a pretty interesting conversation on the topic of mandibular bone spurs in horses: http://www.ultimatedressage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57741

Of course it's specifically about Dressage, because it's authored by the lovely people over at the Ultimate Dressage forums--but my usual caveat applies--this could be ANY horse discipline.  I think we see it less over on the western side of things because strong contact is so discouraged (in the open air, at least).  Still, that's not to say horses don't suffer in other ways.

I'm tempted to once again quote that excellent article from Sustainable Dressage on bits, bitting and the action of the bit, but seeing as I've already posted it--two times I think?--it's time to give it a rest.  No sense in beating ya'll over the head with it.

I keep meaning to do an entry on various gadgets, what they're supposed to, what they actually do, and how there's nothing new under the sun.  Dressage borrows from western, and vice versa, and all over the board.  But I guess that's a topic for another day.

She has been schooled in the snaffle for 3, almost 4 years now though.  So she does know it very well.  We both feel comfortable there.  So maybe some of this has to do with me just not being all that willing to toss the comfort zone aside and start over with something new.

I'll tell you though, loping around in a hackamore does feel pretty cool.

Chevy gets her feet done tomorrow and I'll be taking out the HDR to see how it sits on her, and maybe doing some walking around.  We'll see how that goes!

I noticed something cool the other day

that I completely forgot to write about.

 I noticed halfway through my (bosal) hackamore ride with Chev about a week ago that she had foam in the corners of her mouth.

Whatddyaknowabout that?

And here all these years I thought even if a horse was working correctly they had to have a bit in their mouth to get happy foam.

Yet another myth dispelled!

Videos + hackamore ride #3

Yesterday was the kind of day that made me happy I moved to Wyoming.  I even saw a bald eagle on my drive to the barn.

It was warm and sunny with no wind--almost t-shirt weather!

I feel like Chev is regressing somewhat with her indoor arena rides, and I was really happy to see how lovely the weather was.  It meant we could ride outside.

So I don't know if it was my good mood or hers, but we had a pretty good time.

I did notice one strange thing when I was grooming her.  She was really touchy about her right ear.  She usually loves her ears rubbed.  I couldn't see anything, but likely one of her neighbors caught it with their teeth, or it got banged on something because it was obvious she preferred I left it alone.

Can you tell which way is her bad canter lead?




The violent head shaking that happens around 1:30 is definitely because of her ear.  Poor girl.  After the ride it seemed to bother her much less.

After a brief ride in the snaffle, which I felt was kind of mediocre, my riding especially, she did alright--we moved on to ride #3 in the traditional hackamore.  This video is complete with her first lope in the bosal!





I was really happy with how responsive she was to it today.  It becomes pretty apparent how much more stiff she is going to the right, which is also her difficult canter direction--that's the only way I needed to correct her, I think you can see me do that pretty clearly in the video. Still, even though it's just her 3rd time in the bosal, she's already starting to understand the mechanics.  She seems to just sort of naturally "get it". 

I apologize for the amount of time I spend trying to get the lead end of the mecate reins secured.  I first tried my jeans loop, but it kept working loose, so I finally settle on the horn...I'm not asking Chev to flex her neck around, she's doing that on her own trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing up there.  She does stand nicely for it all though.

We cut the ride a little short because a friend of mine appeared with her sweet gelding, Speedy.

As I said in a previous post, I am a believer in bits.  But Chev seemed very happy to not have anything in her mouth.  She even looks a little confused on the first pass by the camera at the lope, like she doesn't know quite what to do with her head without a bit in her mouth.  It's long occurred to me that she might be the sort of horse that was made for the hackamore.

She is definitely the kind of horse that you can't muscle down.  That's why I had to install the kind of stop on her that I did.  You can't yank her down, she just pulls harder.  She resents strong bit correction, and with good reason, I think.

The traditional hackamore intrigues me.  It is not a tool of force or leverage--a horse can "pull through the hackamore in a flat second" (to quote mugwump).  It easily exposes deficiency.  It doesn't allow nitpicking.  And it doesn't let you to hold up your horse.

There shouldn't be any contact on the bosal like you would take with a snaffle bit.  Stops are all about you, because you can't pull a horse down in the bosal like you can a bit.

I hope we'll have more sunny, warm, and most importantly, wind-free days here in Wyoming--I'd like to have more rides in the hackamore!

After what was by no accounts a stressful arena ride (pretty much the whole ride is encompassed in these two videos), I swallowed my fear, put her back in the snaffle bit, and hit the trail.

"The trail" is really just about 70 acres of wide open space, with cliffs, bluffs, rocks, prairie dog holes, scrub, cacti, etc--what you'd expect from open plains land.

Chev is not a trail horse.  She hates the trail.  She is absolutely, 100% an arena baby, and she likes it that way.  But for the last couple months (or years, or whatever), I've had this growing fear that one day she would get so bored of arena life that she would have a total meltdown.

So far, so good.  But...

I feel like getting her out there will strengthen our relationship and give her some confidence in herself. Or something.  That sounded a little too "my horsey is my best friend"/anthropomorphic--but really, if she could trust me to put her places that are safe--well, I feel like that could help things a little.

She is a bloody mess out on the trail.  Stiff, upright, spooky--she almost came unglued when we saw four white-tailed deer, white flags in the air as they sprung away, but we did manage to hold it together.  I got her moving, she jigged, I sidepassed, she jigged some more.  She blasted up hills.  I pretty much fought her most of the way.

Still, half-way through the ride, which was a pretty big loop--I kept wanting to turn around, but then she would do something silly and I didn't want to reward her for it by heading back--I realized all the spooks, etc I've been riding in the indoor arena have really helped my seat for out on the trail.

She also started to become light in my hands.

 Looking towards Casper Mountain

And it's not like you want it out there, but I could feel how powerful she was behind.  I suddenly had a light as air powerhouse on my hands.  I'm sure a canter out there would have been spectacular.  But, I also had this feeling in the back of my mind that if she got going I wouldn't be able to get her to stop.

How do I get around that fear?  Probably by just blasting her around one day when I decide to stop being such a wimp, and treat the trail like I treat the arena--nerves just earn you more work.  I'm sure after about a half mile of cantering she would quiet down, and we could both enjoy the ride.

I think it comes down to me not trusting her to be a horse and be able to travel over the ground without stumbling.

At some point I need to give her my trust to carry us safely along on the trail as I do in the arena.

I was able to ride her on a loose rein when she was in sight of the barn property, and she didn't try to rush back when it came back into sight, so that's something, right?

The open prairie

Big plans

I can't wait to ride tomorrow.

It's winter in Wyoming, and that means lots of snow, ice and wind.  Chev is also boarded at a barn 40 miles away.

I can get three round trips out of a tank of gas--almost four, but it would be a real bummer to get stuck out on the highway with an empty tank 20 miles from the nearest town.

I am waiting for a check in the mail, payment for one of my reining horse prints, so I can go get gas.

Unfortunately for me, the distance and the $10 it costs every time I drive to the barn combined with my intense artist poverty means I don't get out as often as I'd like, especially in the winter, when the weather is also unpleasant or impossible to drive in.

But I really have to get out there.

I think tomorrow I'll try her in the indoor arena again.  I'm going to stick to my cardinal rules as much as possible.

Last time was her first time working in the new indoor arena.  You can read about our crazy first session here.  We've both had a few days to think it over, so I'm hopeful for a productive ride.

I'd love to ride her in the hackamore (bosal + mecate), but I won't use it if she can't focus.  She's new to the hackamore and I need all of her brain to succeed there.  She's been in the snaffle for 3 years, and we both know what to expect with that.

Here's hoping!