After lunch, Eric changed from doing groundwork to ridden work. So the horses were tacked up. But before mounting, he did some work on getting them to flex and disengage their quarters. Then he showed the riders how to do it, first from the ground, then from the saddle.
You can see him working with Ali and Seraphina in this video:
And here with Sheila and Gandalf, in just the bitless bridle:
Very interesting stuff, and a lot like the Philippe Karl DVD we saw recently, using the hands higher than traditionally taught and the bending and flexing that I have been trying out with Chester. So lots to practise there!
Using one rein at a time means that they can't lean or pull against the hand and I like the way he doesn't want you to take up a "proper" contact, but just experiment with a feel on the inside rein and wait for the horse to relax then reward him by stopping what you're doing. As with everything to do with horses, timing is the key......
Today we spent the day at Tess's doing a "stage" with French "ethologue" (horse whisperer) Eric Trelut. He's a great teacher, very patient and with a sense of humour! I really like his
approach with the kids too, he pitches it just right.
Basically the morning session was with each horse
at liberty in the round pen, he showed people how to get the horse's attention
and how to move them around using body language, a lot like Adam Shereston does.
Some horses would move from the slightest cue, others needed a series of cues,
each one "louder" than the last. So Seraphina would move away with just a look
whereas Chester needed the rope throwing behind him before he decided to
cooperate! But then Eric showed us that once he'd got the idea that he couldn't
just stand around eating and needed to take some direction from people, he soon
realised that a click of the tongue meant "off you go!". A lot of it was very
slow movement, he doesn't do join up where you send the horse away, it's all
about being able to direct them around, getting their attention, ie having both
their eyes on you, and having them "with" you, which took some doing with some
of them as there were a lot of distractions! Once he'd got the measure of each horse, he showed the owner how to do the same, then they had to move the horse by themselves. Here's a vid of him working with Ali and Seraphina:
Kinna was a bit of a
challenge, she didn't want to listen at first, then she started getting anxious
and bombing round like a loony so he worked on getting her calm and paying
attention. He also did some bending the neck to move the quarters, she's so
bendy she was touching her nose to her side without moving her quarters at first
but once she realised what he wanted, she was stepping round nicely.
Little Polo was very wary of him at first, like he is with most people, but he will follow Hollie everywhere so he go them to do a few things together!
So that was the morning groundwork session, I'll do another post for the afternoon ridden session......
