ST Session September 11th - A Monster or a Wonder Horse?

I visited Karina in the pasture and this time she wasn't really happy to see me. Something must have changed in the herd hierarchy or Karina is just going to be soon in heat, and that was the cause of her dislike to being touched. I worked later on that and I set our two-headed herd hierarchy back in place, but at first it wasn't nice as she was pinning her ears back at me. Leading and changing directions even while grazing seems to work well when it comes to setting the hierarchy right. Karina understood that really quickly and she soon was grazing keeping her distance from me and holding her ears nice and relaxed.

Our ST training again was short and I admit that after that I was pretty confused. I'm not sure what I should do next, but maybe some idea will occur to me before I go to the stable next time. I worked with Karina this time with her stable halter, I didn't even use the rope one, and it seems to be working as well now. She just understands now what I want and she offers me that. I started to work on lateral bending and I'm not entirely sure if it worked just as it should. I placed Karina near the wall to prevent her from falling out on her outside hind leg. She bent in the neck easily, but I failed to observe if her inner hip came a little forward. That is very important, because, as I have mentioned in some previous posts, this would mean that she is ready to move on to work in walk. But now that I think of it, it seems to me that she is ready and that in a standstill we have no more to do and should be moving forward. Even though she may be falling out on her outside hind leg at first (and I'm pretty sure that it is what will happen). I think that a support from a wall might be a great help at first.

It may be that I don't have enough faith in Karina's abilities, but she is progressing in the ST far quicker than I imagined. Maybe I do her an injustice, because from the beginning I knew that she was learning fast - too fast sometimes and she gets bored easily. Most of the times one, two repetitions of an exercise are more than enough. While working with Karina, it is very important to have a lots of ideas and to be a little ahead of her all the time, because otherwise she'll take the control. Everybody who has worked with her and ignored my advices, soon told me, that this horse is a monster, a hopeless case, and that they have never seen a horse so mean and bad-behaving. And poor Karina just felt offended that somebody thought her to be an imbecile who needs thousands of repetitions. Yes, yes, that is no mistake - she is unbelievably ambitious and proud of her brains. And that is, as I have noticed many a time, entirely justified - she is a wonder horse in any way...

But anyway, the ST is in the beginning a mostly physical thing (though relaxation in the body causes relaxation in the mind) and that's why I needed Karina to repeat it so many times. I broke the exercises into parts to keep her interest in this work and at the same time I challenged her a little with teaching her some simple horse tricks. Because if she would get bored, nothing on Earth, not even a carrot, would make her do that again. And having considered all that, I think it is time to move on to work in walk...

As to the horse tricks, I changed the method a little and it seems to work not so well. Perhaps I would have done best by keeping to the previous one. Anyway, that is easily repaired I think...

Strange Coincidences ;)

Yeah, I know what you're thinking after you've read my description of Karina. You think she is one of those horse monsters created by stupid humans who have no idea how to handle a horse. No, no, nothing of the kind. Karina, beside spirit and ambition has also a heart of a true Horse – huge and forgiving. She forgave her handlers (they were more like torturers, but that's a long story) in both previous stables I've kept her before I found a decent one, but she has not forgotten. To everybody who knows how to deal with a horse, she is sweet and kind (oh, is that a coincidence?). But if anyone tries to force anything upon her, Karina turns into an apocalyptic monster. As I've said – no short cuts. That means no whip (used as a punishment, not a direction – directions given with a whip she easily accepts), no yanking on the reins (as one of our acquaintances tried – he did that only once, guess why), no side reins, no tying up her legs by a frightened farrier. Another farrier, a wise and sensitive woman, has no need to secure Karina's legs in any way – but she knows how to handle a horse (or maybe is that a coincidence again?)

In the previous stable, anytime I came to see my horse, I kept on hearing how mean and bad horse Karina was. She was constantly in heat, she was rubbing her tail on the stall walls, she was kicking the walls, she pulled a mean face when someone came close to her, she was eating too much, and she.... Oh, there were so many complaints about my horse, that I can't even recall them all. Stable owner even tried to convince me that Karina should be sterilized, because she is suffering due to her constant being in heat. When I explained to him that he was wrong (well, I'm only a veterinary medicine student, so what the heck can I know about equine reproduction), and that Karina's hormonal imbalance is caused by the lack of light (he kept her locked in the dark stable almost for months on end – Karina went out almost only when I came to her and took her for a walk), he wouldn't listen. In his opinion Karina needed at least strong hormone suplementation, and it would be best if she would just be sterilized. Because she is a monster, she has nymphomania and hell knows what else. In fact it would be best if I put her out of her misery, because she is never going to be a 'normal' horse. I guess he must have known better than a veterinary medicine professor (equine medicine specialist), who couldn't find anything wrong with Karina. I told the stable owner that the cure for all her issues was fresh air, sunlight and free movement in the paddocks, but he had his own opinion. And he kept on feeding Karina with grain instead of hay, paying no attention whatever to my begging him to give her hay. Since we couldn't understand each other anymore (that guy used to be my friend once, or so I thought), I found Karina another stable. We moved there in the end of april this year, and in two weeks all of abovementioned Karina's 'problems' were gone. Yeah, that must have been a coincidence again!

In the new stable Karina spends outside 24 hours, she eats mostly grass and hay, she gets just a handful of oats, not more, and only because she is used to getting some. Otherwise grass, hay and straw would be enough, because she never works hard. I keep on asking stable owners if there are any problems with Karina, but I've never heard any complaints. Again Karina is that sweet, kind horse I have bought. And now, when I have discovered Marijke de Jong's Straightness Training, everything seems to be finally returning on the right track.

Introducing Karina - my Gift in Disguise

Karina, my ten years old Polish Warmblood mare, by some is labelled as a 'problem horse'. I don't know if she has any problems beside that some time ago she was being handled by problem people. Fortunately that is over now. Karina is an extremely sensitive, intelligent, proud and ambitious horse. She has a true horse spirit, unbroken, and a strong character and she is a very demanding teacher. She would not accept any short cuts in her training and everything I do with her I have to do very thoroughly and I have to learn fast. And I'm happy that she is no dull, broken donkey, but a true Horse. She is so different from all the pleasure riding horses that I know, that everybody keeps on asking me why on Earth did I buy her? But to me she is a Gift in Disguise - an opportunity to learn and grow.