1. An Equine Professional’s Hands
HANDS Assignment
An Equine Professional’s Hands

2. Caring for Horses
“To care for someone, I must know many things. I must know, for example, who the other is, what his powers and limitations are, what his needs are and what is conducive to his growth; I must know how to respond to his needs and what my own powers and limitations are.” On Caring, Meyerhoff (1971)

3. Caring for Horses
To care for horses on a professional level, I need to be able to know them individually. Each one has its own personality with different strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. Each one has a slightly differently body type, with different ailments to be accounted for. Each one is to be treated as an individual with respect and care.

4. An Equine Professional’s Hands
Horses are incredibly sensitive and strong creatures. It takes a person with a natural “feel” to be able to work with them. The hands of an equine professional have to be strong enough to do daily chores. They have to be sensitive enough to find heat and swelling within the legs. It is important that they are able to give and take while riding.

5. Caring for Horses-Chores
An equine professional’s hands need to be tough. It takes a lot of physical work to be able to look after an equine athlete. Mucking stalls + carrying buckets + raking + moving hay = Calluses As much as caring for horses requires the hands to be strong, it is important for them to be sensitive at the same time.

6. Caring for Horses-Grooming
Grooming is about way more than making sure the horse looks good. It is the time when I would run my hands all over the horse’s body to feel for anything out of the ordinary.

7. Caring for Horses-Grooming
The hands of a good Groom are incredibly in tune with their horses bodies.
They are able to detect and swelling or hot spots that may require attention before or after riding.

8. Awareness
In order to be able to work in harmony with these animals, I need to be aware of my own strengths and weaknesses. For example; One of my strengths is being able to recognise a horse’s body language. They are absolutely capable of communicating with humans. It just happens to be through body language. Horses can feel a person’s energy, especially through the touch of a hand.

9. Riding Requires Skill
Riding a horse well takes incredible hands. The skill of having good hands while riding can be natural or learned. It is all about the give and take harmony between horse and rider. The hands are in direct contact with the horse’s mouth, usually by a piece of metal and a pair of reins. Everything about the way the horse carries itself and directions it takes is communicated through the rider’s hands.

10. Riding Requires Skill
Developing good hands while riding requires more than gaining knowledge of what to do by having a coach tell you and show you how to use them. It takes practice to learn what to feel for specifically. Good hands are able to feel how the horse is carrying itself in the head, neck and body. A slight squeeze with one hand could result in a shift in weight in the horse’s mouth which then could ripple through the rest of the body and result in an entire change in the direction the horse is travelling in.

11. Riding Requires Skill and Care
The hands of a rider always need to be in tune with the horse. Flowing with the the cadence of the ride rather than jerking and pulling. Fluid hands set the tone for a good partnership. A developed skill in being able to feel the horse through the hands while the horse is feeling the rider is a true connection. Understanding the horse has its own quirks and limits means that the rider is able to bring out the best that the horse has to give on that ride.

12. Riding Requires Skill and Care
A developed skill in being able to feel the horse through the hands while the horse is feeling the rider is a true connection. Understanding the horse has its own quirks and limits means that the rider is able to bring out the best that the horse has to give on that ride.

13. My Equestrian Hands are my Massage Hands
An equestrian’s skills and energy flows through the hands. The ability to understand and communicate with an animal without words is enhanced through the power of touch.
A massage therapist’s hands are tools with which they also feel, understand and communicate with the human body. They are equally as strong as they are sensitive.