Is The Art of Horsemanship Lost? Strapping And The Old Days

 So if you have been keeping up, Charlie needs to gain some muscle.  Of course I turned to an expert, the wonderful Jade Monahan, who is an expert at Bodywork,  and who is coming back later this week to do some more Craniosacral work with Charlie.  I would never dream of trying to do any bodywork myself as it could cause more harm than good.  However I showed Jade my feeble carrot stretches and she said it was ok to carry on.  She also showed me a little back massage and front leg stretches that I could do without breaking the pony.  I naturally bought a book on massage and skipped through the bones of it, as a guide.  Somewhere in the back of my head I remembered Pony Club camp and massage pads.  They were leather pads that you banged the horse with.  Not entirely convinced that Charlie would enjoy being banged with a leather pad, I bought a spiky brush with some massage balls the other side. 

I have been doing all of the above daily, and while brushing him off I had a moment of clarity.  In our time short lives, we just do not groom properly!  Hands up who just brushes the parts the tack will touch?  I do believe we are all guilty. There are so many types of brushes available now, that just one tool will remove the mud and we have a quick flick over. 5 minutes later we are ready to ride, with not a speck of sweat on our brows. Of course, if like our ponies, who live out 24/7, the reason for a quick flick is that we do not want to remove the grease from the coats that will keep them warm in the cold wet winter.  

So I consulted the Bible of Horse Management 'The Manual of Horsemanship'.  My version was updated in 1983, but still mentions 'Strapping'.  Yup the art of grooming, which takes at least 45 minutes, and will require the groom to remove his/her coat to avoid over-heating.  'Strapping' is a basic horse massage which should be done after excersise with either a pad, stable rubber or wisp. The Wisp is made of hay, and should be dampened and used 'vigorously by bringing it down in a bang in the direction of the lay of the coat' paying special attention to hard flat muscles such as the sides of the neck, quarters and thighs.

So now my mind was in a whirl........Back in the old days, horses worked for a living.  They were given Sunday afternoons off, to play in a field.  This avoided the dreaded Azoturia in horses. Also called 'The Monday Morning Disease' or 'Tying Up'. This is where the horse has painful muscle cramps, when rested in a stable after strenuous excercise, while given the same feed as normal.  But this didn't happen in the old days, because the horses were turned out and not fed the usual ration of Oats, but maybe a Bran Mash.

And that led me down a rabbit hole of feeding.  Horses in the old days had oats to give them slow releasing energy. So they could work all day pulling coal wagons etc!  Now people tend to feed Mixes complete with all the vitamins etc, supposedly needed. Most of them are full of sugar, which gives an energy spike.....and you wonder why your stabled horse, on 2 feeds a day, doing an hour work a day is nuts?

All this thinking has not only hurt my brain, but has brought me to the conclusion that 'convenience' for the time short leisure rider has resulted in a severe lack of Horsemanship and knowledge from the old days. After all, most people 200 years ago only had one horse. It worked for them, and was their transport and livelihood and therefore had to be looked after properly. 

I am 56, and still remember when there was only one turnout rug.  A heavy canvas New Zealand which slipped to the side.  A stable rug was made of Jute and fastened with a surcingle.  If it was cold a woolen blanket was secured underneath.  If the horse was sweaty, we had string vests which could be thatched with straw. Feed was chaff, oats and sugar beet pulp, with a Bran Mash once a week, or freshly boiled linseed.  I fear old knowledge is now being lost.

What do you all think??

Natural Herd Living

I know I bang on about the benefits of keeping horses as naturally as possible....but here I go again. Today I have read 2 articles on Faceache, which are both scientific and common sense. Neither article was related....but actually they are.  They both reinforced my belief in keeping horses in a natural state as possible.

The 1st post was about rugging.  Now if you compete all winter as I have done in the past, you need to clip your horse to prevent it getting too hot. If you clip, you need to rug.  Thats fine. But however, if you are just a happy hacker, as i am now, its fine to leave the horse naked.  After all they are naked in the wild. 
The post went into all sorts of scientific biochemistry, of which I have no hope of explaining here.  But basically......The horse is an animal. They are designed to live outdoors. We tend to humanise animals. But bear in mind....We have thin skin that feels the cold. Horses have thick skin.  Horses also have FUR.  The fur has muscles, which can stand up and change direction, which increases the thickness.  Horses are designed to withstand all kinds of weather.  They survived the Ice-Age.  In Winter in the Wild, they do not seek shelter, they do not hibernate, or live in caves.  The fur gets greasy, which makes them waterproof.  Rain runs off the fur, leaving the undercoat dry. Horses have a very efficient internal heating system, generated by eating.  SO if you are a happy hacker in the Winter, your horse does not need a rug, or hard feed.....Just plentiful forage (hay).  And please dont groom him, as you will remove the grease.  A quick removal of mud around the areas that tack will go on, is enough.

The 2nd Post was about sleep! Not something I have ever thought about before. Humans sleep in one block.  We all know horses sleep in short phases and can sleep standing up....due to being prey animals, and the need to leg it at short notice.
What I didn't know, or think about before was the type of sleep horses need. Like us, they have different stages of sleep.  The sleep they have, while standing up, or lying on there chests, is light sleep.  Like humans, to have a really refreshing sleep, they need to go into REM, where humans dream. This is a deep sleep, muscles are paralysed, and the brain processes its day.  No doubt the horse also dreams....We have all seen dreaming dogs?

For a horse to do this, it has to lay flat out, all the muscles relaxed and paralysed. This is a big deal for a horse!!! It has to feel completely at ease and safe. No mean feat for an animal that may get eaten any minute!  It has to trust its herd mates to watch for danger!  So what happens when a horse is stabled??  First up it has no herd to watch for predators. Secondly, the stable may be too small for it to lay flat out. So the horse that is in its lovely warm stable sleeping all night, is probably too wary to actually sleep properly....Something to think on.

As you all know by now, our ponies live out 24/7 in 2 herds.  We do have guest ponies, but the main bulk of the Herd is settled.  Charlie is the Stallion (so he thinks).  Lu is the Dominant Mare, and the rest are mares. The only reason there is a line of electric fencing between the smaller and bigger ponies is that Charlie was cut late, and stills behaves like a Stallion. They can still touch, interact and hang out together, and therefore feel safe enough to lie flat out.

We have often caught the whole herd, flat out asleep. A herd will normally leave one horse on guard (like a Meercat), but a relaxed safe herd like ours just dont bother!!  This is a natural way of living, making a happier horse, and a less stressed owner.

Why make life difficult?? Our daily routine is laid back.  The horses are already out, so dont stress if we are 5 minutes late to turn out. We dont have to muck out stables (saving on time, and money on bedding).  We dont have to change rugs (more time and money saved). No grooming (more time saved....we only groom lightly when riding). No hard feed.... Who wants to spend all that money on mixes?  In the Winter we spend our money on hay.  Each day we deliver more than enough hay to the fields.  They always have some left over.  Hay equals roughage, equals generating warmth. If a particular horse is on rehab, we may feed it, but with chopped oat straw, mixed with whatever herbs it might need. And so we check and refill the waters, poo pick the fields every day, which saves on worming.....And thats it. 

Keeping horses naturally is cheap, its quick, and the horses are happy because they are living as close as possible to how they are supposed to live.  The 3 F's. Freedom, Friends, and Forage.  Lecture over...Think on it.