Shocking. Shocking. Shocking injury and completely caused by humans riding.
How DO we fix a horses back when it’s as bad as this?
We fix it by steadily and systematically releasing all the emotional causes of the muscular tension and then the muscles steadily pull the bones back into place. And there is no doubt in my mind that riding Pye (the horse in the photo) will be a necessary part of his rehabilitation.
Do you have to be some kind of alternative therapist – a muscle and bone expert – to do this?
No.
So what DOES it take?
It will take his rider and handlers having “feel” for him. Feel is not some weird un-defineable thing that only the brilliant horse people have, although all the brilliant horse people DO have it. Feel is the ability for the rider to feel in the whole of their body, in whatever way is their natural strength in feel, what the horse is doing AND understand why the horse is doing it AND whether it is OK or not in that moment AND take action on it.
The ability for even beginner riders to feel like this for their horse starts with understanding how you experience a connection in your horse (see my articles about the five different ways of feeling for your horse) AND a good riding seat. That sounds so derrr… but I look around and see very few people who even have an idea of the depth of connection that is possible with a horse. Less than a fraction of one percent of the riders I see – live or over the internet., have a riding seat even close to what is possible on a horse. Less than a tiny fraction of one percent…
Ordinary people being extraordinary.
I said a while back that those words should be our motto here, because the kind of feel for a horse that it will take to help Pye in the photo heal his back, is going to take someone who is prepared to work out of the ordinary, out of the “normal” way of doing things in the horse world and ordinary people being extraordinary is normal here.
If you ride or fence sit on the “Ride your horse to wellness” clinic in January, you’ll get to watch Pye (see the photo above) working to recover this damaged back. I have gifted his rescue organization with an extra place in the clinic.
I promise it’s not rocket science folks. It’s just systematic. And not even hard to do, because we’ve identified all the pieces. The Release, Re-Learn and Re-Program formula that we have come up with makes it possible for even beginners to be able to help a horse with injuries as bad as this.
And it takes riding them to do the job properly. They were damaged by riding and the principles of the Release, Re-Learn and Re-Program formula means the right kind of riding can solve it.
I have seen two horses as bad as this in live clinics here with me and BOTH of them made dramatic improvement in the measly 5 days of the clinics. Click here to read a blog I wrote about about Jo and Gygs waaayyyy back.
It also takes a horse’s co-operation. The sheer wonder that we experience when a horse starts to actively co-operate with his own healing, when he starts to feel for his own stuck spots and braces and actively works to get rid of them when being ridden – it’s extraordinary and hard to describe how big a deal this is and how absolutely wonderful it feels to be a part of this. It’s quite euphoric.
Who needs drugs to get high when you have this kind of euphoric high from doing good with a horse? Hmmm I feel another blog coming on…
For those who are not familiar, Steve has been riding my big Warmblood Oliver consistently this year – riding him to good health and fixing Oliver’s badly damaged back with that riding and I have been filming most of it – simple principles applied conscientiously. We’ll no doubt be using lots of that footage in the January “Ride your horse to wellness” clinic.
Later edit: This clinic is long over… You can see the results of Melanie’s clinic with Pye at this link
You can get some of the principles of the way we do this work, from those FREE LESSONS The 9 Keys to Happiness with Your Horse that you’ll find at the top of our Training Programs page. In those lessons we cover beginning to understand how you experience the connection with your horse, we talk about the horse’s fear and nerves in a way that gives some structure to the understanding, we talk about how both we and the horse can start getting confidence, we talk about motivation and real leadership (not the bullying kind). You will also be getting quite a bit of knowledge from my blogs, because I like to help people.
But even with all this lovely free work, you have still only experienced the tip of a wonderful iceberg of what is possible, so have a look at the Training Programs folks! 🙂
