Bit of Honey Training: Shambhu

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Shambhu

Shambhu is a Connemara cross (similar to Cole my lesson horse). He had an injury about six months ago where he pulled back while tied and strained his psoas muscles as well as creating tears in the connective tissue in his neck. After that he developed gastric ulcers. He is fortunate to have an owner who adores him and was willing to give him the time, medication, and rehab he needed to heal. After lots of correct physical therapy he has been cleared to come for training done Bit of Honey style, to reintroduce him to riding and get him going under saddle once more.

Shambhu's saddle no longer fits him, either, so we'll have him fitted for a custom trail saddle so he and his owner can both be comfy on their long rides. In the meantime I have a jumping saddle that fits well, which he likes and is fairly relaxed wearing as I tack him up.

Once he was dressed I put him on the lunge line so he could experiment with his body and the saddle to make sure he knew it wouldn't hurt him.

We got some very nice back stretches on the lungeline with him lowering his head and reaching well under himself with his hind legs. I actually think he is moving better now than when I met him, more fluidly and comfortable since having all this time off with his owner doing very equal work on his right and left sides in his physical therapy.

Then we headed over to the mounting block to see what he thought about carrying the weight of a rider on his newly recovering back.

I love this photo because you can see that Shambhu is explaining to me that he's not sure if this will hurt, and he would like me to be careful. I'm also telling him that I promise not to ever hurt him, and that we'll just see how this goes. If he wasn't comfortable or ready for me to mount, we didn't have to do it yet. He fortunately was his usual compliant and willing self and was ok with me climbing on to ride, pain free!

From the horse's right

While it looks a little funny, this is something I do whenever I'm starting a horse under saddle, or restarting them. It's an easy way for me to put some weight on his back while still giving myself a good way to exit if he moves or gets upset. I'm pretty flexible, so after I pat the saddle and drape my arm across it, I just lay my leg across the saddle. (As an interesting side note, this is best done in stretchy pants. Most every pair of jeans I have owned have been dispatched when the butt rips out of them while I'm doing this.) This way I can just lift my leg off if there is trouble, and the horse gets used to the heavier weight of my leg. This also gave Shambhu a chance to tell me how much weight he was comfortable with on his back: an arm, a leg, or all of me. If he walked away, pinned his ears, or tossed his head it was his way of saying he wasn't ready yet. Since he did nothing more than pay close attention to me, I knew it was ok to mount.