TCJpart 18 Horse Psychology

PSYCHOLOGY:
Lot's gets written about horse psychology, but your own observations are just as important, after all no-one is like you, and no horse is like your horse.  A unique combination of personalities, brings unique qualities to a relationship...

I was just out in the yard with my boys, my plan was to ride them, it's a beautiful breezy sunny cold October morning, but as I brushed the wind got faster and the horses got jumpier.  by the time I got to their tails, it was far too windy to go, so I changed my mind.  I didn't force myself or them to carry on regardless, I don't have ego, I don't think of it as defeat.  Just simply do something else instead.

This made me think about psychology. 

We expect our horses to be ok with everything we ask, to be happy with all the things they have to do, to be calm riding near things that terrify them....why?  Because we certainly are not perfectly balanced are we?  We have things that scare us even terrify us, and no one makes us face these things! So why do we expect our horses to cope? Prey animals are the flightiest creatures and arguably not mentally equipped to cope...they are built to run.

We can be rational.  We can have lengthy conversations, even therapy about the things that frighten us, in the hope that, if we wished it, we might get better at coping.  But humans don't all cope...and neither do horses.

My message, give your horse a break. 

If you're terrified of spiders for example, imagine if you were forced against every instinct in your body, to face them?  Most people would have a melt-down.  All you'd do, as with the rest of us and our fears (and they are mostly irrational aren't they?), is avoid these things, you just wouldn't go near spiders where possible.

Having said all that horses are clever, and they adapt very well and notice everything, that's why they can be spooky.  If you rode past a worrying white flower that bloomed overnight (and wasn't there yesterday), and he's not terrified, just he's noticed it, the more you ride past, the less interesting it will be to him. That's how horses cope, in layers.  Repeating things is key.

Just think the next time you feel you are under pressure to get your horse to do something, or face something, perhaps by someone else who tells you you're letting him get away with certain evasive behaviours, that we allow ourselves these breaks, these failures in our psychology if you like, why is it ok to make our horse do it?  Well, it's not ok.  Give him a break, give him lots of time, he'll decide for himself if and when he'll be happy with the situation. and this way, he'll be happy about it forever, because he's worked it out for himself.

TCJpart 17 Behaviour

GETTING THINGS DONE WITH HORSES:
...any time spent with my boys is emensley enjoyable, I don't have to be on their backs to appreciate the bond between us.

Tom and Henry have a relaxed attitude to their yard, everything important I've taught them to do, gets done here.

 

You will have noticed with your own horse, whether they're Trakehners or not, that they are very nosey.  Tom and Henry want to be part of everything we do.  If we're outside doing things, they both come over to watch.  When the man comes to deliver the hay, speeding around the driveway in his forklift, Tom and Henry are there, heads over the fence, keeping an eye on what's going on!

When Steve the farrier comes, they notice his van, and bring themselves in to be shod, why? Because they love being involved, and he wasn't there 5 minutes ago...something new!!  And Steve has never hurt them or scared them, so they enjoy being with him.

Once when John was in the field doing some repairs to the fencing, they both came over to watch.  Tom making certain John was doing a good job, and Henry grabbing the end of the piece of wood and holding it steady on the workmate so John could cut a straight piece!!  I kid you not, he had the rail in his teeth.  Once he was satisfied John had a grasp in the situation an no longer needed his active participation, he then took the hammer out of the toolkit and ran off with it!! From that day hence, it has now been called Henry's toolkit - it even has a hoofpick in it now and some treats!!! no one but horse-types would believe it!

Whether you have similar stories about your horse or not, you will have undoubtedly grasped that their curiosity is what makes them easy to train, their personalities mean they want to learn.

Work with this, and you'll find a whole new world opens up to you.

Tom is usually calm when I ride Henry, sometimes he even lays down for a nap, Henry of course is the opposite, he'll be charging up and down the fence!

Tom and Henry, like all horses, love to be part of what's going on, so long as it's not scary, but no one is going to ask their horse to try to learn something when he's scared, that would be stupid beyond measure.  I use this facet of their characters for everyday stuff, so every one's life is easier and we're all happy. 

When I shut gates to somewhere, even for a few minutes: to load feed into the feed room from the Landy into the yard, that now becomes the most interesting place to be, and they make it very clear that's the very place they most want to be.  When I'm done and open the gates, they charge in!  So when I want to change fields for example, I just open the gate to the field I want them in, and they can't wait to get there.  There's no headcollar action or leading them EVER from one place to another. I don't have to, they just behave like horses, and I take advantage of it.

I want them somewhere, I shut it up, and wait, they just can't resist!!

There are many opportunities to spend time with the boys here, and I absolutely take advantage of having them at home.

I have mentioned I don't tie Tom and Henry up at all.  When I ride, Henry is in the yard, I brush him, tack up and go.  When I get back, Tom comes over to say hello to his friend he thought he might never see again...well you know horses!! 

You'll notice Henry is just standing waiting for me to finish fiddling about, we are tacking up in this picture, they stand in a different spot to be untacked, and they are creatures of habit.

 
I open the yard gate (shut while I was out riding), and because Tom hadn't been able to come into the yard, that's the place he most wants to be now, and because Henry had been in the yard, being untacked, the field is now the place he wants to be more than life itself!  So, viola, what looks like a brilliantly choreographed swappage of Horses is really just them being them, they swap positions: Henry goes out, Tom comes in. I shut the yard gates and start my pre-ride routine with Tom!!  No leading, no catching, just understanding what horses are like. 

Henry, they love having their photos taken, and I now have several thousand of them....so John tells me!



Remember, the more you understand your horse, simple things like 'catching' become a lightbulb moment.  And I spend a lot of time with mine in the field, I don't just go out with an agenda, I often wander out just to scratch or feed them, so they never have any idea what I'm up to!

Give it a go yourself..you'll be amazed at the response you'll get for your horse, it'll be a 'finally she understands me' moment!!

I love those horses, and these simple things just make sense to me, perhaps because I am simple too! (no comments about this please, that means you Mum!)

TCJpart 16 Trakehners UK Newsletter

Hello fellow Trakehner lovers!

I have just written my first Tom & Henry story for the TRAKEHNER UK Newsletter.  I have started with a little background, and if I am asked to write one every issue (thrice anually), I will endevour to write the amusing stories as they happen, and they happen all the time here at chez Rand.


Anyone familiar with the Holme Grove website will know that Susan publishes letters, stories and photos of her herd progeny, and you can tell by reading them how proud we are sharing our lives with these incredible creatures, and how proud, and justly so, Susan and Barbara are to share the stories with us.


Here is  my first go:

Story for Trakehner UK newsletter

 Hello all fellow Trakehner lovers!

I work in a very creative, high octane, office environment in London.  A Design Room at M&S. My colleagues mostly live locally and so they have cats, which is great because I have 5 of my own and cat stories are very funny!

So it was I was at my desk when I received an email from someone I didn’t know in Kidswear, inviting me to an M&S Horse owners Club Lunch!!! Well you can imagine!!? It's great working here but it just got so much better.  We endeavour to meet every month and all we do – whilst we eat – is talk about our horses and share pictures and stories, its brilliant!

Our members have a variety of equines from thoroughbreds to Irish sport horses, I am alone in my Trakehner ownership.  And while many beloved pictures of coiffure’d horses are passed under my nose, of course I am suitably complimentary, but I can’t help feeling sorry for them for not having Trakehners in their lives – they have such great bums and personalities!

Did I mention Tom and Henry have incredibly gorgeous arses, suspect all Trakehners are built this way, pretty heads, great necks and oh so amazing rear ends!?

Tom & Henry of course, take fame in their strides now so any news from me that more people at work are hearing about them goes by without so much as a sniff.  They recently had their photos taken for HORSE magazine for a safety feature I worked on with them and that was an interesting morning. Plus they star in my blog, which is where it all began with my writing about them.

HORSE magazine interviewed me for a safety feature; the Editor Jo Browne had read my blog and thought my work for road safety was inspiring.  And it only started because I will go above and beyond to protect my boys from anything that might ruffle their manes; I wasn't aiming to be a campaigner. Then she asked me if she could send a photographer to my cottage to take shots of me riding my boys around the village to support the story of safety. Well I jumped at the chance for my boys to star in a three page spread!!!

I took the day off work, my boss didn't really understand but she humoured me. I got my farrier Steve out of his sick bed to come a check their shoes (thank you Steve), I brushed the boys to within an inch of their lives and even cleaned their tack, and I surprised even myself when I remembered how to put it all back together again!

The photographer took some great shots.  My husband John on his bike (because it all started with cycle safety), my friends and neighbours and their son on his bike, all drove and cycled past me.  I was a glowing beacon of illumination head to hoof in hi-viz, so the message was clear, safety. They are the funniest horses, they took everything in their beautiful floaty strides, that Trakehner stride we are all familiar with, and anyone who has seen the November issue will agree they looked gorgeous; well they are sons of Solomon and Prokofiev!

A quick Trakehner question though:

Not sure whether it’s a Trakehner thing, but they eat out of the bin instead of the freshly filled haybars, they bob for apples, they chase the cats around the land, they stand still with no headcollar to get groomed and tacked up, they turn their bottoms to me for a scratch and I know what they want, they’ve trained me!. this seems perfectly normal to me....but I’m getting comments that perhaps Trakehners are just a bit too clever...well we'd all agree with that I’m sure?

Tune in boys and girls next time for 'What Tom & Henry did next'.

Shelley Rand

TCJpart 15 JCB Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN BROWN:
John has taken some amazing photos of Tom & Henry, I will share them with you as part of my on-going blog...

This is my favourite photograph of Tom & Henry.  John took a series of them as they were enjoying the spring sunshine having been turned out onto the grass for the first time after winter. You can clearly recognise the Trakehner in them both.

you will notice all 8 feet are off the ground in this one!

I have had this top picture painted by an artist.  it hangs in our living room.

I'll add details of this later.

TCJpart14 'The Trek' the story of the Trakehner

THE STORY OF THE TRAKEHNER:
...an insight as to the amazing character that is the Trakehner



This handsome Stallion is Tom's father: Holme Grove Solomon:  Horses of this quality are why the story below is so incredible.


Have tissues at the ready. Warmbloods in cold weather:



The story of 'THE TREK':

The Trakehner is the most highly bred of all the warmblood horse breeds. The Royal stud Trakehnen in East Prussia was founded in 1732 by  King Friedrik Wilhelm 1.  Today's only pure bred riding horse was created  from the native breed with strong influence from the Arabian and Thoroughbred.

The Trakehner horse evolved because the King recognized the need for a new type of cavalry mount. He wanted horses his officers could ride that were attractive enough to make them proud, solid enough to stay sound and with a comfortable ground-covering trot that would enable them to travel quickly and efficiently.

He selected the best horses from seven of his royal breeding farms and, in 1732, moved them to the new royal stud at Trakehnen, where selective breeding began. The Trakehner breed evolved and it has been selectively bred since that time, with a closed stud book.

Before unification in 1871, Germany was made up of a number of different states and locally-organised breeding areas. As a result, horses bred in the area of Hanover became known as Hanoverians and those bred in Westphalia as Wesphalians, etc. The exception to this rule, Trakehners are known by that name wherever they are born and the stud book is governed solely by bloodlines.

In October 1944, as World War II was in its final stages, and the Soviets were closing in on the lush area around Trakehnen, orders came to evacuate the horses from the Trakehnen Stud. About 800 of the best horses were hastily transferred but, unfortunately, they did not go far enough west and most of them fell into the hands of the Russian occupation forces, and were shipped to Russia.

However, the private breeders were determined to save their valuable horses. What followed was a horror story that went down in history as ‘The Trek’.

Hitching their precious breeding stock to wagons laden with personal possessions and all the feed they could carry, the East Prussians fled. In the dead of winter, with snow deep on the ground, the broodmares, heavily in foal, headed west, literally running for their lives, unable to stop when either mares lost foals or horses went lame or became ill.

When their feed ran out they lived on whatever they could scavenge. The nightmare continued for 600 miles, the refugees being pursued by Soviet troops.

The Soviets had them surrounded on the shores of the Baltic Sea, it seemed they had reached the end. Their only escape was to cross the treacherous expanse of ice. So across they went, at times knee deep in the freezing water, galloping to stay ahead of the ice breaking behind them. If any dared stop or attempt to dodge the firing of the Russian planes ahead, they were doomed to sink helplessly into the freezing water and, tragically, many did not make it. The survivors limped into West Germany, the once proud and beautiful herd of 800 horses reduced to less than 100 pitiful shrapnel-wounded skeletons. Only the hardiest survived and the next decade was spent re-establishing the breed.

In 1947, the Trakehner Verband - was formed, replacing the East Prussian Studbook.

 

In 1960 the first Trakehners were imported into the UK by the Mushcamp Stud and, since that time, they have steadily gained in popularity, winning the hearts of many enthusiasts.

The Trakehner Breeders Fraternity (TBF) is the controlling body for Trakehners in the UK. They are licensed by Trakehner Verband GmbH to register, grade and brand horses with the distinctive double Elk horn brand with the inverted ‘V’ beneath to denote ‘British Breed’.

By the end of 1999 there were, in excess of 750 approved pure bred and 700 part bred Trakehners registered, 22 graded stallions and 250 graded mares in the UK. The TBF registers an average of 60 pure bred Trakehner foals each year.


This stunning Stallion is Henry's father: Holme Grove Prokofiev. 

Tom & Henry are members of that noble breed the Trakehner. They move with a grace and lightness you don't see anywhere else. But just as important, Trakehners are very nice 'people'.

The Elk horns symbolise a pure breed and the upside down 'v' with a dot above means British bred.

Tom & Henry both have the mark of the Trakehner on their rumps, I suspect this type of 'identification' will be banned soon, since it's done with a hot iron. This is Tom's, Henry's is barely visible unless it's cold and his hair is standing or in certain lights.

TCJpart 13 Home

WHERE TOM & HENRY LIVE:
...we love it here, it's like being on holiday every day x


They have thier own place, tucked away in Essex.  They live in the front garden on a few acres of land with all the amenities they need.  It's quiet around here and the horses feel and are completely safe.

We live in a tiny little cottage built around 1880, and can see the boys grazing in their fields from the house. It's such a comfort to be able to peer out of the window and see what they're up to.

We bought this cottage because of Tom & Henry, or should I say the planning of the future arrival of Tom & Henry, because I wanted a place of my own to keep my horses in, a place where no one could interfere or tell me what I could or couldn't do, where I could go out in the middle of the night in my pyjamas if I wanted to and see them, which I actually do quite often.

Number 1. Formerly a stud, our little property needed lots doing to it to turn it into somewhere beautiful for us the cats and the horses to live, it's now a home.

Just a walk down the garden path and I'm in their yard.  John has designed and built the perfect place for the boys.  Everything's done right, it's safe and tidy.  I really would rather be here than anywhere else on earth.

Tom & Henry grazing and wandering, it's what horses are designed to do. Make sure your fencing is sturdy, well built and properly maintained. I have electric tape all round the exterior perimeter just incase, and last winter we had hedgerow planted along all the interior boundaries too, including apple trees for the horses.  We are hoping the wildelife will make home in it, as it will provide them safe nesting space as well as food in the form of berries in the winter.  Tom and Henry will of course prune the hedge themselves, nipping all the tender young shoots and keep it in good order!  This sort of grazing is a brilliant natural form of grazing, a varied form of forraging including any herbs we sew in their paddocks when we reseed, try to buy pasture mix designed for horses and ponies, they contain different plants in them than those suitable for cattle.

Always wandering and munching.....rotate the fields to give the grass chance to grow, remember how often you have to mow the lawn, it's grows fast!  Keep the weeds down and get rid of all the ragwort, dig it up and burn it.

Look into my eyes.......open that bag of treats, I know you've got some........you are putty in my hooves.....

agree, I am, I love those boys!

Like lots of yards, ours has lots of cats, not only are they impressive catchers of mice, they are very entertaining too. This one: Boinger, was lounging in the back of the Landrover.

A frame to the view: it is a home for John and I as well as the creatures, so I have tried to make it as nice outdoors for us as it is for the horses.

David Austin roses. I love the old roses, I don't see the point in flowers that don't smell gorgeous.

Munching: horses eat for about 18 hours a day, I supliment Tom & Henry's grazing with additional forage: ad-lib haylage, fresh every day.  It works too, they are both in excellent condition as you can see from this photo.

munching some more, trickle feeding keeps thier guts in prime order, remember what horses are, and arrange for a natural diet.

Sleepy, it's hard work being a horse, all that wandering about, eating grass and galloping around in perfect synchronicity.  Tom & Henry lie down frequently, and nap intermittently.

When it's really hot, the boys like being able to get under a 'rain' of hosewater, they go crazy!!  they rub against eachothers hindquarters, paw the ground, roll and gallop off!  they enjoy it.  if you do the same for yours, remember to have a camera handy, you'll be suprised by the reaction you get.

Relaxed.

I will do anything I can to keep them safe and happy.  And of course I can never get tired of looking at those amazing bottoms!!

TCJpart 12 Road Safety

ROAD SAFETY:
...it's serious

 Tom all kitted out in Hi-viz, looking incredibly handsome and showing his lovely bum xx

 Here, we are meeting lots of traffic, but we're staying calm.

Horse & Cycle Safety Campaign:

Jayne Toyne the photographer for HORSE Magazine, amongst other things, dropped some photos of my boys this week.  Some she took of the morning she spent with us photographing Tom & Henry for the safety feature due in Novembers issue.  here are some of them:

Henry bends, and demonstrates why Trakehners are famous for their gorgeousness.

Henry, wearing his hi-viz neck strap and I am putting his bridle on - I always do the saddle first.

Tom keeping an eye and ear out for possible danger, which may or may not include white flowers and sheep.

Tom is wondering what John is up to....me too xxx

ever wondered what body protectors are for!?

John is usually behind the camera not in front of it.

Try to spot potential hazards ahead, and  look out for safe passing points too.

I go out of my way to give way and let traffic by, especially if they've been patiently waiting behind me, if  you get someone impatient who comes right up behind you and revvs their engine, try to stay calm, In my narrow lane you canm see above, i might ride in the centre of the road to prevent cars trying to squeeze past me, it makes them wait, until I am happy I have found a safe spot for them to pass.  I don't have to do this very often, as you can see from the picture above, people are very nice in WW.

There is so much to keep an eye on on the roads, you can't let your concentration go, I find sometimes it's safer for me to ride down the centre of the lane, this way I can control the situation, and let traffic pass when it's safe.

Jeffrey from our village having a chat, obviously this is only safe if nothing's coming along the road.  Don't antagonise people by deliberately holding them up.

Remember, it's a small world, the chances are you'll meet the same people when your out riding, be pleasant and courteous, they'll remember a rider who's friendly, and slow down for you again - and the chances of them behaving cautiously if you're having a problem, say with white flowers that weren't there yesterday, they're much more likely to stop and wait it out.