Got to assist today in a momentous event in the life of one of my four-legged friends, helping a client back one of her lovely Lipizzans for the first time. It’s always a process getting a horse ready for that first ride, but this one was a little different.
I met Ephiny last September for a bodywork session requested to try to figure out why the mare was so incredibly averse to being touched on the right side of her body, especially in the loin area. Sensibly, her owner realized that could cause big problems when the horse was asked to wear a saddle, feel weight on her back and have a rider’s leg making contact with a large part of her right side.
It was one of the more interesting sessions I’ve ever been part of. I’m used to connecting with horses’ bodies and “reading” their own and their riders’ imbalances through the subtle interplays of brace and release, the accumulated layers of muscle memory apparent in an individual’s posture and movement.
But with Ephiny, I had the rare (and somewhat disconcerting) experience of “seeing” pictures of events that did not come from this lifetime. (Her current owner raised her from birth, so no hidden bits of history here.) The first picture that came into my mind’s eye while I was doing a fairly ordinary scan to find a starting point for massage was of a white horse with a bloody tear in her right loin. My practical side resisted the picture for a bit while I started making physical and energetic connections in the actual body under my hands. But the image persisted, so I just kept up my work and told the owner what I was seeing.
(Gotta love my clients, who know I sometimes turn into the crazy woman and who just come along with me and generally don’t miss a beat.)
The next picture that popped up on the internal movie screen was of another horse, which I “knew” was a stallion, inflicting the wound – a nasty slashing bite – in the process of trying to breed her. Savaged by a stallion. Pretty big trauma. I can see why that one might stick around energetically and create a “don’t touch me there” area of the body. I shared this image with the owner, who then had an “ah ha” moment about some interesting and puzzling issues involving her mare.
Seems Ephiny, then seven, never appeared to cycle regularly. She had lived platonically with her stallion pal for two years and would not let him mount her. (Polite stallions always heed a mare who says “no” or they can get their teeth kicked in.) Interesting. Chills up the spine interesting. (That has since changed. She now has obvious heat cycles; she even did a little flirting with the stallion today after her ride.)
But back to a year ago, when it became clear that a nice massage wasn’t going to quite get to the core of this horse’s issues. Happily, we have reiki and other forms of energy work for such situations. So them, commence to clearing old trauma. Energetically gather together all the disparate bits, open up a place for the unhealthy stuff to leave and give it a place to disperse. Pack it together, extract and disperse. Create an intention that the process goes on at the pace best for the horse and turn it over to her to continue at will. Or not – she had the option to hold on to the stuff and continue the accompanying behaviors.
Happily, this horse chose to do her own work and the owner experienced the gradual lessening of the mare’s right-side stiffnesses and crankiness as they worked through the patient process of teaching the horse to longe, accustoming her to wearing tack and getting her good and ready to handle the weight and presence of a rider on her barrel. Along with these traditional steps to prepping a horse for a rider, the owner also incorporated a series of ground exercises that help horses learn to release their jaws, lift the base of the neck and the ribcage and step through with ease. The exercises are designed to gently and progressively access and strengthen the mechanism of self-carriage, so they’re perfect for helping a green horse gain confidence in its balance.
That’s why this type of groundwork forms the basis for my very favorite way to start horses under saddle. It’s so easy to build in the simple ground exercises so they become a familiar, comfortable part of the horse’s routine with people. For the first weight-bearing experience, then, the designated “rider” quietly mounts and the ground handler just takes the horse through the familiar progression – release the jaw, lift the base of the neck and rock onto the hindquarters a bit (which lifts the back so the rider has a nice place to sit) and then push off the hind end and move forward.
Inevitably, Ephiny with her owner on board, started out a bit lurchy. So I repeated the series a few times and she found her walking gear. Interestingly, she was way more connected back to front on her (formerly explosive) right side. Left center-of-balance lifting mechanism and left hind had a bit more trouble synchronizing. But we did find her nice, swingy walk both directions and she did a great job of starting to figure out just how she needs to distribute her own weight to more efficiently carry weight.
The few times I’ve gotten to use this method of starting (or restarting) horses under saddle, it has worked incredibly well. Makes that first ride such a natural next step for the horse, it’s almost a non-event. Well, except for how happy the humans are afterward!
(You can read Ephiny’s owner’s blog about the experience and work back through the archives to follow her training diary, too.) Thanks to Traci Castleberry for the photos.
Go, Ephiny & Judy, go!