April 18th 2010

Staring coats and dull eyes all start to shine!

The Irish mare, as I suspected, is proving to be rather quirky. We have done some lead work with her over patterns of poles and I have also introduced her to the clicker. This is another valuable tool and she has responded well. The chestnut TB is AMAZING. His owner came to visit him today and could not believe that the roach back has almost gone and that he is now able to work with his tail free. He is also better balanced through his whole body and he no longer looks as though he is about to sit down. Bob the show jumper has softened through the neck and can now bend to the right. He is enjoying all the body work and his bottom and pelvis are straight!

I showed the group how to help a horse to learn to shift his centre of gravity back, by placing one hand on the sternum and using a slow ‘ask hold and release’ technique to help open the withers and raise the back. It’s a really neat exercise and has worked very well on several of the horses that either have muscle wastage or are locked in the back. It never ceases to amaze me how such small, subtle movements bring about such huge changes to the posture of the horse.

As the clinic progresses the horses that had arrived with slightly staring coats and dull eyes are starting to shine all over. Their eyes are becoming brighter too and I am also stunned at the skill level of everyone on the course. I kind of threw the newcomers in at the deep end by starting with such detailed observations but everyone has impressed me with their understanding and their ability to work with these wonderful horses. I don’t want the clinic to end.

This entry was posted on 28. April 2010 at 16:09 and is filed under Sarah Fisher. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.