Enrichment Playlist — yasminequinetraining

I used to be of the mindset that everything could be fixed with the right sort of training - and what I mean by that is training which fosters the idea that a horse should be in a specific sort of frame for them to be moving in healthy biomechanics.

Moving in the correct frame was synonymous with happiness. If your horse was in the correct frame, they were healthy and happy, and everything was just fine.

Within that, I would suggest that there was a fair amount of micromanaging occurring - a lot of "correction", albeit light - not big kicks and rein jabs - just gentle persistence.

"Could you please put your ribcage over here? No, not like that, like this. Yes! That's it! Okay, now lets move a bit more over there. Not like that. No, no not like that either. Yes okay, we're a bit more how I want you to be..."

Very little flow. Definitely no autonomy. Possibly a bit degrading for the horse?

Many of us are out here chasing ideals of the perfect body, and the perfect movement, and the only way to do this is with schooling - as detailed in literature that's hundreds of years old, based on horses who were being trained for very different purposes back then, compared to today. At a time when we weren't asking questions about sentience and consent because these horses were going to war. They had a job to do - whether you agree with the premise of that or not.

I've come to the conclusion now that balance, and as such, health, is a variation between extremes and I don’t think it should be micromanaged.

I also don't think it takes years of study to create a basic healthy posture for the average horse to go out hacking or do some light schooling - which is from my experience what a lot of people want to do.

I think it's this exact narrative that it takes years of study is very disempowering to a lot of people. And I also think the repetition of movements and shapes in a confined space on the same surface with very little autonomy and creative expression is the antithesis of training for soundness.

To me, training for soundness to me is literally can the horse oscillate around neutral - in front of the vertical, neutral spine-ish, depending on the locomotor need.

To me, training for soundness includes variation in your horse's "work" which biases towards horse-centred activities which support your horse's behavioural needs:

Enrichment activities which target the sensory system
The ability to practice problem solving skills
Exercises which promote agency

And what I find to be absolutely wild is that, by setting up activities that promote more of the above, many postural niggles and just fall away? And the horse has a really nice time doing it.

I first learned about enrichment in this way through reading Scentwork for Horses by Rachael Draaisma. Treat scatters barely scratch the surface of Scentwork - so if you would like to learn even more, I highly recommend this book!

IN THIS LESSON

Develop Your Horse’s Proprioception With Treat Scatters

I appreciate that this is an incredibly simple alteration to a treat scatter - almost an “it’s so easy, what’s the point?” but let me assure you, you can gain quite a lot of information about your horse’s preferences, develop your observation skills and also gain great insight into how your horse chooses to manoeuvre their body.

One of my favourite things is seeing how your horse changes how they navigate over the poles without the momentum of a walk, trot or canter and this can give you great insight into their movement challenges.

As with anything to do with enrichment, you have unconditional permission to explore - don’t be uniform with the obstacles like I have! Scatter the food in undulating curves, around the poles and over them. Use this exercise to learn about your horse and let your horse learn about themselves.

With this in mind, whenever you set up a treat scatter, be sure to change it up every time. Whether that is where you place your cones (or whatever you choose to use as a visual marker!) or where you scatter the food.

All I ask is that you never leverage a situation where you are forcing your horse over an obstacle or into a scary environment as the only option to get something edible!

IN THIS LESSON

Mirroring Your Horse

In a traditional training setting, we are responsible for creating a horse’s movement. We are expected to create the rhythm and the tempo. We try bring the energy up if we think it’s too low, or bring it down if we think it’s too elevated.

Mirroring your horse’s movement is a common exercise in basic horsemanship training - the idea being that at first you synchronise with their movement by matching steps with them, and then over time you can manipulate their movement by altering your steps for them to follow you.

In this situation, it is very rare to be working with a horse that is intrinsically motivated to move their body - usually they are responding directly to us, we are trying to manipulate the energy that they are creating for us, and as always, we are trying to make the movement “better” - whatever that means!

But as above, we are never really synchronising with the horse’s honest movement because it is so rare that we give them autonomy to move how they want to move, in the direction they want to move in. And so it’s rare that we are ever truly following -

When we set up a treat scatter, the horse is intrinsically motivated to move - they are actively seeking out the food and I find that their movement feels very different from an energetic perspective. Not only that but mirroring this movement can be really challenging - rather than having a regular, rhythmical walk, your horse’s rhythm and tempo will change as they are searching and finding - and this can really challenge your proprioception!

I have used treat scatters to help rehabilitate horse’s associations to movement, but I also find it’s a powerful way to rehabilitate the human’s perception of what free and easily accessible movement feels like!

IN THIS LESSON

Develop Your Horse’s Curiosity & Problem Solving Skills

A couple of years ago I got the opportunity to go on safari in Tanzania - we stayed in the Serengeti for a couple of nights and came back via the Ngorogoro Crater. It was rainy season, the grass was waist high, a few animals were a challenge to spot but the trade off was that there were very few tourists. It felt like we had it all to ourselves.

What took me by surprise was that, when on safari, the wilderness is everywhere all around you, happening all at once. It isn't a glimmer in the hedgerows; it's the elephants descending from the horizon, wildebeests as far as the eye can see, big cats loafing in the sun - full and snoozy from their most recent hunting spree.

The most eye opening thing was that all around me, wild animals were just going about their day - their autonomy played out in plain sight. Their contentment was palpable.

I don't mean to glorify the wild. "Horse's in the wild..." is a narrative I see a lot in horsemanship culture as a means to justify training methods, or management practices or trimming protocols. But our horses don't live in the wild. To me it's incomparable -

I recently read a literature review on Rethinking Environmental Enrichment As Providing Opportunities To Acquire Information . The author referenced a study that looked at monkeys - the monkeys were given puzzles of varying difficulties and, once the puzzle was completed, food pellets were released as a reward. What they observed was that increasingly, the monkeys would solve the puzzle and show more delight in moving on to the next one, versus the food reward. They appeared to enjoy and find fulfilment in problem solving.

What wild animals get, considerably more than their domestic counterparts and within the confines of mother nature, is choice. The choice to seek, to move, to find. To solve the problems they are faced with.

They have agency.

In domestication, humans largely dictate what the animals get to do. What to eat, where to stand, what shelter to use, how to use their bodies. If they have an environmental problem, they can only solve it within the confines of what we provide them.

I appreciate that this is resource-led - we don't have the wilderness at our disposal. But even still, if we can use a model of animals in the wild to enable our horses more agency, to me that feels a little closer to a life worth living.

MODERN CENTAURIAN

• /mɒdəː(r)n/ /sɛnˈtɔriən/. •

A horse partnership built upon a combination of evidence, intuition and feel to cultivate a horse’s physical and emotional wellbeing.

Join our mailing list to receive weekly horse training & bodywork tutorials and keep up to speed with what we have going on behind the scenes!

Email Address

By signing up to our newsletter you are accepting marketing from Yasmin Stuart Equine Physio Ltd. View our Privacy Policy.

Thank you!

Yasmin Stuart | Equine Physiotherapist

Equine Physiotherapist and Trauma Informed Horse Trainer.

E: admin@yasminstuartequinephysio.com
T: 01473 561043

Facebook Instagram YouTube

Yasmin Stuart Equine Physio is the trading name of Yasmin Stuart Equine Physio Ltd
Co. No: 14519855

Privacy and Cookie Policy