Brain picking time please! Aiding and improving the canter

DabDab said:
That's like comparing chalk and cheese though?? And PSSM is a physical issue - its muscles that hurt, not just weak and unbalanced. It's just that exercise provides considerable physical therapy if you find the right way to condition them.

And then of course you lay on top of that the psychological impact of having muscles that tense strangely and hurt their entire lives, long before a human got on their back and tried to get them to use themselves properly. But then again, imagine the feel good factor a horse like that gets from discovering they are able to do something, and from starting to feel strong and powerful. My horse used to canter like that, but these days he bounces out to the school every morning and genuinely loves his work (more than most horses I've trained), and he's taught me a huge amount about nuances of horse psychology and physiology when it comes to training them.

T's age may be against her, but I have the living breathing proof in my barn that that physical condition is not the end of the world in itself.
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I agree wuith you and Thats the point i was trying to make but I must have made it badly! . The OP was wondering about the horse being weak behind and needing correct work, and I was trying to say that that a unbalanced, weak behind horse doesn't canter like the one in her video (ie showing pain). I think the OP sounds like a very caring owner who has tried everything with the horse, and if that is the result then is it fair to keep pushing the horse?
 
paddi22 said:
I agree wuith you and Thats the point i was trying to make but I must have made it badly! . The OP was wondering about the horse being weak behind and needing correct work, and I was trying to say that that a unbalanced, weak behind horse doesn't canter like the one in her video (ie showing pain). I think the OP sounds like a very caring owner who has tried everything with the horse, and if that is the result then is it fair to keep pushing the horse?
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I don't think so (unless I misread), OP just said that the canter is pants and as far as she can tell it's muscular.
I don't know about persevering or not. I know I have been 'trying everything' in the past and not improving the situation at all. But then when I just turned him away he got worse and more anxious and miserable, so I kept coming back trying to find another way to skin the cat, and eventually found the right way forwards for him. I did have the luxury of being able to just hack him for months at a time though, which it sounds like the OP doesn't have. It's a tricky one.
 
Thanks again everyone for your input.

I’ve just sent a very long whingy email to my physio to see if she has any suggestions. I noticed that on here website she has a G5 massage machine, which is something which really helped Tartine soon after her diagnosis, so I’ve asked if that is something she can offer on site, or if T would need to go to her rehab yard.

When it comes to work, the more she does the happier she is, unfortunately I’m still not 100% after damaging my knee in May, (although I’m planning on (trying to) get back on board this week), so things have been a little inconsistent since then.

As much as I would love to get out hacking more, I have pretty severe issues, and since my friends horse was completely retired I’ve lost the only person I’d be happy to hack with :(

If she was happy to canter on the lunge, I would do most of her canter work like that, except she need and exceptional amount of encouragement to canter on the lunge and will only ever do one or two circles before falling back to trot; but that is hardly surprising as she finds it very difficult to canter less than a 20m circle.
 
Instead of the Physio why not try a phone call to the Vet.
I’m not sure you’ve taken on board anything anyone has said to be honest. I’m out.
 
Casey76 said:
Thanks again everyone for your input.

I’ve just sent a very long whingy email to my physio to see if she has any suggestions. I noticed that on here website she has a G5 massage machine, which is something which really helped Tartine soon after her diagnosis, so I’ve asked if that is something she can offer on site, or if T would need to go to her rehab yard.

When it comes to work, the more she does the happier she is, unfortunately I’m still not 100% after damaging my knee in May, (although I’m planning on (trying to) get back on board this week), so things have been a little inconsistent since then.

As much as I would love to get out hacking more, I have pretty severe issues, and since my friends horse was completely retired I’ve lost the only person I’d be happy to hack with :(

If she was happy to canter on the lunge, I would do most of her canter work like that, except she need and exceptional amount of encouragement to canter on the lunge and will only ever do one or two circles before falling back to trot; but that is hardly surprising as she finds it very difficult to canter less than a 20m circle.
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I am sorry, but to me she does not fit to ride at the moment, much less increase her work.

I would call the vet, transport to vet hospital for full workup.




ETA - if the vet exam was inconclusive I would turn away. I understand she has other muscular issues, and sometimes that can be the downfall of a horse, if one condition requires work and the other rest. Sometimes there is no 'win.'

If the vet said to, I *could consider a straight line hacking regime, but TBH she looked uncomfortable in that huge arena, so I am unsure that this would help.

I do sincerely hope the vet can help you, she is soon moving beautifully, freely and pain free, and I am proved wrong. I am, after all, just looking at a video.
 
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The last thing I would recommend is cantering her on the lunge. Can you not pay someone to hack her for you instead of schooling her?
 
If the PSSM is the main issue then should more focus go on that. I have one with a muscle issue and I find the back on track rugs great for keeping muscles warmer. And if she needs consistent work maybe pay someone to hack her like JFTD said? The horse looks like it needs a complete overhaul of its management and feeding/riding. Theres no point talking about half passes/lateral work if the horse can't even trot forward freely or hold a canter. I'd be tempted to go back to square one and readjust total management if you were going to keep it in work.
 
This is not much of a solution for you but if Tartine is unable to do the school work you want and if you are unable to hack her is it possible to enjoy her as a pet? Would the girls currently riding her and enjoying hacking her be willing to continue with this long term? You could maybe get another horse to ride.
 
Ok. I would agree in getting the physio out first. Lameness workups on a PSSM horse are a challenge if their muscles are tight - talking from experience. If muscles are not right or T's action doesn't improve post physio then vet needed.

Is she off grass? Mine can stiffen within 24 hours and feel lame after access to just a small amount of grass.

I do agree with other posters that your instructor isn't doing her any favours riding her like she is. I would suspect she's making T sore too. Personally I think you need to tackle your hacking fears to help get her sound. Can you get someone to help you?
 
Actually, no, it is impossible to find someone to hack her. I’ve been looking to find someone to hack Blitz for more than a year, without success.

I’m very much in a “jumping” area, and if that is out of the picture, then people just aren’t interested.

I’m not being obtuse; the mindset on the continent is completely different to the UK. insurance dosn’t cover diagnostics, for those people who are insured, so scintigraphy/MRI is very difficult to conduct. I don’t even know where the nearest horse MRI is (through the nearest small animal MRI is over an hour drive). Most vets rely on Ultrasound and flexion tests to diagnose any kind of leg ailments, and if it’s higher than lower leg, then treatment comes in the form of physio or osteopathy.

Turning her away isn’t on the cards,as I don’t know a single yard which offers 24/7 turnout all year round. Most yards stop all turnout between Oct and April, which would be catastrophic for her.

In general she is a very happy pony (who doesn’t like the cold); she has no issues with walk and trot work, even I our overly deep school.

I can hack her out, even though I have PTSD when it comes to hacking (which is why I hack only very occasionally), though I wouldn’t say it’s something I enjoy with her.

Her problems aren’t any better or worse than when she had her initial vet work up for “performance not as expected” to which the vet said “work within her level of comfort” which is what I do,however what I’ve been looking towards is improving her comfort, and generally the more work she does the better she is, and the more fast work she does the fitter she gets.
 
I am going to start this post by saying I am in no way as experienced or qualified to reply as most other people on here sound, so this is purely my experiences as the owner of a horse with a muscle issue and poor canter.

BBP has had a poor canter all his life, and unlike possibly Tartine, he is built in a way that this shouldn't really be the case. He is a little long in the back but being 3/4 PRE and 1/4 welsh B, he doesn't even have the excuse of being a drafty type to content with. I have always felt there is a reason for the weak canter but so hard to figure out what, and it turns out to be a combination of things.

Firstly, he does have RER. Its a different muscle myopathy to PSSM in that it is not a glycogen storage issue but a calcium regulation issue, but never the less, some of the management remains the same, low sugar and starch, plenty of fibre. No getting cold as he gets wild and then gets tight, so I rug more than the connemaras get (but no over rugging) and try to warm up the back with whatever back on track products I have. Really long warm ups before asking anything of him schooling. Some days he shuffles along in a western jog for ages and people will tell me to push him forwards, but I know my horse and give him the time to get comfortable in his own muscles before starting work. So I may do 30mins of ugly looking warm up, then 10 mins of fabulous looking work, and then cool down. But I don't deny him this time, even if I don't have a lot of time myself. I hack as much as I can, but he is not the best hack alone, so don't always do as much as I would like (just in process of buying a field with excellent hacking from the doorstep which will be safer for me to do alone, so yay!)

He did develop a sacroiliac injury. His movement behind when he had it was very different to your mares, so not sure how relevant this is, but this was a big issue to resolve.

Once SI was successfully treated I still had no canter. I scoped for ulcers and found he had small pyloric ulcers. Treated these.

Once SI and ulcers treated I still had a crap canter. Figured it must be my rubbish riding but not sure how to fix it.

Then I decided to try a new saddle (despite old one being fitted by the guy who fits British Olympic Team saddles). All of a sudden the back started to lift, the trot got bigger and the canter started to come.

But it still wasn't great. So must be my riding. Started going to a local dressage instructor who was willing to accept that i ride bitless. A few things came out from that. One was that i was constantly trying (in walk, trot and canter) to rush him out of his stride. I thought that a nice contact came frobeing really forward and energetic, but she told me i wasn't giving him time to really lift and place his feet, he was rushing them through and dragging them through the dust to get them to a place quickly enough to take the next stride. It looked fancy but wasn't helping with the suppleness, flexibility and mobility of the joints. So she worked on my taking a breath and slowing everything right down, giving him time to lift and place his feet. This is something I notice in your videos, there is a lot of bustle but like she is hurrying out of her stride and needs to breathe and think about where she puts her feet. Because of this, and the SI injury, he easily gets incredibly tight through his glutes and hamstrings, so for him bringing the leg through and under and extending the joints to stretch the hamstrings is quite uncomfortable, he would rather swing his hind leg out and then under than have to engage his bum and stretch the hamstrings by bringing his hingleg truly under himself. (as the owner of very tight hamstrings myself I know how he might feel when someone tries to make you stretch them). So we started doing work to increase his flexibility through his glutes, hamstrings and over his hips (including massage and manualk stretches of the appropriate muscle groups).

The final piece of the puzzle was then realising the impact that me as a rider was having. I mirror my horse in that I have a very tight lumbo-sacral area following an injury, very tight hip flexors and hamstrings that are constantly at war with each other over which way they are going to pull my pelvis, and very tight adductors. So I was unable to sit on my bum with a soft lower leg and an open hip, and was inadvertently blocking with my inside hip/thigh/knee in the canter. I had never ever noticed this, but when instructor made me realkise, and I opened it up, the difference in his canter was astounding. Now I had to force myself to open it up, and couldn't maintain it, so i realised that I needed Osteo as much as the horse did. I am now working with an osteopath on both me and the horse, and back in April, right before the horses 13th birthday, we finally had a really good canter! He was able to canter bending poles, collect the canter, counter canter a figure 8, all sorts of things that were out of reach before! (then he went and broke his splint so we are now starting over!)

So that is a lot of ramble to say that i feel your pain, and that to hopefully give you hope that things can be improved but you have to tackle everything to finally get the big picture!
 
OP that sounds like a really difficult situation. I sympathise - you can only work with the facilities and professionals you have available, and that's clearly a big sticking point for you, in your part of the world.

I really like the bit in BBP's post about not rushing the horse - it's so easy to do, but it's really important to slow things down and let them place / posiiton themselves correctly in their paces. I also had a trainer who was dogmatic about that (in a good way!).

I also really agree with the bit about allowing the horse to work themselves out - the warm up may be ugly, longer than is ideal or whatever, but giving horses the freedom to move as they need to while loosening up, and not focussing on how they look, or if they're fitting into the dressage horse aesthetic and ideal, can help them to work better and more comfortably in the longer term.

Part of that comes back to DabDab's post about trial and error and finding what works for your horse, even if that's not textbook. That's easier to do for yourself, I think - most professionals work in their system, and won't be so keen to play around and see what happens!
 
BBP they may be different muscular issues but my PSSM mare is spookily similar to what you describe. When she's ridden by a 'proper' rider (instead of the slouching mess who owns her) they like to pick her up and drive her into a contact. Completely knackers her hamstrings to the point where she kicks out even lifting her legs for a hoof pick.

We can sometimes spend 30 mins doing the PSSM trot shuffle before she loosens up. Sometimes she doesn't loosen up and I have had to learn to live with it. Sounds like I could do with kicking myself up the backside to do my stretches too tho!!

We did get to a stage last year where she started carrying herself naturally in an outline about 45 mins in to our pole work classes. It was extremely hard work for her though and I'm not sure mentally or physically it's what she needs to be doing. Casey - when your vet said work within T's comfort zone I think they had a point.
 
Love the post BBP, love that when it is not right you don't just plough on, but look at how you can improve the horse's lot in a systematic way, seeking a holistic approach. I agree with another poster, your horse is lucky to have you.


I also agree with not rushing the horse, if the horse is tense and/or uncomfortable then adding energy to that won't help.
 
SEL said:
BBP they may be different muscular issues but my PSSM mare is spookily similar to what you describe. When she's ridden by a 'proper' rider (instead of the slouching mess who owns her) they like to pick her up and drive her into a contact. Completely knackers her hamstrings to the point where she kicks out even lifting her legs for a hoof pick.

We can sometimes spend 30 mins doing the PSSM trot shuffle before she loosens up. Sometimes she doesn't loosen up and I have had to learn to live with it. Sounds like I could do with kicking myself up the backside to do my stretches too tho!!

We did get to a stage last year where she started carrying herself naturally in an outline about 45 mins in to our pole work classes. It was extremely hard work for her though and I'm not sure mentally or physically it's what she needs to be doing. Casey - when your vet said work within T's comfort zone I think they had a point.
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Yes the right hamstrings was a constant bother for mine too.. I had forgotten about it tbh but just flicked through my old physio reports and its on every one for almost 2.5 years. Not there for the last 2.5 years though thankfully. He used to have a lot of poll and face tension going on then too
 
Reply keeps deleting, blummin phone...

The other thing I was trying to add was about workload - I didn't find that upping the workload actually helped a great deal. It was a shorter but better quality of work that really helped him out, and actually I find that I have to be quite careful not to every tire the muscles out too much. I generally do either an hour hack (mainly trot these days but was just walk initially), or 40 mins schooling, sometimes less.
 
Red-1 said:
Love the post BBP, love that when it is not right you don't just plough on, but look at how you can improve the horse's lot in a systematic way, seeking a holistic approach. I agree with another poster, your horse is lucky to have you.


I also agree with not rushing the horse, if the horse is tense and/or uncomfortable then adding energy to that won't help.
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Aw thanks guys. I don’t normally feel qualified to answer training questions as I’m just a one horse person with very little contact with the real horsey scene nowadays. But I guess that means I am under very little pressures from outsiders to do things a certain way so I can spend as much time as I like trying to make him happy, supple and feeling as good as possible.
 
Honestly - hack her,

Fight your demons if you cant do it for you, do it for her!

limit schooling to 20 min a couple times a week, no canter. hack three times a week, build it up until you are doing an hour walk and trot and canter not plodding along decent work - canter in a light seat light contact allow her to go forward.


Then go back to cantering in the school - you will be amazed at how much stronger she feels - dont expect it to be perfect this is a starting point.

Fitness is so misunderstood, IMO you must hack to get fitness it is impossible to achieve in the school. I find horses built like T need to be that much fitter than something naturally balanced
 
mini-eventer said:
Honestly - hack her,

Fight your demons if you cant do it for you, do it for her!

limit schooling to 20 min a couple times a week, no canter. hack three times a week, build it up until you are doing an hour walk and trot and canter not plodding along decent work - canter in a light seat light contact allow her to go forward.


Then go back to cantering in the school - you will be amazed at how much stronger she feels - dont expect it to be perfect this is a starting point.

Fitness is so misunderstood, IMO you must hack to get fitness it is impossible to achieve in the school. I find horses built like T need to be that much fitter than something naturally balanced
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Or perhaps if op wants to avoid roads she could enquire about hiring a gallops in the area. Around here you can hire them by the hour, I haven't a clue about France
 
Yes that could be useful but I would suggest that a variety of surfaces might be useful. I am sure that there are soundness concerns with only working on a surface
 
the rider is riding a horse with a canter problem as if it is an advanced dressage horse , she also has a heavy looking driving seat, blocking the horse in the sacroiliac region, the outline is too advanced for the way the horse is cantering.
 
tristar said:
the rider is riding a horse with a canter problem as if it is an advanced dressage horse , she also has a heavy looking driving seat, blocking the horse in the sacroiliac region, the outline is too advanced for the way the horse is cantering.
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Totally agree, I found the riding in that video very hard to watch. It loks like theworst kind of riding instructor, - one that has no understanding of the horse under her or what it needs, but i'm sure can talk a good game. I'd say the instructor is actually making the horse sorer. I was surprised with all the talk of dressage moves and then to see a video when the horse is unable to do a basic trot comfortably.
 
paddi22 said:
I was surprised with all the talk of dressage moves and then to see a video when the horse is unable to do a basic trot comfortably.
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It's been said before, but the horse is a square peg in a round hole. The OP wants to ride school figures and exercises in an arena. The horse is unlikely to be able to ever do this comfortably.

It's all rather sad and depressing.
 
Tiddlypom said:
It's been said before, but the horse is a square peg in a round hole. The OP wants to ride school figures and exercises in an arena. The horse is unlikely to be able to ever do this comfortably.

It's all rather sad and depressing.
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It is sad. Poor pony.
 
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