Boonville Stables

08/11/2024

The art of dressage

"Your Best Self," an excerpt from Paul Belasik's latest book, Dressage for No Country:
What if dressage was instead about reaching a place where you are near the “best idea” of yourself? You might not be famous, but your horse likes and respects you, people like and respect you. You work hard, but you’re not nervous about the outcome. How you feel about your work won’t change much because of some judge’s opinion. You are less concerned with how you measure up to an external yardstick because you are seriously engaged in how you meet standards established by your own tests. When you are riding, training, or teaching, you are so focused, you are often unaware of time. Even when a session is difficult, you feel right with your horse. The stiffness in your back seems to have disappeared. If you get frustrated, you can quickly recover your attention. Your emotions can’t seem to get a foothold; the anxieties in your life seem suspended for a while. What you do together with your horse seems like cooperation; a mutually beneficial dance, and not like a continuing argument.
Have you ever seen pictures of people swimming in the ocean, their hands clasped around the dorsal fin of a dolphin as the dolphin carries them along? They feel excitement, fear, joy— their faces say it all. They can’t put into words the rapture they are relishing, a suspension of any editorializing or sarcasm. It is a powerful jolt of pure experience, in that moment of communion with nature itself. Even though the positive effect of that connection can’t be entirely explained, most people acknowledge it is important. We ride horses. Do we find ourselves forgetting how ridiculously amazing that is?

07/24/2024

11/07/2023

•People who nag make dull heavy horses.
•People who won’t escalate end up nagging.

Want a horse that responds to lightness?
Start lighter, escalate quicker, get the thing, reward.

That’s it. That’s the secret recipe to create a relationship where your horse responds to the lightest cues and seems so in sync with you that you just think about what you want and your horse magically performs it.

10/30/2023

Welcome to our new boarder Baby Liam and his mom Brenda Smith. 17 months old Hanoverian, it will be fun to see him grow. 😍😍😍

10/15/2023

https://wheredoesmyhorsehurt.com/podcast-episode-33-horse-health-happiness-4-secrets-of-teeth-floating/

Podcast Episode 33: Horse Health Happiness #4: Secrets of teeth floating Uncategorized3 Comments Teeth floating is one of a few tasks that we hand off to experts. But are all equine dentists, and dental techniques, the same? Obviously some are less expensive than others. But why is that? Discover -t...

09/27/2023

Rhythm vs tempo

Let’s talk about the difference between rhythm and tempo. I hear these words used incorrectly all the time, and it’s more than just a nit picky thing to correct. It’s a very important concept to understand.

Rhythm (in dressage) is the footfall of the gait - 4 beats for walk, 2 beats for trot, and 3 beats for canter.

Tempo is the SPEED of the rhythm. You can discover your horse’s ideal Beats Per Minute (BPM) for each gait.

A huge moving warmblood and a tiny Shetland pony have the same rhythm in trot, but they have VERY different tempos.

If you have a RHYTHM problem, you have a big problem. If the walk is lateral (leaning towards 2 beats rather than 4), or the canter is a 4 beat canter - this is a big problem. Could be a physical issue with the horse, but you will need good help from a pro with a rhythm fault.

Most riders have a TEMPO problem - too fast, too slow, too varied. Ideally, the tempo should be like a metronome - steady and reliable, and YOU have to set it for the horse. (Side note - it’s super easy to download a free metronome app on your phone and ride with one. It will be seriously annoying to find out how NOT steady your tempo is 😂. But it’s very helpful to discover your horse’s BPM for each gait and try to stay steady.)

The rider has to be like the conductor of the orchestra - you SET the tempo for the horse, but you don’t play all the instruments. Tell your horse how quickly (or slowly) to march in walk, push in trot, and jump in canter. Then leave him alone and only adjust when that tempo goes too fast or too slow. You have to be a quiet, feeling rider to notice immediately when the tempo begins to slow down or speed up too much.

Illustration by Susan DiFelice Design

09/23/2023

To help move your horse sideways in leg-yield, imagine you are an ice skater …

You push off with one leg toward your other foot, stepping and putting your weight to the side, like an inside foot to an ice skater. Also, you cannot collapse at the waist, or you would fall.

Ruth Hogan-Poulsen has earned her USDF Bronze, Silver and Gold medals as well as her Freestyle Gold Bar. All of these awards are with top Honors of Distinction. Her students have won top honors in the USDF Year-End, Horse of the Year and All Breed awards. She has been designing competitive musical freestyles for decades, which have been performed in all levels all over the world. She splits her time between Vermont and Florida.

🎨: Sandy Rabinowitz

09/03/2023

It's not all about tracking up...

Si le déséquilibre est trop important, l'anterieur se retrouve dans une position ou il lui est très difficile de relever l'avant main.
Ne laissez jamais l'anterieur se lever après la verticale du milieu du dos du cheval. L'anterieur est dans une position où les muscles sont en bout de course et il a besoin de beaucoup plus de force pour avancer.
Quand le cheval est dans cette position trop longtemps, cela fatigue toute son avant main.

Ralentissez le, trouvez son bon tempo, offrez lui des pauses, ne le laissez pas s installer dans ces longues foulées, les chevaux sont trop genereux.

Illustration Renate Blank arr.de merci

08/16/2023

Pressure is divided in half when using a mounting block.

08/16/2023

Why you want to use a mounting block to get on your horse, and remove your stirrups when you dismount. This shows the pressure on the back, when mounting from the ground.

08/16/2023

08/15/2023

Pull back is more than just a poll issue

In my younger years I remember seeing a horse tied to a tree looking pretty miserable and later learned it was being swung and had been there for 3 days for me that was barbaric, basically tied short and left until it learned to stop pulling and although the horse will have learned no matter how hard it pulled it would never get free, what about the damage to those young horses bodies were being done in the process of learning to tie up correctly

I thought I would write about pull back and the consequences as was asked what I thought about it, and it most definitely is not just the poll what is affected when a horse pulls back, as the horse doesn’t just pull back with their head their whole body will be involved

Now we have the horse that has learned to do this, but I always want to know why It did it in the first place and usually fear is the main factor in the beginning, and often bad training in the early days will lead to bad association with being tied up, horses in fear do not think first they act on instinct and will keep pulling until it can no more and the tighter the pull the more pain the horse is feeling so it cannot escape the pain unless it stops but is has no rationale at this point, are we leaving it to the horse to figure it out, would you learn while in pain and how would you feel about doing it again

Remember bridles and headcollars sit on the very sensitive parts of the horses head they are designed so we can have control, however ergonomically designed it still has to have an affect or else what is the point of using them

Bits; if you horse pulls back with a bridle then that bit is going to clatter the teeth as it comes away

Nasal bone; this is a very thin fragile bone where the noseband sits a sharp pull could have affect on this

Poll; we have lots of little gaps filled with soft tissue, bruising cannot be seen but the more thinner the tack the more it is going to dig in and cause more damage and remember a horse may not just pull back but also wrench side to side which could result in muscle tears or damage to the nuchal ligament and or in more severe cases fractures to the bone and most tying up training is done early in the horse training while growth plates are still fusing and the body is still forming

The pull will be felt all the way down the spine and strains can occur much lower down into the neck and further back through the withers, back and lumbar especially if the horse pulls side to side

If the horse falls back then potential injury to the si, pelvis and hamstrings are more than likely

Horses will only stop struggling when they realise its futile and before then they will fight to get free so we must make sure we train our horses with supervision and calm confindent handling when introducing tying up

Things happen and sometimes accidents happen, but it is always important to call your vet to give your horse a check over as it may not be apparent that your horse has a deeper injury, and if your horse has a habitual ritual of doing this then basically it needs retraining with a good behaviour consultant as its both dangerous for the horse and the handler In this situation, and remember pull backs do not only happen when tying up we must be careful as handlers not to yank the head with to much force, if you yank a horses head you are basically giving it whiplash

So lets not just think of the head as always whole horse

07/30/2023

That! The bit is primarily an instrument of feel and communication, not control. The mouth says so much about their whole body and mind.

07/30/2023

Extra large nest to the rescue!

07/28/2023

"And a horse in BALANCED forward motion is the safest place to be on the planet
Do the work to create the balance
And then trust it, and let the horse move"

Trust your horse to go forward

Probably one of the biggest sticking points for many: horses crunched up from a rider who is afraid to let go- and when they are let go they are snatched back up. Fear! It’s insidious. There is no judgment here of the human for being afraid

But

How can a horse ever trust a person who cannot learn to let go of them?

The reality is, a horse in forward motion is far safer than one being restrained. A horse restrained perpetually is a horse set up for implosion. Now THAT is scary

And a horse in BALANCED forward motion is the safest place to be on the planet

Do the work to create the balance
And then trust it, and let the horse move

07/16/2023

“Peace is accepting today, releasing yesterday, and giving up the need to control tomorrow.”

- Lori Deschene

Art credit: Natalia Kadantseva

07/02/2023

Best barn helper 🥰🥰🥰

07/01/2023

This photo really resonated with me when I saw it on my feed.
Not only for the sentiments of the text, but for the photo used.

I believe it is lost on the general populace just HOW the equine body functions in motion, and why I have such a strong stance against head setting mechanisms or methods.

And it is precisely what this photo captures:
• The shoulders/thoracic sling steer the horse.
• The head/neck functions as a counter lever or balancing rod, much like that of a cheetahs tail.

When you interfere with this with head setting aids, you inhibit the horses innate balancing mechanism.
It actively disables the thoracic sling and creates compensation that shows up through the neck and jaw. Putting the horse further on the forehand.
Remember, if your horse cannot lift through the chest, he will ALWAYS be on the forehand, no matter where his head is.

Thoracic sling strength takes time. It cannot be expedited with quick tricks.

Only when the horse is developed through the thoracic sling and has adequate vertical balance may the head and neck assume functioning SEPARATE from the shoulders as the balancing rod of the body.

07/01/2023

😂🤣😂🤣

06/10/2023

LOLOLOL

05/30/2023

✅

05/28/2023

New project…

05/14/2023

Step 4: grooming grooming groomed!

05/14/2023

Step 3: spreading the sand

05/11/2023

Oh the fun we have chasing geese!

05/10/2023

Step 2: getting the new sand in 😊😊😊

05/08/2023

Interesting visual

05/07/2023

Finally changing our arena sand. Thank you Rhett and John for making it happen. 🙏🙏🙏

04/26/2023

Roxy perfecting her soccer skills 😂😊😂

04/13/2023

Mosquito and fly crew is back, discussing housing plans 😉