Goal Setting

The reality of that big, scary phrase up there is unfortunately most of us don't follow through on our goals.  Because if we did, we'd all be achieving the dreams we had hoped for.  The bigger the goal, the more likely we are to fall through on the steps needed to achieve it.  It's a lot easier to make excuses than to TRY, and to keep trying when it gets hard.  There are also a lot of things that make it more enticing to quit.  Chances are, achieving whatever goal it is that you have is going to take more effort than you originally wanted to put in.  Chances are you're going to fail more than you succeed, because that's how learning anything at all works.  And chances are, unfortunately-you're not going to look good while you're trying to achieve the goal.  

The photo up above is from three years ago when I decided I wanted to go to a dressage show.  And to be honest, we flunked both of our tests.  As you can see from the photo, I did not have the position that a lot of dressage riders have, Chase's head is up in the air, his back is hollow, he's trailing behind with his back legs-everything in our form was considered incorrect for the test.  And more embarrassingly, while I had practiced the test at our boarding barn as much as I could, and we had my instructor at the time reading it out loud-I got lost during the test.  At the time I had felt more like a failure coming out of that test and reading things like 'non-existent rhythm' on our score sheet.  A large part of me wanted to quit, as this was the horse I had brought up from a foal myself and trained.  Surely I wasn't fit to be a rider.  

It's even in those moments, though, that if you want to pursue excellence in whatever you choose, that you have to keep going.  You have to take every negative experience and every obstacle and choose to keep plugging despite the challenge.  Because, clearly, if you quit, you won't achieve anything at all.

And there are those people out there.  As soon as any type of effort at anything is to be made, they back out-close themselves up and stay at home.  They aren't happy, either.

The truth is, whatever goals you want to achieve aren't just about the goals.  It's about how you choose to live your life, and what kind of a person you choose to be.  Do you choose to be someone who gives up when the going gets hard in life?  Do you choose to make excuses, complain, and sit at home?  Or do you choose to be that person that moves forward instead?  

The choice is yours. 

The Strength of a Connective Bond

I had a rather interesting learning experience the other day when Chase's farrier/chiropractor came out after my hysterically distressed calls over his back being sore.  As you can see from previous posts on saddle fit, while there were some saddle fit issues, turns out the saddle wasn't really the problem.  

So my wonderful farrier/equine chiropractor begins her work.  She first takes a look at his feet and trims them, being mindful of any possible soreness as she stretches them out and carefully yet skillfully balances and trims them to perfection.  She then proceeds to take out her huge mat cubes to begin Chase's adjustment while I anxiously look on, awaiting the 'oh it is THIS and I can fix it now, this way' phrase.  Especially the 'now' part as I was in a horse mommery-panic whenever he flinched from me touching his back.  The past couple of days I had fretted and fretted, ceased working Chase all together, and even had tried buying him a heating pad to help his 'sore' muscles.  

Chase and I have been together for almost seven years now.  I'm for the most part convinced I know exactly how to tell when he's honestly hurting, and of course, as a horse person, have the ever present 'I know exactly what I know' tone underlying everything I do or think about horses.  

So when my beloved equine professional turns to me and tells me it's mostly all in my head, it's understandably a hard pill to swallow.  Or rock.  Or boulder-a small boulder, to be precise.

Let me explain.  Chase and I have been together so long, and I've proven myself to be enough of a leader than he looks to me as to how to respond to stimulus.  Which is what you want, and what tends to happen anyways between horse and rider-unless your horse completely doesn't believe in your leadership.  So what that means-as explained by my lovely equine chiro/farrier-is that while yes, he was due for an adjustment and a little sore, the fact that I responded even a little bit in panic when I first noticed him flinching made the situation worse.  

A good parallel example would be when a child falls on the floor and for a moment looks to the parent wondering if it was okay.  If the parent nods their head and tells them to just get up, they do just that.  If the parent runs over to the child in panic and fusses over them, the child will immediately begin crying. 

So while he was a little sore, he hadn't been so sore that it adhered the reaction he gave me physically.  And he gave the physical reaction because I made a big deal out of his soreness.  Since I had decided his back was really sore, Chase had also decided his back was far more sore than it actually was.  This morning, I went to go groom him after his adjustment, as I had been avoiding because of my perception of his soreness.  He flinched a little, I continued brushing as though nothing was wrong-and viola.  Only temporarily slightly flinchy horse, rather than one who moved away from being brushed and dipped his back as though I had poked a hot iron at it.  As an owner, I'm caught between laughing at myself and the situation, and being thankful that he looks to me that much.  Bottom line is, we can influence our horse's response to almost any stimuli in any situation.  Just because we aren't in the saddle or aren't playing on the ground doesn't mean we don't affect their perspective of the world.   

  

  

Saddle Fit Part 2

I went back to the barn today and marked my horse's scapula; both at rest and at full extension.  Here are the results.

Left Side

And the right.

It's also interesting to note that Chase's stiffer side, and the side where he rushes and gets a little upset at hindquarter yielding, is the left.  This comes into play as currently, the full extension of his scapula on the left side is much shorter than that on the right.  He also has a knot right on his withers on the left side exactly where the last orange line ends.  After his last massage, the knot on the right side in that spot mostly released itself.  

So I then fiddled with the saddle.  Did some research on Parellisaddles.com and changed the saddle as much as I could.  I was a bit hesitant to put it back farther as I was afraid of pressure on his loins, but that fear obviously wasn't getting us anywhere.  So I put it back as far as I could put it and still put the girth on-which turned out to be starting at the first orange mark.  And I put it on at first without a saddle pad or shims to get a clear look at fit.

As you can see-eek.  There is no contact in the middle of the saddle.  It would literally grind into the lower part of his back and his withers-ouch!

I then slid one thick shoulder shim on each side right behind the second line.

                             
                         

Contact all the way through now, and a lot more room for his shoulder.  I worry a bit about the angle still, but it is much, much better.  When I did properly and pain-stakingly put the whole nine yards back together, it looked like this.

Compare that to how I normally saddle him-which looks like this.

For clarification, you can see that the end of his mane in the second photo is actually partially covered up.  Also, in the first photo, I actually had to angle the girth forward so it would still be in the correct area.  When I tightened the girth, it's important to note Chase tightened to brace against the oncoming 'ouch', and then resorted to licking and chewing-a lot-and blowing out which are signs of relaxation or release of tension.  And he continued to do that for the next several minutes.  

I did not get to ride to test it out.  The arenas were unavailable, although I did not know that when I went out.  While he did lick and chew a lot, which is a good sign, I couldn't tell of any movement changes through the gaits.  I suspect that is solely because his back and withers were a mess of knots that I spent my last forty minutes at the barn trying to massage out.  

Part of me honestly is hesitating in posting this, as it points out my faulty original judgement as a horse owner.  However, seeing as I have not ridden him regularly in two years, and I'm catching it in less than a week's worth of sessions, I think there's probably some cushion in that.  Assuming his back feels better tomorrow when I go out to check-and I'm hoping the massage I gave contributes to that, I am planning on hopping on to see how he goes.    

Ta Ta Ya'll.

Saddle Fit

So.  There has been a bit of an issue getting the video clips onto this blog, which is why I have postponed blogging longer than I should have.  However, Chase and I have started our journey again, focusing mainly on follow the rail which when I get the video issues sorted out I will be posting a blog on that.  I decided to post this particular post as we have run into a battle a lot of horse people face-saddle fit.  So here is Chase's back.

Here is Chase's back with his saddle on.

There are no shims in this photo-it was our very first ride out in forever.  I had put his lovely brand new purple and black saddle pad on him, coupled with his brand new fabulous thinline half pad.  The thinline pad made a huge difference from the last time I had ridden him, and my little sister rode him while being led that day too-she could also feel the difference in the movement of his back.  However, as I began to ride regularly again, as I love spending time grooming him and giving him a massage before each ride-I noticed that he began to get SORE.  In two spots, particularly, and his stifles as well.

So two areas which-massaging one with an electronic hand massager helps the other so they are inter-correlated-have been made sore by riding.  Right behind his withers and the area where his back comes up.

There are other things involved here-if you look, you can clearly see his rounded shoulder, and the hollow in his back.  You can also see a dip in his withers and a sharply dropping croup.  

So the rounded shoulder suggests that he is protecting himself from the front of the saddle, which implies that it is blocking the shoulder in this area.  This is also supported by the fact that there is a dry spot there after riding.  I did feel around when the saddle was on him, and there was a place where it wasn't making contact with his back in the middle.  Looking at the image and the line drawn-I can see why.  No saddle can make even contact with that shape.  Then again, Parellisaddles.com states a good point-a horse's back in motion is going to change shape from when the horse is standing still. In this particular case, I think it's probably time for me to completely re-assess.  Re-find where the max extension of his scapula is, and move the saddle back and shim it.  When Chase moves, he will lift his back at least a little-and if I can free up that shoulder I think that hollow in his back may be a non-issue over time.  

Well, that's all for now.  Ta Ta!