May 9, 2012

Back to Bryan

And so, back to Crips R Us Farms, and to Bryan.


Remember the tale of the three blind men and the elephant? Blind man number one feels the trunk and says ‘The elephant is like a snake!’ Blind man number two feels the legs and says ‘The elephant is like a tree!’ Blind man number three feels the tail and says ‘No! The elephant is like a rope!’ In the meantime, Mr. Elephant is rolling his eyes and thinking ‘Morons!’

Some people love feet. Some people love the chiropractor. Some people think its all muscular. Some people buy endless saddles. But a horse can only be the *sum of its parts*. Rehabbing has to include fixing the things that are ‘wrong’, i.e. skeletal and muscular and foot and tack issues, and doing what is ‘right’, as in ridden and ground work. You can’t just change the shoeing, the hoof balance, the tack, the skeleton, the muscle system. You have to address each system in turn and return it to its default setting, which in the horse is ‘sound’ and ‘benign’. But you can do all of those things and still have only limited success.