[QUOTE=slc2;4179537]
I think those are very perceptive observations.[/QUOTE]
Yep.
deleted
She is right, though, there are areas of the body where blood vessels are close to the surface and those areas are in fact, radiators.
But it’s also true that specific patterns of sweat, and changes in the pattern of sweat, are significant…and I have seen and continue to see, horses sweating more in the ‘wrong’ areas when there is a training issue, and less when there is not.
When an animal is sweating almost all over, such as when it’s very hot, it’s not as easy to see, then it is more what parts start sweating first, and changes in sweat patterns. Reheating and other problems tend to lessen as the animal gets more fit…experienced riders still look for sweat between the hind legs because it still means the muscles of the hind quarters are working.
Where on earth did you get that idea?
From a very experienced horse vet
which makes sense, because the horse is approximately 60 times larger than a human but has the same size heart, so it takes 60x longer to circulate the blood… ??
not to contradict your “very experienced horse vet” but google says that:
Horse of average size has approximately 50 pints of blood (28 liters) which circulate through his system every 40 seconds.
Have any of you actually attended one of her workshops?
It just so happens that I have. She has done extensive work on the anatomy of the horse, and continues her study of the muscle-bone interactions. She brought along quite the selection of bones for us to have a look at. Some of her observations with regard to ‘sidedness’ of horses were very revealing, as were many of the photos in her presentations.
In the mounted sessions, she had the riders doing exercises identical with those of another BNT dressage guru whom many of you here have lavished praise on, and whose clinics I have both ridden in and audited. Also, she stressed the importance of the release, and of timing of the aids. I saw horses respond to her body language instantly (and she was not being aggressive at all) where they had ignored or plowed through their owners. It was a very interesting three days.
I think that Dr. Bennet has some points which are quite valid. It is up to the reader/participant to filter all inputs and decide which ideas to follow up on and which to discard.
Well, it must have lost something in the translation, then.
If your vet saw a horse with that slow circulation time, it must have been a stuffed horse. Blood cannot possibly crawl along vessels that slowly and not clot. Even hibernating amphibians (frogs etc) in the cold mud have quicker circulation than that.
[QUOTE=Musn’tGrumble;4181278]
From a very experienced horse vet[/QUOTE]
How does this experienced horse vet explain how IV sedation starts working almost immediately?
[QUOTE=draftdriver;4181396]
It just so happens that I have. She has done extensive work on the anatomy of the horse, and continues her study of the muscle-bone interactions. She brought along quite the selection of bones for us to have a look at. Some of her observations with regard to ‘sidedness’ of horses were very revealing, as were many of the photos in her presentations.
In the mounted sessions, she had the riders doing exercises identical with those of another BNT dressage guru whom many of you here have lavished praise on, and whose clinics I have both ridden in and audited. Also, she stressed the importance of the release, and of timing of the aids. I saw horses respond to her body language instantly (and she was not being aggressive at all) where they had ignored or plowed through their owners. It was a very interesting three days.
I think that Dr. Bennet has some points which are quite valid. It is up to the reader/participant to filter all inputs and decide which ideas to follow up on and which to discard.[/QUOTE]
Interesting ! Especially the second paragraph !Thanks for your input. If you would tell us more about the clinic, how it relates to her article, and how she addresses contact, that would be wonderful !
[QUOTE=AZ Native;4182856]
Interesting ! Especially the second paragraph !Thanks for your input. If you would tell us more about the clinic, how it relates to her article, and how she addresses contact, that would be wonderful ![/QUOTE]
Since the article is so large, I’ll focus on page 6, “Riding Light and Straight”. To me, her discussions of straightness and sidedness were the most interesting part of the presentations. The pictures she used in her presentations, and the ground exercises she had us doing, were very revealing. We all know that almost every horse and person favours one side over the other. We also know that in order to move most efficiently, straightness is desirable. It is, as you know, up there on the pyramid of dressage training, before collection.
Some of this sidedness comes from eye dominance, i.e. right or left eye used more, which causes a slight turn of the head, which in turn affects the horse all the way down the spine, and even down to the shape of the hooves. The pictures for this part were amazing.
The horses that I saw in this workshop were of a variety of conformations and backgrounds – QH, TB, etc. No big Warmbloods. They were either green or well-broke, but none would have been prepared for a Second Level test. Dr. Bennett worked some of the horses on a loose lunge line, asking the horse to stay out on the circle and to step under with the inside hind leg. She also did some of the “head twirling”. It was not a large movement of the head, at least not on these horses who had never been introduced to it previously. It was interesting to see the various horses’ reaction to it. Some softened quite remarkably. Others were resistant to the notion, but did soften somewhat after a few minutes. I noted that Dr. Bennett didn’t force the issue, but would take a break from the one task, and come back to it after a mintue or two.
For mounted exercises, timing of the aids to ask the inside hind leg to step under the body predominated. Some of the riders had no idea when that inside hind was in the air! For rein contact, Dr. Bennett asked the riders to ask for a slight inside bend, with an immediate release when the horse offered even the slightest response. Again, some of the riders were not confident with their feel of response, and were not as quick to release as would have been optimal. Those who got it, really had some great responses from their horses in terms of improved gait and that always-wanted pushing-power from the hind end.
All of the above are my interpretations and observations. It seems to me that Dr. Bennett is striving to train/ride her horses with straightness, and have them be light and responsive, and in self-carriage. That she is approaching this from a more anatomical perspective than some, is quite interesting, and IMO there is something to be learned from this approach.
agree!
But it’s also true that specific patterns of sweat, and changes in the pattern of sweat, are significant…and I have seen and continue to see, horses sweating more in the ‘wrong’ areas when there is a training issue, and less when there is not.
When an animal is sweating almost all over, such as when it’s very hot, it’s not as easy to see, then it is more what parts start sweating first, and changes in sweat patterns. Reheating and other problems tend to lessen as the animal gets more fit…experienced riders still look for sweat between the hind legs because it still means the muscles of the hind quarters are working.
“doubling?”
When I last saw. Dr. Bennett, she had appeared at a sally Swift Centered Riding Instructors clinic; since dr.Bennett had never taken a BASIC nCentered Riding clinic, she knew" too much", she was not qualified to either teach or be taught; at that point her "thing " was "doubling " which, I understood to be a technique used by the Spanishhorsemen, in a lindell, aka side pull, It consisted of puling the horses’ head around to the riders’ leg:eek:, after whichthe horse then carried himself with an arched "telescopingneck"I do actually know of a dressasge instructor who teaches this; she refers to it as “challenging the horse” (
)
