Our first Western clinic......

Very interesting outing today. Went to a clinic organised by the Western Edge Riding Club, which is a monthly affair at a yard not far from here. Thought it would be good experience for Sky to do something out of her comfort zone and also decided to take Tari along for a look.

They both coped very well, considering we were in an indoor school and it was blowing a gale and chucking it down which meant all sorts of odd noises, plus some sort of clay pigeon shoot happening nearby. Sky only had one real spook, and Tari just seemed more interested in investigating the mirrors a the far end......

The clinic was with Shane Borland who I'd never heard of before but turned out to be really good. He started off explaining that neck flexion thing the Western horses all seem to know but ours had never been asked for. Now to me it's always looked a bit extreme and really just not comfortable for the horse. But I was interested to know the reasons for doing it.

As Sky had never done anything like that before so didn't know what was being asked of her, he used her as an example. Ali had to slide her hand along one rein, then take that rein out and away from the neck then bring it back to her hip. And wait. Sky of course at first started going round in circles trying to follow her nose.

But the third time Ali did it, Sky realised that movement was not what was being asked for, so she stopped. You could really see her trying to figure it all out.

As soon as there was the slightest softness in the rein, Ali released it. And Sky lowered her head and seemed to lose all the tension in her neck. As this is one of the things we really struggle to get her to do, it's something to play around with a bit more, methinks......

Another interesting idea that he gave them to try was the concept of "throwing things away". So you start trotting the horse along and then you release your hold on the reins and slow down your rising more and more then take your legs away, relax your seat completely and see how long it takes the horse to stop once you stop micro managing. And if they're the sort of horse that speeds up, you use the neck flexion, but nothing else, to change the direction and keep changing the direction until the horse slows down.

What I especially liked about his approach was that he was getting people to look at what they were doing from the horse's point of view. He said the rider needs to perceive the horse's take on what they're being asked, as horses will never be able to see things from the rider's point of view. If you read my last blog post, you'll know why I was so happy to hear that today.

Another exercise was to hold the reins completely loosely on just one finger of each hand, and without shortening them at all, just add one finger at a time to see how little it would take to get the horse to rein back. Remarkably little, as it turned out......

He also explained how he doesn't think most people let their horse ever make a decision. He explained how he likes to let his youngsters decide what they do when he first starts riding them. So he just sits there and is a passenger, they get to go where they like for a bit, then he gently asks them to go in the direction they're already going in so he doesn't start getting into an argument with a horse from the off.

He asked the riders, one by one, to set off down the centre line from A at a trot or canter, then let go of the reins halfway along. The other horses were lined up on both sides of the school. He wanted to see what each horse would do when left to its own devices. First problem was riders cheating and not letting go completely! But when allowed to go where they liked, some horses headed for the gate and some to other horses. Sky just went straight on down towards C but Ali didn't try to grab the reins back and turn her (much to Shane's surprise!) and Sky stopped by the wall, but didn't head for Tari, which I found surprising.......

So lots of food for thought today, Ali said she really enjoyed it and would like to do another one. Tari was a star and apart from occasionally getting bored and needing distracting, was as good as gold. And I was really impressed with how Sky handled it all. Shane said that he wouldn't expect a horse to be as calm in an unfamiliar place as at home, he said you can't always know how much of your home horse is out with you on the road, which I thought was a good way of looking at things.

Oh, and we got to see some rather nice spotties :-)

In-hand clinic

Had a nice morning with my friend and trainer Trudi Dempsey at the Swang Pony Centre and a lovely little pony called Alice. She is 7, but pretty much untouched. I went to meet her as she was tied up waiting to start work and she really didn't seem keen on people in general, and me in particular! It's so easy to forget that not all horses are trusting like mine......She was OK with me scratching her neck, but wasn't at all keen on me going further back than her shoulder, and any move towards the rear end was met with a sharp step away!

Anyway, we took her into the school, she really wasn't at all reassured to start with. We swapped her rope headcollar (which was one of those ones that tightens over the nose) for a sidepull, and then had a look at her conformation and how she moved. As with most cobs, she is solidly built and so probably wouldn't find it as easy to flex and bend as a finer, larger horse. She was also very tense in the neck, due to her anxiety about the total strangers in charge of her.

Trudi started by showing me how to do some simple neck flexions, just asking her gently to move her head first to one side, then the other. It was immediately apparent that she found this easier to the left. I led her around to see if she would stop and start when I did (bit sticky at first, but she soon started looking to follow me) and back up (needed quite a lot of energy the first time, but she quickly got the idea).

Then I had to combine the asking for bend with moving forwards. Again, she was pretty quick on the uptake, and after a very short time she was lowering her head and the tension in the neck was lessening. We worked on flexions both towards and away from me, and stopping with the slightest lift of the rein. She was very responsive. When she got a bit "stuck" I was able to change the bend to the other side and she would carry on walking.

I was very impressed by how quickly she decided to trust me and let me move her around. At first she didn't want me anywhere but where she could keep both eyes on me, so we had to start with leading from the front, but she soon realised that it would be OK to let me stand by her shoulder instead. However, the back end is still a no-go area, that will need more time I think!

By the end of the hour, we had a far more relaxed pony who was starting to step under with her hinds as we circled and was stopping, backing up and moving off from the lightest of signals. She lowered her head of her own accord and accepted scratches and strokes on her poll and ears. There were a few yawns too! I turned her out in the field next door and she promptly wandered over to the other ponies and went for a lie down. Lessons are obviously  hard work ;-)

Trudi took some video so I could see what her feet were doing. As you can see, at the start, we got stuck a few times. It's amazing how little bend you need to get those hinds really stepping under the body.

After that we stayed to watch some other lessons. There was another in-hand lesson with this rather gorgeous chap

......and a ridden lesson which was very interesting. The horse was falling in to the inside when circling and spiralling but with the simple addition of some outside bend when on the long side of the arena, it helped the horse support itself better in the bends.

What was really interesting was that the rider started off thinking she needed a lot more rein contact to get the horse to listen to her but when Trudi showed her that less is more and how to lengthen the reins a bit the horse seemed a lot more relaxed and responsive.

 

So a great morning and lots of things to take home and try with my lot :-) And hopefully we can get Trudi to come and do a clinic at the new yard now we've got somewhere to work.......two of my new fellow liveries came along to watch today and found it very interesting :-)

Honest Horsemanship clinic

By useful coincidence, this clinic was on just across the river from us last weekend. Would have been rude not to go along and watch. Bob Reader was the clinician, he's the guy who used to be based in Northern France where a friend of mine sent her youngster for some training. He rides Western and does clinics to help people using western riding techniques to get a better understanding of their horse.

So the day started with him giving a quick demo with his horse to show just what you can achieve:

Yes, he has the big hat and frilly chaps, but he didn't seem to be selling us his "method" and a load of equipment/videos needed to do it and the stuff he says mostly made sense. So he started off getting his students into the school on the ground with the horses on long ropes. He had them lead them around a bit and then identified the ones who weren't "with" the handler and were doing their own thing. He showed them how to get the horse's attention by disengaging the quarters:

 

This horse, a Spanish cross I believe, really was not seeing his owner as a leader (and was mostly trying to mug her for an apple) and needed a bit of work, but he quickly reassessed the situation after a short sharp shock! He didn't hit him, just used his body language and a twirling rope to get the desired effect......after that, his owner took over and was able to move him quite easily:

Some of the others really struggled with the body language bit though, which is why I guess he teaches them the rope twirling.......After that, he had them leading with the horse behind them and stopping to see if the horse was paying attention and would stop too, pretty standard stuff - apart from if they didn't stop, he got the owners to back up into them kicking their feet out backwards, not to try and kick the horse (although the ones who really weren't paying attention and got too close to the handler managed to get kicked) but to show them they needed to keep their distance a little bit.

Next he told them all to jump up onto their horse's back. This resulted in some priceless expressions! He jumped up onto his little horse and showed them how.....

Then he took it step by step, as some of the horses weren't too keen on the idea either. He got them to jump up and down next to the horse, then he lifted them up for a bit, they gave the horses a rub to reassure them, then off again.

Next step, up again but plank along the horse's back, lots more rubbing and praise.

Then up again and sit up, rubs and scratches:

Some of the horses, like this palomino mare, were not happy about this at first:

Was very interesting to note that this rider was one of those having problems with the body language/control on the ground and how that followed on once she was on her back. The rider was tense and out of her comfort zone and so was the horse. But bit by bit they began to relax, Bob stayed with them as long as he needed to.

After a while, he let them go and everyone had to mount up and bend the horses one way and the other just using the rope and swinging it from one side to the other over the horse's head when they needed to change direction. The palomino still wasn't totally relaxed, but was getting better.

The bay, whose rider had nailed it on the ground, was good as gold:

We could see a lot of progress made in a short time. Some of them were even trotting bareback.

He left them to have a play with it for as long as they wanted, then we had a break for lunch. Sadly, not a two hour French affair, but we had stopped off at the new services on the M5 on the way to get some goodies for a picnic, boy did they have some gorgeous food. The wild boar sausage roll was great. They were also selling my brother's cider so we had to have some of that......

In the afternoon, they were allowed some tack. Most had western, but one horse was in a Pelham and 2 reins.......

Bob started with a quick lesson on western bits and bosals, then a technique to get the horse to respond to poll pressure, you squeeze the lump of bone at the top of the skull until the horse lowers its head.

Tried this on Sky earlier today and it did seem to be helping her release some tension.......

Anyway, they mounted up and started with a western style warm up. You slide your hand along one rein towards the horses head, leaning forwards as you do so, then take the rein out so the horse turns and bends, then sit back up. You do this on both sides a few times and it stretches the horse's back and gets them warmed up and supple.

Then he didn't give them too much time to think before getting them all trotting, moving with the horse, loose reins, no pulling, just opening the rein to turn. Before they knew it, he was getting them to canter and telling them to throw away the reins, the less confident ones were trying to hold on too much, but they all got there in the end.
 

(Discovered that the guy in this pic is French and lives down the road from me, who knew?)

Then he was working on getting the correct canter lead by pushing the quarters across before asking for the transition. Some of them weren't really getting this, so he got them playing with the reins and their leg aids to see if they could get the horses to move laterally in some way, I liked that he wasn't expecting them to do a specific movement, but just encouraging them to experiment.....

And yes, Bob reckons it's OK to cross the withers with the inside rein..... ;-)

So by the end of the day, people were really getting a sense of achievement and we could see the difference in some of them, even though they had a way to go. Well worth the £5 spectator fee. Also discovered they could transport my horses up there for the cost of the diesel, reckon we'll go and do a clinic or something one of these days. Would do Sky good I think!

 

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.....