AYERS ROCK

08/12/2024

"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 If you have owned them before you moved them, you struggle to recognise your horse, feeling as if your horse has been replaced by a frustrating version.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‼️

08/01/2024

Gaining on it!! One more long side to go. Base boards on order. Cut post tops. Footing adjustments, gate installation and voila 🤩

07/06/2024

This is an article for everyone.

It’s disheartening and unbelievable to listen to people blame their horses for anything and everything that goes wrong.

06/25/2024

Saints. Except Casper. He was a part time saint. 😆

They are never just RIDING SCHOOL PONIES❤️🐴

One day you may move onto bigger, fancier horses, but never forget the school horse who made you, as without them, you wouldn’t be able to ride anything at all.

The patient soul that tolerated your bouncing while you figured out how to sit the trot.

The kind mare that didn’t walk off when you stumbled up the mounting block, trying to get your foot in the stirrup.

The sweet gelding that picked up the trot even though your body was telling him to do the exact opposite.

The saintly angel that never spooked, which was a dam good thing because your balance was precarious at best.

Too often we forget where we came from. We move on to the next chapter in our lives and say, “Oh my gosh, I’m learning so much! I’m going so far! I could never do this kind of thing on that old school horse!”

But infact you could, you were just not ready to do all these things back then.

But that school horse gave you the confidence to move forward. That school horse took care of you in all respects and allowed you to take the time you needed to find your way. You couldn’t have become the rider you are today without that riding school horse, always remember to love them unconditionally for our riding school horses are what help start your dream, make dreams come true and get you ready for those bigger dreams 🐴

06/14/2024

We started the fence for the ring and all of a sudden the ring had a growth spurt!🤩😍

04/16/2024

Read and read again!

Read , let it sink in, then read again :

“No. 1. Get your tack and equipment just right, and then forget about it and concentrate on the horse.

No. 2. The horse is bigger than you are, and it should carry you. The quieter you sit, the easier this will be for the horse.

No. 3. The horse's engine is in the rear. Thus, you must ride your horse from behind, and not focus on the forehand simply because you can see it.

No. 4. It takes two to pull. Don't pull. Push.

No. 5. For your horse to be keen but submissive, it must be calm, straight and forward.

No. 6. When the horse isn`t straight, the hollow side is the difficult side.

No. 7. The inside rein controls the bending, the outside rein controls the speed.

No. 8. Never rest your hands on the horse's mouth. You make a contract with it: "You carry your head and I'll carry my hands."

No. 10. Once you've used an aid, put it back.

No. 11. You can exaggerate every virtue into a defect.

No. 12. Always carry a stick, then you will seldom need it.

No. 13. If you`ve given something a fair trial, and it still doesn't work, try something else—even the opposite.

No. 14. Know when to start and when to stop. Know when to resist and when to reward.

No. 15. If you're going to have a fight, you pick the time and place.

No. 16. What you can't accomplish in an hour should usually be put off until tomorrow.

No. 17. You can think your way out of many problems faster than you can ride your way out of them.

No. 18. When the horse jumps, you go with it, not the other way around.

No. 19. Don`t let over-jumping or dull routine erode the horse's desire to jump cleanly. It's hard to jump clear rounds if the horse isn't trying.

No. 20. Never give up until the rail hits the ground.

No. 21. Young horses are like children—give them a lot of love, but don't let them get away with anything.

No. 22. In practice, do things as perfectly as you can; in competition, do what you have to do.

No. 23. Never fight the oats.

No. 24. The harder you work, the luckier you get."

~Bill Steinkraus

03/30/2024

School today show tomorrow

02/07/2024

Happy place 😊

02/02/2024

It was grid day today for Izzy. We had a blast and Izzy says 3’ is a piece of cake.

01/14/2024

So happy to have an opportunity to school indoors today. We had a blast !

12/29/2023

The guardians of Ayers Rock. 10 months old now.

12/28/2023

12/03/2023

It’s beginning to look like home. Our home.☺️

11/06/2023

We’re so excited about the progress in the new barn!!

10/26/2023

It’s not uncommon for me to teach one lesson to a student and then, to never see her again. I say ‘her’ because it’s very rarely, in my neck of the woods, that men will take basic horsemanship lessons.

I may have thought that we got along well and that my teaching had been respectful and encouraging. I may have seen a distinct improvement in how the horse is working and the rapport between horse and rider from the lesson’s start, to its end. All this and yet, I know that this lesson will very likely be a one ‘n’ only.

The simple reason is that not everyone is ‘our people’. We all have our own goals.

This can be a hard lesson to learn but if we’re in the business of educating, learn it, we must. Everyone who is looking for a teacher is looking for something different. Most everyone who is teaching is offering similar information, with a unique delivery. A surprising number of people want to ride with a particular name and then, move on to ride with the next. Most of us just want to make the greatest strides in whatever time is availed us.

I’m a person who teaches little more than the basics. Over and over, again. I have spent my whole life with horses, polishing up fundamentals that I can remember first learning four, even five, decades ago. Some things that I pass along, I learned last week.

I’ve learned that maybe half of the people who call me and haul in for lessons, are finished after the first one. This used to bother me, until I realized that it was a thing. That the average beginning-to-intermediate rider craves going on to the higher levels quickly, while the advanced riders, naturally in the minority of people taking lessons, want to nail the basics until they become second nature. Until they become like breathing.

Until the fundamentals can be done with a maximum of feeling and a minimum of conscious thought.

Now, it’s true that the more advanced riders are generally always bringing on young or green horses. This keeps the same old, same old feeling ever fresh. When you are constantly in the realm of making the next good horse, there is very little time or opportunity to feel bored. I say, tired of doing the same little exercises? Show up in a strange arena on a spicy three-year-old!

Whenever we ride with a new teacher, there should be a lot of going back to basics. This means that the horse and rider who come ‘just to work on lead changes’ may well spend the entire hour working on rider position and body control. If this gets going in the right direction, we might spend time on improving bend, or relaxation of the horse, or acceptance of the bridle, or…

Often, their goal isn’t even on the menu that first day. It might be visited the next lesson later, or maybe—and this happened long ago, with my own teacher and a running fool of an off-track Thoroughbred—the next year!

Slowing things down isn’t a stalling tactic, meant to make your coach more money, nor is it usually an oversight. Those of us who teach this way tend to solve major problems with little fixes. We’re big on seeking the 1% improvement with each ride. One student, after being gently reminded of this, stopped dead in her tracks.

“You mean, I have to work on this, at least one hundred times?!” Surprisingly, she became a regular student.

I may ask you to spend a disappointing amount of time at the walk, just guiding the horse, shaping different parts of his body with your own. Maybe, we’ll seek sustained cantering without any contact whatsoever, until the horse learns how to handle his own body and speed control, without rider input. Until you learn to leave him alone. This fundamental step isn’t pretty, or graceful, and it has precious little to do with riding the horse ‘on the bit’.

When we’re peeling layers, it isn’t uncommon to have the feeling that we’re actually going backwards. Many times, things get a bit ugly before they get better.

As a naturally ‘feely’ rider, the geometry of riding in a school never fails to challenge me. Always trying to marry sensation with precision, I have never once schooled my horses and grown bored. Never once.

Long ago, I learned that the better my horse understands me, the better and safer we will be, out in the real world.

To my horse and me, this fundamental work represents the deposits in our joint account. We will draw upon them, time and again. I know, all too well, what happens should I make only withdrawals upon this same horse, for the sensitive personality who does nothing but mentally and physically demanding work, day after day, will soon start to come undone.

The longer we’ve ridden and the more we know—the more ‘expert’ we become, if we even dare breathe such a word—it seems the more we’ll crave revisiting our basics. The students who come back to me, year after year, tend to be those who have ridden for a long time, people who want to go back and make a study of their foundation. We ride, experiment, discuss. This is especially true with the same six or eight students who join me weekly to ride with our own trusted mentor. We know what’s coming. We hear his voice in our heads, before he speaks. We fine tune, we improve, we do it all again with the next young horse…

At first, riding is all about the destination. We want to arrive already, before we run out of time! By the end, we’re entirely immersed in the journey. Whether we’re opening a gate from the saddle, cantering to a lead change, or loading our horse in the trailer, it’s no longer enough for us that we can…

By going back to our basics, we can see to which point we are right and where, exactly, we begin to go wrong. Whatever our questions and answers, are we in full agreement, with full understanding? Are we simpatico? Are we correct? Are we soft?

📷 Ramblin’ Rose Creative.

09/30/2023

Board fence is coming in to view 🤩

09/22/2023

Come jump with me!!
Trailer in lesson times are available 😁

09/19/2023

❤️❤️

09/18/2023

My husband never fails to say “Have a good ride!” ❤️

“Be careful!” “Don’t get hurt!” “Stay safe!”

When we comment and tell one another to ride safely, I know that we mean well—in most cases—but we are, in fact, undermining the confidence of the person to whom we are directing our sage words of warning.

We are subtly changing that person’s mind from a place of ‘can do’ to one of fear, or caution. I don’t know about you folks but as I age, I don’t need to sow any more doubt. I’m already mindful of the gopher holes, the dropped rein in the brisk southeast wind, my creaky hips and knees.

I, for one, have never once set out to ride carelessly… despite what has occasionally transpired.

Most of us don’t need to be reminded that ‘anything can happen’. Yes, even if the warning is well-meant. You and I have been around the block enough times to know that bad stuff happens, even to good horses and caring people. It isn’t usually a help to have others retelling their most traumatic riding wrecks and cautionary tales.

So often, I’ll share a picture of an ordinary day—training ordinary horses to do ordinary things—and someone will post the ‘be careful’ comment. I will see it, give thanks and then, quickly press the ‘hide’ button. I will mentally shed the negative thoughts that come from taking this well-meant warning on. I am not helped in any way by going to this shadowy place of self-doubt and I know that many of you who might see such a comment will not be helped, either.

As we age, fear has a way of ramping up. More useful might be the comment, “You can do this!”, or even just a cheery “Have fun!”, if we feel the need to empower someone with our words. If you’re a teacher, given the job of keeping people and horses safe, a short and sweet reminder of what needs to be given the utmost attention is usually helpful.

“Remember, eyes up!” “Ride him forward and smile!” “Let’s walk him out a bit, before we get on.”

The message implied in our comments is surprisingly strong. Today, instead of urging you to stay safe, I’m going with something else, entirely.

“Take care of yourself.” What’s more, I really mean it.

And for my grown children, whom I am always urging to “Drive safely!” whenever they walk out the door, I am sorry. I’m going to replace this old mother hen thing of projecting my worry onto each of you, with something more uplifting, more empowering, more fun. The people we love shouldn’t be made to shoulder our deepest fears.

📷 Mike McLean.