The horse whisperer came back

Have had a great day today, with Adam Shereston again, all about connecting with the horse by sychronising your movement to theirs and asking them to move when it's easiest for them..

We started off in hand, leading them, watching how their legs moved and only asking them to turn when the leg on that side was off the ground, so it was easy for them. So if you want to lead your horse left, wait til his left foreleg is leaving the ground, then ask for the turn.

Then we mounted up and did the same from the saddle, moving our shoulders & hips in time with the horse's movement and asking for the turn when the horse's leg was off the ground.

We also worked on stopping, and he wanted us to do it without pulling on both reins, but by raising and gathering one rein each side as the foreleg on that side came up, to shorten the stride and eventually get the stop

You can use the same technique to alter their speed, Fina tends to rush a lot so he showed us how to slow her down

He spent a lot of time working with Jane and Ocarina on this as she gets very anxious if you pull on her reins. He had her going nice and softly after a while.....

So plenty there for us to work on :-)

He also did a bit on catching Polo, who is usually very wary of strangers, didn't take him long to get him to trust though.....

Moving the horses around......

Went to feed the baby girls tonight, Skyfaxa was trying to bully Kinna, so I used Adam's technique to move her away. I obviously had to put a bit of energy into it as she didn't want to leave the food so off she went cantering about. Kinna immediatly joined her so I ran round with them (in a much smaller circle obviously, not being at all fit......) They calmed down and walked as I slowed down. When Sky went back to steal Kinna's food again I needed to use far less energy to move her away, this stuff really works!!

Got some nice pics of them too.

Adam's weekend, day 3

This morning started off with Marianne doing some work on leading a horse safely. After that, Adam did a bit with the babies, just getting them used to seeing us from all angles, not asking them to do anything in particular but just putting himself in position around them as they moved about. Then we did more direction from the ground with Gandalf and Maverick, getting them to back up, being aware of where they need to put their feet when they make certain moves, even doing a little obstacle course!

Then after lunch was connecting the groundwork to the ridden stuff. First of all we had a "passenger lesson", we sat on the horses and just felt how they moved around, identified when a particular leg left the ground. Adam moved them from the ground, it was very strange not knowing where your horse was going to go or when it was going to go up a gear! After that, we got reins on the headcollars and got into directing them just by taking the rein off the neck to turn, timing it so we ask for the turn as the feet are in the right place to be able to do it.

Adam asked me to direct Gandalf away from the gate (and Mav on the other side of it) and instead take him down to the opposite end of the field. This proved to be extremely difficult because he wanted to stay with Mav. I couldn't pull him around to direct him, I had to get him going then try to direct him by taking the rein off his neck, if he tried to circle back I had to keep him in the circle til he was facing away again, but he kept coming back to the gate and stopping, it took me about 20 minutes to finally get him to the end of the field. If I'd had his bridle on I could have simply pulled the reins and insisted. Makes you think........

Adam's weekend, day 2

So today we started with a lesson on how to hold the ropes Adam uses as it's not as easy as he makes it look! Simple little things like when you coil it up, twist it slightly so the loops don't twist themselves into funny shapes......

He uses the long ropes because you need to give your horse plenty of space. A lot of horses are lead around on short lead ropes with people standing at their head or shoulder and they can't turn their head to check stuff out, so they end up moving their feet instead and that's when we get stood on. We use 12 foot ropes with our horses, but Adam's are 24 foot so that takes a bit of getting used to!

But before working them on a line, we learnt how to direct them without one. Adam used the same signals as another horse would to move them around. You have to look where you DON'T want the horse to go, so to move them off, you look about 2 feet behind them and bring your energy level up. If you want a horse to go forward, you need to be behind his shoulder, if you want to stop him, you need to be in front of his shoulder. You look in front of his head to stop him. The angle between you and the horse is very important. All this takes a lot of getting used to, he had to help us with the positioning.........

Then we did more of the same but with the lines, directing the horse to go, stop, left and right just using our position, with no pulling on the rope at all.

This is the start of the foundation of his work, getting the horse to trust you to be able to set his direction and support him in where he goes. Horses are always looking for understanding, which they know they can get from other horses  but not usually from us!

What was very important too is not to direct any energy at the horse, not to chase at them because that just means "go away" and then you've lost them.

We also spent a lot of time looking at the way a horse moves, because if you are aware of which leg he hasn't got his weight on, asking him to turn so he uses that leg rather than trying to pull him the wrong way makes total sense. A lot of horses resist being pulled in a certain direction because they physically can't go that way due to the way they're standing.

Adam's weekend, day 1

Well, Adam is here and he did a demo for us this evening with my friends' horses. The first one was Gimy, a big Trotter, who can sometimes be disrespectful on the ground. The photos clearly show how Adam begins by mirroring the horse's movements, as another horse would do,  to "support" them and begin to gain their trust. Gimy came from a trekking centre and is very "switched off", he was ridden by loads of different people many of whom couldn't ride very well, so he quickly lost interest in people. It's very important to work with him during his short attention span, and try to show him that we will listen to him after all.

Then he worked with Jinelle, Gimy's field mate. She is never left on her own because she totally panicks when her friend goes out of view. At the start of the session she was very anxious, galloping around and calling for Gimy. There is no point trying to work with a horse in such an anxious state, so Adam somply "got with her", copied her until she started to realise he could be her support as well as another horse can.

Towards the end of the session, she was much calmer and at that point he was able to start teaching her some things:

More horse whispering

I have just spent a fascinating weekend in Brittany watching Adam Shereston working with my friends' horses. He came to us last year,and his methods are very different from"traditional" ways of working with horses. We realized we'd barely scratched the surface, so he will be coming back here next weekend. In the meantime, as Mary-Ellen had booked him up in Brittany,I seized the excuse to have a child free weekend and went to watch.

He worked with 7 different horses, all of which were of course different, but it was really useful to see him use his methods over and over again because it really does take time to absorb how he does things. Also, as each horse had different "problems" (Adam says it's not the horse that has problems, it's us who create the problems) I had the opportunity to see how he adapts his methods to deal with different horses.

This bay horse belongs to M-E's friend  and won't let people touch his feet, he becomes very agressive and she has had vets and farriers refuse to work with him. Adam spent a lot of time getting him to trust him, he said it would need an awful lot more time to get him over his fear which he deals with by becoming aggressive, but he certainly made a difference in the time he had with him, the horse actually offered him a foot at one point (which of course I missed with the camera)

One thing I saw again and again was a horse trying to keep Adam in front of his head as that's where they're used to seeing us, they position themselves so they can always see us there. Adam gets behind their shoulder so they can gradually get used to seeing us behind them as that's where thay are when we are on their back, this is why a lot of horses are fine in hand but not ridden. He also gets them used to seeing us behind them from both sides, a lot of horses are happy with us on the left but not on the right, Chris's horse Rocky was not at all happy with him on the right at first........

Something that came up with M-E's Bretty was a horse often doesn't see the point of things we ask him to do which switches them off, Adam was trying to get him to back up which he did at frst, then obviously decided it was a pointless exercise because he was in a big field and didn't need to go backwards, he could easily turn round! Adam didn't insist, just went on to work on something else, he says you must take what the horse offers you and work with that and not get stuck on doing one particular thing if it's not working.

I'm really glad I went because I understand a lot more now, it's all fresh in my mind before our clinics this weekend. Several of the people whose horses he worked with during an earlier session turned up later the same day or the next day to watch some more because it's a lot to take on in one go!

Spring at last??

Well, compared to the freezing start to last week, today was lovely and sunny, maybe spring really is on its way......

Sky and Kinna had a bit of a run around in the sun.... Sky had to spoil it by kicking poor Kinna, she is getting to be a bit of a madam, hopefully Adam Shereston can give me some advice on dealing with her when he comes down next month.....

The Horse Whisperer

Have had a fascinating weekend here with Adam Shereston, the horse whisperer. The main thing we have learned is we have a hell of a lot more to learn!!! Adam's method of horse training is in many ways the opposite of the usual method; he doesn't advocate any pulling on the horse or kicking to get it to move but rather teaching them to move towards a rein as it is lifted away from their neck or a leg away from their side.........

First up was Maverick. The first thing Adam does is to use the horse's own body language to get them to trust him as they would the alpha horse in the herd. Adam spent a lot of time getting him to expand his comfort zone so that he was willing to go with him away from the area by the gate back to the other horses which is all he wanted to do at first. Then the weather intervened, it started chucking it down and Mav didn't like the umbrellas so we had a lesson on getting him closer to them without dragging him along unwillingly, it's all about getting them to trust you enough to protect them from scary stuff......basically he didn't try to lead him towards the brolly, but past it and away from it and every time the horse retreated from something scary Adam went with him. this involved quite a bit of running around, if I do this, I could be in danger of getting a bit fitter........!

Then my French friend Audrey arrived on her French Trotter, Althlete, with her little fieldmate Polly in tow!

Athlete seemed to accept Adam as leader a lot more readily than Mav did, he soon went with him to the far side of the field with no problems, Polly was more bothered in the end!

Then after a brief stint with Buffalo, my friend's 35 year old Appaloosa, it was Gandalf's turn and he really wanted to let off steam having been standing in the box all day!!! Adam spent a lot of time saddling him without him being tied up in any way, he said you have to get them to do that before even considering getting on them, at first Gandalf just wandered off to the fence to go back to Mav, but eventually, he stood still for saddling next to Adam without being constrained at all. This was something that had never occured to me, usually Gandalf is saddled tied up in the box with no opportunity to move. Adam said he's a nice horse who would be easy to dominate rather than have a partnership with, so I must be careful not to bully him.......I felt awful after he said that, I don't think I do bully him, but maybe he does everything I ask because he feels he has to, not because he wants to so I need to change our relationship from "master and servant" to "partners".

Lots to think about........