“With Age Comes Wisdom” – Email 7

Hi ,

It's Abi here.

It's crazy to think about how long Intelligent Horsemanship has been going… In fact, it's older than me! Well, we're roughly the same age.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make anyone feel old! But it is fair to say that wisdom is something that develops over time and well… Intelligent Horsemanship, and certainly many of our long-time supporters, are full of well-earned wisdom.

One of the hardest things I find when we are looking at new research for you guys is making conclusions. And this is simply because, until something has been tried and tested for many years, until a good research base develops, I can never declare that anything is 'certain'.

However… Intelligent Horsemanship training is a bit like this now! Tried and tested, with thousands of horses, thousands of horse owners, hundreds of IH students and trainers. It's definitely safe to say, it works!

Now, what I can't do is share 25+ years of knowledge and wisdom with you in one email. What I can do is show you a snippit of the knowledge IH has collected over this time… so keep scrolling for 'A Decade of Learning', a 'Path to Better Balance', and the opportunity to get your questions answered by the woman behind it all (Kelly Marks of course) in a 'rare' Q&A!

Intrigued? Then keep reading to find out more…

— Abi Pass MSc RAMP & The Intelligent Horsemanship Team

A "Decade of Learning" – My Top 5 Groundwork Exercises From The Past 10 Years

Over the years, Intelligent Horsemanship has shared a wealth of educational articles on training horses (and humans) through this magazine with its members, including myself. From learning to lead to perfecting a gallop, there isn't much that hasn't been covered! In fact, there is so much valuable content that it would take hours to read through all the amazing training articles… which got me thinking – why not spend some time doing exactly that?

After diving through the magazine archives, I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite articles, topics, exercises, and tips from the last 10 years, looking at them from a veterinary physiotherapy perspective. I hope to refresh your memory and/or help you discover some brilliant activities and skills to master this summer.

Some of you may have already read it in the Spring/Summer magazine! My "Decade of Learning" article, and I'm thrilled to announce I've turned it into one of our IH Educational Guides! This means it’s comes with all the original referenced articles attached, so its incredibly easy for you to work through.

In this full guide, I delve into five key groundwork exercises that I believe are essential for every horse and handler:

1. The Art of Leading
2. The Beauty of Backing Up
3. Obstacles and Opportunity
4. The Path to Better Balance
5. A Love for Long Lining

You can find this complete Ultimate Guide in the members area or see a sneak peak below…

#4 The Path To Better Balance

I may have written about this before, but I will mention it again – proprioception. Proprioception is your horse's inherent ability to sense their body's position and movement in their environment without relying on vision. It helps them adjust their movements, maintain balance, and avoid injuries. Some horses lack this skill. The good news is that proprioception can be trained.

Here are the types of horses that can benefit significantly from proprioceptive exercises:

• Young horses still developing coordination and balance.
• Horses with limited turnout or hacking experience.
• Horses that frequently trip or stumble.
• Horses that make you feel unsure when navigating uneven or challenging terrain.
• Horses recovering from injuries or with chronic conditions like arthritis.

There is a lot of detail on proprioception, what it is, how it works, and how and why we need to train it in my winter 2023 IH article ‘Proprioception: The Importance Of Training Balance & Coordination’ (pp26 – 29). If you are interested, I highly recommend a read. Here are a few activities you can try to help test and train proprioception with your horse.

Different Surfaces & Terrains

Perhaps the most basic form of proprioceptive training you can do with your horse is taking them over different surfaces, from deep mud and stony ground to arenas with sand and rubber surfaces. All these surfaces offer different characteristics in terms of firmness, stability, grip and so on…

This can be done in-hand from a young age (2-3 years) and could be incorporated into a horse’s turnout routine at any age. It’s also important to remember that young horses just being started may never have experienced anything like an arena surface. This in itself may be challenging enough for them, let alone with the addition of the weight of a rider. Young or inexperienced horses may find certain surfaces more challenging, so take it slowly and let them build their confidence over time.

Scattered Poles

Scattered poles are excellent for proprioceptive training and visuomotor control (coordination between vision and movement).

1. Set up several poles in random order.
2. Challenge your horse to navigate them at a walk, first in hand, then ridden if you’re confident.
3. Allow the horse a loose rein/line for head control, essential for balance.
4. Start simple and gradually make the exercise more complicated.

REMEMBER! Test all poles first to make sure they are safe and not going to roll or fall easily.

It might even be your chance to gain a sneak bit of IH Horse Psychology Course insight, because the course kicks back off again in October (hint, hint: places are available to purchase online already! So don't miss out!).

So, what's bugging you? What burning questions do you have for Kelly? Send them over to office@ihhq.net – no question is too big or too small!

You can join this live event for just £10! OR…. it's totally FREE to IH Members, so make sure you have an active membership 🙂