Doc's Introduction
Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8	Week 9
Doc's Decision

Horse Anatomy Reference

You'll need Windows Media Player to watch the video clips. Get it for Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox

Doc's Life or Death Decision
A Rehab with a deadline

Week 4, Monday
Once again, our good friend the bodywrap. I'm finding this such a good aid to help Doc start to carry himself a bit more correctly. Let's face it; a 20-year-old horse who has been in training for competition has probably experienced most of the standard gadgets employed to induce a horse into a "frame." To me that means he is already programmed with a compensatory posture/movement pattern to either avoid or work biomechanically incorrectly to appear to comply with the hardware.

Unfortunately for the horse, in my experience most training gadgets actually impede the engagement of the muscles needed for self-carriage and instead strengthen the opposing muscle groups. That puts the horse in a bad position (literally and figuratively!). If he complies with what the hardware actually requires of his body, he's doing the opposite the handler is asking for. To appear to comply, he has to figure out what body position will earn him respite from the impossible biomechanics. If he resists it, he probably buys himself more time wearing it until eventually his muscles reach fatigue and he just gives in. That can look like compliance, but functionally it's not near the same.

The last thing I want to do at this point in Doc's life is to invite him to revisit any of the posture and movement habits that lead to a braced topline, shortened strides, heaviness on the forehand. So, the bodywrap. No prior experience for most horses, so no associated habits. And because the bodywrap in no way restricts the horse, especially in the balance-critical movement of the head and neck, there's absolutely nothing against which to strain, brace or lean. All the bodywrap really does is to bring awareness to specific body parts so the horse can make a decision about how to engage those areas.

In the photos above, you can see the change in Doc's trot posture before and after he worked in the bodywrap for just 15 minutes or so. Though he's still braced and landing heavy on the front end, notice the softer and longer topline and the longer stride behind.

Week 4, WEDNESdaY
My intention today was to do some more work on the short line over the pole, but Doc had other plans. He started out trying to walk over the top of me while I was doing the warm-up ground exercise, asking him to release the throatlatch, bend and walk a few steps and then repeat on the other side. Instead of balancing back onto his hindquarter and stopping straight, he wanted to disengage his hindquarter on the "inside" relative to the bend and pop his hip away from me while falling on his inside shoulder, crowding me.

Clearly he needed to be reminded of the connection between back and front. So, we went back to a simple rock back and lighten the front end exercise, starting with the spine straight and then working on connecting back into both sides with just a very slight release at the throatlatch. He got a bit huffy on the right side, really wanting to escape having to maintain a connection on that side. So we went very gently ... release - rock back - rock forward - walk - halt - rock back - release - rock forward ... with the fence on the left side to keep him from wiggling out of alignment. Once he softened and concentrated, he moved just fine and was able to regain his manners in the S-turns exercise. In going over his body, I didn't find any obvious sore spots. But the behavior told me it probably wasn't a good idea to work quite as hard as I had planned.

Instead, we did transitions, transitions, transitions at liberty in the round pen, with me walking alongside to remind him to keep his barrel out and his nose in. Amazing how much better he moves both directions when he is actually tracking straight on the circle. Going right, he still has the strange spastic pop up of the left hind in a walk-to-trot transition when he's in his habitual posture -- nose out, shoulder dropped to the inside and hindquarter disengaged. When I nag him a bit to just pick up the inside shoulder, the left hind moves pretty normally and provides the stability for him to push off the right hind. Each transition seems to lead to a few more steps of balance and swing -- see this here in a close-up video of his hindquarter movement in a series of walk/trot transitions. He doesn't even pop that left hind up in every trot transition with this technique, though it still happens more often than I like. And even though the right hind seems not to want to track up in the upward transition, it has no problem doing so in the walk after the downward transition.

Week 4, ThURSday
More of the same -- transitions to invite balance. I start in hand, then go to the short line, then at liberty. Occasionally I need to return to the hands-on approach or hook the leadrope back on for a redirect. This is usually about Doc cranking his head to the outside of the circle, which throws him onto his inside shoulder and completely disengages his inside hind. Because helping him learn to push with that inside hind (and stabilize with the outside hind) is pretty much the point of the exercise, I need to stay vigilant and not let him practice his habitual posture too much. On the short line, a dressage-length whip extends my reach so that I can reinforce the release at the throatlatch and the shoulder and remind him to lift his back, stretch his topline and move with more lightness.

The other interesting habit that I have noted -- and this is related to lack of straightness and connection -- is Doc's tendency to get pacey at the walk. Instead of a clean, four-beat gait, his walk turns into a two beat shuffle with the right fore and hind working nearly together, and the left doing the same thing. When he does it in hand, I just turn my torso a few degrees to invite him to release his shoulder and ribcage and he balances back into a better rhythm. I also sometimes add a gentle suggestion of lateral step, my favorite tool for inducing straightness. When he's at liberty, you guessed it, I ask for a transition -- generally a halt (or a series of halts) corrects the rhythm. If doesn't, I go in closer and ask him to back a step or two before moving off into a new walk.