From: Tad
Dear Doc J, you are awesome. I've been reading your HORSE-SENSE posts ever since you started sending them out, and this is the first time I've had to ask a question. Usually whatever I was going to ask you gets answered before I have a chance to type my question, which is great, I'm not complaining, believe me!!!!
I took my horse (5-y-o QH roping horse, 15 hands) to a clinic with a pretty well-known person. I'm not going to say who it was, but I was not impressed and I didn't like what he was doing with horses even though he's well-known and he says he was trained by some other real well-known trainers. I know you won't trash another clinician but I just want to ask your opinion of one exercise he was doing. I feel like I should put "exercise" in quotes, because it didn't look like an exercise to me, and it didn't look like anything I would want to do to a horse.
Here's what happened. In the problem-solving section of the clinic, there were about ten riders in one group, and most of them said that their big problem was that their horses were real stiff in one direction. This guy had them get off and tie one rein to the saddle horn, to make the horse put its jaw practically on the saddle horn in whatever direction was the stiff one (most of the horses got tied around to the right).
He said they'd just do it for ten minutes because it was a clinic and they had other things to do that day, but those riders should go home and tie the horses like that and leave them for at least half an hour, and longer if they could, up to two hours. He said that this was a stretching and "giving" exercise that would supple them up on that stiff side and teach them to give to the bit. One rider said what I was thinking, that it seemed cruel to tie them that way, and he said no, it was a kind way to teach them to give, because the riders didn't force anything, they just set up the situation and let the horses figure out what they had to do. Now I could buy that idea if it was something like stepping onto a bridge and he said for us just to sit there until the horse figured out what to do, but I don't know if a horse can figure out that it's supposed to get supple.
The other reason I didn't like that idea is I've had some chiropractor work done on my own back after I hurt it last year, and I've learned a lot about muscles and bones and like that, and this just seemed to go against all of the stuff I've learned. So if you don't mind, could I have your honest opinion of the exercise (not the person)?
Thanks a ton for all the great answers!
Tad
Hi Tad -- you're welcome, it's nice to know you've been on board all that time! You're right, I don't want to trash anyone, but I can tell you that the next time this fellow comes to town you should run, not walk, for the nearest exit, and take all of your friends with you.
You were right to have a bad feeling about that "exercise" -- and you were right to put it in quotes. ;-) It's not an exercise. It's abuse, and serious abuse with long-term, maybe permanent consequences.
Tying the horse's head to the saddle horn isn't going to supple any part of the horse. It will damage the muscles of his neck and back, and if he tries to get relief by moving against the tie, it may tear his mouth. If he cramps and falls down, he won't be able to get up -- and yes, I've seen this happen.
Your chiropractor has been teaching you well. If he were an equine chiropractor, he'd probably tell you that a lot of his business comes from this kind of abuse. Ask your chiropractor what would happen to your own head and neck if someone decided to "supple" your stiff neck by tying your right ear to your right shoulder...
Bottom line: this isn't kind, it isn't an exercise, it's of no use whatsoever and it causes great pain and physical damage to the horse. It probably causes a good deal of mental damage as well. Horses can't learn anything from being forced into a painful position that they can't escape.
The idea of setting up a situation and letting the horse find the right way out of it, on the other hand, is a good one -- and one that's used by good trainers and riders in every riding discipline. That's not what was going on in this case, though.
When a horse offers an answer, it won't know that a particular answer is the "right" one unless the rider or handler makes that message clear, either by praising or by discontinuing the signal. Otherwise, the horse will, in total honesty, offer another answer -- since, clearly, that one wasn't the one the handler wanted. In this case, there's no handler and no message, and no "right" choice: the horse can stand there in steadily-increasing pain, or it can move and be in steadily-increasing pain, or it can fall down and lie on the ground in steadily-increasing pain. Add confusion, add fear -- and what you have is not training of any kind, but abuse pure and simple.
If you can get to a clinic with Ray Hunt or Tom Dorrance or Harry Whitney, or with a good dressage trainer such as Charles de Kunffy, or with a good hunter-jumper trainer such as George Morris -- and if you get a chance, ask about some exercises to help supple a horse's stiff side. I'll guarantee you that none of them will suggest what this man was doing.
As for being well-known -- it may be a reason to get your attention, but it's not a reason to get your respect. That should still require to be earned. The wonderful thing about meeting someone like Hunt or Dorrance -- or Reiner Klimke or Charles de Kunffy -- is that you can watch them work and see good horsemen putting good principles into action. THAT's where your respect and admiration are called for -- they should be earned, and trainers like that WILL earn them, over and over again.
You were right not to accept this man's word as gospel truth -- he was wrong and you were right, and that is all I'm going to say about that. ;-)
Jessica
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