Books with Spirit - Horse Riding

Windsucking has traditionally been considered a bad habit or a vice.  So bad, in fact, that in some racing circles, that a seller of the horse by racing law has to declare a horse as a windsucker.
 
But it appears that there’s more to windsucking than the bad habit that I thought it was.  Windsucking releases the feel good hormones, the endorphins, that have a similar effect to pain killing drugs that produce a “high”. There’s no doubt in my mind that a windsucker is the horse equivalent of a drug addict. 
 
When a horse windsucks he usually bites on to the edge of his stable or a fence post, arches his neck and takes a deep, grunting, sucking breath.  A windsucker has been or is usually stabled, they are most often racehorses.  I’ve known of horses that have had electric fencing to stop them and they’ve just reached down and sucked off their own legs. 
 
Matt (in his previous life Military Action) is our resident windsucker and has led me to quite a different perspective on windsucking.  We’d tried every prevention device with the only “success” coming from choking him so hard, or giving him such a permanent headache that it was no success at all and we gave up trying to stop him.
 
Rising eighteen years old now, Matt was gaunt and skinny from 16 years of windsucking.   For at least 10 of the years that I know of, it was almost impossible to put weight on him.   Matt was one of those horses who would rather suck than eat.  He hadn’t raced for over 10 years and he’d been sitting in the paddock doing sweet nothing for nearly seven of those years.
 
He should have been happy, running around on 20 acres with his herd of mates, but he wasn’t.  His eyes always looked “starey”(no wonder, he was always high as a kite!)
 
Some time ago, I was working with Matt with the aim to stop him windsucking and I had a light bulb moment.  Trying to stop him was like trying to stop an addict from having his fix – a total waste of time and energy unless the addict themselves wanted to stop.  And how do you get a horse to want to stop? 
 
A couple of weeks ago, I had another light bulb moment.  Windsucking increases both the “feel good” endorphins AND the available oxygen.  And oxygen is an extremely important element in the ability to heal. 
 
So when a horse is windsucking, he is increasing his oxygen intake and thus increasing his ability to heal.  This led me to question what it was that he was trying to heal and had we done everything possible to help him?  So, instead of having the attitude that this is a “bad habit”, ask yourself, “what is this horse trying to heal?”   And “how can we help him/her to heal?”
 
What the mind body spirit is capable of in the healing department when it’s operating at its best, constantly astounds me.  My alternative therapy horse hospital at Tanjil South is considered a leader in its field.  I’ve personally seen broken bones heal in a week, a suspensory ligament blown off the bone and 2 inches away from it’s anchor point, healed and the horse raced again and many other things that are considered impossible.  From my experience, there’s healing and there’s HEALING.
 
Following is a list of things that could be involved in a windsucking horse’s need to heal - reduced circulation and subsequent pain or discomfort from stabling, pain from poorly shaped feet, a sore back or joints, emotional pain from being isolated from other horses (they are by nature a herd animal), or emotional pain and stress from a poor relationship with their humans, stomach ulcers from a high grain, high acid diet without the constant 24 hour per day grazing on grass or hay that stops stomach ulcers.  This list is not set in stone - I’m sure you can think of more. 

Matt has been 24/7 out in 20 acres with good shelter, eight friends, constant grazing, barefoot trimmed and well fed for quite some time now, with a small reduction in his windsucking.  In his case, it appears that the relationship with his human (me, now) has been the big key. 
 
His windsucking has reduced heaps as he’s come back into work with me, using the dramatically new and incredibly powerful and effective philosophy and approach in the electronic book “Bobby’s Diaries - Straight From the Horse’s Mouth to You”-  to develop a ridden relationship that is increasingly filled with joy and confidence.  

Within weeks Matt’s frame has filled out and he’s beginning to look more like a hack (not quite there yet!) than a scrawny old man.  He’s developing a back at over seventeen years old … from a hat rack!  His eye is alert and he’s looking at me with interest, instead of that ”starey” look that he used to have.
 
Bobby’s Diaries is a “must read” book for the horse world that has been steadily blowing people away since its release in 2007 and comes with a “love this book or get your money back” guarantee. I wish that I could just reach out and put this book into your hands, it’ sooo… special.  If you are like other readers, you’ll read it over and over again and be filled with the wonder of what you can achieve with this VERY different and unique approach.

Click here for a no risk purchase of the electronic book ”Bobby’s Diaries - Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You“  Or scroll to the top of the page and click on “Books” for more information.

It’s absolutely amazing, Matt’s only been back in work for about three weeks now, but he’s already put on an enormous amount of weight.  And he’s put on that weight in the middle of winter in what’s been described as the worst drought in Australia’s history. 
 
We haven’t stopped Matt from windsucking, but we have helped him reduce it dramatically and we have certainly helped him to significantly reduce the adverse effects with our new perpective.  I suspect that it’s possible for him to stop altogether so I’ll keep you posted.