Episode 40: Why I Do Not Disengage My Horse’s Hips
There are times when you may need to make an emergency stop with your horse. One way to do this is to disengage the horse’s hips. This is something that I do not do in my training, and today, I’m going to tell you why. First, I’m going to explain exactly what I mean by disengaging the horse’s hip. I’m also going to discuss the difference when riding and doing groundwork.
When learning about horses, I encourage you to look at many programs including other people’s. When watching other programs look at the form to function and see if what they are doing falls into this category or something similar. They may not use the same terminology. I also have an interesting and forward thinking discussion with Dr. Monty about deworming.
“I use disengaging for groundwork, because I'm using it to get the horse to turn and face me.” Stacy Westfall Share on XSWS040.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
SWS040.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.
Speaker2:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. In this episode, I'm going to discuss the topic of disengaging a horse's hip or other emergency stopping methods. In the segment on call with Doctor Marney, we're going to discuss deworming. Let's get started. Before I jump into talking about disengaging a horse's hip, I think I need to discuss what it is and define it because it's not a universal term. So the way that I'm using the phrase disengaging a horse's hips is if you are teaching the horse, whether in groundwork or ridden, that it should plant its front feet and swing its hips to the side. Now, you could think of this as a turn on the forehand, and that would be appropriate when it is typically used in the phrasing of disengaging the horse's hips in groundwork. It would assume that the handler was standing and asking the horse to be in motion, and swinging the hip away from the handler to turn and face the handler, so it would bring the horse's head towards the handler on groundwork and the hips away. And in that case, it would be looking like a turn on the forehand if you were going slow. Then as you speed it up, we're going to talk about that in a minute. During ridden work typically what I'm defining as disengaging the horse's hip is typically when the head is pulled around to the rider's leg.
Speaker2:
So let's just envision that we're pulling the horse's head around to the left. So that would be the rider would take the left hand, shorten up that rein, bring that horse's head around almost to the leg, the rider's leg, and at the same time would be pushing with their left leg and swinging the horse's hips to the right. So this is what I'm defining as disengaging the horse's hips. And when we discuss it, it's got many different names and you're going to need to do your homework if you are looking at other people's programs and versions, which I encourage you to do, because it's a great way to learn is to study a lot of different things and then decide what you like. But when you're looking around, what I want you to think about is I want you to think about the form to function, and I want you to think about whether it falls into this category or whether it's very similar, but it's not actually fully disengaging. So let's talk about that for just a minute. When we discuss disengaging versus engaging, one of the interesting things here is that if we're asking a horse to do a turn onthe forehand, and so we're asking that horse to plant its front feet and move the hip around. Now think about this. There's actually different disciplines have different definitions of what a turn on the forehand is. So in some disciplines a turn on the forehand would be the front end planted.
Speaker2:
In other disciplines, a turn on the forehand would be that the forehand would still have a walking type motion, would still have movement in it, it would not be planted, and the hips would be moving around in a bigger circle than the front end, which is moving a very small, tiny circle. So even inside of a subject, like a turn on the forehand, you have to start getting really specific in your definition of what it actually means. Because if I say it and five other people say it, we might not actually all mean the same thing. The thing that is interesting is that when you're disengaging a horse's hips, which is having that front end planted no movement, or very little as little movement as you can get, and swinging that hips around, you get the horse's leg. So if we're going to have that horse swinging the hip away from you. And so if you're a pitcher that you're sitting on top of the horse. And so when I say the right hip, that's going to be it would be like if you were sitting on the horse, it would be where your right side would be. But now you're down on the ground and you're facing the horse. If you expect that horse, you're standing on the left side. Let's just imagine you're asking that horse to swing the hip away from you and to the right, then disengagement is going to look similar to.
Speaker2:
Engagement in this way that if you were looking at the hind end, that horse's inside hind leg, in this case the left hind would be stepping up underneath the belly. But to me, for my definition of the difference between disengagement and engagement is going to be qualified by two things. Disengagement is going to have the front end planted, engagement is going to still have forward motion in the horse. And so that's literally going to change whether or not we are disengaging, which doesn't have the forward motion or engaging which does have the forward motion. Another way to see this, if you're trying to teach yourself, is that a lot of times when horses are taught to truly disengage, using these methods of really swinging the hip in an exaggerated way, the horse will start stepping with that inside hind leg further than the midpoint of their belly. So instead of stepping underneath themselves, a lot of them will start really exaggerating it and stepping across their body to a great degree. And this is another thing that I see more with disengagement, not with engagement. Now, I openly have said for many, many, many years that I do not teach my horses to disengage. The first time that it really came up was at the road to the horse, because at the road to the horse, they said during the testing phase that I had to show that I could disengage my horse's hip when mounted and ridden.
Speaker2:
And so when it came to that portion of the test, I said on the microphone, I am now going to ask this horse to disengage the hip. This is the first time and the last time I'm going to do this. I'm doing it because you're requiring me to for the test, and I know I can get him to do it. But I'm also saying this is not a part of my program. Now, let's talk for just a minute about why I don't do it when I'm writing them, but why I will use it some during groundwork. The reason I don't teach my horses to disengage their hips when I'm riding them is twofold. Number one, long term it's going to slow my training down because it is actually counter to everything else I'm going to do riding my horses, everything else I want to be working on engagement, engagement, engagement, engagement. So I am not going to mount up on a horse and immediately teach it to disengage, because it's actually easier for the horse to disengage than it is to do the hard work of engaging. So I don't want to introduce something easier right at the beginning. That's also something I'm going to now discourage for the next five years. So I take that off the table because it's actually more clarity for both myself and my horse. Now, the reason I do use it when I'm doing some of my groundwork is because I, at that time, am using it to get that horse to turn and face me.
Speaker2:
Now, even in my groundwork, I do not do any kind of a disengaging motion at a higher speed, so especially not at a canter. I will use it for sure at the walk. I will use it at the trot early on, and I don't use it at all at the canter. Now, if the horse is going to drag me away in a pony drag, I'm going to possibly be poking that button of like, hey, disengage, turn and face. But I guarantee it's not going to look like an actually true disengage. But at that moment, I'm basically stepping in and using an emergency method to get that horse to try to turn and face me, which is the opposite of running away from me. Now I teach it very clearly at the standstill on the groundwork. I teach it pretty clearly, very clearly at the walk. During groundwork, I am a little more lenient and gray like. I want them to turn and face me at the trot, but I'm not going to make it really, really super precise. I will let them have a little bit of of motion in that front end as they are making that turn to turn and face. But here's the end result is I get away from it as soon as I can. I need it to teach the horse to turn and face me, and I need it in an emergency situation like the horse might be thinking about dragging me away.
Speaker2:
So I'm going to reach out there and do what I call biting their butts. So I'll take that stick and I'll reach out there and like kind of snap at their at their haunches and be like, hey, snap up, turn around here. Like, give me your attention, but I'm not going to use it as this type of refining tool that sometimes people will seem to be trying to do. But again, you have to be careful because I'm saying I don't disengage the horse because I don't get them to plant the front feet and swing the haunches once. I'm doing a lot of trot and canter work, but that is actually going to look strangely similar to when I am doing a lot of the engagement, which means I could have that horse trotting around me, and I could be asking that horse to bring that front end in a little bit more, and that's going to give that haunches out front end in look a little bit more to my horse. But it's not being caused by disengaging, which is planting the front feet and kicking the hip around. It's engaging because the horse still has forward motion, and the horse is stepping to that midpoint of the belly. It is not losing forward motion and then swinging out One of the hallmarks of disengaging versus engaging is going to be whether you can keep maintaining that motion. So, for example, I could have a horse trot five laps around me with the horse having that hip in that slightly swinging out motion, which is actually can be an engaging motion.
Speaker2:
But if you're truly disengaging, you can't do that because the front end is planted. So one of the downsides to teaching a horse to disengage is that as you start to move the hip, the horse starts to slow down because they expect to put weight on their front end and plant that front end and get heavier on that front end and come to a stop on the front end. And I hope, as you heard me say, that, that you can hear how much that contradicts later on. If the horse is getting lighter in the hind end and the horse is getting heavier in the front end, and the horse is losing forward Motion as it goes into this disengaged type of a turn on the horse's back. This is not a good thing. It's going to contradict pretty much all of the riding work I'm going to teach my horse as I move on. Now, if I don't focus a lot on disengaging my horse's hips, what am I using? As I said before, on the groundwork limited to the walk and the trot, I will teach the disengage and then as soon as I can, I get away from using it. I definitely don't use it exclusively, so that means that I may take a step back and invite that horse to turn in off from the track.
Speaker2:
So if it's lunging around me, we're going to imagine that it's gone around me five times and there's a track in the dirt, so if I take a step back, I can bring that horse's front end in off the track. So that's not going to be planting the front end. It's the actual opposite of planting the front end. And so I can actually just step back and ask that horse to turn in. I can ask that horse to do an inside turn again. That would mean that the front end is coming around inside the track, and that could leave the haunches planted on the track as it made that roll back type of a motion. And that would not be contradicting anything I'm going to be doing in the future. What I mostly do is take a step back and ask them to come in and turn and face, and my second combination with that is that I will shift back just a little bit and I'll downshift my horse so the horse might be cantering, and I will lower my energy level and have them come down to a trot and then lower again and have them come down to a walk. And I can do that by taking a step back and and asking that horse to just come in just a little bit. And then they ask that question in stop and I go, no, just in.
Speaker2:
And that means like slow down to the next gear. And very quickly they pick up on this idea of going down through these, these different. I call it gears, but going down through from from Canter to trot and then trot to walk. And then again when I get down into that trot walk zone, if I wanted to disengage, I could. But I don't do it very often, especially when the horses are reading this subtle body language already. Now, when I'm riding them, I do teach something that seems very similar to disengaging a horse. It is not the same as disengaging and you're going to hear why. So when I'm riding them, what I will teach my horse is I'll teach the horse to bend and frees their feet. And what that means, you've probably seen it if you jump on and watch any of my my videos on my YouTube channel, you'll see different versions of it. I know it was in the Jack series, but let's say I'm standing on the side that you would normally mount the horse, the horse's left side, or the on side. Let's say that I'm standing there. I will teach the horse that if I take that left rein and bend that horse's head around to where my foot would be if I were mounted that that horse. If it freezes its feet, then I will release that bend. And what happens is this becomes my version of an emergency brake. And as I start to bring that horse's head around, especially as it comes past 90 degrees, the horse starts to think about freezing its feet, stopping so that it knows the answer.
Speaker2:
I can teach it from the ground, and then I can use it when I'm up on the horse's back. And this is how this ties together into what I talked about last week in the podcast, when I was talking about being able to have the horse bend, and then I can add that forward motion from the ground with the dressage whip, or I can actually bend and bend that horse all the way around and have it come to a stop. So this is my version of a one rein stop. It does not include pushing the horse's hips around now when the horse is trying to find its balance. When you're first teaching this, the horse will be moving around. And one of the things that we'll be doing is making these rebalancing steps with its haunches, which could look like disengaging. The big deal is I'm not pushing the hips away from me and asking it to disengage, because I don't want to be teaching that, but the horse will possibly be doing that rebalancing itself. But the interesting thing is that rebalancing is a little bit uncomfortable for the horse, so the horse will get better and better in that when it realizes I'm not stepping on the gas pedal, which again, is either when I've mounted my legs or if I'm on the ground, the gas pedal would be that dressage whip.
Speaker2:
If I'm if I'm doing the exercise from the last podcast, and if I'm not stepping on the gas pedal and I start bringing that horse's head around, it realizes, hey, we're probably headed to a stop. And so they start to slow their own feet down in a balanced way, and they stop. When I have been at clinics and gotten on some horses that were trained, a emergency one rein, kind of a stop disengaging the horse's hip. It is kind of amazing in my body. The fear I feel when that horse, when I go to bring that head around and that haunches, the haunches start to really flow out there because it feels off balance to me. And I'm not saying that there can't. There's there's definitely ways that you can teach a horse to be engaging in doing some of these things, but when you're truly having that horse just kind of fling its haunches around, it is a very uncomfortable because they're actually not very well balanced in that way. That's why you'll hear people saying, you know, we're taking away or like robbing the energy from this horse. But I'm telling you, there's a loss of balance involved in there, which is why I'm not going to use that method when I'm riding my horses. Now, here's a thought. If I could give you a way to remember when and how to use a one rein or an emergency stop.
Speaker2:
So in my in my world, when I bring that one rein all the way around and ask that horse's head to come round. The horse has learned before I ever mount up that when it when I'm bending that head around and I'm not stepping on the gas pedal, that it should be coming to a stop because that's the only way. Once it's feet freeze, I'm going to let go and release the pressure, and the horse will then be free. This gives me that moment to jump off if I'm in an emergency situation. And that's all I'm looking for. Because you're disengaging or this one rein, stop. At best, it's an emergency brake. So think about your car. How often have you stopped your vehicle with your emergency brake? I am not talking about a parking brake all day long. I use that bend to a standstill as an emergency brake, for a parking brake for when I'm mounting up on the horse. I use it for sure for that. But I'm talking about driving down the road and you were like, hey, I'm going to stop my vehicle. Let's use the emergency brake. In all my years of driving, which has been decades, I've done that one time. Once, when I was a teenager, I was driving a truck that lost the brakes, and my father had told me at that moment, if something like that ever happens, you can use the emergency brake.
Speaker2:
It might cause problems, it might cause damage, but you know, stopping is going to be the most important thing. So back in the day, I was driving as a teenager and some brake work had just been done on the truck. Obviously not very well. Something about losing the pressure in the line don't really care. All I know is that I put my foot on the brake pedal and it went flat to the floor. Thankfully I was going very slow because I was already getting ready to make a turn. That day. I stomped on the emergency brake, then I put the vehicle in park. I got out shaking and I did not drive that vehicle again until the standard braking system was fully fixed and then I was still shaky. That's the way I want you to think about your braking system on your horse. You can have an emergency stop, but it is not going to be something that you're going to have highly refined. You've got to start moving to more advanced systems because there are so many places where this emergency stop, whether it's my version where I don't disengage the horse's hip or whether it's somebody else's version where they do an emergency stop is the emergency brakes, and it's not something you want to rely on. And when you use it, you should make a note to yourself, I was just in an emergency. My standard braking system is broken. What do I need to do to fix it?
Speaker1:
Supporting companies make this show sustainable. Thank you.
Speaker2:
In this week's segment on call with Doctor Marney. Doctor Marney and I discussed the latest info on deworming. I'd like to thank EC3 for caring enough about horses and education that they're sponsoring this podcast and creating the opportunity to talk to. Doctor Marney, even when it's about subjects that have nothing to do with their products. I think that says a lot about the company that they said, hey, we would like you to. Educate your listeners on any subject you find helpful to them, even if it's not directly related to. A product we sell. That's pretty amazing. Thank you. Thrive. Doctor Monte Mcinturff is located in Tennessee. Where he's the co-owner and president of the Tennessee Equine Hospital, which has three hospital locations. He has been an equine practitioner for over 30 years with a focus on the equine athlete. In today's conversation, you're going to hear us laughing a lot at the beginning because I was totally tongue tied trying to introduce it. Doctor Marney has been amazing to work with, so take a listen. Not only to my conversation, but to. Doctor Marney helping me get started in this interview. Thanks. Well, Doctor Marney, tonight, what we have going here. I can't believe I just said that again today.
Speaker3:
Today? I think there's nothing in my. You want me to introduce you? Me to intro you. No kidding?
Speaker2:
Yes. Yes. Could you please introduce me? I seem to have lost my mind. Doctor Marney, can you. Can you bring up the topic and tell me who I am?
Speaker3:
Yeah, I can. That's all right. All right, let's take a deep breath. Deep breaths. Okay.
Speaker2:
What we're talking about today is deworming. How often should we deworm a horse? This seems like it changes yearly what the recommendations are. So can you give me the most up to date information on what I should be doing regarding deworming my horse?
Speaker3:
Oh, most definitely. That's that's a great question. I get that one a lot. And, you know, I hate to confess this, but I've been been practicing for about 30 years and it seems to change every year how we should pursue parasites. But I know from the old school way of thinking is, hey, look, let's just de-worm every two months and let's rotate our wormers because we don't want to get any parasite resistance. Well, that plan didn't work. We we're finding some some parasite resistance with large roundworms. And we're also seeing some resistance with small strongyles. So I say that to say that the latest thinking is quite simple. Let's take a fecal of our horse once a year and determine what level of parasite load the horse has. And from that fecal. Let's make a proper deworming plan, because what we found out is parasites are in the environment all over the place. They're at your house, they're at your neighbor's house, they're at the horse show where you're going. You're not going to be able to keep your horse from being around Parasites. And we've learned that the horse has a natural immunity to this parasite exposure. These little bitty eggs, these little bitty larvae that they ingest. And they naturally kill a lot of these parasites themselves.
Speaker3:
So these horses with a natural immunity do not need to be dewormed as regularly as we thought. There is a population of horses out there that don't have a good immune system to parasites, and they're constantly reinfected. And those are the horses that we need to have a more aggressive program with. And you're like, well, Doctor Marty, are those the skinny horses or are those the fat horses? I can tell you, some of the skinniest horses I've seen have a negative parasite load, and some of the fat horses will have a positive parasite load. So you can't just look at a horse and tell if he's got worms. You need to do a fecal once a year and determine once you determine what his parasite load is, if it's 0 To 250 eggs per gram and 250 or less is considered very low. We recommend deworming those horses twice a year. I like to do that in the summertime when the when the botnets are starting to lay here in the southeast. It's a big time. And then after the first frost. So I know you're you're your listeners are all over the nation. We time our deworming after the first frost because that's when the bot flies are killed.
Speaker3:
And then again six months later, the horse has a count over 250. We're going to deworm more aggressively, and we typically deworm those horses every 90 days, which is every three months, and then we recheck their fecal at the six month mark. If it's back down to 0 to 250, we'll move them to every six months. And the horse with really high levels will deworm those horses. And we'll recheck their egg count their fecal egg count again in two weeks. So we've got three categories low shatters, medium shatters, and high shatters. Um, that's that's our three categories, so that's a little confusing. It's a lot to process over, over the radio and over the phone. But the story here is get a fecal don and treat your horse appropriately. We're like, why do I want to call the vet and get a fecal? I can just go to the cooperative or the tractor supply or wherever and get my wormer. I don't need a vet for that. Well, you're probably over worming your horse and you're spending more money than you should. And you're also the person that's helping to cause parasite resistance by overwhelming. So please consider not overusing these chemicals, because we have a small group of chemicals that are still working.
Speaker2:
That actually makes a lot of sense. I agree that there's a lot. By I mean kind of having it in three categories, but at the same time, it makes more sense that we're not broadly treating them all exactly the same. So I think for me it's going to be worth worth investigating and figuring out who my different horses are, you know. Using the fecal, because it's honestly been a few years since we've done that. I haven't done it since I moved here. And so, you know, it's been more, um, just kind of going with what I've used in the past, but I definitely feel the urge to be making that appointment.
Speaker3:
Well, I encourage you to. It's it's going to protect the horses for the future. Um, and that's important to not overuse things now. So that's. I appreciate you saying that.
Speaker2:
Oh. Very good. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you again in the next episode.
Speaker1:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall. Com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.
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“I don't teach my horses to disengage during riding, because it's going to slow my training down, and it's counter to everything else I do.” Stacy Westfall Share on X
Links and Resources:
Stacy’s Video Diary: Jac-Episode 1-First Day-Part 1-Evaluating Jac
Episode 39: The Two Most Basic Cues When Riding a Horse
Have you ever wondered what a live version of this podcast would be like?I’m hosting some live, online video calls that are like a live version of this podcast. I teach on a subject, answer questions and for those who are brave, I’ll turn your video on live too and you can join me for a conversation!
If you want to learn more about this you can visit https://stacywestfall.com/live/ for more information!
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