Horse&Rider Magazine – April 2018

The UK’s best-selling equestrian monthly

Issue number 578 April 2018 n Create better paces n Overcome fear n Exclusive – Charlotte Dujardin’s new book n Discover the best places to hack n Secrets to showjumping success n Keep laminitis at bay

create

BETTER

PACES

Stem cell

therapy LATEST RESEARCH

DISCOVER THE BEST PLACES

to hack

FIGHT THE FEAR

How you can overcome it

BUYER’S GUIDES

EXCLUSIVE! From that first moment I loved him, absolutely loved him CHARLOTTE ON VALEGRO

Laminitis

Management tips to keep it at bay life lessons your horse has taught you

Trailers

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APR 2018

In this feature. . .

As told to Tilly Berendt. Photos: Bob Atkins. With thanks to Harry Hall for their help with this feature, harryhall.com

Our trainer

Tom McEwen is one of Great Britain’s most exciting young eventing talents. He represented Team GB at Pony, Junior and Young Rider levels, and was on Nations Cup teams at Aachen and Boekelo in 2017. He was fourth at Burghley Horse Trials last year, riding Toledo de Kerser.

Our model

Tom rides CHF Cooliser, an eight-year-old mare owned by Vicky Bates. She competes at two-star level, and came second in her first CIC** at Ballindenisk.

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➤ Improve

his walk and trot rhythm

In the saddle

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Create a balanced canter ➤ How polework can help

CREATE better

PACES Four-star eventer Tom McEwen reveals how to develop three correct paces that will wow the judges

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he world’s best event horses might seem like freaks of nature, who do their job so well because they’re blessed with incredible natural talent and a strong work ethic. While it’s true that there’s often a special something about these once-in-a-lifetime horses, almost all their ability comes down to one thing – careful, correct training.

They aren’t born knowing when to lengthen or shorten their stride, or how to approach a tricky combination

– this comes down to years of carefully building their skills, from the very basics right through to the top level.

Although event horses are required to do three different jobs in a competition, many of the essential elements are consistent across the phases and apply no matter what you do with your horse. The most important of these is his paces.

Whatever you’re asking him to do, he needs to be engaged, adjustable and balanced, and the foundation for this is correct flatwork.

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With thanks to John Haime for his help with this feature, johnhaime.com

Mind matters

No fear Don’t let fear hold you back from enjoying your riding.

Performance coach John Haime reveals seven surefire ways to build your confidence and get you back on track

Our expert

I

John Haime is President of New Edge Performance and specialises in emotional intelligence as it applies to performance in sport. A former professional athlete, he works with professional athletes and equestrians at all levels.

f fear is stopping you enjoying your horse, don’t despair – there are ways to overcome your worries and have fun in the saddle again. In fact, you already possess the tools to turn the situation around, all you need to do is learn to apply them in the right way. One of the effects of fear is that it shrinks confidence, so the most important thing you can do is focus on building your confidence back up. That’s your secret weapon for fighting fear.

Biology doesn’t help you

To a degree, we’re all prisoners of our biology. Humans are built to survive and protect themselves, and the part of your brain responsible for emotions is there to keep you safe from anything that threatens you. The amygdala – the control centre of your emotional brain – makes sure of this. It’s a little alarm mechanism that’s ensured the survival of the human species for thousands of years, and we’ve all experienced how it works – you perceive a threat, your internal alarm goes off, then that uncomfortable feeling begins.

Centuries ago, when human life was ruled by the principle of eat or be eaten, this alarm was a lifesaver.

However, your emotional brain doesn’t know the difference between a hungry lion chasing your ancestor and your perceived threat of embarrassing yourself in the competition arena. This is where it causes problems for riders.

DID YOU KNOW?

If you don’t feel fear, you simply aren’t a human being, as we all experience it to varying degrees and in different areas of our lives. Some of the world’s leading riders get nervous, so it’s not surprising that you might feel fear in your riding, too.

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The future of

STEM CELL THERAPY

With thanks to the Animal Health Trust for their help with this feature, aht.org.uk

A new form of stem cell therapy for treating tendon injuries is on the horizon, as Dr Debbie Guest from the Animal Health Trust explains

T

endon injuries are fairly common in horses and usually occur during exercise, when the tendon is overstretched and the fibres are torn.

The extent of the damage can vary from small, localised areas of minor tearing through to complete rupture of the tendon, and the more damage there is, the poorer the prognosis.

Injuries to tendons are notoriously difficult to heal well because scar tissue is formed when they repair What are instead of normal tendon tissue. stem cells?

Scar tissue doesn’t have the Stem cells have the remarkable same strength and elasticity ability to turn into other types of as tendon tissue, which cell. They exist from the early stages means the tendon is of your horse’s development all the susceptible to reinjury way through to adulthood, where they when the horse returns restore cell numbers. They have a crucial role in to work. For this maintaining tissues where cells are lost during reason, scientists have normal turnover – for example, in skin, which been working hard for continually replaces old cells. However, many years to find a way in most tissues, such as tendon, to improve tendon healing adult stem cells aren’t able and it’s thought that stem cells to fully regenerate the tissue could hold the key. to its original quality.

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Ask a vet

Our expert Unexpected outcome

Dr Debbie Guest BSc PhD is Head of Stem Cell Research at the Animal Health Trust. The main focus of her research to date has been on the use of stem cells to improve tendon repair in horses.

Adult stem cells don’t always work in the way you’d expect. In many tissues, including fat and bone marrow, there’s a population of stem cells known as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). They have the ability to turn into cells such as bone, cartilage and tendon in the laboratory, so you’d expect that they would turn into tendon tissue when placed in a damaged tendon.

Fourteen years ago, vets began to treat tendon injuries in horses by injecting MSCs directly into tendons. However, research has now shown that MSCs don’t survive for long or turn into tendon cells in the horse, but they do produce factors to reduce inflammation and encourage better repair by the tissue’s own cells. So rather than being builders of new tendon tissue, the MSCs direct repair by other cell types.

A new discovery

Experiments have shown that when a tendon is injured in an equine foetus, it undergoes total regeneration of healthy tendon tissue without any scar tissue. Understanding more about this might enable new treatments to be developed to improve tendon regeneration in adult horses.

The Animal Health Trust’s (AHT) Stem Cell Research Group has managed to derive stem cells from very early horse embryos, called embryonic stem cells (ESCs). ESCs have the ability to grow in the laboratory indefinitely and turn into any cell type. Researchers have found that, in contrast to MSCs, ESCs do survive in the injured tendon and appear to turn into tendon cells.

AHT researchers are working to determine if ESC-derived tendon cells are safe and effective

in improving tendon regeneration. As these cells come from early embryos, it’s believed they’ll be unrecognisable to the immune system of a recipient. Initial results have been promising and the next step is to see if tendon cells derived from ESCs remain undetectable by the immune system, even if exposed to the inflammation that’s present following injury.

Some of the mechanisms involved in turning ESCs into tendon cells have been discovered. This is important because you don’t want them to turn into any other cell types or grow uncontrollably in the tendon. The AHT is also trying to understand what type of tendon cells are produced by ESCs and if they’re more like regenerative foetal cells or reparative adult cells.

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