Thoughts on this demo

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AWinter

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I've been finding some of the discussions on here around training videos recently to be interesting and valuable. After reading the Lucinda Green video thread this video came up on my feed this morning. This trainer has an extremely large following and from what I can see is generally well-respected as a behavioural expert.

I think its really important for horse welfare to be able to discuss things like this openly without being intimidated or shouted down by die-hard fans/followers of trainers with large platforms which is why I have posted this here.

My feelings from the video are that this horse is very clearly showing he is in pain, he looks very uncomfortable behind and I just can't sit with this "he's had all the checks therefore he can't possibly be in pain" when the horse is quite clearly shouting he is in pain. As I learn more and bring my learning from other animals over into horses I am more and more uncomfortable with what very much looks to me like hassling horses until they give in and become rideable rather than actually dealing with any underlying issues.

I found this video really uncomfortable to watch and I find it really disappointing with all of the evidence we have now around pain behaviour in horses that this is being put out there as good horsemanship, it feels very harmful to horses.

I'll be interested to hear other people's thoughts.
 
So here we have a horse who has some issues. We don't know what they are. The ulcers suggest there might be some pain as yet undiscovered. His saddle may not fit. He may have lost confidence in his usual rider. We don't know. But he clearly has issues and is telling the world about them. And the response of his owner to those issues is to travel him to a (?)strange place, put a strange rider on him, in front of an audience, and ... I don't know? Pray?

ETA sorry, I'm also feeling a bit jaundiced about the horse world atm!
 
I couldn’t ever imagine putting a tricky horse in a demo situation irrespective of who it is.
I’d want the horse in the yard of my chosen person and systematically go through the problem solving checklist. I can’t draw any conclusions from that video other than I wouldn’t have put him in that position (any other thoughts are dependent on knowing lots of other background stuff)
 
No comment on the training, but this is what I see on very first look at the video.
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Having owned a hypermobile horse, who showed a similar degree of tension and stress and who also had every vet check known to man, this is what jumps out to me with this lovey horse. I can’t unsee it now in other horses. I do appreciate angles are difficult when the video is taken from slightly above, and that I am scarred by my own experiences.
 

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AWinter said:
video here
. This trainer has an extremely large following and from what I can see is generally well-respected as a behavioural expert.
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This is the rub, isn't it. Being good at getting horses able to be ridden again (and sold) doesn't necessarily mean that's being done as a behaviourist or with a behavioural focus. It's not currently a protected title.
 
BBP2 said:
Having owned a hypermobile horse, who showed a similar degree of tension and stress and who also had every vet check known to man, this is what jumps out to me with this lovey horse. I can’t unsee it now in other horses. I do appreciate angles are difficult when the video is taken from slightly above, and that I am scarred by my own experiences.
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This is what I see first also, I had a 6yo euthanised with dsld. For a time, mine was able to be ridden through the spooking, napping, bucking and rearing by an experienced pro and the behavioural issues were blamed on my bad riding. Like this horse he wasn't doing anything extreme, just trying to communicate his discomfort.
 
BBP2 said:
No comment on the training, but this is what I see on very first look at the video.
View attachment 173354View attachment 173356View attachment 173357View attachment 173358

Having owned a hypermobile horse, who showed a similar degree of tension and stress and who also had every vet check known to man, this is what jumps out to me with this lovey horse. I can’t unsee it now in other horses. I do appreciate angles are difficult when the video is taken from slightly above, and that I am scarred by my own experiences.
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Oof. My first thought was hyprmobility (sorry, kyboard having issus so no lttr aftr 'd' ;) and warmbloods ar crtainly brd to b hyprmobil. It's why I'd nvr considr on. I am hyprmobil and hav had chronic pain for most of my lif, starting around 13-14yo. I was undr th car of a spcialist for it and wasn' diagnosd until my 40s.
 
I think what you see is the issue with a demo situation. As said above, when training horses at her yard, this trainer will search and search for vet issues that no one can find and is really good at differentiating between nervous/unsure horses, those with past trauma, those with current pain. How do you do that in a demo though? Because sometimes with something more hidden the only way you can tell is to see if things improve or not with appropriate riding.

She was told all the checks were done. She has to assume that is the case in the context of the demo.

In terms of wider context:
- Young horses often lose confidence or decide to make their own decisions. Mature established horses would not usually do that. So age of horse and their prior experience tells you a lot about whether anything is likely to be pain.
- A tense horse won’t necessarily track up (depending on conformation) because they’re tense and not going forward correctly.
 
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He has been treated for ulcers previously and had some xrays. No mention of suspensory's being scanned which would have been the first thing I would have done but then once you've seen one set of floppy fetlocks you do tend to see them more often.

I saw it in a 4yo when I was buying another horse, one of the hinds was so bad it was almost on the floor in trot. The horse bucked in the canter transition when it pushed off from that leg.
 
Interesting about the fetlock, you would have thought the vet would have spotted anything untoward. I think she's riding him quietly without drama when he throws stuff at her. The stretchy neck thing was weird.

I have seen a few videos of hers and she seems quick to get a vet out if she gets this kind of behaviour and she's unsure. But owner said this had all been checked out before with the demo horse 🤷‍♀️

She's another who gets sent very difficult horses and will sometimes tell owners the horse shouldn't be ridden.

Not sure it's deserving of a witch-hunt? I will caveat this that I have only known horses with this kind of behaviour to be in pain so who knows.
 
I think the trouble is that like there are some hypermobile people for whom it doesn't particularly adversely affect their athletic abilities (and in some cases improves it) avets likely see plenty of big moving mobile horses who are fine so I don't think its anything they particularly pick up or drill into at this point in time.

I have friends a lot bendier than me but I'm the one with the chronic pain problems.
 
That is true. I suspect I'm hyper mobile and it's never caused me any untoward health issues. Gymnastics and horse riding has contributed to those lol
 
The owner commented that he'd been going well until she had a fall, broke something, gave him a break then got nervous on him when they restarted. I've been there and had the kick up the backside that the "issues" were 90% me.

There could be something wrong with the horse but it could just as easily be a horse unhappy in its surroundings and needing managing through that - which i think the rider did pretty sensitively.
 
Thank you for sharing this and all the comments, I’ve definitely learnt something new! I didn’t notice the drop but now it’s so obvious. I am still unsure what I think of it all, I like this rider generally. I’ve no experience of horses with legs like this but would definitely be interested as to whether that’s what the issue is or as noted above the horse is just unsure. But that’s our challenges as horse riders! How much is pain or discomfort or is it incidental and something else is going on.
 
Fluffypiglet said:
Thank you for sharing this and all the comments, I’ve definitely learnt something new! I didn’t notice the drop but now it’s so obvious. I am still unsure what I think of it all, I like this rider generally. I’ve no experience of horses with legs like this but would definitely be interested as to whether that’s what the issue is or as noted above the horse is just unsure. But that’s our challenges as horse riders! How much is pain or discomfort or is it incidental and something else is going on.
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The thing with hypermobility in humans is that we generally have muscles to support all our joints, so you can reduce the strain on ligaments and tendons in that joint by strengthening the muscles that are responsible for flexion. So you might strengthen your bicep if your elbows are prone to hyperextension, and use that bicep to stabilise the joint.

Hypermobile horses have no muscle below the knee, so the suspensories are difficult to protect. If they have significant drop in trot, they have nowhere to go in canter or when jumping where 100% of their weight goes through a single limb during each stride. For my horse I don’t know if that cause him actual pain or just a feeling of instability that worried him. He showed it through being very hot and stressy, and would use speed to compensate if he could, or would boil over. Or he would refuse to go forwards. As he got older and I realised (thanks to a slow motion video posted on here where someone pointed it out - no vet in 10 years had mentioned it), he would resort to a western style jog or lope if asked to trot. My theory being he was trying to reduce the force through the limb by restricting his stride length. He was also hypermobile through other joints and showed damage to ligaments in his back when ultrasounded. Which is why I take little notice of people saying ‘my horse has no back pain because he has clean X-rays’ as his were perfect.

My young Connemara is extremely hypermobile in his neck, which apparently puts increased stress on the facet joints due to micro damage every time he goes beyond a normal range of movement. I think hypermobility can also affect proprioception, and make them feel less stable and safe in themselves.

Not diagnosing the horse in the video of course, but it’s definitely something I now think about when looking and horses showing stress and anxiety. There are studies in humans linking hypermobility to anxiety from a physiological perspective. I find it really interesting.
 
BBP2 said:
No comment on the training, but this is what I see on very first look at the video.
View attachment 173354View attachment 173356View attachment 173357View attachment 173358

Having owned a hypermobile horse, who showed a similar degree of tension and stress and who also had every vet check known to man, this is what jumps out to me with this lovey horse. I can’t unsee it now in other horses. I do appreciate angles are difficult when the video is taken from slightly above, and that I am scarred by my own experiences.
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I've just gone back and had a look and in walk he looks OK (I've seen a horse who was later PTS with DSLD and that was horribly obvious at lower speeds) but in trot there is definitely a level of flex that seems excessive.

My younger cob is hypermobile (vet diagnosis) and he has to be kept in work so his muscles stay strong. He is certainly more anxious if his muscle condition has dropped off which is interesting.
 
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