PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE

08.04.20 3 Comments Posted by Daniela Schmidt

Often and willingly with horses we are faced with unpleasant situations and we are forced to resort to remedies to resolve the situation, or to compromise or, if we really do not see a way out, we must make choices that we are sorry and sometimes they leave their mark forever.

A lot of things are actually treated as "problems" to find a remedy for. Like "it went like this, now the only thing to do is ...".

The fact is that little is thought of the cause and much of the remedy.

I know that times are always tight and that those who work in this field often do not have the time to devote themselves to in-depth research or analysis on the why of things, but if each of us (student, owner, rider) had a complete preparation, they would save time, effort and money.

By this I am not referring to problems of another nature which are NOT dependent on work and which can happen. I do not say that in front of every small signal you must immediately think of "something deeper" giving it who knows what importance. I don't mean that you have to suspect in front of everything and become fanatics of "who knows what could be due", I only say that if everything went immediately in a certain way, everything would be simpler.

The problems I find most frequently are for example:

1. Control of your horse, especially at a gallop or during an obstacle course.

Remedy: stronger mouth, reins of return (they should be used only on the rope - they are all described in detail in the book "The work on the rope - With and without a rider"), limitations in the work (it is thought that you can never do anything else with that horse), exaggerated and useless interventions, etc. (see also the videos on YouTube on the mouths at the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAXcOL1snrI&t=374s)

2. The horse moves wrong.

Remedy: drastic interventions to try to "straighten" almost by force ... or you avoid doing things on one side (where things get worse and are more difficult) or you are satisfied and say "patience, he is a little 'so ... "or even worse nobody realizes it and then various contractures and pains arise due to a wrong development of the muscles which implies a shock action with various therapies, periods of forced pause.

3. The horse is heavy and struggling to move forward.

Remedy: Auxiliary aids that are used in a bad way (whip and spurs) and infinite compromises due to the fact that "with that horse those things are difficult to do". In fact, with a horse that does not move forward, it is a problem to work. Without an engine you cannot think of doing a good job, but most of the time this laziness or heaviness can be avoided or in any case can be circumvented, without becoming "bad". Otherwise then you will have other problems.

4. The horse refuses aid and goes against it.

One of the reasons may be precisely the one mentioned in point 3. If we start to use the aids available to us against equestrian ethics and in any case in the wrong way, at the wrong time this never benefits. It can lead to subordination on the part of the horse, but submitting in that sense the horse is always wrong because it risks killing his personality which, however demanding, if channeled in the right direction, can be an added value and make a difference one day .

Remedy: Even stronger actions and heavy means to avoid rejection gestures by the horse and extreme and exaggerated interventions that are hardly understood by the horse. Punishments like infinite steps backwards, blows, throws or races that deliberately end with a crash against the wall. For me this is not horseback riding and it is not at all nice to see. It is not even acceptable. "Eh but you do it like this ... so maybe you understand ..." no. So do not understand a damn. What can one understand if he is shot against a wall? What can one understand if he receives treats in the mouth after a refusal of an obstacle? Maybe accompanied by ramming? What do you understand from the steps back if you made two bucks? How can there be a connection? Let's put ourselves in the shoes of the horse for a moment. Then when the horse, exhausted, is good for fear of taking them (trying to understand what he wanted up there) there are applause and "see that it works". Well no. If anything, if something worked, it's the caress you gave now that he was good. But are we sure there was no other way to get there?

5. The horse has back pain.

V. Point 2. A thousand reasons are very often sought by wasting a lot of time and spending a lot of money, before understanding (if you ever get there) that a good preparation job (see the book THE TRAINING SCALE or THE TRAINING OF HORSE BASE available on the website www.addestramentocavallosportivo.it) could eliminate the underlying problem.

THE ATHLETIC PREPARATION OF THE HORSE is fundamental. I am a personal trainer and sports massager (for humans) and I am an athlete, I train a lot (not only on horseback) and I know what it means not to warm up adequately (my left shoulder is a witness of wrong experiences of the past ... as ignorant). I know how long it takes for the cardio-vascular system to reactivate and adapt to new efforts, I know how long it takes for the muscles and I know how long it takes for joints, tendons and ligaments. All this cannot be "ignored". My mission is to help people understand how these mechanisms work and how they can be applied to practice every day. It is not the final result that counts, or rather, it is, but if the path is right, the result is obviously positive. Otherwise it will be a bet.

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