EquineSite.com

Trafalgar Square Books is pleased to announce it has been named the exclusive North American distributor for the highly respected equestrian filmmaker Pferdia TV. "TV" is an abbreviation for Thomas Vogel, the founder of the company. Based in Germany, Thomas Vogel began his equestrian-related career as an event rider before moving to the stable of Hans Joachim Köhler, the famous horseman and founder of the Verden riding horse auctions. There, Thomas completed his apprenticeship as a rider and assisted in department of auction management.

In 1989, Thomas and his wife Inge started Pferdia TV. Inge is from a family known the world over as breeders of fine horses. At Pferdia TV she manages new projects and the publishing side of the business, while Thomas is the man behind the camera and at the cutting table. Thomas is a horseman through-and-through, as his high-quality films clearly demonstrate. His eye for horses create films that leave a lasting impact and set themselves apart, deftly showcasing his inventiveness, experience, and excellent technical skills. He has created films with many internationally recognized horse people, including top riders and trainers Philippe Karl, Dr. Reiner and Ingrid Klimke, Linda Tellington-Jones, Anja Beran, Peggy Cummings, Richard Hinrichs, among many others.

All Pferdia TV films in English are now readily available from Trafalgar Square Books. For a complete list of titles, visit Pferdia DVD List , to see all the books and DVDs available visit Trafalgar Square’s Horse and Rider Books Web site at www.horseandriderbooks.com. For information on carrying these fine films for resale, contact Kim Cook at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

HEALTHY HORSE TIP

NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) may help mask lameness while reducing pain, swelling, and inflammation, but they can also be very harmful to the equine, whether pet or athlete.

This tip was brought to you by Dr. John Hanover and KAM Animal Services, home of KAM’s “Equine Learning Circle” FREE webinars, which take place every month. Go to www.kamanimalservices.com to sign up for their next webinar. If you attend when they are live they are free. If you want to be able to listen to them again or download them the annual fee is $89 and includes all the webinars. These webinars will conclude with a question and answer session, so be ready with your nutrition questions.

By Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett
Dressage Department Head, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre

The majority of new students on campus each quarter have logged countless hours in the saddle. Successful on a horse or two or three back home, they are good riders who arrive confident in their ability and eager to make riding their career. The first few weeks can be difficult as the school horses challenge their existing skills and teach them several new ones.

Every horse tests a rider's skills in different ways. Our school horses are an eclectic assortment of sizes, shapes, temperaments, gaits,and training levels. Switching among these four-footed teachers tests a student's ability to apply their aids both correctly and consistently.

The riding tree we teach here takes students through sixlevels on their way to developing an independent seat: 1) relaxation, 2) balance, 3) following the horse's motion, 4) application of the aids, 5) co-ordination of the aids, and 6) influencing the horse. As riders progress, they often find that the skills they mastered at, say, the trot, still needwork at the canter. Or the skills mastered on a particular horse need more work when they ride a completely different type of horse.

Let me give you an example. One new student obviously had a nice seat. She knew how to relax, open her hips and allow them to swing with the horse's motion at the walk and trot. She may have mastered these skills on a calm, relaxed horse back home. Now she was mounted on a sensitive Thoroughbred mare with a tendency to speed up at the trot until she broke into a canter.

As the mare sped up, the girl lost her relaxation. Her body stiffened, her hip joints locked up, she tipped forward and lost her balance.When her hips locked, she was unable to follow the horse's motion. The mare's tension increased when the rider got behind the motion. Fear of the mare's speed knocked three riding basics out from under this rider. As a result, shelost her seat, her most important influencing aid.

The situation was not unsafe, so I decided to talk the rider through it. First, I asked her to sit back, consider her plumb line and rebalance over her horse. To help her relax her hips and get them moving again, I asked her to exaggerate her hip motion at the rising trot so she could start following the mare's motion and not fall behind it (which only makes the horse run faster).If the mare ran through the trot into the canter, I asked her to sit down but keep that swinging hip motion and just ride canter. I kept the rhythm for her by saying, "Swing, swing, swing," in time with the mare's canter strides. Then I helped her slow the horse into a better rhythm by slowing my repetition of "swing." 

When a horse runs through the trot into the canter, therider needs to remember that the horse is only cantering. Rather than panicking because she feels out of control, the rider just needs to ride the canter untilshe is following the horse's motion. Then she can start to apply her seat, leg,and rein aids to influence the horse to return to the trot. 

If the horse is in motion but the rider is not, the rider is likely to fall off.  If the rider is not 'with'the motion then she is opposing the motion. If a horse takes off faster than the rider would like, the rider has to take off faster, too, in order to maintain control with her seat. Otherwise, the rider loses relaxation, rhythm, balance, and, with them, the ability to influence the horse with the seat.

When a horse gets quick with me, I mentally tell myself, "Iasked for that." That allows my body to stay relaxed and automatically increase its swing into the extended trot or lengthened canter the horse offered. Since my seat continues following the horse's motion, I can still influence the horse with it. Now I can reverse the thought and say to myself, "Now I want to transition from the lengthened canter to a collected canter." And I am back incontrol of the situation. Riders need to prepare themselves mentally for these situations so that they do not allow any thought that conveys, "Something's going wrong." That kind of thinking tightens their muscles, throws their body into a defensive posture, opposes the horse's motion, and makes the situation worse. It is better to ride offensively rather than defensively. 

Another common seat issue that riders encounter as they change horses is the tendency to come off their inside seat bone when they apply their inside leg. Many novice riders grip to some degree with their inner thigh muscles. This pulls their leg up and pushes the seat bone off the saddle ever so slightly. They need to go back to the relaxation level of the riding tree to fix this.

To stay seated equally on both seat bones, riders must thinkof using their hamstrings to lengthen the leg and stretch out the hip flexor. Before a rider puts her leg against the horse's barrel, she should think ofrelaxing all of the joints and muscles as though she were stretching her leg under the curve of the horse's barrel. Any tension in the hips, knees or ankleswill prevent this lengthening. Gripping with the inner thigh muscles will pull the leg up.

Obviously, the size and shape of each individual horse and the length of the rider's legs will affect how easily a rider can 'wrap her leg' around a given horse's barrel. As riders sit on horses with various anatomical shapes, I ask them to try lifting their leg away from the horse's side from their hip. Then I ask them to roll their ankles and knees inward from their hip's ball and socket joint, grip the saddle tightly, then relax without allowing their knees and toes to roll back out. This helps them begin to isolate the outer thigh muscles that help them wrap their legs around the horse from the inner thigh muscles that will push their legs up if they grip with them.

Another challenge many riders face as they change horses is that they do not have a good sense of when they are 'centered' in the saddle. They sit to the left or right of center and that feels perfectly normal to them. This happens because we all have a strong and a weak side to our bodies. Whenwe sit on a horse, the stronger side tends to grip and draw up, pushing us overto our weaker side, which stretches and lengthens. It can also happen when a horse is crooked and, if that is the only horse the person rides, they will carry that position over to other horses because it feels 'centered' to them.

Unless an instructor sees this and points it out, the rider may be completely unaware of this off center position. Sometimes I have to pull a rider over physically to center her on her horse. This, of course, feels 'wrong' to her. However, she needs to ride through that awkwardness until being correctly centered over her horse feels normal to her. Riding multiple horses helps riders develop a proper feel for being centered on a horse.

Each horse tests a rider's skills in different ways. Working with an instructor can help them strengthen their riding skills in a safe environment. My job as an instructor is to match horses and riders in ways thatfirst build skills and confidence. Then, without over mounting or over facingriders, I mix things up so that they progress to horses and situations that are more challenging. Whenever a riding problem arises, I always refer back to the riding tree and take the rider back to the level where the problem originates. As riders work through problems on different horses, they begin developing a truly independent seat and take their riding to the next level.

___________________________

© 2011 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett has earned numerous United States Dressage Federation horse awards including Bronze and Silver Medals on horses she has trained. She competes her horses at Training through FEI levels. As a Certified Riding Instructor she brings over 20 years of experience to her position as Head of the Dressage Department at Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre (147 Saddle Lane, Waverly, WV 26184; 800-679-2603; www.meredithmanor.edu), an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.  

 2/19/11 Results!
 Jacy Anzalone, 3rd Varsity Intermediate Fences
 Brenna Chandler, 1st JV Novice Flat, 3rd JV Novice Fences
 Emma Farina, 1st JV Novice Fences, 3rd JV Novice Flat
 Lisa Sankey, 1st JV Beg WTC
 Mary Ellen Osler, 3rd JV Beg WTC
 Veronica Green-Gott, 1st JV Beg WT
 Serena Mirchandani, 2nd JV Beg WT
 Middle School Team Champions!
 Jessica Lifschultz, 1st Future Novice Fences, 2nd Future Novice Flat
 Miranda Tollefston, 3rd Future Beg WTC
 Michela Farina, 1st Future Beg WTC, 1st Future Beg WT
 

 Congrats to all our 2011 qualifiers so far!

 High School Team, Middle School Team
Individuals: Bre, Andrea, Jacy, Emma, Veronica, Megan, Michela, Katie, Jess, Miranda and Sam!

During this time of year when mares are beginning to foal, many concerns are present regarding mare and foal health, and problems that may arise during the birth and rearing process.  One problem horse owners can be faced with is a mare’s rejection of her foal.  It is not known as to why a mare will reject her foal, but it can be seen in mares who are afraid of their foal, mares who will not permit their foal to suckle, and/or aggressive mares who attack their foal with or without suckling stimulation. 

Horses that can be at a risk for rejecting their foal are first time (primiparous) mares, Arabian mares, mares who have a history of rejecting two or more foals, and/or a mare who was separated early on from her foal.  Mares that are prone to rejecting their foals are more likely to avoid their foal, threaten, squeal, chase, bite, and/or kick versus normal behavior of defending their foal, licking, and nickering.  Speculations have been made that multiple humans present at the foal’s birth, the presence of other horses, and artificial insemination are more likely to lead to foal rejection; however, these are not proven to be specific causes.  Whatever the cause of the foal rejection, the main goal is to maintain the safety and health of the foal, improve maternal behavior in the dam, stimulate lactation in the dam (i.e. medications such as Domperidone), treat any possible medical causes for rejection (i.e. mastitis leading to pain and not allowing the foal to suckle or colic leading to abdominal pain and sensitivity), and keeping the horse handlers safe from an aggressive mare.

Foals that are rejected will require intense care regarding feeding as normally a foal will suckle several times per hour (2-3x/hour) in the first few weeks of life.  Foals should be fed at 25% of their body weight and gain approximately 1-2 lbs per day.  For example, an average 110 lb foal= 50 kg.  25% of a 50kg foal= 12.5 L which can be given at 1 L every 2 hours.  This can be a difficult task to perform due to the time consuming nature of feeding and preparing milk replacer.  This can lead to gastrointestinal distress in the foal, therefore the foal’s defecation, urination, and demeanor should be closely monitored.  The foal will normally defecate 2-3 times per day and urinate at least 1 time per hour.  Teaching the foal to suckle from a pan or small bucket is also a possibility and should be implemented as soon as possible.  Nurse mares can be used if available, which is ideal but not always a feasible option.  The most important component with initial feeding of a rejected foal, and any foal for that matter, is to ensure appropriate intake of colostrum.  Colostrum is the antibody rich milk that is first produced from the mare’s udder which provides a newborn foal with immune protection.  Your veterinarian should examine the foal at 12-24 hours of age at which point, a simple blood test can be performed to asses the antibody levels, otherwise known as IgG level.  If the levels are below 400 mg/dl, the foal will require a plasma transfusion.  Normal values are greater than 800 mg/dl.  A foal that has been rejected will likely be below the normal range and at risk for sepsis, and thus require medical treatment.

If the mare is not too aggressive, she can be restrained while the foal suckles.  Barriers can be placed between the mare and foal to decrease the risk of the mare kicking her foal (hay bales or shaving bales between the front and hind legs, 4x4 board or pole to hold the mare against a wall, etc).  If the mare’s head is tied, it should be tied with a quick release knot and loose enough that she may eat and drink freely, but not be able to turn around to bite her foal.  Some mares require sedation due to excessive aggression.  Acepromazine is a good choice as it is a tranquilizer and stimulates lactation.  It can be used alone or in combination with Xylazine if the mare requires more potent sedation. 

The most important components of managing a foal that has been rejected are to keep the foal and handlers safe, ensure appropriate nutrition and health of the foal, and ensure the health of the dam.  The mare should be examined fully by your veterinarian for any signs of health problems that may be contributing to rejection of her foal.  Establishing an appropriate management plan and ensuring the health of the foal and mare will help facilitate the process of dealing with a rejected foal. 

If you have any questions regarding foal rejection or foal health issues, please contact your veterinarian or any of the veterinarians at New England Equine Medical & Surgical Center.

Source: Current Therapy in Equine Medicine 6.  Robinson and Sprayberry,   Pp 116-118. 

Kate Britton, DVM

Jacqueline Bartol, DVM, DACVIM