Dat Hickory with Joseph
CASE STUDY #1: Dat Hickory
Dat Hickory was the first horse I ever worked with and was in great part responsible for me shifting my practice from human SI work to equine SI. He was a year old stud colt, son of Doc’s Hickory out of the famous Doc Bar. As cutting horses go, he was royalty but he needed to earn his chops in the cutting arena before he could fulfill his role as the center of his owner’s breeding farm. His future, however, was hampered by two injuries. The first he sustained as a yearling when he slipped and fell hard, damaging his hip. A year later he pulled up a metal post he’d been tied to. Spooked, he took off running with the heavy post dragging behind him, battering his hind legs and causing significant damage.
Horse people say it’s a mistake to put a green person and a green horse together, but it worked out well in our case. In fairness, Hickory was well trained, only young. Me, I was brand new to horses and too dumb to be afraid. We ended up teaching each other. He taught me how to deal with a waving hoof and how to keep from getting nipped. I taught him that his body could be strong and flexible and that he could depend on it again.
Before beginning his first session I palpated his entire body, gauging his reactions and what my hands told me. I found tension in his neck, hips, lumbar region and rear legs.
Note: I began the series with the intention of doing ten sessions but found the work was complete after the fifth session. This has held true for nearly all the horses I’ve work with so I adopted the five session series as the standard model for equine SI.
Session 1 (2/24)
I focused my work on his neck, back and intercostals. The ribs on his left side were very sensitive as was the lumbar region on the left and left stifle. I noticed that his right hoof was internally rotated and that his right hock wobbled at the walk. He did not trust me well enough yet to allow me to work inside his hind legs. I found that trust built session by session as he came to understand how the work was helping him.
Session 2 (3/1)
I found more sensitivity in his right hip. I was able to release superficial muscles on all four legs inside and out. Upon checking I found no sensitivity in his left intercostals or left lumbars.
Session 3 (3/4)
During this session I focused on the sides of his body. I also got much deeper on his legs and found that the wobble in his right hock was due to a lack of alignment through that joint. I worked on the inside of his right femur and on the medial ligaments of that leg. These are very sensitive areas for a horse and work here was occasionally punctuated by him lifting his near hind hoof off the ground and slowly waving it at me. We had a working relationship at this point and it became clear to me that he wasn’t trying to kick me so much as showing his concern, making me aware that he was nervous about work in this part of his body. Each time he did this I spoke to him calmly and tapped his gaskin, then shifted the intensity or direction of my work to let him know I got the message.
Session 4 (3/13)
In this session I worked almost entirely on his hind end. I focused on the inside of his rear legs. Hickory’s trust level had come up quite a bit which allowed me to work very deeply. His most sensitive spot was just above and behind the stifle inside the left hind leg. I spread all the releasing tissue forward into his back and down his legs. At the end of this session his owner and trainer stared at him for five minutes. Finally his owner said, “He’s got pants!” The muscles just above the gaskins had been fascially contracted since the injuries. Now the muscles were released and in full view. (Later she sent a long testimonial and several photos of his hind end showing off those pants.)
Session 5 (3/21)
Hickory’s trainer told me he’d been doing great the past week. He’d had a few days of strengthening work and was going very well. At this point I departed from the ten session protocol and decided we could wrap up the work in this session. I decided to reinforce his overall progress by working his spine and topline structure. I knew the SI work would allow the newly found strength from his hind end to flow freely forward all the way to his head. I worked his back, neck and head. He loved the neck work. I also worked all the muscles that would help his forelegs in their extension. We ended with connecting strokes to integrate him from tail to poll where the neck meets the skull.
Post series observations: I have fond memories of Hickory, a gorgeous horse who had a good idea how beautiful he was. I saw him five times for followup sessions in the years after his series but the most memorable was soon after his series when his owner invited me along for his first lesson with a cutting horse trainer.
Hickory’s owner sat astride him on one side of the arena. The trainer and his horse were on the opposite side of the arena with a buffalo calf in the middle. The purpose of the lesson was for Hickory to learn to keep the calf from reaching the arena walls but this was new to Hickory. He stuck out his nose and took a few tentative steps toward the calf, trying to figure out what kind of animal the calf was. The calf suddenly bolted and ran toward the arena wall.
What happened next happened very fast. Hickory reared up as the calf bolted, and in a flash he realized his quarry was escaping and suddenly knew what his purpose was. He spun a full 270 degrees and sped off after the calf. His owner somehow stayed aboard. The trainer’s jaw fell open for a split second before he, too, charged off after the calf.
Finally Hickory fulfilled the role he was born into.