Panelists were Adrienne Lyle (Dressage), Katherine Bateson (Dressage), Bobbie Rebar (H/J), Erynn Ballard (Jumpers), Alexa Pessoa (Jumpers)
The panelists all agreed that cross training is important for the horses: Working on different surfaces, taking the dressage horses out of the arenas, doing cavaletti work, hacks, and OTOH working the jumpers on the flat. It was stressed the "Injuries come from fatigue", repetitive movements often lead to stress injuries in horses as well as in humans.
On the importance of footing the opinions differed a bit: While the dressage riders look for perfect footing and rather scratch that risk a potential injury the jumpers said they were a bit less picky and just make sure that they give the horses the appropriate aftercare, i.e. icing of legs. Interestingly for me the jumpers stated that the likelihood of injury is higher in the jumper warm up rings as the jumps are always in the same spot and those with the usage the horses could come closer to the base of the footing. It was also interesting to learn that the good old grass footing actually had lots of benefits if ridden on with correct shoes/studs.
Regarding the feeding again there were different opinions, based on the particular sport requirements. Dressage and Hunt horses get lots of hay throughout the day fed out of haynets and a feed with managed protein levels. The high jumpers feed less hay and high octane feed. The life of a competition horse is stressful, and the majority has gastric ulcers. All the panelists highly recommend Gastroguard, most give it on a daily (!) basis. Gastroguard prevents and treats gastric ulcers in horses. It is quite expensive, about $45 per syringe.
Regarding the rider's mental fitness programs the responses covered a wide span: From "Never done anything" (Dressage), to listening to Meditation app (Jumper), to Hypnosis "it changed my world" (Dressage), to "I am riding 16 horses a day, and the more I have the better I deal with anxiety"(Jumper).
On dealing with their student's nerves the agreement was that as a trainer one has to be very positive, especially before the student goes into the ring. It is also important to figure out of the fear is physical or mental. "Physical fear is much harder to deal with than mental fear".
Often the horses are more stressed in the warm up ring (couldn't agree more!), and studies showed that the heart rate of horses (and riders) is often higher in the warm up than in the competition arena (again, so true in Remy's and my case). All the panelists agreed that the homework should have been done at home, at the show it truly has to be a warm up and not a schooling session. "Keep it as stress free as possible", "Less it more!".
It really was another lovely event in a beautiful setting at the White Horse Tavern, I met very interesting people, and the food was lovely. It was sponsored by BI (they even tried to teach the pronunciation to the attendees = Boehringer Ingelheim). Kudos to the young staff veterinarian who gave a funny performance regarding the name.
In the end, no earthshattering news, no secrets revealed (Not that I had expected that). It's just good common sense: There are a number of individual approaches out there, just pick the one that is the best fit for you and your horses physical and mental wellbeing.
No comments:
Post a Comment