Lobethal Equestrian Coaching

25/03/2025

Bot Flies - We have found the shade of shelters and trees to be the best deterrent.

Apologies for not getting this post out sooner but let's get into some myth busting and ways to help control the bot fly situation.
Bots are a seasonal parasite of southern Australia. The adult flies are present in summer and autumn. It is the female fly that you observe "chasing" after you horse. The female fly recognises your horse by sight, the shape of a horse and they will lay eggs on horses' legs, necks and lower body.
Myth: Bot flies bite my horse. Actually, adult bot flies don’t have a sting or the mouth pieces to bite. The irritation is actually due to the buzzing sound, the persistent attention of the fly and the "tickling" sensation it causes as it lands and walks around your horse laying eggs.
Myth: Insect repellent will deter bot flies. Insect repellent will NOT deter a female bot fly from laying eggs, they detect the horse by sight.
So how do we control this parasite and help your horse in the paddock?? Provide walk-in shelters or stables in the paddock, trees they can stand under - this helps to hide the horse or change their shape. If your horse can wear fly boots and/or those summer rugs that have long panels this again changes their shape, and the fly doesn’t recognise them as a horse.
Remove visible eggs AND dispose of them properly before the horse ingests them. You can use a cheap disposable razor from the supermarket and shave the eggs off carefully. You don’t need to buy specialty razors and bot knives. Just be careful you don’t remove too much hair. Do not wipe removed eggs on places your horse can reach the best bet is to place them on some tissue or wipes and dispose in the bin.
Worming when bot eggs appear on legs WONT do anything to control the population. We need to target bots when they are in their larval stage in the gut.
We worm when the adults have disappeared which is in late autumn/early winter, select a wormer that treats for bots - Ivermectin, Abamectin or Moxidectin and this will help break the bot fly life cycle.

Disclaimer: This post is designed to educate horse owners on the research and current best practices for worming your horse, but owners should follow veterinarian and manufacturer recommendations for their specific horse(s). Unless otherwise indicated all advice is for healthy adult horses.

12/02/2025

I truely believe that riding ability and teaching ability in dressage (or any equestrian discipline) are distinct skills, though they can complement each other.

Riding Ability: A skilled dressage rider has great balance, coordination, feel, timing, and an in-depth understanding of the horse’s biomechanics. They can effectively communicate with the horse using subtle aids and produce harmonious, correct movements.

However, being able to ride well doesn't necessarily mean they can explain *how* they do it.

Teaching Ability: A great dressage instructor must be able to break down complex ideas into understandable steps, identify each rider’s individual needs, and communicate in a way that makes sense to different learning styles. They also need patience, adaptability, and an understanding of both horse and rider psychology. Some outstanding teachers may not be top-level riders themselves but have a deep theoretical knowledge and the ability to analyze and correct others.

The best trainers ideally have both—strong riding skills and the ability to teach—but some world-class riders struggle to articulate what they do naturally, while some exceptional coaches may not ride at the highest levels but can develop top riders through their teaching.

26/01/2025

Sadly Ii
is a very short lived partnership when we teach and coach people who want ribbons instead of education.

This concept is third hand, in the sense that Jeffie Smith Wesson told it to me as something explained to her by Mr. H L M Van Schaik (photo)

So I may get Van Schaik’s message slightly garbled in translation, but the essence is that when someone goes to a riding teacher to get a lesson, almost invariably the teacher teaches the student where she is right now in her riding, rather than teaching her what she needs to be taught.

His point was that ideally and in theory the explanation of riding should begin at the beginning, and progress a-b-c-d-e-f-g and so on, but if a riding teacher actually took her students back to square one and filled in the holes in their basics, most students wouldn’t come back for many lessons. Too boring. Too basic. Too demeaning. Too lots of reasons.

And I do get that. I was thinking of a clinic, for example. Some clinician has been imported to teach riders she’s never seen, and into the ring comes a rider with an entire array of incorrect basics, wrong tack, wrong posture, wrong use of hands, wrong ideas, wrong attitude. And, yes, this DOES happen in real life.

So, does the clinician treat this rider like a total beginner and have her do nothing but walk while she attempts to explain where to begin? Nope. The rider would be angry because “she didn’t get her money’s worth” from the clinic.

So teachers like clinicians and those who have the once or twice a month haul in students are likely to mend and patch rather than to break down and start at the beginning and rebuild.

But the REGULAR instructor has a better chance of going step by step, if the student will allow it.

But that word “allow” is key, and reminds me of something said by Jack Le Goff, who, like Van Schaik, had been trained in the European military tradition. Jack said, “Americans don’t want you to teach them how to ride. They want you to teach them how to compete.’

04/10/2024

Viewer discretion advised.

Unique image!

©️ Lindsey Field after about 10 hours of prep and study. Share my post but please do not lift the photo and use it. 🙏

I had a play yesterday in seeing how much pressure I needed to break the lamellar bond in a healthy cadaver foot.

Can you guess how many kg of pressure was needed to break the laminar bond.

It’s incredibly strong. Literally superman Velcro…..

Question- does a high heel force p3 onto its tip?

We need to define a high heel first, so would you like to define that and then answer if that will, in time, cause p3 to tip onto the sole? Thus causing catastrophic bone changes in the tip of p3 not to mention the destruction of the sole dermis and its accompanying blood vessels that feed the developing sole tubules?

What an image! Don’t expect you have seen such a unique image before!

I am collating my images and my findings and will be posting to my Patreon page.

26/07/2024

This is what dressage should look like - a happy, free moving horse that is not jammed up or over bent.

Christopher Bartle, genius trainer, share his perception and wisdom in a Clinic:
“I see too much pressure at the front end, fussy hands which leads to a tight neck." Reins were to be held in the outside hand because that’s the disciplining rein.
The work at all levels was first and foremost about freedom of movement, expression, that “up” attitude but without too much holding and squeezing.”
Dr Klimke, an inspiration to Christopher Bartle, demonstrates…
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2023/12/christopher-bartle-this-is-a-truly-amazing-article/

18/07/2024

10/07/2024

"New Home Syndrome"🤓

I am coining this term to bring recognition, respect, and understanding to what happens to horses when they move homes. This situation involves removing them from an environment and set of routines they have become familiar with, and placing them somewhere completely different with new people and different ways of doing things.

Why call it a syndrome?

Well, really it is! A syndrome is a term used to describe a set of symptoms that consistently occur together and can be tied to certain factors such as infections, genetic predispositions, conditions, or environmental influences. It is also used when the exact cause of the symptoms is not fully understood or when it is not connected with a well-defined disease. In this case, "New Home Syndrome" is connected to a horse being placed in a new home where its entire world changes, leading to psychological and physiological impacts. While it might be transient, the ramifications can be significant for both the horse and anyone handling or riding it.

Let me explain...

Think about how good it feels to get home after a busy day. How comfortable your favourite clothes are, how well you sleep in your own bed compared to a strange bed, and how you can really relax at home. This is because home is safe and familiar. At home, the part of you that keeps an eye out for potential danger turns down to a low setting. It does this because home is your safe place (and if it is not, this blog will also explain why a lack of a safe place is detrimental).

Therefore, the first symptom of horses experiencing "New Home Syndrome" is being unsettled, prone to anxiety, or difficult behaviour. If you have owned them before you moved them, you struggle to recognise your horse, feeling as if your horse has been replaced by a frustrating version. If the horse is new to you, you might wonder if you were conned, if the horse was drugged when you rode it, or if you were lied to about the horse's true nature.

A horse with "New Home Syndrome" will be a stressed version of itself, on high alert, with a drastically reduced ability to cope. Horses don't handle change like humans do. If you appreciate the comfort of your own home and how you can relax there, you should be able to understand what the horse is experiencing.

Respecting that horses interpret and process their environments differently from us helps in understanding why your horse is being frustrating and recognising that there is a good chance you were not lied to or that the horse was not drugged.

Horses have survived through evolution by being highly aware of their environments. Change is a significant challenge for them because they notice the slightest differences, not just visually but also through sound, smell, feel, and other senses. Humans generalise and categorise, making it easy for us to navigate familiar environments like shopping centres. Horses do not generalise in the same way; everything new is different to them, and they need proof of safety before they can habituate and feel secure. When their entire world changes, it is deeply stressful.

They struggle to sleep until they feel safe, leading to sleep deprivation and increased difficulty.

But there is more...

Not only do you find comfort in your home environment and your nervous system downregulates, but you also find comfort in routines. Routines are habits, and habits are easy. When a routine changes or something has to be navigated differently, things get difficult. For example, my local supermarket is undergoing renovations. After four years of shopping there, it is extremely frustrating to have to work out where everything is now. Every day it gets moved due to the store being refitted section by section. This annoyance is shared by other shoppers and even the staff.

So, consider the horse. Not only are they confronted with the challenge of figuring out whether they are safe in all aspects of their new home while being sleep deprived, but every single routine and encounter is different. Then, their owner or new owner starts getting critical and concerned because the horse suddenly seems untrained or difficult. The horse they thought they owned or bought is not meeting their expectations, leading to conflict, resistance, explosiveness, hypersensitivity, and frustration.

The horse acts as if it knows little because it is stressed and because the routines and habits it has learned have disappeared. If you are a new human for the horse, you feel, move, and communicate differently from what it is used to. The way you hold the reins, your body movements in the saddle, the position of your leg – every single routine of communication between horse and person is now different. I explain to people that when you get a new horse, you have to imprint yourself and your way of communicating onto the horse. You have to introduce yourself and take the time to spell out your cues so that they get to know you.

Therefore, when you move a horse to a new home or get a new horse, your horse will go through a phase called "New Home Syndrome," and it will be significant for them. Appreciating this helps them get through it because they are incredible and can succeed. The more you understand and help the horse learn it is safe in its new environment and navigate the new routines and habits you introduce, the faster "New Home Syndrome" will pass.
"New Home Syndrome" will be prevalent in a horse’s life until they have learned to trust the safety of the environment (and all that entails) and the humans they meet and interact with. With strategic and understanding approaches, this may take weeks, and their nervous systems will start downgrading their high alert status. However, for some horses, it can take a couple of years to fully feel at ease in their new home.

So, next time you move your horse or acquire a new horse and it starts behaving erratically or being difficult, it is not being "stupid", you might not have been lied to or the horse "drugged" - your horse is just experiencing an episode of understandable "New Home Syndrome." And you can help this.❤

I would be grateful if you could please share, this reality for horses needs to be better appreciated ❤
‼️When I say SHARE that does not mean plagiarise my work…it is seriously not cool to copy and paste these words and make out you have written it yourself‼️

30/05/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/ezaSioT4gsPTkg8E/
The horse's spine needs freedom to move, so please don't put saddles on your horse that are old, hard, ill-fitting, cheap or totally inflexible like some western ones that spear into the loins.

20/05/2024

Humble older grass roots rider proves dreams do come true 👏

From the slaughterhouse to fourth place at the Badminton Horse Trials grassroots championships; meet this lorry driver's sensitive star

Read more via link below

17/04/2024