When life gives you lemons...

If you own performance horses for long enough, there is only one guarantee – at some point you will experience the disappointment of forced downtime, likely at a point where you thought you were finally accomplishing something.

There’s the obvious – learn from the situation, re-evaluate your management strategies yada yada yada.

However, there’s another gift that is given with the sentence of enforced downtime – the gift of starting over and starting slowly.

I’m naturally an optimistic person. I tend to make the best out of a bad situation. I can ALWAYS see the bright side and nothing gets me down for long. When Farley needed to be hand walked for 2 weeks for her minor bow a few years ago, I taught her to long line. Why handwalk a horse when I could teach it a skill? Later, when I asked her to tail up a hill, it went remarkably smoothly. So after the tye up, when the vet recommended working up to 20 minutes of walking, and then start riding at a walk, my ears perked up. I had noticed Farley “faking” contact lately in dressage – she would look like she was on the bit, but I didn’t have nearly enough horse in my hand. After ok’ing it with the vet (who thought the stretching of walking dressage would be GREAT rehab) I dedicated the 2 weeks of walking post-tyeup to re-establishing the concept of contact, long and low, and stretching over the bit.

By being forced to stay at a walk, I couldn’t use speed to my advantage. Because I was bareback, I could really feel when her back was up, whether I was pumping with my seat, or clinging/nagging with my leg. I had a limited time to work each day so I wasn’t tempted to drill a concept. In summary – it forced me to do the things I should have been doing all along.

After 2 weeks, with confirmation that her muscle enzymes were back to normal, we were cleared for normal work.

I found to my surprise that not only did I have a completely different horse in my hand for dressage, I had a better relationship too.

At my lesson last week – the first since the tye up – I got some jaw dropping trots. And canters. And down transitions. And halts. All because I took the opportunity to go back to the basics. The most suprising thing was I got all this from just doing quality work at a walk.

Here’s what I learned (and hopefully I remember them without having to go through another “incident”!)

• If there’s an issue, make it really really really simple for 2 weeks. And easy. Really easy.
  Ride without stirrups for the first 5 minutes of any ride in the saddle. I found my hips and leg stayed relaxed once I picked up the stirrups. I had less trouble with pumping, clinging, and my knee moving up.
• Relationship first. If you haven’t had some good rides in a while (and I was there with Farley…) and you think you need to take about 3 steps back, take 5 instead.
• Be a cheerleader. I found out that Farley really likes the sound of me praising her with my voice. No, I won’t do it during a dressage test, but if I’m trying to let her know that YES THAT’S a GOOD girl for stretching over the bit and I can be encouraging while she’s figuring out, than that’s what I should do. It keeps me relaxed and happy too.
• Do whatever it takes to take the frustration out of the rider/horse relationship. Ride with an ipod and sing out loud for 2 weeks. Ride bareback for two weeks. Go on pointless hacks where you saunter along for 20-30 minutes. Swear off using the whip as an aid until you can use it without feeling frustration.
• Sometimes, when horses feel like a lot of work and motivation is low, it helps to ride every day for a short, relaxed ride, if you usually ride harder fewer days a week.
  

I think it says something about any relationship where it comes out of hardship even stronger. I feel like my relationship with Farley has never been better. She’s never looked better, never been stronger, and has never felt this good. Onward down the trail!