Hi Pine Equestrian Centre

Adelaide Royal Show
Open Show Hunter Galloway
14-14.2hh
Hi Pine Temptation

Hi Pine Temptation (Floyd)❤️🐴
Champion Showhunter galloway.
Southern Cross qualifier 2025.
Ridden by Margot Haynes
ESA Junior Showcase Showhunter Jackpot
Ridden by Mercedes Mathews (pictured)

Happy 4th Birthday ❤️🐴
"Harriet Fatty Pants"
Hi Pine Finale

"New HORSE Syndrome”🆕🐴

Yesterday, I wrote about a new term I have coined called “New Home Syndrome.” The post has gone viral, and I am really glad about that because what horses experience when they move homes is incredibly significant and poorly understood. It sets off a pattern of behaviour due to the psychological and physiological impact of completely changing their environment and routines.

I wish to introduce you to my next term, which I hope is also accepted as widely because it is just as significant and goes hand in hand with “New Home Syndrome.” The term is “New HORSE Syndrome,” and it is to bring recognition, respect, and appreciation to what can happen to many PEOPLE when they get a new horse. I personally got stuck in the vortex of “New HORSE Syndrome” for nearly eight years after I bought a flashy young warmblood. I believe if I had known about “New HORSE Syndrome,” things could have been very different and I would have been better at identify better help and solutions.

I am calling it a syndrome because the psychological turmoil, loss of confidence, and sense of hopelessness that can manifest in an individual connected to the event of getting a new horse are common and predictable. The things that resolve “New HORSE Syndrome” are also predictable.

Let me explain.

When you get familiar with something, you perceive it as predictable and reliable. Your nervous system down-regulates, and you can relax. Familiar things are all part of our comfort zones. Familiar places, people, activities, and tasks are easy to be around, engage with, and navigate. The familiarity of these things makes you feel a sense of certainty and hence security.

Think about a horse you got on with really well. It might not have been perfectly behaved, but you were familiar with them, so you found them predictable.

If you are like me, before I got my warmblood, I was the typical amateur rider. Horses were my hobby, and although I had ridden for most of my life, it was only on a very small number of horses. I was always surrounded by people that helped me out, and the small number of horses I experienced were kind and, as I discovered, forgiving of me.

When my flashy young warmblood was delivered by the trucking company after a four-day trip across Australia, I had no concept of what he was being confronted with. I gave him a single day off before I eagerly jumped on board.

As soon as I got on him, I felt weird. He was taller than the other horse I had been riding and moved differently. His movement was so big and ground-covering. This is significant for our nervous system and proprioception, as the movement of horses we ride regularly gets locked into our proprioceptive circuits. If we don’t ride many horses, as I didn’t back then, feeling a new horse is confronting to our sense of balance in the saddle. Not only this, but I vividly remember him abruptly stopping and turning his head right around as if to eyeball me. It was most likely because I was hanging onto his mouth and giving him go-stop aids at the same time. He would have been completely confused and confronted by how I was communicating with him and how unbalanced I was on his back. It felt like he growled at me; what I probably felt was his tension lift. He then proceeded to spook and shy around the arena because I had just added an alarming and uncomfortable experience to what he was already dealing with. I had never had a horse spook so many times over nothing. It was not fun. After a week of this spooking and shying, my nerves were shot, and I started dreading getting on him. And so began my seven-year battle with “New HORSE Syndrome” as I became obsessed with trying to fix my “sensitive,” unpredictable, and unreliable horse. It took me that long to identify that I was causing him trouble. But when you are stuck in “New HORSE Syndrome” you cannot see this.

What is “New HORSE Syndrome”?

I define “New HORSE Syndrome” as what happens to a person when the way a new horse behaves, responds, and feels is different from what is known or expected. This difference and shattering of expectations creates a sense of distrust and lack of reliability and safety. The rider then becomes overly preoccupied with risk management, emotionally monitoring the horse, and finding solutions to fix them. When efforts to resolve the behaviour or gain a sense of harmony in encounters continue to fail, feelings of guilt, shame, and a sense of hopelessness can be overwhelming.

This can lead to the person experiencing anxiety and a destruction of confidence as a rider; prone to lashing out aggressively towards the horse; riding recklessly in an effort to push through fear; or creating excuses or distractions to avoid riding altogether.

Sometimes the horse might be sold and another new horse acquired, where the same issues will surface. However, other times to resolve the discomfort caused by the conflict between their desire to ride and their fear, they might change their expectations and activities with the horse, opting not to ride it for various reasons. This reframing is a coping mechanism that helps them deal with the perceived failure and alleviates the psychological discomfort of not feeling safe riding their horse.

“New HORSE Syndrome” can be overcome.

It can be solved by helping people understand how to help a horse adjust to a new environment, routines, and rider. By showing people how to introduce themselves to the horse's mind and body through imprinting what I call their signature. Everyone is a different height, weight, and will do things slightly differently. Therefore, the horse has to learn about you and be given time to develop and practice responding to how you handle them and ride. This includes how you sit, hold the reins, use your leg, and communicate direction and transitions. You need to allow your and the horse’s mind and body to adapt and grow proprioceptive circuits to allow the physical connection between horse and rider to feel familiar, for the communication to be familiar, and for the routines to become familiar. All so everyone feels a sense of security and healthy stress regulation can occur. It is important to respect that a sense of trust is built by time and experience, and it needs to be strategically approached.

“New HORSE Syndrome” may be a transient hiccup when the horse and rider can adjust to each other and trust is built. But for others, it can be a long suffering that is mentally, emotionally, and financially devastating. Not to mention all the horse accidents that happen when non-trusting riders make bad choices with non-trusting horses.

If this has struck a cord with you, please ask for some guidance, there are those of us out there that understand this very common yet poorly understood experience of what is really going on❤

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Please hit the SHARE BUTTON to spread the idea if it resonates with you. ❤

‼However, please do not copy and paste and plagiarise my work as it happens all the time and it is really not cool. ‼
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Interesting!!

"New Home Syndrome"🤓

I am coining this term to bring recognition, respect, and understanding to what happens to horses when they move homes. This situation involves removing them from an environment and set of routines they have become familiar with, and placing them somewhere completely different with new people and different ways of doing things.

Why call it a syndrome?

Well, really it is! A syndrome is a term used to describe a set of symptoms that consistently occur together and can be tied to certain factors such as infections, genetic predispositions, conditions, or environmental influences. It is also used when the exact cause of the symptoms is not fully understood or when it is not connected with a well-defined disease. In this case, "New Home Syndrome" is connected to a horse being placed in a new home where its entire world changes, leading to psychological and physiological impacts. While it might be transient, the ramifications can be significant for both the horse and anyone handling or riding it.

Let me explain...

Think about how good it feels to get home after a busy day. How comfortable your favourite clothes are, how well you sleep in your own bed compared to a strange bed, and how you can really relax at home. This is because home is safe and familiar. At home, the part of you that keeps an eye out for potential danger turns down to a low setting. It does this because home is your safe place (and if it is not, this blog will also explain why a lack of a safe place is detrimental).

Therefore, the first symptom of horses experiencing "New Home Syndrome" is being unsettled, prone to anxiety, or difficult behaviour. If you have owned them before you moved them, you struggle to recognise your horse, feeling as if your horse has been replaced by a frustrating version. If the horse is new to you, you might wonder if you were conned, if the horse was drugged when you rode it, or if you were lied to about the horse's true nature.

A horse with "New Home Syndrome" will be a stressed version of itself, on high alert, with a drastically reduced ability to cope. Horses don't handle change like humans do. If you appreciate the comfort of your own home and how you can relax there, you should be able to understand what the horse is experiencing.

Respecting that horses interpret and process their environments differently from us helps in understanding why your horse is being frustrating and recognising that there is a good chance you were not lied to or that the horse was not drugged.

Horses have survived through evolution by being highly aware of their environments. Change is a significant challenge for them because they notice the slightest differences, not just visually but also through sound, smell, feel, and other senses. Humans generalise and categorise, making it easy for us to navigate familiar environments like shopping centres. Horses do not generalise in the same way; everything new is different to them, and they need proof of safety before they can habituate and feel secure. When their entire world changes, it is deeply stressful.

They struggle to sleep until they feel safe, leading to sleep deprivation and increased difficulty.

But there is more...

Not only do you find comfort in your home environment and your nervous system downregulates, but you also find comfort in routines. Routines are habits, and habits are easy. When a routine changes or something has to be navigated differently, things get difficult. For example, my local supermarket is undergoing renovations. After four years of shopping there, it is extremely frustrating to have to work out where everything is now. Every day it gets moved due to the store being refitted section by section. This annoyance is shared by other shoppers and even the staff.

So, consider the horse. Not only are they confronted with the challenge of figuring out whether they are safe in all aspects of their new home while being sleep deprived, but every single routine and encounter is different. Then, their owner or new owner starts getting critical and concerned because the horse suddenly seems untrained or difficult. The horse they thought they owned or bought is not meeting their expectations, leading to conflict, resistance, explosiveness, hypersensitivity, and frustration.

The horse acts as if it knows little because it is stressed and because the routines and habits it has learned have disappeared. If you are a new human for the horse, you feel, move, and communicate differently from what it is used to. The way you hold the reins, your body movements in the saddle, the position of your leg – every single routine of communication between horse and person is now different. I explain to people that when you get a new horse, you have to imprint yourself and your way of communicating onto the horse. You have to introduce yourself and take the time to spell out your cues so that they get to know you.

Therefore, when you move a horse to a new home or get a new horse, your horse will go through a phase called "New Home Syndrome," and it will be significant for them. Appreciating this helps them get through it because they are incredible and can succeed. The more you understand and help the horse learn it is safe in its new environment and navigate the new routines and habits you introduce, the faster "New Home Syndrome" will pass.
"New Home Syndrome" will be prevalent in a horse’s life until they have learned to trust the safety of the environment (and all that entails) and the humans they meet and interact with. With strategic and understanding approaches, this may take weeks, and their nervous systems will start downgrading their high alert status. However, for some horses, it can take a couple of years to fully feel at ease in their new home.

So, next time you move your horse or acquire a new horse and it starts behaving erratically or being difficult, it is not being "stupid", you might not have been lied to or the horse "drugged" - your horse is just experiencing an episode of understandable "New Home Syndrome." And you can help this.❤

I would be grateful if you could please share, this reality for horses needs to be better appreciated ❤
‼️When I say SHARE that does not mean plagiarise my work…it is seriously not cool to copy and paste these words and make out you have written it yourself‼️

🐴 Aquí hay 15 hechos interesantes sobre el cerebro de un caballo:

1. El cerebro de un caballo es relativamente pequeño comparado con el tamaño de su cuerpo, y representa sólo alrededor del 0,1 % de su peso total.

2. A pesar de su pequeño tamaño, los caballos tienen cerebros muy complejos, con una corteza cerebral altamente desarrollada, la parte del cerebro responsable del pensamiento consciente, la toma de decisiones y la memoria.

3. Los caballos pueden aprender y recordar tareas complejas, como navegar por un curso de salto o realizar una rutina de doma, a través de un proceso llamado aprendizaje asociado.

4. Como los humanos, los caballos tienen un hemisferio izquierdo y un hemisferios derecho en el cerebro, cada uno con funciones especializadas. El hemisferio izquierdo es responsable del procesamiento de la información lógica y analítica, mientras que el hemisferio derecho está más involucrado en el procesamiento emocional y el pensamiento creativo.

5. Los caballos tienen una gran memoria y pueden recordar personas, lugares y experiencias concretas durante muchos años.

6. Los caballos pueden aprender por observación, y a menudo pueden adquirir nuevos comportamientos y habilidades simplemente observando a otros caballos o humanos.

7. Los caballos tienen un sentido del tacto muy sensible y pueden detectar incluso la más mínima presión o movimiento en su piel. Esto les ayuda a responder a las sutiles señales de tu motorista o guía.

8. Los caballos pueden procesar información visual muy rápida y precisa, permitiéndoles evitar posibles peligros y navegar por su medio ambiente con facilidad.

9. Los caballos son animales sociales y dependen de la comunicación no verbal para interactuar con otros caballos de su manada. Esta comunicación es facilitada por el cerebro del caballo, que puede interpretar cambios sutiles en el lenguaje corporal, expresiones faciales y vocalizaciones.

10. En última instancia, como todos los animales, los caballos tienen una personalidad única y rasgos individuales que se moldean por sus experiencias, genética y entorno, todo lo cual se refleja en su función cerebral y comportamiento.

11. Los caballos tienen un fuerte sentido del olfato y su bulbo olor, que procesa los olores, es relativamente grande comparado con otras partes de su cerebro.

12. El cerebro, que es responsable de coordinar el movimiento y el equilibrio, también es relativamente grande en caballos. Esto se debe a que los caballos deben ser capaces de moverse rápida y eficientemente para escapar de los depredadores o navegar por terrenos difíciles.

13. Los caballos tienen un umbral de dolor muy alto, que se cree que está relacionado con cómo sus cerebros procesan las señales de dolor. Aunque esto puede ser beneficioso en algunas situaciones, también puede significar que los caballos no muestran signos obvios de dolor, lo que hace más difícil para sus cuidadores detectar y tratar los problemas de salud subyacentes.

14. El hipocampo, una parte del cerebro involucrado en el aprendizaje y la memoria, está particularmente bien desarrollado en caballos. Esto les permite recordar no sólo experiencias concretas, sino también conceptos y patrones generales que pueden aplicar a nuevas situaciones.

15. Finalmente, los estudios han demostrado que los caballos, como otros animales, son capaces de experimentar emociones como el miedo, la felicidad y la ira. Se cree que estas emociones están mediadas por el sistema límbico, un grupo de estructuras cerebrales interconectadas que juegan un papel clave en la regulación del estado de ánimo y el comportamiento .

Very True!!

Let’s talk about the lack of quality coaching and lack of standards in the equine industry. For example, kids learning with someone who claims to be an "coach" and all they learned is how to see-saw a horse's head down and chuck their body over a fence like a champion. All coaching is not equal.

But what happens when you have a good coach? One that opens their program to you, takes you under his/her wing? Becomes invested in your success? When you essentially become part of the "family"...

Eventually, something will happen...

Coach tells you that you are not Karen O'Connor 2.0, and not ready to make the move up to the next level.
Coach says you need to go back and fix some holes in your training.
Coach says you have developed a bad habit, and it needs to be fixed before you can accomplish your goals.
Coach says you need to make sure that your horse is being ridden (not just hanging out at the barn).
Coach says you need to dedicate more time to studying the sport, not just riding.
Coach says it isn't a "horse" problem, it is a "you" problem.

People have become increasingly more reactionary. More easily offended. In lieu of everyone getting a trophy, it is so hard to hear these words from people you admire. Some of the best coaches will be the toughest. Not ones that tear you apart constantly, but coaches that aren't afraid to have the tough conversations with you. Or conversations that you may not have wanted to have.

But remember, a good coach is in YOUR corner. They want YOU to achieve success. They dedicate so much more than an hour of time to your growth not only as a rider but as a horseman. Maybe you are burning the candle at both ends (and in the middle), and you need a reality check that this sport requires more of your time and focus.

These conversations can hurt, but while it may sting at first.... take a second. Think about why your coach is against you moving up right now, why your coach is saying to wait until the summer to be a working student, why your coach is saying that you should not enter the show until the homework and flat work is done.

Surround yourself with coaches that aren't afraid to have these tough conversations with you. You don't want or need a "cheerleader" coach. You are paying you for your coach’s expertise... the positives and the criticism. Let them help make the best decisions for your horse, and for your program. The lessons on the horse and the lessons off of the horse. Are you ready? Are you doing what is best by your horse? You owe it to yourself and your horse....

*** Copied and modified from Courtney Sendak

Very funny!!!😂🤣

Funniest thing I’ve seen on Facebook in a long time 😂😂 Wish I could give the author credit but have no idea who wrote it.

THE REAL RULES OF DRESSAGE

1. If you really want to get better at dressage, take it up at an earlier age - and grow an extra 3 inches of leg.

2. A dressage test is a test of your skill against another competitor's luck.

3. Dressage is about achieving a harmonious working relationship with your horse, whose only idea of harmony is eating grass in a field with his buddies.

4. If you want to end a drought or dry spell, wear a new jacket and hat to an outdoor arena.

5. Untalented, difficult, aggressive horses have robust health, good hocks and long lives.

6. Talented tractable horses are accident prone and have OCD lesions.

7. You will ride the best test of your entire life just prior to being disqualified for not wearing your gloves.

8. Never keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your head before a test.

9. Never keep less than another 300 separate thoughts in your head during a test.

10. Horses do not improve their paces because you are wearing expensive German breeches.

11. If you chose a disco theme for your dressage to music test then the judge will be more than 90 years of age and Swiss.

12. The less skilled the rider, the more likely they are to share their critique of your test.

13. If you are considering the services of a horse clairvoyant to help you with training then you have reached the point of total desperation - try the German breeches.

14.Your horse has never heard of Podhajsky, let alone read the book.

15. No matter how badly you ride a test, it is always possible to ride a worse one.

16. If it ain't broke, try shifting your position and it will be.

17. Judges only suffer from temporary blindness (or kindness) when they are judging someone else's test.

18. If you fall off your horse in the arena you will have paid to have the test videoed.

19. If you are feeling confident before a show then three of the USET dressage team will turn up to give their young horses some "experience."

20. Your horse will perform its best piaffe ever when you ask for extended canter.

22. Since runs of bad competitions come in groups of three, the fourth competition is actually the beginning of the next group of three.

23. No one cheats at dressage because no one has worked out how to do it.

24. It is surprisingly easy to end a test with a perfect square halt once you have scored a four for every other movement.

25. The result of an expensive lesson from a top pro is that you will stop believing in that tiny piece of innate ability that was holding your riding together.

26. Remember when buying a dressage horse advertised as "needs experienced competitive rider" this really means "needs the skills of Isabelle Werth just to stay on board."

27. If you think your test was better than someone else's, it probably wasn't.

28. If you pay 60,000 for an imported WB, you will be beaten in First Level 4 by a Quarter Horse.

29. Clinics given by someone with an interesting accent are not necessarily superior to those given by the homegirl.

30. If you go to the expense of raising an expensive WB foal, he will have a talent for jumping and no walk worth talking about.

Photo credit Louise O'Brien Equestrian Photography

Dining NOT riding in the indoor this weekend!!🥤🍽 GIJ dining room!!!

Generations in Jazz 2024!!🎊🎉
Paddock transformed!😳
Countdown is on!!⏳️
🙉🔊🎼🎵🎶🎷🪗🎸🎹🎺🎻🪕🥁🪘🪇🎧

Good morning all!
New flooring has just gone into the indoor, but lessons in the outdoor arena are still available until Sunday 21st April
Generations in Jazz takes over the whole arena paddock and indoor, from 8am Monday 22nd April, until 5pm Wednesday 8th May
Previously we have had GREAT difficulty with people from GIJ coming onto the property, and leaving the gates open, prior to the access date.
This year we have therefore placed locks onto all access gates. If you have booked a lesson prior to Monday 22nd April, I will let you know the combination to get into the property
😵😵‍💫🔊🎺🎸🎷🎻🥁🪕📯🎼🎶🎵🪇🪘🎤
Brace yourself people, and pack your earplugs!! 🎧