On the trail, in the arena, anywhere, in fact, it's easy to get stuck. You're trying to turn or stop-or simply to move-and you can't seem to get anything right. You pull on your horse's nose to turn him and your horse keeps walking in a straight line. You're trying to communicate to your horse, but something isn't working. That's when you'll need a little creative thinking. That's how John Lyons developed his "steer the tail" concept.
Pretend for the next half-hour that you're riding in one of John's clinics.
"Point the tail where you don't want to go," John calls to your group.
"Huh?" says everyone. "Point the tail where we don't want to go?"
Okay, we all know where the tail is. But we're still trying to get our horses to go where we point the nose, with limited success. We need to change our focus.
"That's why we're going to steer the tail," John patiently reassures.
By tackling an old problem from a new perspective, we have breakthroughs. If we don't give up too quickly, we eventually get it, and end up with an amazing new communication tool.
Drive the Boat
We've all heard it said that the hindquarters are the engine of the horse. They're the power station, pushing the rest of the horse along like the motor on a boat. If you can control the hindquarters like a rudder, you can control the horse. But how does that play out in real life?
Although "steering the tail" seems counter-intuitive-and your brain has a hard time making sense of it-John has learned that, when it comes to horse training, some things are better understood after the rider experiences them.
From sales yearlings to seniors, halter horses to endurance racing, building and maintaining good muscle is a concern. While a number of nutritional supplements on the market claim they can help you do that, be sure you have the basics covered before you spend a penny.
The horse can't build and maintain good muscle without the raw material to make, fuel and repair them. Those key "ingredients" are:
• Water and salt: Like all soft tissues in the body, muscle cells are mostly water, and they're bathed in body fluids that are mostly water and carry nutrients, hormones and other signals to the muscle cells. Dehydrated horses look, and are, smaller.
Rule #1, fresh water, at a comfortable drinking temperature, at all times and a minimum of 1 oz. of salt/day in the winter. Increase to 2 to 4 oz. per day in hot weather.
• Calories/Fuel: Muscles obtain most of the fuel they need to function and build from energy in the form of carbohydrate (glycogen) and fat they store right inside the cells. These energy stores also contribute to the muscle's size.
Muscles are the body's major consumer of glucose. Glucose is taken up from the blood and either burned for energy or stored as glycogen.
Glucose metabolites are also key steps in the burning of fats. Muscles store more glycogen than fat, because they can't obtain enough from the blood to keep functioning when exercising. If the muscle runs short of glucose metabolites during work, it will begin to break down the protein in muscle cells to convert it to glucose and glucose metabolites.
Deworming
Parasites can rob your horse of the important nutrients he needs to repair, fuel and build muscle. Don't overlook this basic element of horse care when designing a strategy to maximize your horse's muscular development. Young and older horses in particular are more susceptible to parasites and require more intensive deworming. We're working on a new deworming article that will help you choose drugs and a schedule.
Put It To Use
• Measure protein by amount, not the protein percentage of the feed.
• Feed adequate water, salt, vitamins and minerals.
• Exercise, exercise, exercise.
• When everything else is "right," consider a muscle supplement.
