We wanted to find a way to truly showcase what makes our therapeutic riding sessions unique, and sharing Jack’s recent journey felt like the perfect way to do it. Our horses are not just tools for riding, they are sentient beings who deserve to participate as equals alongside our clients and instructors. Through Jack’s story, we also want to share the care and commitment behind our sessions, including the costs involved and the high standards we uphold for our horses' well-being. It's our first attempt at a longer format, so we’d love to hear your thoughts!
Noticing A Change in Behaviour
Jack arrived in June last year and it soon felt like he'd always been here. Our clients appreciated that he is responsive and polite, and we love that he is so consistently safe, yet still present and intuitive. Sometimes ponies are unflappable because they’ve ‘zoned out’, which isn’t good for them and not helpful for our way of riding, but Jack is well-attuned to his riders and he really thrived for the first 6 months with us.
After our Christmas break Jack came back into work a little bit off colour. Initially this was just that he seemed a bit more hesitant than usual, nothing obvious but enough for some sessions to feel stilted. Our instructors picked this up immediately and knowing that this isn't in Jack's usual nature, we had a think together about what could be going on. It's important to note he was showing no pain signals at this point, and was otherwise completely sound and happy.
Our first thought in this situation is always whether the horse is actually giving feedback about the rider or the instructor. This is really the essence of our therapeutic riding sessions, we take a (sometimes uncomfortable) look at ourselves and we want to be really, really certain that it’s not us affecting them before we go any further. It’s so easy to label a horse ‘naughty’ or ‘difficult’ when most often it’s something we’re bringing to the table - nothing to do with them at all!
To explore this, we track whether the behaviour is repeated with different clients/instructors, and we test what happens if we actively prioritise the humans responding to the horse. In Jack’s case we had a week of this yet the behaviour stayed consistent across all sessions, so we decided that something bigger was going on. All equine behaviour has a reason, and it’s up to us to find the cause to keep our horses happy and healthy.
Where to Start?
At this point, we had a few theories about the cause:
It was a long Christmas break, it might take some time for the horses to adjust back into the work routine.
Gertie had passed away, following Ted just a few months before. This had upset the herd and Jack might still be struggling emotionally.
He’d fallen down the herd hierarchy, maybe he was being picked on.
His saddle had been adjusted recently, but might need adjusting again.
He had the dentist in November, but something might have changed.
He’d had his chiropractic treatment at New Year, but maybe this hadn’t held.
He is sensitive to the wet and cold, perhaps the weather was getting him down.
Maybe he needs some schooling to help him feel confident in what’s expected of him.
You can see how some of these relate to the ridden sessions but a lot are about his life outside of those sessions. That’s because in the same way a client might bring their life ‘stuff’ into the arena, so do the horses. If Jack feels withdrawn in the herd, he may well present as withdrawn in a session too. We decided to firstly give him more time in the stable and rugged him up more, so he was consistently warm, dry, and had some time to himself to relax.
This didn’t make much difference, and in the last week of January, Jack started ‘hopping’ into the trot and throwing his head during the transition. This is more aligned with signs of discomfort, but there was no obvious cause. We gave him a week off client work and our instructors worked with him from the ground every day. They focused on helping him feel good in his body through bending and stretching, as well as trying to work out what he might be feeling emotionally. During this time, he had a couple of reiki sessions with the lovely lady who sees our herd, and we felt he really took the healing on board and was more emotionally balanced. But on 1st February he had his regular assessment by the whole team and we still weren’t happy. He was losing muscle tone and trotted as though the handbrake was on, very unlike him.
Jack had a week completely off work whilst we waited for him to be treated by the chiropractor again. She found that his atlas was misaligned and he’d compensated through his neck, which would be causing him to feel off colour and potentially throw his head in the trot - this was all able to be corrected. He had some more time off following this treatment, and then his saddle checked a week later which was fine and not causing him any problems.
Diagnosis
We had now worked through most of the theories we originally had, and Jack looked sound, happy, and like his usual self in the field. We were optimistic when he came back into ridden sessions, but it was quickly apparent that he was even more uncomfortable than before. He didn’t want to trot at all, had started to flick his head up and down even in walk, and was almost unrideable in trot. This was a stark difference to how content he was at rest and we began to suspect an underlying issue. We booked the vet to visit as soon as possible for a full work up.
On 20th February our vet assessed Jack and we talked through everything we had already tried. He checked Jack’s teeth, watched him move on the lunge, fully examined him, and ultimately diagnosed him with the condition Head Shaking. A couple of his symptoms are unusual, but the type of head movement he does is a classic sign. Head shaking is an incurable condition with a sudden onset, usually only when ridden, where the trigeminal nerve running down the face to the nostrils becomes overstimulated. This makes the horse feel like something is aggravating their nose all of the time and they shake their head up and down, blow their nose or scratch it to try and relieve the irritation.
After the diagnosis we started working with our vet to make Jack more comfortable in his work. He is now on a high dose of a magnesium supplement, and we’ve changed him to a specific type of bitless bridle to reduce pressure around the front of his face. We’ve trialled Piriton but there was no change, so we know the symptoms are not allergy-driven. We will be able to try other treatments going forwards, including electromagnetic stimulation of the nerve to try and reduce the signals being sent to the brain.
Moving Forwards
One of the most rewarding parts of the journey now is to involve Jack’s clients, who are helping us to work out how he prefers to be ridden, and what kind of activities he can comfortably do. Anyone who has been to Hope Meadows for a long time will know that if a horse has a problem in a session we don’t just swap them for another horse, because they are not tools to be replaced. Instead we show clients how we can assess what is going on for them. If we spot a new issue, we ask the client to dismount and together we will check the horse over, trot them up, and make a decision about whether we can continue the ridden part of the session. If we can’t, we will untack the horse together and make sure they’re comfortable. The relationship we have with the horses is everything, and we must value their comfort even more highly than our own.
Jack is much better with the changes we have already made, and what we thought might end his ridden career now seems much more manageable with the right adjustments and supplements. It’s lovely to see him trotting around happily again and even having the odd jump. His muscle has built back up very quickly and we’re pleased that he’s starting to look great again!
Ethical Riding
From Jack's journey, you might have gathered that starting therapeutic riding with us isn’t about learning to canter or jump, though we can do that too eventually. It’s about what it means to ride a horse; how they learn, how they help us to understand ourselves, and how we honour them in the process. It means a commitment to not labelling horses as ‘badly behaved’ but to getting into their world and understanding what they are telling us through their behaviour.
The story of Jack also shows how riding horses without harming them takes a monumental amount of time, money, and knowledge. We know session costs can be a barrier for clients, but we cannot compromise on the standard of care we offer our ridden horses. Horses aren’t naturally built to be ridden, and they certainly don’t owe us anything, but if we choose to do so, we must do it ethically.
Have a look at our Therapeutic Riding sessions.
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