Email: jenclingly@yahoo.com.au
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WILD ABOUT HOOVES – WILD ADVENTURES
Wild About Hooves • Jan 25, 2017
Our role as hoof care educators and horse lovers certainly takes us to far away locations.
Our aim is to inspire education, and create a world wide ripple effect of hoof care and horse keeping awesomeness. Inevitably we are always on the move responding to demand Australia wide for workshops in hoof care.
Business has also seen us travel abroad, teaching hoof care workshops around New Zealand, lecturing to Vets & Farriers in Japan at Tokyo University, pulling shoes & fitting out a tourism team in hoof boots in Bali and teaching workshops to the local Indonesian Vets.
Travel is an Adventure.
Real adventure – to us, is a willingness to jump out of our comfort zone, to be self-motivated, but self less, to test our endurance and be adaptable and ever ready to embrace the moment. There is no doubt its often risky – travelling forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world.
The world the way it is, not the way we imagine it.
We are pinching ourselves about our latest adventure in hoof care, just to see if it really happened. We went to the remote Indonesian island of Sumba.
A place we couldn’t even locate on our world globe.
A place that seemed to have missed time.
A place that seemed like it was straight out of the movie set of Tarzan.
We ventured forth with www.globetrotting.com.au to road-test a horse ride at the “world's best” resort, Nihiwatu and we were keen to meet the tropical, tough-nut Sumba ponies who are at the core of Sumba culture.
SUMBA is as pure, basic and original as you can get. We got to experience the ancient culture, primitive villages and mind boggling traditions edged by the stunning beaches, sprawling rainforest and “knock you dead” resort comforts.
A real juxtaposition for our senses.
The locals live a simple lifestyle that is hard for us to comprehend.
Let me tell you about our draw card to the island, the Sumbanese Pony. These hard little ponies have a “bring it on” attitude, descended from Mongolia who are revered on the island and a sign of wealth to their villagers. They are still a main mode of transport, a dowry for weddings, and a sympathy gift to grieving families at funerals.
These horses were so prized by early colonial powers in fighting their wars that the Navy had special ships built to buy and transport Sumba horses. They were paid for in gold sovereigns, which were melted down and fashioned into jewelry and ritual ornaments, which are still about today.
I wonder what my Dad would have considered my worth in Sumba ponies on the eve of my wedding to Jeremy. I trust he would have requested a herd.
Anyways, the Sumba pony HOOVES that we saw, were a sight to behold. Hoof porn for the hoof enthusiast or as the Indonesians say, “Bagus” meaning good, beautiful, dandy, or exemplary.
We were not surprised to see they are naturally worn, tough and compact and capable of tackling all terrain. They even sounded like coconuts on the pavement, concaved, balanced and rhythmic. Just as you would imagine on a hardy wild horse.
On our adventure exploring Sumba, our fine Nihiwatu based steeds charged us through rice paddies, slippery mud slopes of rainforest, past mud wallowing buffalos, busy chickens, barking dog packs, grunting pigs, through villages of laughing children and betel nut chewing adults. They marched through the surf with not a care in the world as waves crashed on them. They endured my squeals of delight and my screams of terror.
They showcased their extraordinary island and the islands culture from their sturdy backs.
“Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” –
Freya Stark
Their relaxed island mentality was contagious. As we sipped on cocktails at the bar at sunset we gained a greater appreciation of just what a world they wanted us to slip into. A grand life of simplicity, with no complication of rules, law, technology, time pressures, but ever ready to slip into colorful costumes and take their place on the battlefield.
On the topic of warfare, the most spectacular ritual of the Sumba culture is the PASOLA. It is a contest where hundreds of warriors on horseback fight opposing tribes with wooden spears. These horsemen are highly skilled at riding fast and hurling a spear at the same time. They can throw a spear with the greatest of accuracy and cause not only injury but also death to each other.
The primary purpose of the Pasola is blood shed.
I know, I know, this is pure madness in our western society.
According to ancient beliefs, the spilled blood, will fertilize the land and result in a bountiful harvest. Any bloodshed including animal sacrifices or men wounded or killed during the Pasola is considered to be a symbol of future prosperity.
What’s crazy about the date of the Pasola Festival is that it is not set in concrete calendar terms. The date differs each year according to the moon and the arrival of worms! When the Nyale worms spawn on the beaches, this is the sign for the Marupu Priests to announce the time of the Passola – that is, seven nights after the full moon.
So folks keen to be amongst this festival, you need to be slightly impulsive in the month of February. www.globetrotting.com.au will bring international awareness to Sumba. Riding on horse back breaks down all cultural barriers and the world can be viewed so very differently from between the ears of a horse.
The Sumba pony will show and share its island culture to anyone with a mind open enough.
It's time to get there now, places like this are fast vanishing from the world.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain
Laminitis kills thousands of horses every year, and leaves thousands of others debilitated with lameness. It will and can affect any horse. And for you, the horse owner it can be devastating: you feel guilty and heartbroken at your horses suffering, confused with all the information as it is typically explained by professionals in scientific terms that can be difficult to understand, costly veterinary bills and you have the major task of nursing your horse back to recovery. . Unseasonal weather patterns around Australia with abundant rain and sunshine saw laminitis at a near epidemic last year. The reason being, that the environmental conditions can trigger increases in the sugar, starch and fructan. These collectively known as non-structural carbohydrates can cause laminitis in any horse or pony. Alarm bells ring this spring!! Be warned and be prepared, for prevention is better than cure.
The extraordinary relationship between humans and the horse has been running since before the birth of Christ. Indeed, there is evidence our domestication of horses goes as far back as 3500 BC. And ever since we recognised the utilitarian value of the horse, there has been the horseshoe. The use of horseshoes has become an almost unquestioned tradition. Humans have been nailing shoes onto horses’ hooves for well over a thousand years. Who can remember back to a time otherwise?
There is nothing quite like getting hands-on when you are learning the art of trimming horses hooves. Wild About Hooves popular weekend workshops allow their students plenty of opportunity to ‘have a go’ in a situation as close to real-life. Students start practicing by trimming horse’s cadaver legs, they also practice positioning themselves under a horse safely and ergonomically. Students retain more information when they physically practice, instead of just seeing or hearing it. However, when a worldwide pandemic puts a stop to everything, and public events banned, border restrictions in place, and other impacts make it impossible to travel and train in person, Jen Clingly and Jeremy Ford decided to adapt and reinvent their learn to trim courses. “We can still bring this “learn-by-doing principle” of adult learning into what we are teaching regardless of whether we teach online or off line.” Clingly highlights. “But it is challenging especially for us to articulate clearly and demonstrate without the constant interaction of questions and answers that face to face provides.” When it comes to traditional face-to-face training, the principle of maintenance hoof trimming is easy to grasp and execute. So how do the team at Wild About Hooves deliver their online hoof care course? How do students learn to do it themselves in an environment where they are not physically present to perform practical exercises? Online teaching requires very different approaches to teaching face-to-face for obvious reasons. Wild about Hooves shares 4 ways of teaching a practical skill via online training. 1. Get as Visual as Possible When it comes to practical training, or teaching learners new skills, we created loads of visual with power point lectures and ‘live demonstrations of trimming.’ People learn in many different ways – visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. By delivering information online, we want to make sure we enable all the different type of learners to engage with our hoof care principles. Providing visual diagrams, animations and dot-pointing our information all helps alongside a video showing a real life demonstration of the skill in a environment that is as close to what will happen out in the field. We try and get the camera in close to the hoof to show the trim process step by step. When the brain can ‘see’ how something is done before it is attempted independently, the chance of success are much higher than just reading or hearing about it. 2. Get on Camera Much out of our comfort zone, we got ourselves on camera. People like people, and it can significantly enhance the engagement, retention and completion rates of our course if our learners can see us talking to them. We don't have the budget for a professionally filmed training video, but we put together some good ‘how to’ trim footage and this also enables people to engage by watching, listening and following along as the training video plays. 3. Self Paced Learning Students can work at their own pace through the series of lessons. They can stop when they are tired or need a break and then get back to it when the time is right. Also they can go back and revisit any of the lessons to reinforce their learning. The lesson range is interesting and covers introducing the trainers and their backgrounds, the distal limb anatomy of the horse, how the hoof works, barefoot trimming, step by step hoof trimming, the relevance of the wild horse study, Australia’s desert brumbies, tools for trimming, what to look for when you trim horses hooves. All lessons are interwoven with film footage and powerpoint lectures and then access to further resources. It’s user friendly and feedback has been sensational. 4. Trainers Are Accessible and Can Be Contacted to Provide Advice and Feedback The team at Wild About Hooves is contactable to help students who need further information and guidance. Best of all with a team of over 150 hoof care practitioners in Australia with ACEHP: The Australian Certified Equine Hoof Care Practitioners there is usually someone who students can touch base with to learn more from or who they can book in to check on their trimming and horses hooves. Check out the link and join the team virtually! https://hooftrimmingonlinecourse.podia.com/