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➤ Understanding metabolic syndrome
➤ Sweet itch explained – plus management and prevention tips
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Santana and Minna Telde at the London 2012 Olympics 14 HORSe &RIDER
Horse
world
One eye,
all heart
H&R meets the horses at the top of their game, despite having life-changing surgery
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earing the news that your horse has injured an eye beyond repair is something that no owner wants to hear. However, it’s not the end of the line. One-eyed horses have gone on to have flourishing careers, accomplishing great feats such as winning the Hickstead Derby, racing in National Hunt races and performing foot-perfect dressage tests.
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PART one In this feature. . .
➤ Coping with criticism ➤ Creating the
Our experts Wendy Jago is a British Dressage List 3 judge. She is also a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) master practitioner and NLP coach.
As told to Lucy Turner. Photos: Bob Atkins. For more information, email inspiredressage@icloud.com
Tania Grantham BHSAI Int SM is a professional dressage rider who, as well as competing, specialises in helping all types of horse and rider enjoy dressage, making it fun, rewarding and attainable for everyone. Together they run ‘Make a difference’ clinics, which include a session off-horse with Wendy followed by a session on-horse with Tania. Many riders keep their horse lives separate from their non-horse ones, but the clinic is designed to help riders explore what kind of approaches and strengths they could bring from their off-horse life to help improve their riding life.
Our rider Nichola Atkinson rides her eight-yearold Welsh Section D Abertyleri Excalibur, affectionately known as Bertie. The pair competes at Prelim, but Nichola is a selfconfessed perfectionist, and finds being judged and criticised difficult.
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Riding – it’s all in the mind! If only it was as simple as taking your horse to a competition and having a good time. That’s what it’s all about, right? Well, yes, but sometimes our gremlins have a habit of spoiling the fun
Mind matters
right mindset for competitions ➤ Making your horse look easy to ride
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ou’re schooling at home and your horse has never felt better, but then you go to a show and everything seems to fall apart. It’s almost like you’ve forgotten how to ride. If you’ve ever been to a show, it’s likely you’ve experienced a scenario like this at one time or another, and it’s frustrating and disheartening to say the least. But you can do it – you’ve already done it at home – so it’s nothing to do with your ability. Therefore, it must be something that’s mentally getting in your way. This is the scenario Nichola found herself in. Competitions are problematic, so she’s come to Wendy and Tania to try to get to the bottom of it.
Nichola’s issues When she spoke with Wendy, Nichola discussed how she finds putting herself up for being criticised by doing the test quite tricky psychologically. She is a perfectionist and finds herself feeling thoroughly disappointed if she receives 6s and 7s on her test sheet. Nichola feels her confidence lets her down at shows. When she’s at a competition, she enters the arena and panics about getting through the test. She finds she’s not even conscious of what Bertie is doing. At home, it’s a different story and she thoroughly enjoys dressage. It’s only going to a show that’s a problem. Having worked through her problems in theory with Wendy, next it was time to partner up with Bertie and work on them with Tania.
Nichola is a perfectionist, and finds being judged and criticised difficult
Perfect 10 As she warmed up in the school, Nichola explained to Tania that she doesn’t cope very well with criticism. “If you don’t like being judged or criticised, dressage is a really bad choice of hobby!” laughed Tania. “But all joking aside, being a perfectionist is what makes you good at it. It’s a positive, not a negative. I know you get hung up on achieving 10s, but remember that 10 isn’t perfect. It’s excellent. No-one is perfect. “I know it’s hard, but it’s important not to get too despondent about the marks and comments on your test sheet,” Tania advised. “At the end of the day, the only important thing is that you’re pleased with how the test has gone and what you’ve achieved. You might not have a recordbreaking score on your sheet, but if, for example, a movement you’ve been struggling with really came together that day, that’s something you should celebrate and go home feeling pleased about, regardless of what the sheet says.”
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Bitten by the bug
Thanks to XLEquine for their help with this feature, xlequine.co.uk
Our expert Danny Chambers BVSc MSc MRCVS graduated from Liverpool Vet School. He works in the equine department of Ardene House Veterinary Practice, part of XLEquine. Danny regularly volunteers in India and Africa, treating working horses, donkeys and mules.
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Ask a vet
Sweet itch is distressing for your horse and frustrating for you. Vet Danny Chambers from Ardene House Veterinary practice, a member of XLEquine, looks at the condition in more detail
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weet itch affects more than 50,000 horses and ponies in the UK. It is caused by an allergy to the bite of any of the several hundred species of Culicoides midge. Although most horses will feel itchy when being bitten by midges or flies, some exhibit an extreme reaction, which is sweet itch. The condition occurs as the result of the immune system over-reacting to the saliva of the midges when they bite the horse. It is known as a hypersensitivity reaction because the immune system is hypersensitive to the midge saliva. The resulting skin reaction causes an intense feeling of itchiness, known as pruritis. This causes the horse to bite, scratch and rub himself on any available surface, causing further trauma to his skin. The urge to scratch is so overwhelming that he will continue to scratch even when the skin is damaged, oozing and bleeding. This drives animals to distraction, causing untold suffering.
Spotting the signs
Midges tend to bite along the mane, around the rump and tail, and sometimes along the belly. Most of the skin reaction, swelling and trauma is seen along the mane and around the head of the tail. Just like humans who suffer from allergies such as hay fever, the over-reaction that results in sweet itch is due to the genetic make-up of the horse’s immune system. Members of the same extended family are more susceptible to developing certain allergies, but it is not directly inherited from a horse’s parents. Native breeds of pony, Icelandic ponies and cob types are more prone to developing sweet itch than Thoroughbred types are.
The technical information
The immune system can mount different types of hypersensitivity reaction. Sweet itch is known as a type 1 hypersensitivity reaction. Common examples of this type of reaction in humans include hay fever and penicillin allergies. Once the body has been exposed to an allergen, in this case a midge bite, the immune system is sensitised, meaning subsequent exposure will result in an immediate allergic response. This means that the horse has to have been exposed to midge bites to become sensitised, even though the first bite might have been many years ago. It is not unusual for your horse to develop sweet itch for the first time when he moves to a new premises with a larger population of midges. If he hasn’t encountered many midges before, his immune system is unlikely to be sensitised, so the first year living among midges may result in very little or no reaction. The following year, once the midge season starts and the horse is re-exposed to midge bites, a severe hypersensitivity reaction can occur. When performing a pre-purchase exam on a horse for a prospective buyer, a vet will flag up sweet itch lesions as a possible issue. However, if a horse prone to sweet itch has not been exposed to midges for many months or years, or has been well-managed, there may be no evidence of this allergy. When the horse arrives at his new home, if there is a large midge population, sweet itch can flare up within days. This can be frustrating for the new owner, but goes to illustrate that the condition can be controlled and managed to the point where the horse is perfectly happy and there is no skin damage whatsoever.
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