Bingo Responds Favorably to the Guidance of my Thighs

Bingo, at 22 years of age and having a lot of bad riding in his life, has strengthened the muscles that help him ignore/disobey/and actively resist all rein aids. His upper neck is THICK, vertically and horizontally, with all the muscles he has built up to resist improper rein aids. If I am not very, very careful I can trigger a super resistance to my hand aids, with Bingo activating his thick neck muscles which turn off any possibility of a relaxed response to any rein aid. This makes turns challenging, with my arm rapidly getting tired as I try to get him to turn.

During my last two lessons on Bingo Debbie has been listening to my explanations of using my thighs as a corridor for the horse's spine, and looking at the results with Bingo with great interest. When I started my explanation I told Debbie that her body probably already knew what I had just discovered, but that she did not “know” it consciously. After my explanations and watching me ride Debbie told me that she uses her upper thigh a lot when she rides, and this was something she just picked up through riding hundreds of horses. After watching Bingo do several turns on mostly loose reins she asked me how long I thought it would take so Bingo's hind end would muscle up through using his body correctly. I thought for a minute, and I told her that with me just riding him 30 minutes a week it would probably take several months before we saw any real change. Then Debbie reminded me that two other ladies also ride Bingo every week, for a full hour, and that she was going to teach these ladies what I was doing so that it may not take as long to see results.

Before, when I turned Bingo, I was using a leading rein with a “fixed” hand, my outer leg at the correct part of Bingo's stride, and my seat bones to get him to turn, and every step of the turn was against great resistance from his neck and back. That ride two weeks ago I successfully turned Bingo by just using my inside thigh as his inside hind leg came forward, with just intermittent light rein aids which became stronger if and when he tried to run me into a jump standard. I did not dare to ask for more than a simple turn, nowhere near a full circle, because Bingo was learning something new and I was rewarding him by stopping my demands when he showed any signs of cooperation with my new turning aids.

This week, after two lessons with Bingo's other riders, Bingo was showing some progress with turning. His resistance to the very idea of turning had decreased by a good bit. After wending my way around the jumps I got to a clear space in the ring and I decided to try a full circle since Bingo was obviously turning better. When we turned I “pushed” the top of my thigh (just below my crotch) horizontally against his spinal processes as his back went down under my seat, when he was advancing his inside hind leg. All through the circle I was speaking to him, first telling him, in a cheerful tone, that he COULD do it, and praising him mightily as he succeeded. Debbie was excited, she had never seen him do a full circle before without him continually lugging out against the turning rein. He also did his “S” turns much better, changing his whole body flexion to the inside better than before.

I did try trotting him, and I had to use my legs constantly just to keep him in the trot, especially during the turns. One comment that Debbie made when I initially explained what I was doing, was that she used both of her upper thighs as a HALT signal, and she warned me he may slow down in response to me using my upper thigh, and she was right! I have been experimenting with the way I am using my thigh, and only when I use the part near my crotch do I get the easier, more correct turns. If I use the middle part of my thigh I find I tend to press it against the top of his rib cage, causing it to rotate down to the inside, with the result of a muddled turn. I hope that this is a temporary problem, after all Bingo is learning a new way to move under a rider and I am sure that he is using his back muscles in a whole new way. I do hope as he gets more used to this new way of turning that the relevant muscles will get stronger and will work better, without Bingo losing his impulse.

I am afraid that my blogs may not be as regular as before. I am going through a major change with the medicine I use for my MS, in that since my last neurologist refused to give me a refill for my old medicine when I took myself off the Gilenya, which was making the symptoms of my MS worse. I have been gradually decreasing the amount of my old medicine that I take every day. When I took myself down to 10 mg a day (down from my old dosage of 30 mg a day) I woke up one morning, and I could not walk without using my wheeled walker, my balance was horrible and I felt extremely unsteady when I stood up. I have not had to use my wheeled walker AT ALL for over fifteen years, the last time I had to use it was when I still had to feed my horses, and until last Thursday I never had to use it to get around inside the house. Luckily I had a clear enough symptom picture so I could use an appropriate homeopathic remedy and I got my ability to walk without the walker back, at least when I am inside and I can use furniture or the walls to help me walk. But now I have to take my wheeled walker with me to the stables, and it really helped me on Friday when I had to get to the more distant riding ring since Debbie was grading the main ring for her Friday morning group lesson. A few months ago I would have cheerfully walked there just using two canes, I would have ridden, gotten off, and been able to walk back to the barn without any problems. Friday I had to ride Mia back to the barn, it was too much for me to walk there even with my wheeled walker.

I am very afraid I am going to get a lot more crippled soon, as I wean myself off my old medicine which has worked at keeping my MS under control for the last nineteen years. Since my old medicine was 1) off label, and 2) a synthetic version of the active ingredient in marijuana, I cannot seem to find a doctor that will give me a prescription for it even though it has been the only doctor prescribed medicine that has kept me walking and not made my MS worse, as in crippling me even further (I've tried Betasaron, Copaxone, and Gilenya, they ALL made my MS a lot worse.) Debbie told me if I get a three step mounting block she will let me keep it at the stable, and Shannon told me she would get her husband to repair the steps they use so they would be safer for me. I have so much less energy than I did before, the heat is affecting me a lot more than before, my coordination is a lot worse, I am much weaker (I can no longer handle rasping the horses' hooves or doing a complete grooming of the horse,) and my body is not moving as smoothly as before.

Fortunately for me both Debbie and Shannon are willing to help me keep riding even if it does make their lives less convenient when I come to the stable. Interestingly the horse do not seem to be scared of my wheeled walker, I got the feeling that they consider it an odd type of wheelbarrow! I will continue to write the blogs about my riding when I have enough energy, but the days when I could confidently make plans about anything are long gone unless I can find a brave and sympathetic neurologist.

I just hope I can keep myself out of a wheelchair, I spent years getting myself out of my old one and I would hate, hate, hate having to go back to using one. But since none of the approved MS drugs seem to work with me I will be without any immune-modulating therapies for the first time in nineteen years and I will admit that I am SCARED.

Have a great ride (and be thankful that you can ride!)

Jackie Cochran