Silversand Horsemanship

Andrew and Nicky Bowe, AKA The Barefoot Blacksmith conducted a weekend of workshops for beginners and advanced hoof trimming in the Adelaide Hills.  The format for the beginners/maintenance trimming day consisted of a morning lecture on leg and hoof anatomy followed after a short break with participants trimming a cadaver foot.

After the lunch break those who brought horses were able to trim their own horses under the careful eyes of Andrew, Nicky and myself.

It was great to see a big Silversand turnout – 6 trimmers and myself, all supporting the Silversand Clothing Label!

To all reports everyone left feeling far more confident to trim and far more aware of what feet should look like.  Support days will be hosted for these participants at Coralie’s property.

Andrew and Nicky will be back next year offering their advanced workshop to those who attended this year’s beginners course.  Anyone interested in a beginners course needs to contact me.  I also now have a ‘boot fit kit’ to ensure the correct sizes are ordered.

Mary House

0407979995

www.healthyhorsesnaturally.com.au

New Web Host

Some of you may have had difficulties in the last week  accessing our website. A few days ago we received an e-mail informing us that we had too many files on the  web server and had 24 hours to remove some of these otherwise we would have our account closed. This had me madly trying to find a solution that would minimize downtime.  

We decided to get our own server and move all the sites over to the server. The migration is now complete. We managed to keep the club online all the time but there was some downtime with our other sites. We hope that none of you were too inconvenienced by this move.
The main reason for the move was the amount of files that have been created by users of  our main Silversand.com.au site.

This move should allow for growth in the future and gives us total control of the server can  configuration.

The Loss of Another Friend.

We had to put one of our horses to sleep very recently after a short illness with colic type symptoms. The vets were not exactly sure what the problem  was  but they did all they could to try to save her.

Her name was Holly. She was Foxy’s full sister and was always there to help any student that was at all nervous. Holly helped many people regain their confidence over the years that she was absolutely dependable and inspired confidence in anyone who  rode her. It is never easy to loose such a close friend and she will be missed but never forgotten.

We would like to thank all of you that have heard of her passing and  sent us your best wishes over the last week or so.

Philip Nye Course

We have just hosted another successful course with Philip Nye. For some riders this was the fourth time that they have ridden in one of these five-day courses. We host one of these courses every second year and students really look forward to it. This year we had eight riders and two spectators.
it was a  great group of people that  were  supportive of and  encouraged each other. As always, the course was aimed at building confidence in horses and riders and obtaining a  good foundation for dependable riding horses.
Philip had everybody working on having their horses comfortable with high energy on the ground as well as in the saddle without the horses needing to feel like  they had to move. Once they were relaxed he had everybody working on allowing the horses the freedom to move out in a relaxed manner  with  good rhythm.
Only after this was achieved did he start introducing contact.
The results were impressive with all riders having visibly softer more relaxed horses that could accept a contact in a relaxed way.
There were two overseas riders, Sabine Buhlmann and Margret Tenta from Germany. Sabine rode Samson  and Margaret rode Cay.
We had Victoria Smith from NSW   who   attended as a rider  borrowing our horse Doc  and Helen Sharp from Victoria  borrowed Kola.
All other riders had their own horses. There was Mary House with Sasha,  Shirley Simcock with Destiny, Pam Meade with Ruby, Linda Harvey  with Fritz .

Our spectators were Camilla Swire from England and Isobel Duncan from Scotland.
Camilla, Isobel and Sabine were detained  a  few days because flights to Europe were cancelled due to the volcanic ash. 

Everyone had a great time with most riders putting their names on the list to the next course with Philip.

Click to see course report by Helen Sharp

Nearly time to leave again.

We are now over half  way through the last course here at home before flying out again to start our tour of Europe.
This last camp is primarily for overseas students and this year we have 3 great girls from Ireland and one from Pretoria in South Africa .
It will be great to catch up with all our friends on the other side of the world, but at the same time it is getting harder to leave our own forces behind.

The Palominos.

Steve has been working with Gandalf consistently lately, it seems the more time he spends with him, the more he wants to stay with him. Gandalf used to be the most nervous emotional horse that we owned. Now he is fast becoming a confident partner for Steve and looking more and more like Foxy in the way he behaves under saddle .
Gandalf and Saruman our stallion  has been put off limits to any other riders except for Steve. This is the first time that he has made the decision to keep  horses that only he will ride.

Kola the other palomino gelding has also been ridden by Steve but is still being used for  students to ride here at the centre. Helen Sharp from Victoria Rode him recently at the five-day Philip Nye course. And now Elaine from Ireland is riding him on our nine-day camp for overseas students.  Steve is going to be taking both Gandalf and Kola to Equitana soon after we get home. He will be doing demonstrations with them over the four days and may use Gandalf if necessary in the way of the horse competition to help relax the horse that he is working with.

 Kola and Gandalf out and about.

Lately Steve has been taking Gandalf or Kola with him when he has a  course to conduct locally. Both horses have spent most of their lives here at our centre so with the trip to  Equitana in Melbourne  approaching they need to be exposed to as many different situations  as possible.
As a result both of the horses visited a friends cattle property near Riverton. We have known the owners, Kent and Anne  Hallett for many years so it was part to catch up with old friends and part expose  our horses to cattle. Kurt from Germany rode Kola and Steve rode Gandalf. It is amazing how horses constantly surprise  you!
We thought that getting the horses used to cattle would take quite a while as they had never been exposed to cattle before. In reality  both horses were pretty confident around the  cattle.  When moving the cattle out of the yards Gandalf was confident to push them along  even while the cattle were pushing against him.
He  even had a pet emu  walking alongside him and everything was fine until he  spotted a very dangerous looking water trough! it was one of those concrete stock  troughs and he could hear the sound of the float valve hissing. It took quite a while to have him  relaxed and understand that the trough was not going to kill him.
Then he got on with the easy job of moving cattle for the first time! Steve and Kurt both had a great time and the horses accepted their new surroundings amazingly well. They both stood tied quietly while Steve helped Kent with some Clydesdales he was starting. There was a great experience and we hope to have time to do this more often.

The Silversand Club

The number of members to the club are slowly rising and Steve has been working on some new content that will be available to club members only.
One of these videos is of Steve trailer loading Gandalf at short distance to start with, then with the 60 foot rope, and finishing up loading him at liberty with the float parked in the roundyard gateway. We will be putting this on the club before we leave .
One of the members from England has been regularly submitting videos via YouTube to be assessed and is progressing rather quickly. I would encourage any of the members to submit videos for coaching or assessments whenever they like. It does not even have to be part of the assessment,
 PayPal is the only method of payment at the moment but some people do not like this method of payment so we will set up a subscription on a shop site so that people can pay directly with their credit card. This will probably work for annual subscriptions only but we will check out whether we  can set it up  for monthly payments.

Philip Nye Clinic April 2010

Silversand students travelled far and wide ( Germany, England, Scotland and those more ‘local’ from NSW, Victoria, Kangaroo Island and of course Sth Aust) to Blanchetown to attend the bi-annual Philip Nye clinic at Silversand in mid April. They came to be immersed in the knowledge and skill of this great, though little known, horseman from Tasmania for a full 5 days.

What was the content of the clinic I hear you ask? One attendee was heard to say as the last day drew to a close “Now I remember why I got a horse. I was one of those little girls who dreamt of having a pony and pictured myself riding it around as free as a bird. I finally have that feeling. I can die happy”. Well, I hope she doesn’t go that far but many go through their whole horsemanship journey without so much as a glimpse of what it can be like to feel this softness.

The FLOW of the next few days would eventually become apparent to the participants but anyone that has worked with Philip knows there is always much work to be done. To set the tone of this clinic Philip introduced us to the word ROBUST – to get horses and riders to the stage where the flow of energy (high and low) becomes normal – so that we could operate in extreme circumstances and take it all in our stride (literally and metaphorically) speaking. If you and your horse can function when things are less than ideal then you are developing a robust and stable system in your training.

In the first few days we spent time relaxing, seemingly just sitting around in Irena’s good picnic chairs, and on the horses, but we were starting to develop our robustness in very subtle ways. Creating a good chemistry, learning how to be OFF and ON, helping our horses differentiate between our energy being OFF (relaxing) to when the energy suddenly surges to ON. Ball (of the very large red variety) and stick skills were improving as we sat in a circle with the horses totally relaxed behind each person while all this ‘frivolity’ went on around them. Most times we were laughing so much we were aching! The horses hardly blinked an eyelid at what we were doing, even when a wayward ball or stick went flying past.

Philip did demos of EXTREME stuff with lots of energy – no pussyfooting around here. Extreme saddling and mounting were done with the flourish of a teenager, getting us to move our bodies at least 10 % faster than we would normally go (our homework was to build on that 10%), creating an energy flow that the horses then associated with ON, then doing an extreme RELAX when the flow was definitely OFF. When combined with INTENT the energy in that arena was very powerful. For example, at one stage we would just be ‘lounging’ in the chairs and Philip would count us down 3-2-1 and we’d jump off the chairs and throw in a few star jumps before mounting our horses to trot off – or not!

The riding developed a definite flow of its own, starting with the old bugbear of many – the dreaded one rein!! Rope skills that had been lost over time were suddenly re-emerging and as confidence grew so did the skill factor. Patterns and lines and clear pathways for the horses to follow soon got the flow happening. At first this was just at halt but we gradually progressed over the 5 days through the gaits till canter was as easy as halt. Fear, apprehension and tension block the flow and energy but with patience, time and familiarity this eases to create a positive rhythm. By day 5 this was very evident in all horse/rider combinations. At first riders were making what they perceived as errors, mistakes, the wrong move or the wrong direction but once Philip pointed out that there is no such thing as a ‘mistake’ – just a move that was less than perfect, to just go on as if nothing happened I, for one, felt myself becoming more free in my riding because I didn’t have this image of ‘making errors’ and being bogged down by those thoughts. He said to use it as information on what to do next time and use it as our opportunity to develop.

At all times the gate at the back of the arena was open and for a few days we met under the trees and used the natural bush land to help us see the pathways and to get the horses robust without the confines of 4 walls. Riders also needed to focus and plan ahead on what lines they were going to take as quite often a tree or low branch appeared out of nowhere! This was also an opportunity for ‘comfort zones’ to be tested and not stressed. How do we expand that comfort zone? Use consistency, repetition and controlled stress - slowly touching the outside of the CZ but coming back in before stress takes hold. This applies to horses and humans alike.

Towards the 4^th and 5^th days we worked on 0 to 100 (in energy) and back again, getting the rhythm right, doing downward transitions by going to the new gait and not from it e.g., from trot go TO the walk. This alleviates negative energy and pulling, letting the horse find his way down by not creating stress but keeping the flow and pathways open. Most riders found that rubbing their horse’s neck in a backward rubbing motion helped immensely as a calming effect on the horse and they slowed down. Philip set up some great tracks for horses and riders to follow by putting poles on barrels, thus creating a tunnel effect and a way for the horses to more easily see where they were meant to be heading. This also helped us when Philip asked us to go ‘hands free’. After some initial angst riders became confident enough to be cantering their horses, hands out wide (picture the little girl on her pony) with full confidence that once the energy level was dropped going to the downward transition gait was as simple as thinking about it.

In the last part of the clinic Philip got us to do all of the above with bridles on so that we could see that when making the transition from halter to bit it was no different. The horses didn’t make a fuss of the bit being in their mouths even when a small amount of contact was made on the reins and we all got the same result as if we were still riding in a halter.

Philip and Jenny are such lovely people and whilst at Silversand were asked many questions. This clinic was really enjoyed by everyone that attended and we were very lucky that Philip was able to present the ideas of his ROBUST model to us. A clinic with this sort of content is a definite must for those that are serious about improving their horsemanship and their relationship with their horse.

A big thanks to Steve and Irena (and Basil, the catering guru!) for organizing everything.   

Hi Steve

I am an instructor at the Highveld Branch for Disabled Riding in South Africa. I would just like to tell you of the difference your work has made to my lessons and my ability to help our very special riders.

We use 10 ponies to assist about 100 children of various disabilities. I am not sure if you have done work with RDA in Australia, but I am sure that you are aware that it is essential for a therapy pony to be able to perform his work in a confident and relaxed manner. About 6 months ago our organisation employed Natalie Stobaus. She is an avid follower of your methods and attended your workshops when you were in our country.

I can't stress enough how much difference she has made to the well being of our ponies and to the quality of work they are now able to offer in lessons. Natalie has not only re-schooled the ponies in your methods but also re-schooled our voluntary leaders. We generally have one person leading the pony and up to 2 people holding the rider.  Now our leaders have more tools, and are better equipped to handle the horses, no matter what the situation.  There is no more biting and kicking in lessons and the ponies are happy to move forward and to work with equipment like balls, pool noodles, bean bags etc. I also feel more confident asking riders to sit facing backwards etc and trust more of the ponies to handle the unusual work we do. We have always had a pony or 2 that would accommodate challenging situations, now all of our ponies will. Our ponies are all selected for their temperament and have always been schooled. The difference I have noted, however, is that they are more relaxed and willing to work. They also spend far less time in the stables and are moving around in a herd.

As a result, the quality of the ponies walk has improved and thus the therapy we are providing is better. The ponies ability to move themselves around in balance has allowed me to explore more avenues in my lessons, keeping the rider and the ponies interested and engaged.

I would be very interested of any work you have done with the RDA in Australia. I would also like to invite you to visit us if you are ever in South Africa again.

Thank you for making a difference.

Regards

Claire Helfrich