What I Learned: Form to Function Clinic

I love learning. I soak information up like a sponge, especially if it will benefit me directly in some way (selfish, yes, but hey, selfish gets a bad rap: if something benefits me and my horse in a positive way without harm to anyone else, nothing wrong with that!) And the clinic I attended this weekend was the absolute EPITOME of beneficial.

Enter Dr. Deb Bennett.

This woman's credentials are a mile long: Smithsonian, NY Museum of Natural History, National Center for Equine Dentistry, and finally the Equine Studies Institute in California. Her website is linked to below:

http://www.equinestudies.org/

She's a zoologist/paleontologist by trade, but her specialty is equines of varying sorts, focusing mostly on our domestic equine species. She has the anatomical background of a DVM but her interest is not in regional anatomy (which is what most vets look at: a lameness in the leg usually means an investigation of the leg in a vet's mind, for example) but in biomechanical anatomy. What does this mean? It's the study of how our horse friends move and work physically. It means everything is connected: problems in the limbs can originate in the back, the neck, the poll, the shoulder. And we cannot speak of biomechanics without also talking about conformation. Thus the title of this wonderful clinic was, aptly enough, "Form to Function".

Dr. Deb is one tough lady: she is very much the no-nonsense, no excuses type of trainer/clinician/horse person this world needs more of. It's part of what I loved so much about the clinic: it was very clear what her stance was on keeping and riding horses right from the beginning, and it fit with mine exactly. If you own horses, ride horses, drive horses or are involved with them in any other way, it's YOUR responsibility to do everything you can to learn as much as you can. "Becoming educated," she said, "is the ultimate weapon against ignorance and ego. And it's ignorance and ego that ruins many a nice horse." The horse depends on us to take care of him, and thus it's up to us to never stop learning. This includes learning how to listen to our horses.

Pretty much, this woman is amazing. She's approaching her 60's and is as much of a spitfire as someone half her age. She's quick, incredibly knowledgeable and well spoken. She knows her equine history, texts and is very fast to separate the good ones from the not so good ones. I wish there were more of her out there.

Here's what I learned and re-learned, in a very nutshell-ish sort of way:

• you have nothing unless the horse is straight. Nothing. Period. You may think you have it but it does not come naturally to the horse and thus is not correct because it cannot be freely offered by him (think about this one...it makes sense if you think about it: horses have the ability to do everything on their own that we ask them to do under saddle, but why is it that so many of us never get what we want?) Almost every horse is somewhat asymmetrical by nature (as are we) so it's our job if they are to work for us to keep them moving freely and easily by teaching them how to be straight.
• in this line of thinking, the aids for straightness ARE the aids for collection: if the horse is straight, he can offer collection freely. This is the ultimate goal as a rider: to get the horse to willingly offer what he would do, without us on his back, while we're mounted.
• The horse cannot be asked to collect by be pushed forward into fixed hands: this creates tension in the neck which means tension in the back (and sadly this is how so many dressage riders are taught). A horse who is truly collected will flex the sacro-iliac joint (where the sacrum meets the pelvis) under him, lifting the back by engaging the iliopsoas and abdominal oblique muscles, which will then cause the base of the neck to come up. This all happens BY ITSELF. Fixed hands prevent the horse from properly lifting the base of the neck, and makes true collection impossible. The "up" in the base of the neck comes from a telescoping gesture outward, which can be caught and directed by soft, fluid hands, but this must be allowed for the horse to work properly.
• Collection is a POSTURE, not a frame. It is a way of using the spine.
• Most of our riding horses aren't built to last as riding horses. For every 1,000 lbs. of bodyweight, a horse needs 8 inches of bone (measured as the circumference of the cannon bone right under the knee). The higher the body weight, in general the less bone a horse has (this makes sense to: think about all those school ponies you rode or teach lessons on: why is it none of them ever break down or sustain the types of injuries bigger riding horses do? Because they have plenty of bone support! Now think about all the injuries horses 15.2 hands and over see, especially those big warmbloods!)
• Pick a horse, not faults. Look at the horse as a whole: most "conformational flaws" can actually be traced to muscular tension or improper use of the body, issues with the feet, etc. There are far fewer horses with congenital (inherited at birth) deformities or faults than we think there are. Proper work, training and farriery can improve, to some degree, almost any fault out there (with a few exceptions, obviously...)
• Praise, praise, praise...I knew this already, but it's easy to get so wrapped up in getting exactly what you want that you forget to reward the small steps it takes to get there. A horse does not really learn by punishment, they learn better by ignoring the mistakes and heavily rewarding the right answer. Obviously, if you're got a horse doing something dangerous this does not always apply, but in your everyday training routines, it absolutely does. And RUB, don't smack your horse's neck. We make a big, loud, obnoxious deal out of something good for our own egos, not for the horse. The horse will appreciate a nice, long rub more than being thwacked on the neck.

I could go on and on and on. There was a lot of valuable information to be had. And it was clear based on the photos and discussion on her own horses that she has some very happy riding companions who are doing everything upper level dressage horses do without the double bridles and spurs and often harsh ways of training. These are horses who are truly happy to do their job, and it was pretty freakin' cool to see.

I would be thrilled to be able to see that kind of calm, focused but energetic nature in training with Stella. We're getting there slowly, and I know so many of the things she's having a rough time with are because of me, but that's another post altogether. For now, I will revel in the idea of all that I absorbed this weekend and how awesome of a pair we will be further down the road.