Whole Horse Power
| WHOLE HORSE POWER 63 Longbow Ln Wimberley, TX 78676 |
James
A student in the Houston area, where I was teaching a clinic, asked me to evaluate her horse.
She had owned James for about a year and had experienced many problems with him. He shied often at
things that wouldn’t bother him one day, but drove him crazy the next. He wouldn’t stand still for grooming. He
often dragged his owner around when she was supposedly leading him. He hated being ridden. In the arena
he acted lazy and ring sour. On the trails he would rear and run backward or spin and try to turn for home any
time he encountered something that he wasn’t sure of.
When I went to evaluate him, I noticed that he had poor conformation, low set neck, dropped back, upright
pasterns, small hooves of poor quality, long body, steeply sloped hips. His movement was poor, as expected.
He took very short, stiff steps with the hind legs, the right hip and left shoulder were low, he couldn’t canter to
the right and generally seemed uncoordinated.
His owner, Ruth, wanted to know if he could be a hunter for her. I told nothing was impossible, but he really
wasn’t suited for it, and just to make him a pleasant riding horse would take a good deal of work. She didn’t
want to sell him so I laid out a program for her, starting with wand stroking. Next we worked on leading James
in homing pigeon and dingo, through such obstacles as we could make with her available materials. Then I
showed her how to do raccoon and abalone touches on James. Because of the extreme difference in hip
heights and extreme reactivity in the neck and back I recommended she employ a farrier familiar with Proper
Balance movement and an equine chiropractor.
I didn’t see James again until December. Ruth had done some of the TTEAM I showed her and had taken
James to an equine chiropractor once. She had not been able to find a farrier familiar with PBM.
I moved to the Houston area and was able to work with James on a regular basis. By that time he had seen a
chiropractor 4 times. Both Ruth and I noticed a big improvement in his movement, although his attitude was
still quite resistant.
I began riding him 3 days a week using basic dressage and the TTEAM roller bit, and doing TTEAM on him
those same days. I found a farrier to apply a lift to the right hind a’la Tony Gonzales. Within a couple weeks his
attitude improved, and by late April he was calm and steady enough to carry a novice rider through woods,
fields, ditches and streams with no fuss. He began to have two leads at the canter. He also would stand
quietly for grooming and could be ground tied for bathing. In every way he was a different, better horse. Ruth
accused me (jokingly) of sending James off to the killer and substituting a look-alike.
James is now off to summer camp where he carries one of the assistant instructors twice a day. They tell us
he is doing very well, going Western and English in the arena and on the trail.
A student in the Houston area, where I was teaching a clinic, asked me to evaluate her horse.
She had owned James for about a year and had experienced many problems with him. He shied often at
things that wouldn’t bother him one day, but drove him crazy the next. He wouldn’t stand still for grooming. He
often dragged his owner around when she was supposedly leading him. He hated being ridden. In the arena
he acted lazy and ring sour. On the trails he would rear and run backward or spin and try to turn for home any
time he encountered something that he wasn’t sure of.
When I went to evaluate him, I noticed that he had poor conformation, low set neck, dropped back, upright
pasterns, small hooves of poor quality, long body, steeply sloped hips. His movement was poor, as expected.
He took very short, stiff steps with the hind legs, the right hip and left shoulder were low, he couldn’t canter to
the right and generally seemed uncoordinated.
His owner, Ruth, wanted to know if he could be a hunter for her. I told nothing was impossible, but he really
wasn’t suited for it, and just to make him a pleasant riding horse would take a good deal of work. She didn’t
want to sell him so I laid out a program for her, starting with wand stroking. Next we worked on leading James
in homing pigeon and dingo, through such obstacles as we could make with her available materials. Then I
showed her how to do raccoon and abalone touches on James. Because of the extreme difference in hip
heights and extreme reactivity in the neck and back I recommended she employ a farrier familiar with Proper
Balance movement and an equine chiropractor.
I didn’t see James again until December. Ruth had done some of the TTEAM I showed her and had taken
James to an equine chiropractor once. She had not been able to find a farrier familiar with PBM.
I moved to the Houston area and was able to work with James on a regular basis. By that time he had seen a
chiropractor 4 times. Both Ruth and I noticed a big improvement in his movement, although his attitude was
still quite resistant.
I began riding him 3 days a week using basic dressage and the TTEAM roller bit, and doing TTEAM on him
those same days. I found a farrier to apply a lift to the right hind a’la Tony Gonzales. Within a couple weeks his
attitude improved, and by late April he was calm and steady enough to carry a novice rider through woods,
fields, ditches and streams with no fuss. He began to have two leads at the canter. He also would stand
quietly for grooming and could be ground tied for bathing. In every way he was a different, better horse. Ruth
accused me (jokingly) of sending James off to the killer and substituting a look-alike.
James is now off to summer camp where he carries one of the assistant instructors twice a day. They tell us
he is doing very well, going Western and English in the arena and on the trail.
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