[UnDun*]

IMO, That is probably the sickest thing i heard today.

Just another method of man's lazyness.

[Endorphins4u2]

No no , you have it all wrong !!

Gee why didn't anyone tell this was happening..

Its not a war bridle ..its your own bridle use to stimulate endorphin release to take the edge off a horse that is giving a bit of trouble..

I'll be back to explain..tonight get your popcorn ready...

[UnDun*]

But why use it on horse that ISNT havng trouble. From my understanding this was a untried yearling from pasture. I feel it should have been broken/worked with in a more humane way.

[Endorphins4u2]

There is more to the story than I let on, the year was unsold and was go to be dogmeat because the farm didn't have the money to keep it in work until it races (thoroughbred), I found a buyer for it because there was photo's of the horse being riden and not just standing in a paddock...

Just give me a chance to explain..

[Endorphins4u2]

Ok, I've finished work and will start explaining ok..

I will start with the un-broken yearling post and then explain the endorphin tap concept..

I can't type very fast but I am here..

[tucklove]

I'm interested to read your explanation, because as of now, I find the whole thing quite disturbing and how people manipulate these horses while they can do nothing since they are so out of it; I find it creepily similar to some sort of 'rape'. Strictly by means of one thing being forced to do something without its consent. I'm failing to see how this method is any better than the old brute force techniques. The only difference I see is that the horses can't fight back so it looks more like compliance. But, I would still like to see what you have to say.

[S.HorseWoman]

Hmm, I am not really certain WHAT to say. I am still waiting for the original poster's explanation on this.

From the website, the method does not look like a good thing to me. For the "Half-Tap" the horse's head is brought very close to the chest, similar to the position of the dressage Rolkur method. As I understand it, that position is very uncomfortable for horses, puts a lot of pressure on the windpipe, and is often frightening for the horse because they cannot see or breath properly. Now, that would release Endorphins yes because shock, panic, and fear do that. That is what Endorphins are FOR! They are the body's version of Morphine; they mask pain and numb your mind to prevent shock. Now there are gentle ways to release Endorphins which help with relaxing, but I don't really see this method as gentle.

The "Full-Tap" looks to be the "Half-Tap" combined with pulling the horse's head far to one side, thus pressing all its weight on one foreleg mainly. So of course as the horse gets lots of Endorphins it is going to collapse, but that is NOT a good thing for a horse. It is a very scary thing! Horses HATE being forced to the ground because they can't get up quickly and they are prey animals.

I honestly DON'T think this poster intends for anyone to get hurt and seems to think this method is great, but really it is just a short-cut and is not training the horse at all except to not allow a human to get near their head because this "Tap" might happen to them.

[Endorphins4u2]

The post at the start of this thread was true except for I knew the breeder's son who asked me to do this the help sell the horse before his father sent it to the Knackers to cut cost.

There are many thoroughbred breeding farms in Japan that are now is finacial difficulty because the economic bubble burst here and many do not want to get further in the red by paying training fees for a horse they couldn't sell. Some farms give the unsold horses away and even then finding someone to take them is hard, this is one of those cases..

The farm is just up the road and the breeders son told me an owner was interested in the unsold horse but thought it would take to long to get it to a pre-training centre where all yearling stay until the trainers here call them up for racing. Racing is like that all round the world, they start the horses off as yearlings or there are no races for them to enter later, sad but true..

Anyway, the breeder's son asked what he should do to convince the owner the horse was progressing along and I wasn't so far behind the other farms yearlings. I told him to bring the horse down to me and I'll gear it up with a roller and side-reins and take photo's or we could put the horse on the walking machine and take some photo's. He said his father would never let him take a horse to another farm to use there gear..(Japanese are very proud people) So I said I could come to the farm and ride the horse for him around the paddock in my lunchtime because he was running out of options.

I normally take a few weeks to break-in yearlings and bring them along slow but this was just a one off case that caught my curiosity because I always thought I could do this if I ever had to for some reason..

The gearing-up and riding part of the post was true so I shouldn't have to go over it again..

Now the "Endorphin Tap" thing is this,

My job is to "break" and "pre-train" yearling until the trainer can fit them in at the racecorse because trainer here are only allocated 10 boxes (stalls) each. Now every year I see these baby horses mature and get confident and some get a little cheeky and learn bad habits because the riders here can't turn them around in time.

One particular case was a horse that picked up the "rearing" bug with a young rider and wouldn't stop. So the next day I took the rider off and rode it myself but it was too late..up and down, up and down on the one spot, not going forward a bit and stopping this horse wasn't going anywhere but up and down. So I turned his head around to the near-side so he couldn't use the weight of his head to get airborn, and just held it there to think about my next move.

As I was thinking, I notice the horse's head getting heavier and his front legs were wide apart which looked silly but didn't really give it much thought until he slowerly started to get lower and lower.

Now for as long as I have been riding, I have always been taught not to let a horse lie down on you, give it a kick and keep them moving I was taught..

But, this time I sat tight to see if the horse was only bluffing. He wasn't.

He was sitting on the ground and I was still sitting in the saddle. I got off and said to him "Are you happy now? " he just startes picking at the grass while sitting there.

What I didn't realize was turning his head around stimulated an acupoint releaseing a massive dose of endorphins which zapped his legs of the energy he needed to carry his own weight..

This isn't just a theory, I will let you decide after I finish my explanation..

Remember this happen by chance and was not planned..

[Endorphins4u2]

What I thought was strange was the horse wasn't trying to get up,just picking at the grass. So I gave the reins a tug and said "get up" which he did. He walked off okay and I took him back to the barn to check him out. The horse was fine but it got me thinking because I have been riding since I was 7 now 36 and all horse that I have seen slip or fall over etc..got straight back up like all animals would, we do to when we fall over don't we ?

Anyway, that afternoon I took a diiferent horse into the sand enclosure we have here and for my own experience reasons only, I turned the horse's head around much the same way as the rearer and tried again..

The same thing happened, the horse's head got heavier, front legs were apart and this one sat down too..I thought "this can't be right" and tried another horse etc..

Then I tried doing it standing beside them, that worked too. Turning their head to the off-side also worked only safer because all I had to do was step back and they would lay in front of me opposed to their bodies falling away from me like the video shows..

I also noticed when I was holding them their eyes would go "sleepy" like they do when the twitch is applied and they seem to lose control of their coordination in stance like they were drunk or something . So I looked up "twitches" on the interenet which lead me to Endorphins which got me thinking about how horse go "Ballistic" if you leave the twitch on too long.

This is called a "Blow-point" which most of you know..

( hang in there, more to follow next )

[Endorphins4u2]

Most horses can handle the twitch being on for 10-15 minutes, but some can BLOW as soon I you tighten the rope around the nose.I have seen this many times and if the twitch stays on after they BLOW,they will either lean against a wall or start to lie down. They don't BLOW-OUT because you ran out of endorphins, how could small horses and big horse have the same size endorphin reserve ? These simularities are just too close to ignore.

My theory is:
"The Endorphins being released by the stimulation of the acupoints from either the bit in the horse's mouth or from the twitch on the horse's nose, are actually burning up the horse's energy.So rapidly, the horse gets to a stage where they are so fatigued, they go into a state of panic and feel an urgency to do something desperate like striking at the twitch. In nearly all cases it is the twitch on their nose they are striking at and not the person holding it.Why else would a horse you brush, ride and feed suddenly do something totally out of character and want to hurt you?

Did the horse go ballistic before the twitch was applied ?
Did the horse go ballistic after it was removed ?

Horses hate twitch's, the diference between the twitch and my method is they don't "BLOW", they just lie down and wait till the endorphin wear off.

I also metioned on the site "You don't have to lay the horse down" that is to show non-believers that this really does work. Just release enough endorphins using the "Half-tap" to take the edge off the so you can get near their ears or put bandages on without the horse playing "shoo fly" with their legs.

This isn't traumatic for them, they get tired and lie down.

If you want them up, just clap your hands and they will snap out of it..

I have tried this on over 100 different horses of size,colour,weight,breeds and age, it works on all horses..

Even if you don't like just keep it in the back of your mind for oneday you need to dope you horse a bit to get something done when no-one is around to help..