Episode 44: How Can I Improve My Horse’s Lope or Canter?
One of the top issues that I get questions about is improving a lope or canter and doing it safely.
In this episode, I use the four square model of the horse’s mind, the horse’s body, rider’s mind, and rider’s body to illustrate some safety precautions for improving your lope and canter. I kick the show off with a call from one of my past clinic participants named Bob. I asked Bob if he’d be willing to share his experience with everyone, and he agreed.
After my conversation with Bob, I have another guest named Michelle that had a horse with very serious metabolic issues and laminitis. I remember things better when they are wrapped in a story, and I’ve never had a horse with these issues. Michelle shares her story of trying to get a diagnosis for her horse, and the treatment that finally helped her recover. Michelle hopes that her story will help others be advocates for their horses.
“You may need to improve your horses physical conditioning to improve his lope or canter. You can do this by lunging more on a lunge line or in a round pen” Stacy Westfall Share on XSWS044_V2.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
SWS044_V2.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 explain how to improve your lope or Canter, and I include an interview with one of my past clinic participants, Bob, where he gets to explain his own discoveries in this area. Later in the podcast, I talk with Michelle about her experience with owning a horse with insulin resistance leading to founder. Don't worry, it's also a success story that we can all learn from. Let's get started. Inside my online video vault, I have been doing live zoom calls, and that means that I am on audio and video and answering people's questions live. During this zoom call, I asked Bob if he would be willing to share the experience that he had had when he was discovering how to move, as he said, to a controlled rhythmic lope away from a frantic or scary lope. And I'm going to go ahead and let Bob explain it by letting you hear the audio. Here it is. Bob came to a clinic and Bob rode with us at a clinic, and then he lives close enough to us that he's been coming and taking lessons with Jesse, and at one point I'm not exactly sure what you asked Jesse, but I know it was something to do with improving your lope. Do you remember exactly what the question was?
Speaker3:
Yes. It had to do with getting a controlled rhythmic lope that I see, you know, a lot of people accomplish, whereas my lope tended to be frantic. Um, scary at times even. And so that was my question, and we worked quite a bit on it.
Speaker2:
Yeah. And he gave you one main assignment.
Speaker3:
Right, right. And the main assignment was to lope more and longer minutes. Characteristically, I would go 2 or 3 times around the arena and thinking, I got the job done and would quit. Mhm. Jesse would say, well start off with five minutes, go in both directions and then move that up to, you know, ten, 11, 12 and lo and behold my, my horse now will rhythmically canter. And it's really a fun ride to to experience compared to what it was like before.
Speaker2:
Very rhythmically, I saw you at a lesson, and I don't always come out for the lessons. And I'd been it'd been a few months and I was like, wow, his lope is completely different.
Speaker3:
And in addition, with the right lead especially, he would take off, go almost twice as fast, going to the right as to the left. And my wife rode the horse before I did. And I think what she would do when he got to going that fast, she she would just shut him down. So he got to thinking. And you would comment on this more than me, but I think he just figured out, hey, if I go fast, I get to quit, right?
Speaker2:
I would say you're probably right.
Speaker3:
Yeah. So Jesse had me going around about twice as much to the right as to the left. And he's calm right down to that. In fact, Stacy over the weekend was the state Fair mounted shooting, which I do, and it was the best three days I've ever had mounted shooting. I only missed one balloon the whole weekend and talk about having a rhythmic lope Canter it was there both directions and I credit a lot of that. That cloverleaf pattern, you know, is awesome. I mean, it combines steering and collection and everything. I couldn't be happier.
Speaker2:
Yeah, that is awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Now, when when you were first timing it. Because I know you actually went ahead and set a timer. What did you find that your original when you thought you were loping quite a bit. What was the original amount of time when you timed it?
Speaker3:
Oh, when I first timed it, it. I don't think I went a minute and a half, two minutes. Okay. And thought I was doing a lot.
Speaker2:
Yeah.
Speaker3:
Set the timer for five minutes at the lope. Is a long time. I learned it is. It took a while to, you know, understand that. But boy, what a difference it makes in your horse. In my horse anyway.
Speaker2:
Yeah. How long would you say it took you to work from that one and a half? Two minutes up to where? Five minutes felt like this is doable.
Speaker3:
Yeah. That would. That took about a week. I would say thinking back. And, um, once I got comfortable with that, I started adding minutes. And now I'm up to 15 without any problem. Yeah. And I noticed I went to watch Jesse at the last reining thing in Findlay, and I was watching the people warming up, and I was amazed at how long those folks will lope in the warm up when they go. When they go and they go and they go and the horses don't even break into a sweat.
Speaker2:
I know.
Speaker3:
So fun to watch.
Speaker2:
Yeah, it is. And I think the reason I wanted to talk about it a little bit here is because it's actually a really common. If I have ranked it, I bet it's in the top five. The one of the top five questions is going to be lope getting comfortable in the lope. It's all about like, how can I, how can I lope and be comfortable? How can I get that rhythmic, how can I get the collection? And it's constantly trying to figure out how to explain to people that the shortest way to get there is to just lope more. But it doesn't. It feels like people want to figure out how to, like, put it together and make the lead departure really perfect and make the lope for 30s really perfect. And you're like, it's actually kind of backwards. Like when you can lope for 5 or 10 minutes, then the other stuff gets better. So it gets it works in this inverse way that I think with you having just experienced it recently, you know, over the last months and year, the whole progress, I think it's more recent. In your mind, is there anything else you'd want to tell people like that. You would say, like, you know, this is something that felt sticky, but now I'm on the other side or anything else that comes to mind for sure.
Speaker3:
It it is really a nice gate to ride. It's my favorite now, um, because it just feels so smooth, so rhythmic. The horse is in control. He gets that breathing rhythm going. And yeah, it's just especially for what I do with the mounted shooting, it's it's really made a big difference.
Speaker2:
Good. Now how many days a week do you ride?
Speaker3:
I try to ride a minimum of three. I travel some, so it's hard for me to go every day. But in the wintertime it's really hard because of weather conditions and so on. But I ride almost every day I can when the weather's fit and I can get out there and go. So during the day averaging 3 to 4.
Speaker2:
Okay, so during that loping transition thing, it was about 3 to 4 days a.
Speaker3:
Week, 3 to 4 days a week. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker2:
And about how long do you work in total?
Speaker3:
I work in usually an hour is my limit. There will be some times I'll be working on something else. I might go an hour 15 hour 20. Um, I can kind of tell. I want to always stop in a good spot. So if I'm feeling feeling he's not focusing anymore, I'll go back to something he does well and then quit there. So.
Speaker2:
And then where do you mostly ride in your outdoor arena, or do you vary where you ride?
Speaker3:
I, uh, work on things in the, in the outdoor arena, and then I've got, uh, eight acres and I'll leave the arena and just kind of trail ride around the area and in the farm fields when there's not crops out there, but also on some weekends I will go trail riding, which I recommend highly for your horse. That's plus I like to do it. So yeah.
Speaker2:
And what size is your outdoor arena?
Speaker3:
It is uh, 80 by 135. Okay, but I'm having an indoor built. In fact, they're supposed to get started in a couple weeks. That's going to be 70 by 150.
Speaker2:
Nice, nice. That'll change your winters a lot here in Ohio. Yeah, yeah. Very nice. As you could hear, this was an excerpt from one of my video calls with a group of people. What I'd like to do is give you some more safety tips for when you are working up to improving your slope or your Canter. Let's go ahead and use the four square model. And let's begin with the horse's body. You may need to improve your horse's physical conditioning to improve your lope or Canter, and you can do this by lunging him more or longer. And you can do that on a lunge line or in a round pen. But if you want to be able to lope for five minutes straight, it would be reasonable to expect to be able to lunge and get this horse to lope for five minutes straight. You could also include lunging the horse over poles at a canter, which you could just put a pole at, let's say 12:00 in the arena and 6:00 in the arena. You can get kind of creative here, even little baby. Presto. When he was a two year old, I was lunging him over some of the logs in the indoor arena during the winter time to help build his coordination and his muscling to prepare him. Depending on the age of the horse and the physical condition, you need to build yourself up.
Speaker2:
But those are some ideas to get started with. Improving your horse's body before you go into a lot of loping your horse's mind is something you need to take a look at. Also, because you might have things in the back of your mind like him bucking or not stopping. And some of these are their physical representations of something that's going on in your horse's mind. So, for example, the buck could be in his mind because of him being fresh. So maybe he hasn't had a chance to play. And maybe you've been mostly walking and trotting for a very long time, and he just hasn't had a chance to kick up his heels, which is why moving him around in the previous tip would be helpful. But it also could be that there's some kind of a history, either with you or with him, but you want to try to separate out your horse's mind and see if there's anything that you should be concerned with that could be holding you back, because you're kind of aware of it. If you're unclear about your horse's body or mind, go ahead and get a professional opinion to help put you at ease. Another square of the four square model is the rider's body. So what is making you physically uncomfortable about loping more? For a lot of people, it's the bouncy trot that they get into when they're going up to the lope or Canter, or when they're coming down from the lope or the canter.
Speaker2:
A lot of people will say, if I could skip that spot, I'd be okay. Now, training wise, if your horse is in high school or college, you can get to the point where you can skip that. But because you can't guarantee that, that won't be a few steps that would happen, I would encourage you to increase your tolerance of that gait by working on the trot to improve your confidence before you move into the lope. So you might jog your horse kind of at a medium speed, and then you might want to ask that horse to extend into a bigger jog. Or sometimes I use trot as the bigger version of jog. So, you know, ask that horse to trot out there a little bit more and kind of push your tolerance level of where that trot is, because they can trot a little bit quicker, and maybe it's because you're not having them have some kind of collection. Maybe that's why they're getting more bouncy, but you'll want to have some of those discoveries in the trot, because even a well-trained horse that knows how to do a walk to canter Canter to walk transition will occasionally take a few of those bouncy steps, so it's better if you get prepared for that.
Speaker2:
Sometimes riders who are just not sure about it can benefit from riding over a log on the ground and learning to walk and trot over those, because it has that little shift in their body that happens, and some of these things can help riders improve their comfort level around those funny steps you can get between the transitions up and down, in and out of the canter elope. You could also consider improving your physical strength. Outside of riding your horse, it's interesting to note that Bob actually joined a gym and started working out and really improved his physical strength alongside what he was doing with riding his horse, and I do think the two correlate together for quicker success. When you go to the fourth quadrant, the rider's mind and you are wondering what might be holding you back from being able to lope or canter with more confidence. A great exercise to do is write down all of your fears or concerns on a piece of paper. You can shred it or burn it, or whatever you want to do after you analyze it, but I find it helpful to get it out on a piece of paper, because then you need to find a solution for each one of those things that could be holding you back. So, for example, you might write down fear of falling.
Speaker2:
Fear of bucking. Fear of hurting my horse. And then you could go down and you could break that down. And you could say, fear of falling. What makes this different to me in the lope than it is when I'm mounted up at the walk or the trot, and you could come up with three solutions for building your confidence in that area, and then fear of bucking. You could write down, is this a fear that because my horse has a history of bucking, or where is this coming from? Is this because I'm just I saw somebody else get bucked off, or is this because I just know it could happen? Or write down everything you're thinking about and then ask yourself the question, what could build my confidence? Is it seeing someone else ride your horse and lope? Would it be you getting on another horse and loping? Would it be you exercising and feeling stronger and like you have more physical balance so that you're more confident in your ability when you're up there? And then the fear of hurting the horse. You could write that down and you could write, where is this coming from? Does he have an injury to work around, or am I just generally afraid? But I don't really have any any found. I don't have any real foundation to to stand on with that.
Speaker2:
It's just kind of this vague fear. If that's the case, what does your vet say? Or how about a professional evaluation from a trainer in the area, somebody who could get on and ride the horse? Oftentimes, if I get on a horse at a clinic, it's eye opening to the owner just to see the horse step up there and just do it. And some of that just comes from my confidence and understanding what things should feel like. And so give yourself that gift if you need it, if it would help you find someone else so that you can see someone else ride your horse, and it can help build your confidence, and it will give you some more Evidence that your horse is capable. One thing I do have to say is I am not a big believer in just forcing yourself through your fears. So if people are fearful, I am much more interested in getting them to analyze what's going on there, rather than just forcing themselves through the fear. Because it's sometimes. The first episode that I recorded of the podcast was fear versus danger, and the reason why I did that podcast first was because sometimes people will actually put something that I would put in the danger category. They'll put in the fear category. So for example, I used I've used the example before about a car.
Speaker2:
If your car's brakes are failing, then you would be naturally fearful to drive the car because it's actually dangerous. And I think sometimes with the emotional connection and idea with the horses, I think sometimes people are like, oh, I'm just fearful when actually it might be pointing towards danger. So this is why I encourage you to write this stuff down and evaluate it. Because if a professional evaluates your horse and basically gives you the same prognosis as a mechanic who looks at your car and says your brakes are failing, then you would actually feel like, oh, my brakes are failing, I need some brake work done. That could apply to your horse. So if your horse has issues and you're unclear whether you're lumping it into your fear or whether it's really a danger. This is why you need to break it down into as many steps as possible, or get a professional's opinion. Because if you push yourself through something that's actually dangerous, like you decide to drive your car even though the brakes are failing, you can actually get hurt. And then that's just going to feed your idea that your fear was somehow, you know, doing something that no fear is different than danger, but only if you can break down and understand where each one is coming from. That's your assignment. If you're dealing with fear during this process.
Speaker1:
Supporting companies make this show sustainable. Thank you.
Speaker2:
I don't know about you, but when I'm learning in any area of my life, I seem to remember things better if it's wrapped around a story. Today I'm learning from Michelle. Thankfully, I've never personally owned a horse with metabolic issues, but Michelle has. After we stopped recording and we were discussing what we hoped people got from this interview, I think Michelle said it best when she said, I hope people are inspired to be advocates for their horse. Let's listen to Michelle's story. I was just telling the podcast listeners that I've never owned a horse with metabolic issues, but I've heard that you have some experience with it, and I'd like to hear your story so that we can all learn a little bit from it. Could you tell me a little bit about your horse and your story?
Speaker4:
Sure. I bought my horse when she was. She had just turned three. She's a Tennessee Walking horse. She's not a big lick horse. She's naturally gaited. When I bought her, she was healthy, used to turn out 24 over seven, and used to being on sweet feed. So I bought her at three years old. And of course change. She didn't go out 24 over seven. She had just regular turnout like overnight and changed her two to a lower carb pellet. And when she was seven, she started having acute lameness and there was no visible injury. The farrier didn't even know that it was laminitis. My vet came out and thought that it was EPM. We started breeding her. Yes. And then she didn't get better. And then she. My vet thought, well, maybe she has Wobbler's syndrome. I knew my horse wasn't a wobbler, so because I had already researched it by trade on the I'm a nurse critical care nurse and I have done, um, coordinated a lot of research projects for the University of Cincinnati.
Speaker2:
Can you describe some of the symptoms she was having? Because usually laminitis is very traditional presentation. But it doesn't sound like yours was.
Speaker4:
No. First of all, she broke out in hives all over the body. I've read that. That's kind of an old wives tale. Um, but now I really wonder. Two weeks later, um, she became acutely lame. Um, right front leg. She was acting as though the front foot was sore. There was no visible injury. Farrier didn't notice anything. She was kind of throwing her front leg out, kind of side to side when she walked, as if her shoulder was hurting. Um huh. He went ahead and trimmed her, put her shoes on. She shot only on the right, on the front feet. The lameness became worse the next day. Hesitant to walk. We took the shoes off. The very next day, the vet visited. Um. She thought we had the medial portion of the suspensory ligament was a little swollen. We wrapped her legs, gave her a little banamine. Nothing happened. She just kept getting worse and worse and worse. I went out to the barn. She was down in the stall. We couldn't get her up. And then when we got her up, she took that laminitic stance. And when I saw that, I knew, I knew.
Speaker4:
I walked her on the concrete floor. She was so lame she could barely walk. But it was interesting. When I took her on the grass on a soft surface, she could walk a little bit better. Mhm. Unfortunately, um, she was misdiagnosed at the time. We took radiographs, both front feet. There was no sinking, no rotation. She did have pronounced digital pulses on both front legs. So it started in the right positive digital pulses. A few days later a positive digital pulses on the left. So I've read it can start on one one extremity. And then because of the extra pressure they put on the other extremity, then the laminitis can develop. I took her down to Root and Riddle Hospital in Lexington because the vet thought she was a wobbler. We had, um, CT or x rays done of her cervical spine. Cervical spine was fine, well aligned, and then he took some x rays of the feet. Right away we saw we saw the the rotation and the the sinking. And this was all within approximately a week of those first radiographs that were taken.
Speaker2:
Wow.
Speaker4:
So this has been very fast.
Speaker2:
That is really fast. Like so you had x rays from your vet a week earlier and then a week later you were at Rood and Riddle. Correct?
Speaker4:
Yes. Correct. Wow. And, um, I helped her with the x X-rays, and I watched what they did at Rood and Riddle. So we did the X-rays correctly on her feet. So immediately when we found the when they diagnosed the laminitis, they took her straight to podiatry. And Doctor Scott Morrison, who heads podiatry at Rood and Riddle, he he he trimmed her feet. He he he patted. He patted her feet and put, like, corrective shoes on and took some weight off of her toes. And long story short, I followed every six weeks with Doctor Morrison at Rood and Riddle. I had to give my horse a chance. I was not going to put her down.
Speaker2:
So years old.
Speaker4:
Yeah, she was very young, so I had to give her a chance. If she didn't recover, I would have euthanized her. But the prognosis was good. And so I chose to take her to Lexington every six weeks for a year. He straightened out her feet. Her feet are well aligned. Looking at her hoofs, you could never tell she had laminitis. I continue to follow his prescription for the shoes. It's a rocker type shoe that lifts her heel up. I was fortunate enough to find a good farrier here in Cincinnati, and I take her route to Rood and Riddle once a year. Now for radiographs and, um. And see if Doctor Morrison wants to change the prescription on her shoe. Backing up to when I took her to Rood and Riddle, I saw a doctor Reed, who is an expert in neurological, equine, neurological syndromes and, um, and also Doctor Scott Morrison and podiatry. They consulted with the University of Kentucky and the University of Tennessee. And that's where when they told me, put her on the table. So we started her on thyroid to kind of, um, boost her metabolism while she was on stall rest. She was only on that for about two months. Then we weaned it off. And that actually knocked off a little bit of weight, maybe 200 pounds. She wasn't that overweight. She wasn't the picture of laminitis or EMS.
Speaker2:
That's what I was going to ask. Like what? What was her body score and how how early on did the vet start to suspect that this was some kind of metabolic link?
Speaker4:
Uh, when she, she, she drew lab work and and that was actually towards the end when she didn't really know what was going on. She drew lab work and her insulin was 60. And she said, this horse is metabolic. She still hadn't diagnosed the laminitis because this was.
Speaker2:
Your first vet?
Speaker4:
Exactly. Because she was basing her diagnosis upon the radiographs that we took of the hoof. Mhm. Um, I was just I couldn't believe how fast that sinking and rotation happened. It was in a week, within a week. Um, so I started her on the thyroid meta-brawl um, two scoops and two scoops pm. They also started her on quiescence for the chromium and magnesium.
Speaker2:
Mhm.
Speaker4:
And, um, so seven she was seven years old when we started that. I also in the right after the diagnosis I put her on kind of like an emergency diet where I was soaking her hay, um, 30 to 60 minutes a day. I stopped all turnout and I switched to an even lower, um, nonstructural carb pellet. Um, so she's 11 years old now. She Yeah. has totally recovered. She still has insulin resistance. You never recover from that. Um, she her body score is good. Um, to look at her still, you would never think she was an EMS horse. Um, I've shown her in lower level gaited dressage several times. We've done well. Scored in the low 70s, but it makes her nervous. And I don't want to do anything to her to make her to cause stress. Because we know with stress, your cortisol levels levels increase. And then that could throw her into a laminitic episode. She is always muzzled on grass from spring until winter. Whenever she's on grass, she is always muzzled and she gets a couple of hours of grass per day. I, uh, in the in the early days, I would have the vet run an insulin glucose, um, on her probably. I started out with, uh, four times a year. Um, once I was able to get her stabilized on the meta-brawl. Um, that took probably two months maximum. So since for three years now, her insulin level has been below 20, which is what it's supposed to be, and her glucose level has always remained below 100.
Speaker2:
So these are numbers that people like me, the people people like me don't know the numbers. So I'm glad you just said it like that because I haven't had to deal with this, so I don't recognize some of the importance of the numbers.
Speaker4:
These are the numbers. And to to tell us your treatment is working, you have to follow up with labs. And it's a commitment and it is expensive. But I feel like this saved my horse's life. I gave her the best chance I could and she is happy and thriving, you know.
Speaker2:
So you are the only person I've talked to so far that has had a horse with sinking laminitis that they've saved. Usually I've seen horses saved from rotation. I've seen a lot of horses saved from rotation. I have not seen I've never talked to somebody personally who saved one from sinking.
Speaker4:
Yeah, that's I saw it is when I saw those radiographs. They didn't even have to tell me, I knew, I knew and um. And then Doctor Morris and I said, what is the prognosis on this? And he said, it's actually good, but these are the things that you need to do for this horse. And he said, you can come. I'd like you to follow maybe for a few months down here. But he said, it takes a whole year for the hoof to grow out. And so, in my horse's best interest. And I live in Cincinnati. Lexington, Kentucky is an hour and a half away, so it's an easy drive. So I chose to follow every six weeks for one year. Okay. And Yeah., from what I understand.
Speaker2:
So she started and within a week you were at Rood and Riddle, and then you made the commitment for every six weeks. And now she's sound. How was her comfort level like? Like how quickly or what did that like, let's say, what did the first month, two months, six months like, how would that curve have looked for her getting more comfortable? How did that go for that first year.
Speaker4:
After Doctor Morrison put a special shoe. It's called the Morrison shoe and trimmed her hooves to take the pressure off of the toes. That coffin bone rotates and sinks down. So it's like us walking on our toenails, you know? Um, but almost like a ballerina. And so he he trimmed her feet, put special shoes on her feet, and then he put, like, a foam. It's almost like, um, what dentists use in your mouth. Um, he put that on her feet and immediately when he took the pressure off her toes. And that's that's soreness. She could, she could she could walk in comfort. Nice. Um, and then I had her on stall rest for almost three months. Almost three months. I would hand, hand walk her. We started out with just a very little bit of head walking after a few weeks, and then and then we increased. So by six months, 5 or 6 months, I was riding her again. Wow. We would yeah, we would ride in a straight line. He wanted no turns, no sharp turns, no hill work. This was just very easy riding. Just at a walk. Um, and I kept up with her diet. Um, her low carb diet, the metabarons. Like I said, we weaned her off the thyroid after two months. That was just to jumpstart her while she was on stall rest. Um, I didn't really like giving her a lot of banamine because she developed ulcers during this period from all the stress. Oh. Um, yeah. I had to put her on gastro guard for a month. It was either gastro guard or ulcer guard. One of the two, but they prescribed it, and that took care of her ulcers. But it was a lot of stress.
Speaker2:
Yeah.
Speaker4:
Yeah.
Speaker2:
And so now the only thing she's on is the meta-brawl. And that's what you believe is keeping her level?
Speaker4:
Yeah, I do, and I will never stop it. And also I as a nurse and a research nurse, I research everything. I bet you do. I spent that entire year, and I still I still read articles. I've joined a I've joined websites and, you know, consulted with vets. And I feel like actually I know more about this than my vet does. Yeah. And it was very interesting that neither one of my vets knew about Meta-brawl. And I was disappointed that they didn't know. And I tell them about it, but they wanted to put my horse on chromium supplements and metformin. And there have been studies done on metformin. Metformin is a medication that humans take for type two diabetes and insulin resistance. And horses kind of mocks type two diabetes in humans. But there's Yeah. it. There have been no good. There's been studies done on the use of metformin, but the dose has to be so high to get any kind of significant difference. And my horse didn't like it. It caused the metformin actually caused her mouth to blister. So I said, no, no, I'm not using this. And I really didn't see any significant decrease in her glucose or insulin levels. I put the metformin on top of the metabo. Yep. So and I stopped that after after a while because it was just she didn't like it and it was making her. It was causing ulcerations in her mouth. So wow, I just had a set of labs done on my horse and um, glucose was below 100, so very good.
Speaker4:
Um, I know, I know, and actually my farrier here in Cincinnati, there was another farrier out at our barn, and the two farriers were talking while he was working on, on my horse. And he says this horse had laminitis, was sinking in rotation three years ago. And the other farrier said, wow, you can't even tell by looking at her hoofs. Yeah. So she does that. She had a little bit of a cresty neck. Not anything that anybody would notice. I noticed in the very beginning and started wondering, you know, this isn't normal, but you do not see that she just had, like, one little bump. Yeah, but sometimes in the summer on grass, you'll see an increase a little bit, but then it'll go down when she's off grass. But she's a great horse. And I'm glad I committed to saving her, because I had so many friends that put good horses down just with their first laminitic episode. Yeah. And it's I have been very happy with the metabolic and the vitamin E. I've put her on vitamin E, your vitamin E, um, because I read about it and I like that. Um, it's not the synthetic brand or, and it's, it has more bioavailability than the synthetic forms. And since my horse does not get her vitamin E from the grass, I supplement her with vitamin E and her body scores are great. Her coat is shiny and beautiful. I'm thrilled with the way everything has turned out, and.
Speaker2:
I'm very, very thankful for you sharing your story, because I do think you're right that the word laminitis and then if you've been near it enough to know the term sinking that combination, but even just founder or laminitis, any of those words just really make people shudder. And I know a lot of good horses that have issues and then are passed by because they've had, you know, they've had some kind of a run in with something like this. And I think the awareness now that you're demonstrating through following up and then with the products and then just I remember now that I think about it, when I was a kid, My Little Pony that I grew up with had been foundered. But, you know, as a six year old child, I didn't remember as a 13.
Speaker4:
Year old child, I.
Speaker2:
Remember now vaguely that this happened, but I and I know that we had to watch a little bit, but we just didn't know. There just wasn't the information out there back then, you know? And so I love that this is all happening so quickly, because I think you're very correct in that there are a lot of these horses that can be managed and saved and have very productive lives. I've seen them return to I've seen foundered horses return to showing full on raining, um.
Speaker4:
You know, with.
Speaker2:
Management and that's, you know, that's it's pretty physical, but they could totally do it with the management. So thank you so much for taking the time to share your story.
Speaker4:
You're very welcome. And I try to tell everybody that I know about the table and about the vitamin E, and they see how well my horse is doing. Laminitis is not a death sentence anymore.
Speaker2:
Yes, yes. Well thanks again.
Speaker4:
You're very welcome.
Speaker2:
To the product Michelle was referring to, material is made by Thrive Metabolon, which has been scientifically proven to support metabolic function, and top places like Rood and Riddle are recommending it because of the difference that they see that it makes. Another reason that I am proud to have Aqua Thrive sponsoring this podcast is because they go above and beyond to help encourage horse owners to do the best they can by their horse, and one of the ways that they're doing that with Meta-brawl is that they are offering a $50 rebate. When an owner turns in bloodwork and on the insulin and glucose levels of their horse. So basically they are rewarding horse owners For doing the follow up blood, insulin and glucose level testing so that they can make sure they stay on top of any of these conditions their horses can have by offering a rebate. I think that's pretty impressive for a company to do. If you have a horse that you think would benefit from Meta-brawl, or if you know somebody who has a horse that would benefit from Meta-brawl, go ahead and visit thrive.com and you can learn more there. And if you want to learn more about the rebate program, I'll put links to that in my show notes also. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you again in the next podcast.
Speaker1:
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“If you're unclear about your horse's body or mind, get a professional opinion to put you at ease.” Stacy Westfall Share on X
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It was great listening to you and Bob discuss how to get the rhythmical lope by increasing the amount of time it’s done. Despite working both of my guys on the ground over logs at the extended trot and canter for at least 20 minutes a day, I need to increase my time in the saddle at the lope. I don’t really have a fear of the lope, it’s just I need to get myself more physically fit to keep up.
Three years ago, I purchased a beautiful QH that had an underlying condition that was not disclosed. He had laminitis, Between my veterinarian and farrier, we came up with a plan for rehab. I changed over to a low sugar/low starch food, added a hoof supplement and he received regular Farrrier visits. After a year, he had enough solid hoof growth to support and hold a shoe. We have regular farrier visits for trimmings and after 3 years, he has no visible signs of the laminitis. His diet still remains one with no extra sugar/starch and the hoof supplement has been a constant.
Hi Stacy,
Thank you for discussing insulin resistance and laminitis. I have been battling this for years with one of my quarter horses, Jose Cuervo. He’s not on meds, and through research I have stopped the laminitis by feeding low carb grass hay and using a supplement formulated for California horses called CA Trace Plus. It has minerals that are lacking in the hay grown in Calif.
My horses are in turnout 24-7 in a Paddock Paradise lifestyle (you can google that if you’re not familiar). So I thought I was home free with my low carb hay.
The dentist told me that Cuervo has no cartilage on one side of his TMJ and that it’s probably painful for him to open his mouth. He is also a glutton and bolts his food, barely chewing. The low carb hay that I have access to is thick and stemmy. Well this summer during 100 degree weather, this led to a severe impaction colic. Yes, he had plenty of cold water to drink, but for some reason he colicked, probably from not chewing the thick hay well enough. The IR community recommends using slow feed hay nets, so that the horses are forced to nibble small bites, but Cuervo is super destructive and I didn’t use slow feeders because I figured he would tear it apart quickly and possibly get tangled up and injure himself.
After paying for a week of colic treatment at UC Davis, I decided to start using slow feeders. I found some made by Weaver that really stand up to abuse. Cuervo plays with these like a tether ball, but after 6 weeks of use they still look new. And they come in pretty colors!
Also with winter coming up, I don’t know if people realize that short, frost covered grass is the most dangerously high in sugar. It looks like there is nothing to graze on, and people don’t realize how dangerous it is to graze on. The roots of the frozen grass are desperately pumping sugar up to the stalks. Dr. Elleanor Kellen has a website explaining about hay, grazing, and laminitis, filled with tons of information. ecirhorse.org , or just type her name in google.
Thanks for bringing awareness to IR and laminitis, as many quarter horses suffer from this.
Monica
Hi Stacy and Hi Bob if you happen to see this comment. Not sure if you remember me but I was at the clinic with you last year. Congratulations on getting the lope you want!!!! That is so awesome.
So glad you made a podcast on this topic! So I have a question. What would be better
1. Do you keep riding even though she is going fast? When she goes fast I have a hard time sitting correctly then I feel like she gets more out of balance which makes me out of balance too.
2. Should I start on the ground and get the lope for 5 minutes then ride her once I get to that time limit. To me option 2 seems to make more sense.
Is a 60 ft round pen sufficient enough to ride in. That is my comfort zone. Our arena is not fenced and I just feel the most comfortable in a fenced area.