Max’s Story by owner Sophie Payne


ax fell into my life unexpectedly. He is a 10 year old 16.3hh Appaloosa X. After searching for my dream horse for months but finding nothing, I finally ended up loaning Max. It was in this time I witnessed both the mental and physical abuse he was being put through. After only a few weeks of loaning him I decided to buy him to get him out of that home and into a safe one. My plan was to buy a knowledgeable Warmblood to enable me compete up the levels, but instead I decided to take on Max and he has taught me to be a better rider far more than any other horse has. Max came to me severely underweight with muscle damage to his back due to a badly fitted saddle. He was and still is incredibly sensitive in his mouth as he wasn’t taught to accept the contact just run into it and it has taken us time to find one that suits both his training and conformation of his mouth.


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The most difficult part was trying to fix the emotional damage. He was head shy and was scared of having his back legs being touched. This is something he still struggles with but is slowly improving. At the beginning there were a lot of bad days and a lot of hopeless days thinking that maybe I had bitten off more than I can chew. When it came to his training I first had to regulate his rhythm which was initially very hurried and tense. Max was very strong and had just learnt to run through the contact with his tongue out. My Trainer first taught us ‘gears’ where I had to slow Max down using my voice and body, then gradually allow him to open his frame up again. For a horse that is weak and imbalanced like Max, this is incredibly hard. Max was stiff through his body and also lacked straightness so to improve this we had to work on square shapes and teach Max to ride off the outside rein. We worked in box shapes rather than circles to improve his straightness and to stop him falling onto his right shoulder. Sometimes we would take one step forwards but then five steps back and then hit a brick wall. It felt like we were getting nowhere.


Finally, after months we managed to harness rhythm. Then we moved onto suppleness. We practiced this for month upon month, working Max long and low to get him to work from behind. The biggest obstacle here was that he wasn’t relaxed enough, but also because of how much he leant on the bit. I had been coping with his way of going by holding Max in a frame which had caused him to


become even heavier in my hands. This also caused Max to


overbend giving the illusion of him being light but in fact, this made him less relaxed and less in balance because his weight shifted onto his shoulders and he would drop behind the bit. I needed to learn to maintain a lighter connection by being more relaxed in my shoulders and elbows then releasing my contact to reward him when he dropped his poll. A good exercise that we did to loosen his neck and get him to relax into a low frame was to sponge the reins to encourage an outside flexion, then when they horse flexed I would soften my contact and then ask for the inside flexion and again soften when he gave it to me to reward him. Then I would ask for a long and low contact after doing these flexions then repeat the exercise until I felt him relax his neck.


Zoe.Phillips Photography


Max when he first arrived 36 THE SPRING SPECIAL 2020 For the latest news visit www.centralhorsenews.co.uk


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