In the good old days they used to call it "sacking out". It consisted of tying your horse to a post and rubbing it all over with a gunny sack until it stood for it. Generally it was a one time thing that happened prior to chucking the kack on his back and cinching it down. Today desensitizing is a process that in some instances goes on throughout the horse's entire life. There is a rainbow of fruit flavors available to choose from when you decide how or if you are going to incorporate this tool into your repertoire with your horse.
The science behind desensitizing is sound. Horses are prey animals. They have a well ingrained flight or fight response that has allowed them to survive in the natural habitat for thousands of years. Their instincts tell them that if you see something that might eat you, even if you aren't sure it's probably best to get out of there quickly and then maybe reassess. If you can't run, you better start fighting. Desensitizing is supposed to teach a horse to stop and assess first prior to running and fighting.
Desensitizing today is largely done the same as it was years ago with the exception that you don't tie the horse. You leave them an out so that they don't feel trapped and don't end up kicking in the fight response. If your horse always has an opportunity to leave the scary object, even if it's just running around you in a circle they will eventually stop to reassess the situation and then accept it. You can use any object to desensitize but most practitioners of natural horsemanship will use a stick and string (carrot stick or handy stick) or a flag or a coiled lariat. While holding the horse on a lead line you introduce the object by moving it all around and over the horse's body until he can stand there and accept it.
The variation in method and ideology comes in when we start discussing just how much desensitizing you need to do. Here is where the rainbow of fruit flavors comes in.
Maximum Desensitizing: These are the folks that have a regimen of desensitizing that they do with their horses each and every time that they work with them. Typically this is incorporated as part of the groundwork routine but can also be done from the saddle. You'll often hear this mantra from folks in this camp, "For every sensitizing exercise there is a desensitizing exercise". So you will first teach your horse to move off of pressure or stimulation then teach it to ignore the stimulation. It is up to the horse to read your body language and therefore your intention before deciding if it is supposed to move or go. It is also often used as a sort of cool down after a rigorous sensitizing exercise. When you start your desensitizing the horse is supposed to just cock a leg and zone out. It's his cue to stand quietly. Defendants of this process are the ones that you will often see standing on the back of their horses wielding a chainsaw or leaf blower while the horse stands quietly with a leg cocked. If you are a horse person that is particularly worried about your horse spooking at different stimuli this looks like a dang good deal. Opponents of this type of desensitizing worry that you are ruining the horses natural sensitivity to stimuli that makes it such a valuable partner. How can a horse be sensitive to your lightest cue while also being dead to all outside stimuli?
Moderate Desensitizing: Obviously this form of desensitizing falls somewhere right in the middle. You will often pair desensitizing and sensitizing exercises with your horse and may even repeat the desensitizing exercises daily. The difference is that once the horse is good and standing for the desensitizing you move on rather than belabor the point. There may even come a time in the horse's career when you stop doing the desensitizing unless a problem with a specific object arises and then you always have the desensitizing to fall back on when needed.
Minimal desensitizing: These are the folks that really can't even abide the word and will often choose a different term for what they do to "check out" the horse or make sure he is okay with stuff. This type of desensitizing is much less regimented. There aren't any desensitizing exercises you do with your horse, you just make sure he's okay with stuff. For example, you horse is worried about fly spray. You would just keep quietly fly spraying them until they quit freaking out. You would do this as needed with the horse. Or your horse is afraid of your hat. You would calmly show the horse your hat until he was okay with it. It's really just good basic horsemanship and common sense. The idea being we aren't trying to make a horse okay with everything in the world so that you can carry around an inflatable boat on the top of your horse if needed. We are trying to teach the horse that when we are there with you you don't need to be afraid because if I say it's okay, it is. You are making a pact to the horse that says, "I promise to take care of you and when we are together I'll help you watch out for scary or dangerous stuff". The horse learns not so much to tune stimuli out but to be okay with it because he has trust in you, his herd mate that you aren't going to be in trouble.
Even as I write this it seems silly to me that there is any debate about this, but believe me folks from the different camps can get down right touchy about this. The minimal desensitizers believe the maximum desensitizers are dulling their horses and making dead unthinking horses that nobody would want to ride and the maximum desensitizers think the minimal desensitizers are just "cowboys" making crack heads that are prone to buck or run off at the least amount of outside stimuli.
Let me tell you about my personal journey with desensitizing. I started out in the maximum desensitizing camp. It made perfect sense to me at first. Who wouldn't want a horse that is 100% okay with bombs going off and flags and fireworks. I faithfully did my desensitizing with my stick and string or lead rope each and every time I did groundwork before getting on my horse. I got my horse to the point that I could walk all around him while he stood sleeping as I whacked that thing on the ground as hard as I could. What I noticed is that it worked great in that context. What it didn't do is transfer to the larger outside world. I found that my horse was either completely sensitized jumping to my least cue or completely desensitized sleeping while I made a ruckus around him. I definitely could have gotten on my horse with a leaf blower and stood there blowing away while he slept. But only if I had done my running around ground work and got him tired first. It didn't help him to just trust that I would keep him safe in all situations because it was an isolated exercise. When it happened after we had done some good running around in the arena he totally understood that it was time to stand and sleep. If I just walked out and caught him and he saw something scary there was no trust. Because I have a hot sensitive horse I didn't ever end up with a dull unresponsive horse but I didn't ever get a horse that was completely with me all the time either.
So, with my next 2 horses that I started I went somewhere in the middle. It worked better, I think, but especially with the little quiet 3 year old Morgan that had a tendency towards laziness I noticed that the more I desensitized the more it took to get him to move at all. He loved desensitizing. He thought it was right up there with a good grooming. Once I realized that if I kept at it I was going to need spurs to get him to move at all I quit. He wasn't ever really worried about stuff anyway, why continue with it as part of our daily routine?
A mistake that I see a lot of folks make with desensitizing and one that seems to create freak out moments is forgetting to desensitize a horse while he is in motion. You'd be surprised at how a horse that is standing there completely dozing while you wave a flag around can turn into a nut case when you start moving that flag around while you are riding them or while they are moving around you in a circle. When their feet are already moving that flight response just seems to be that much closer to the surface. So, anything you desensitize your horse to should be done standing still first and then also while moving.
A great example of this happened yesterday with the Moony and the blue tarp. He's spent some time with blue tarp being rubbed on him from the ground and he'll lope over the thing if it's laying in the arena. Yesterday I decided to practice dragging the tarp while we were moving. I picked it up off the rail of the arena and he was a little alert but okay. I rubbed it on him, no problem. Then we started to move off at a walk. Instant anxiety. So it took some time moving off slowly in a circle dragging the tarp for him to be okay with that. I repeated it on both sides and eventually I was able to carry it like a cape flapping out behind us.
So, I wouldn't presume to tell you what level of desensitizing you should be doing with your horse. I think like most things in horsemanship it is a personal decision. But I do think you should be informed when you make that decision and I do think you want SOME level of desensitizing. I also think that having a horse that is okay with lots of different stimuli starts with having a horse that is okay with you. Build that trust with your horse and don't let him down and he'll be much more willing to believe you when you say, "It's alright."
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
A Heaping Helping of Humble Pie
I didn't realize that when I started this blog about my thoughts on horsemanship and the things that I've learned along the way that I might come across as sounding like I am now a master. I am so far from that. I am mediocre at best. The entire purpose of this blog is to explore the nuances of horsemanship and to allow me to focus my thoughts on what horsemanship should be and where I would like to go in improving my horsemanship. I take this stuff very seriously and am constantly working on improving myself in numerous ways. You can't be in this "sport" (I hate to call it that because it makes it sound like a game and it's so much more serious than that!) without maintaining your sense of humor about the horse's ability to regularly make you look like a fool.
So, I thought this blog might be a good time to share with you some of my recent foolish moments and what I learned from them just so you all realize that I have absolutely zero delusions of grandeur when it comes to me and my horses.
I've already talked a bit about talking on the challenge of learning to jump with my older gelding in the balance blog. I'm still taking jumping lessons and continuing to work on my form and such rudimentary things as steering and stopping when I am in 2 point position. My jumping lessons, besides being fun, are also incredibly humbling and exhausting. It's amazing how much work it is to ride that way. I can happily spend 8 hours in the saddle riding in the mountains and never really get to that point where I'm ready to get off my horse. A 45 minute jumping lesson, however, leaves me exhausted and panting almost as hard as my horse. While my balance is getting better there are still so many things that I have to try to remember when all I can seem to think about is one thing at a time. For instance, on approaching the jump you have to gather your horse, count your strides, keep your heals down, push your horse into a collected frame, prepare to get into two point position, keep steady light pressure on the reins, look towards the jump then at just the right moment look beyond the jump to the next jump, keep your right leg back so that he doesn't change leads and oh yeah, don't fall off! (I'm sure I missed a few things in that list. I'm still learning!)
My horse is taking the jump and I'm still somewhere at "keep your heals down". I feel like a complete beginner. It's just so different from the style of riding that I have been working towards the last few years and by golly, I'm not a kid anymore and apparently learning new things and retraining your body is a difficult thing! But, I'll keep at it. I am nothing if not stubborn and I really want to get this. Probably the fact that I'm having so much trouble mastering these things is going to make me want to master it all that much more. It seems inconceivable to me that I can't keep my heals down. Really? How hard can that possibly be?
Pushing myself outside of my equine comfort zone has been so good for the rest of my riding. It has helped me to remember that form and balance that you think is second nature needs work. Just because you feel pretty comfortable in your western saddle doesn't mean that you don't have balance and form issues in your riding. There is nothing like a new discipline to really make you think about your riding and your communication with your horse. Even if you aren't switching disciplines, just take a lesson and have somebody there who can critique you and push you and correct that sagging shoulder that you don't realize you have. I don't care who you are, you can benefit from it.
My other heaping helping of humble pie came last week as I was teaching my 2 year old how to back out of the trailer. This is a hard one for me to talk about because it was a pretty traumatic experience for me. It hit me pretty hard emotionally. We got a new trailer this year and for the first time my horses have to back out. I have been turning my horses around in the trailer and leading them out and down a ramp since I as 16. I've just always believed that was safer.
But our new trailer has a spiffy rear tack and so the horses can't really turn around in it. I figured it was time for me and them to get this figured out and it's gone pretty well with everybody. Then I decided it was time for the 2 year old to work on it. I figured he'd be easy because he had few preconceived notions since he hasn't been trailered more than a handful of times. He was a rockstar. After about 15 minutes I had him backing out after I sent him in just by tugging on his tail. I figured I would do it one more time just be sure he had it well cemented in his young brain.
For some reason, probably because he was getting bored with this repetitive game, he decided to try to turn around and look at me before he got all the way backed out. He did that in the narrowest part of the trailer and got himself wedged and ended up flipping himself out of the trailer. I was completely powerless to do anything to prevent what I saw coming and had to just stand there and watch it happen. He fell out of the trailer into the driveway and thankfully landed on his hip and shoulder. If he'd come out completely backwards and hit his head he probably would have killed himself. (Not being dramatic, I've attended many of these accidents).
He popped right up and I put him right back into the trailer trying to prevent any traumatic memories from cementing and making trailer loading an issue and he went right back in. He took way longer to come out this time but made it out eventually. Then when we attempted to haul him to a ride it took about 20 minutes to get him out. I was so disgusted with myself for letting this happen. Here I had a 2 year old that was completely confident and backing out of the trailer like a champ and I ruined it by pushing it too far and letting him get bored and looking for a new way out of the trailer. I was upset enough and so frustrated that Dan had to step in and help me out because I was emotionally shot.
Honestly, I am still pretty traumatized from the whole incident. I just feel like I totally failed my colt and have had many nightmares about what could have happened. He'll probably get over it much faster than I will. I'm still processing exactly where I went wrong and maybe it would have eventually happened anyway.
The moral of these stories is that horses will provide you unending opportunities for making a fool of yourself. That's one of the beauties of having this as your life passion. You will never ever stop learning and growing and improving because this is a life sport. It's one that you can do your whole life and only a few will ever be considered "masters". I'm willing to bet those "masters" have days where they feel like an idiot too. That's just horses.
So, if you've been following along with my blogs and thinking, "what makes her think she knows so much about horses". Believe me I don't! I'm learning as I go just like we all are. Just like in horses, I think one of the most important traits in a rider is try. You gotta have try to grow and learn. If I can say one thing about myself I know I have try. The rest I hope I get figured out before I'm 80!
So, I thought this blog might be a good time to share with you some of my recent foolish moments and what I learned from them just so you all realize that I have absolutely zero delusions of grandeur when it comes to me and my horses.
I've already talked a bit about talking on the challenge of learning to jump with my older gelding in the balance blog. I'm still taking jumping lessons and continuing to work on my form and such rudimentary things as steering and stopping when I am in 2 point position. My jumping lessons, besides being fun, are also incredibly humbling and exhausting. It's amazing how much work it is to ride that way. I can happily spend 8 hours in the saddle riding in the mountains and never really get to that point where I'm ready to get off my horse. A 45 minute jumping lesson, however, leaves me exhausted and panting almost as hard as my horse. While my balance is getting better there are still so many things that I have to try to remember when all I can seem to think about is one thing at a time. For instance, on approaching the jump you have to gather your horse, count your strides, keep your heals down, push your horse into a collected frame, prepare to get into two point position, keep steady light pressure on the reins, look towards the jump then at just the right moment look beyond the jump to the next jump, keep your right leg back so that he doesn't change leads and oh yeah, don't fall off! (I'm sure I missed a few things in that list. I'm still learning!)
My horse is taking the jump and I'm still somewhere at "keep your heals down". I feel like a complete beginner. It's just so different from the style of riding that I have been working towards the last few years and by golly, I'm not a kid anymore and apparently learning new things and retraining your body is a difficult thing! But, I'll keep at it. I am nothing if not stubborn and I really want to get this. Probably the fact that I'm having so much trouble mastering these things is going to make me want to master it all that much more. It seems inconceivable to me that I can't keep my heals down. Really? How hard can that possibly be?
Pushing myself outside of my equine comfort zone has been so good for the rest of my riding. It has helped me to remember that form and balance that you think is second nature needs work. Just because you feel pretty comfortable in your western saddle doesn't mean that you don't have balance and form issues in your riding. There is nothing like a new discipline to really make you think about your riding and your communication with your horse. Even if you aren't switching disciplines, just take a lesson and have somebody there who can critique you and push you and correct that sagging shoulder that you don't realize you have. I don't care who you are, you can benefit from it.
My other heaping helping of humble pie came last week as I was teaching my 2 year old how to back out of the trailer. This is a hard one for me to talk about because it was a pretty traumatic experience for me. It hit me pretty hard emotionally. We got a new trailer this year and for the first time my horses have to back out. I have been turning my horses around in the trailer and leading them out and down a ramp since I as 16. I've just always believed that was safer.
But our new trailer has a spiffy rear tack and so the horses can't really turn around in it. I figured it was time for me and them to get this figured out and it's gone pretty well with everybody. Then I decided it was time for the 2 year old to work on it. I figured he'd be easy because he had few preconceived notions since he hasn't been trailered more than a handful of times. He was a rockstar. After about 15 minutes I had him backing out after I sent him in just by tugging on his tail. I figured I would do it one more time just be sure he had it well cemented in his young brain.
For some reason, probably because he was getting bored with this repetitive game, he decided to try to turn around and look at me before he got all the way backed out. He did that in the narrowest part of the trailer and got himself wedged and ended up flipping himself out of the trailer. I was completely powerless to do anything to prevent what I saw coming and had to just stand there and watch it happen. He fell out of the trailer into the driveway and thankfully landed on his hip and shoulder. If he'd come out completely backwards and hit his head he probably would have killed himself. (Not being dramatic, I've attended many of these accidents).
He popped right up and I put him right back into the trailer trying to prevent any traumatic memories from cementing and making trailer loading an issue and he went right back in. He took way longer to come out this time but made it out eventually. Then when we attempted to haul him to a ride it took about 20 minutes to get him out. I was so disgusted with myself for letting this happen. Here I had a 2 year old that was completely confident and backing out of the trailer like a champ and I ruined it by pushing it too far and letting him get bored and looking for a new way out of the trailer. I was upset enough and so frustrated that Dan had to step in and help me out because I was emotionally shot.
Honestly, I am still pretty traumatized from the whole incident. I just feel like I totally failed my colt and have had many nightmares about what could have happened. He'll probably get over it much faster than I will. I'm still processing exactly where I went wrong and maybe it would have eventually happened anyway.
The moral of these stories is that horses will provide you unending opportunities for making a fool of yourself. That's one of the beauties of having this as your life passion. You will never ever stop learning and growing and improving because this is a life sport. It's one that you can do your whole life and only a few will ever be considered "masters". I'm willing to bet those "masters" have days where they feel like an idiot too. That's just horses.
So, if you've been following along with my blogs and thinking, "what makes her think she knows so much about horses". Believe me I don't! I'm learning as I go just like we all are. Just like in horses, I think one of the most important traits in a rider is try. You gotta have try to grow and learn. If I can say one thing about myself I know I have try. The rest I hope I get figured out before I'm 80!
Friday, August 2, 2013
Getting Grounded
Groundwork, in the world of horses, means many different things to different people. It can and does include anything that you do on your horse while you are on the ground. Anything from teaching your horse to pick up his feet to leading and longing and so much more.
When I was a kid, groundwork meant practicing fitting and showing. It also meant hugo, supremo, extra boring. I was lucky enough to have a horse that was really really good at it through much of my 4-H career and that meant that I hardly ever practiced it. I'm sure that I'm not the only one that thinks that groundwork is boring as I hear 4-H kids bemoan fitting and showing practice quite a bit. The kid in me would still much rather hop in the saddle and get to riding than spend any more time than is necessary on groundwork. How I wish I had had a better understanding of what groundwork was really all about as a young 4-Her. There were so many things I could have helped my horse with had I only understood that it's not all just about standing pretty and doing perfect haunch turns. I absolutely cringe when I see a 4-H horse with a chain on his lead so the kid can control it. If your horse isn't responsive enough to respond to a feather light hand on the lead rope, why in the world would you hand that thing over to your kid?! I was once drug across an arena on the end of a chained lead rope by my little mare (this was obviously not the horse that was great at fitting and showing). I was completely powerless to do anything about it. How I would have loved to have some tools to teach my mare to behave and respond on the end of that lead rope.
It was when I started learning about natural horsemanship that I learned that groundwork is an extremely important part of teaching things to your horse. Most natural horsemanship programs have a strong foundation in groundwork. In the realm of natural horsemanship, no matter which practitioner you follow, groundwork is used to teach a horse how to think and move and be comfortable with any number of different stimuli. It can not only be used to get a young horse ready to accept rider and saddle but it can be used to teach an older horse how to flex and move body parts that are difficult to communicate in the saddle. Groundwork is where we introduce the hugely important concepts such as soft feel, giving to pressure, forward impulsion and standing still; all things that plenty of older, "finished" horses could use some help with too.
Everything you do on the ground should transfer into a usable skill under saddle (that is if riding your horse is your ultimate goal). Like any great horsemanship program, groundwork is just a piece of the puzzle and isn't meant to replace time spent aboard your horse, but to improve the time spent mounted. If you groundwork your horse "to death" it will eventually work against you. Keep it purposeful and useful and geared towards making your horse think and you won't end up with a horse doing tricks on the ground but instead, one that is ready and able to accept new challenges under saddle. Contrary to traditional thinking, groundwork is not to get the fresh off or work the bucks out. It is meant to get the horse checked in and thinking so your communication is in place before you ever step foot in the saddle.
So lets briefly talk about some of the basic elements of a good groundwork program and why they are important in both the young and the old horse.
1. Leading by or Sending This is an important exercise for developing feel in your horse. In this exercise you ask the horse to calmly walk off in a circle around you in the direction indicated by your leading hand. It's important to note the difference between this and traditional longing. While you can and do longe a horse using this exact principle, having the horse continue in a circle around you at a lope or a jog is not the main goal of this exercise. The goal is to establish direction, forward impulsion and lightness based strictly on a light feel on the lead rope. You do not pull your horse anywhere in this exercise nor should you drive your horse forward with a whip or flag. You may need to do that in the teaching phase to help your horse understand what is necessary but in the end what you are after is for your horse to calmly walk off in the direction you indicate for as long as communicate that you need him to go that way. It's great for sending a horse through a gait ahead of you, or into a trailer, or across an obstacle. On an older "broke" horse this is great for making sure they are checked in and following your light feel. You shouldn't have to drag your horse around or ask him repeatedly.
2. Backing No matter what method you use (and there are LOTS) to teach your horse to back, the end goal is the same; quiet, calm backing, in correct frame with cadence and energy in a straight line or a circle. The purpose of teaching your horse these maneuvers on the ground first is that it makes it easier for him to understand in the saddle and you can better help him to establish proper frame and cadence from the ground before you ever get on his back. When a horse backs properly they move in a diagonal gait like a trot lifting their hind legs and stepping backwards without dragging their feet. This is the first place we can help teach a horse to round and collect through their entire body. If the method that you are using to teach a horse to back causes them to raise their head and rush backwards dragging their feet, I would recommend choosing a different technique. Most of those methods are the ones that require you to whack the horse on the nose or chest with the rope or stick and string and rush the horse backwards. Practice backing on the ground so your horse is in the exact same frame you would want them to back under saddle. I was amazed recently when I went to a big regional Morgan horse show how many of those horses couldn't back correctly. We saw world champion western pleasure horses that backed with a brace and drug their legs through the arena dirt. It ruins the entire picture of a light pleasurable horse to ride.
3. Lateral Flexion This is a hallmark of many natural horsemanship regimes and one that causes a lot of debate in the horse world between the practitioners of natural horsemanship and some of the fundamental traditionalists. Unfortunately, many people that are practicing this technique don't understand the true purpose of it and end up doing it incorrectly. Lateral flexion exists to teach feel. You are teaching your horse to follow your hand on the rein with the lightest possible cue. This is taught both in the halter and later in the bridle or bosal. If you pick up your horse's rein or lead rope and he snaps his head over to his rib cage before you can even close your fist on it you have taught your horse a trick, you have not taught lateral flexion. What you are after is for your horse to bring his head around slowly and correctly following the lightest feel. You should be able to pick up that lead rope and with the lightest touch bring your horse's head over 9.7 degrees and have him hold it there without jerking on your hand. Or bring his head around 87 degrees with the same response and stand quietly until you release it. Lateral flexion, to be proper, should result in your horse's head remaining vertical. If your horse just reaches his nose around and touches your stirrup, that is not true lateral flexion. Unfortunately, I didn't understand this when I taught Chico and Moony how to do lateral flexion. I was still following the principle of a million lateral flexions while your horse is standing still is a good thing. Therefore they will often, with the slightest rein pressure quickly flex around to my toe like they are doing a calisthenic exercise. I've about fixed this with Moony, but it's pretty deeply ingrained in Chico. You can bet Kit won't have this problem.
4. Breaking Over or Yielding the Hind Quarters This is another fundamental element of most natural horsemanship programs. It's often described as being similar to pushing in the clutch on your horse so that you gain control of his body. It is useful for stopping forward momentum and can be used to begin to teach a horse isolation of different parts of his body. Your goal is to cause the horse to step his hind end away from pressure while holding his front end still, effectively doing a turn on the forehand. If done properly the horse should step underneath himself, crossing in front of his other hind foot as he steps out and around with his hind end. This is another exercise where precision and placement of the feet is more important than the impulsion in the early stages. There are techniques taught out there that encourage the horse to move in a "snappy, hop-to-it" manner when you ask them to step over. If the horse is just jumping out of your way and isn't stepping correctly underneath themselves they aren't preparing for the more advanced maneuvers that we will be teaching under saddle. It's not that you can't do this maneuver with hustle, but it should first and foremost be done correctly, like backing softly and in frame. On an older horse that has some stiffness and bracing this will teach him to release his ribs and arc his frame as well. He can't cross those back legs over and step under himself if there is a brace through the rib cage and spine.
5. Bringing the Fore Quarters Through This is the opposite maneuver of breaking the hindquarters over and is eventually done paired with it. In this maneuver the horse steps his front end around his hind end moving his front leg across and in front of the other front leg. Obviously this is a useful maneuver because it starts the horse doing turn-arounds or spins which is important for any western horse. If you have a horse that is walking out of his turn around under saddle, bringing it back to basic groundwork can often correct that problem.
So here is what my basic ground work session might look like before I get on my horse. I ask my horse to lead by me a few steps around in a circle making sure he is light without dragging on the line and without me having to drive him forward from behind. There should be slack or "float" in that line the entire time. Then I pickup on the lead rope or mecate and break his hindquarters over, bring his forequarters across and ask him to lead by the other direction and repeat. If he does all of this light and responsive, I might stop him (by breaking his hindquarters over) and ask for a soft back, or maybe a turn around and viola, pre-flight check is complete and I get on. It took me about 2 minutes.
If there is a hole, brace, or jig anywhere in that pre-flight check it gives me the opportunity to fix it before I ever have a foot in the saddle. My horse isn't huffing and puffing, there has been no dust raised or increase in heart rate. It's just a little quiz. "Hello, Moonshine, are you with me and thinking?" and he responds, "Why, yes, I am, get in the saddle and let's go to work!"
Kit, my 2 year old, sometimes will need a little more. He'll bounce off at the end of the lead rope when I ask him to lead by causing me to break him over and send him the other way. Or maybe he is completely not paying attention and misses me asking him to lead by. Then I might get a little more momentum out of him just to say, "Hey, it's time to go to school, my friend!". And continue with him until he is thinking, and responding lightly and calmly.
There are many, many more exercises that are developed for ground work programs with your horse. A little research and you will find a whole slew of different things. Just remember when choosing what goes into your regiment that confidence, willingness and softness undersaddle are your ultimate goals.
Students of natural horsemanship will notice that I left desensitizing off my list of groundwork exercises. That wasn't a forgetful omission. Desensitizing is a very important topic and deserves some time all of it's own. It's incredibly important and often way overdone. We'll leave that for another time.
So, in summary, groundwork is an important piece of your horsemanship toolbox. Use it wisely. Too much groundwork is almost as bad as too little and you have to be careful not to get caught in that trap because it removes the relevance for the horse. If I was queen for a day, teaching basic groundwork principles would be part of the first year 4-H program and chained leads would no longer be seen or needed on the grounds of a 4-H show.
When I was a kid, groundwork meant practicing fitting and showing. It also meant hugo, supremo, extra boring. I was lucky enough to have a horse that was really really good at it through much of my 4-H career and that meant that I hardly ever practiced it. I'm sure that I'm not the only one that thinks that groundwork is boring as I hear 4-H kids bemoan fitting and showing practice quite a bit. The kid in me would still much rather hop in the saddle and get to riding than spend any more time than is necessary on groundwork. How I wish I had had a better understanding of what groundwork was really all about as a young 4-Her. There were so many things I could have helped my horse with had I only understood that it's not all just about standing pretty and doing perfect haunch turns. I absolutely cringe when I see a 4-H horse with a chain on his lead so the kid can control it. If your horse isn't responsive enough to respond to a feather light hand on the lead rope, why in the world would you hand that thing over to your kid?! I was once drug across an arena on the end of a chained lead rope by my little mare (this was obviously not the horse that was great at fitting and showing). I was completely powerless to do anything about it. How I would have loved to have some tools to teach my mare to behave and respond on the end of that lead rope.
It was when I started learning about natural horsemanship that I learned that groundwork is an extremely important part of teaching things to your horse. Most natural horsemanship programs have a strong foundation in groundwork. In the realm of natural horsemanship, no matter which practitioner you follow, groundwork is used to teach a horse how to think and move and be comfortable with any number of different stimuli. It can not only be used to get a young horse ready to accept rider and saddle but it can be used to teach an older horse how to flex and move body parts that are difficult to communicate in the saddle. Groundwork is where we introduce the hugely important concepts such as soft feel, giving to pressure, forward impulsion and standing still; all things that plenty of older, "finished" horses could use some help with too.
Everything you do on the ground should transfer into a usable skill under saddle (that is if riding your horse is your ultimate goal). Like any great horsemanship program, groundwork is just a piece of the puzzle and isn't meant to replace time spent aboard your horse, but to improve the time spent mounted. If you groundwork your horse "to death" it will eventually work against you. Keep it purposeful and useful and geared towards making your horse think and you won't end up with a horse doing tricks on the ground but instead, one that is ready and able to accept new challenges under saddle. Contrary to traditional thinking, groundwork is not to get the fresh off or work the bucks out. It is meant to get the horse checked in and thinking so your communication is in place before you ever step foot in the saddle.
So lets briefly talk about some of the basic elements of a good groundwork program and why they are important in both the young and the old horse.
1. Leading by or Sending This is an important exercise for developing feel in your horse. In this exercise you ask the horse to calmly walk off in a circle around you in the direction indicated by your leading hand. It's important to note the difference between this and traditional longing. While you can and do longe a horse using this exact principle, having the horse continue in a circle around you at a lope or a jog is not the main goal of this exercise. The goal is to establish direction, forward impulsion and lightness based strictly on a light feel on the lead rope. You do not pull your horse anywhere in this exercise nor should you drive your horse forward with a whip or flag. You may need to do that in the teaching phase to help your horse understand what is necessary but in the end what you are after is for your horse to calmly walk off in the direction you indicate for as long as communicate that you need him to go that way. It's great for sending a horse through a gait ahead of you, or into a trailer, or across an obstacle. On an older "broke" horse this is great for making sure they are checked in and following your light feel. You shouldn't have to drag your horse around or ask him repeatedly.
2. Backing No matter what method you use (and there are LOTS) to teach your horse to back, the end goal is the same; quiet, calm backing, in correct frame with cadence and energy in a straight line or a circle. The purpose of teaching your horse these maneuvers on the ground first is that it makes it easier for him to understand in the saddle and you can better help him to establish proper frame and cadence from the ground before you ever get on his back. When a horse backs properly they move in a diagonal gait like a trot lifting their hind legs and stepping backwards without dragging their feet. This is the first place we can help teach a horse to round and collect through their entire body. If the method that you are using to teach a horse to back causes them to raise their head and rush backwards dragging their feet, I would recommend choosing a different technique. Most of those methods are the ones that require you to whack the horse on the nose or chest with the rope or stick and string and rush the horse backwards. Practice backing on the ground so your horse is in the exact same frame you would want them to back under saddle. I was amazed recently when I went to a big regional Morgan horse show how many of those horses couldn't back correctly. We saw world champion western pleasure horses that backed with a brace and drug their legs through the arena dirt. It ruins the entire picture of a light pleasurable horse to ride.
3. Lateral Flexion This is a hallmark of many natural horsemanship regimes and one that causes a lot of debate in the horse world between the practitioners of natural horsemanship and some of the fundamental traditionalists. Unfortunately, many people that are practicing this technique don't understand the true purpose of it and end up doing it incorrectly. Lateral flexion exists to teach feel. You are teaching your horse to follow your hand on the rein with the lightest possible cue. This is taught both in the halter and later in the bridle or bosal. If you pick up your horse's rein or lead rope and he snaps his head over to his rib cage before you can even close your fist on it you have taught your horse a trick, you have not taught lateral flexion. What you are after is for your horse to bring his head around slowly and correctly following the lightest feel. You should be able to pick up that lead rope and with the lightest touch bring your horse's head over 9.7 degrees and have him hold it there without jerking on your hand. Or bring his head around 87 degrees with the same response and stand quietly until you release it. Lateral flexion, to be proper, should result in your horse's head remaining vertical. If your horse just reaches his nose around and touches your stirrup, that is not true lateral flexion. Unfortunately, I didn't understand this when I taught Chico and Moony how to do lateral flexion. I was still following the principle of a million lateral flexions while your horse is standing still is a good thing. Therefore they will often, with the slightest rein pressure quickly flex around to my toe like they are doing a calisthenic exercise. I've about fixed this with Moony, but it's pretty deeply ingrained in Chico. You can bet Kit won't have this problem.
4. Breaking Over or Yielding the Hind Quarters This is another fundamental element of most natural horsemanship programs. It's often described as being similar to pushing in the clutch on your horse so that you gain control of his body. It is useful for stopping forward momentum and can be used to begin to teach a horse isolation of different parts of his body. Your goal is to cause the horse to step his hind end away from pressure while holding his front end still, effectively doing a turn on the forehand. If done properly the horse should step underneath himself, crossing in front of his other hind foot as he steps out and around with his hind end. This is another exercise where precision and placement of the feet is more important than the impulsion in the early stages. There are techniques taught out there that encourage the horse to move in a "snappy, hop-to-it" manner when you ask them to step over. If the horse is just jumping out of your way and isn't stepping correctly underneath themselves they aren't preparing for the more advanced maneuvers that we will be teaching under saddle. It's not that you can't do this maneuver with hustle, but it should first and foremost be done correctly, like backing softly and in frame. On an older horse that has some stiffness and bracing this will teach him to release his ribs and arc his frame as well. He can't cross those back legs over and step under himself if there is a brace through the rib cage and spine.
5. Bringing the Fore Quarters Through This is the opposite maneuver of breaking the hindquarters over and is eventually done paired with it. In this maneuver the horse steps his front end around his hind end moving his front leg across and in front of the other front leg. Obviously this is a useful maneuver because it starts the horse doing turn-arounds or spins which is important for any western horse. If you have a horse that is walking out of his turn around under saddle, bringing it back to basic groundwork can often correct that problem.
So here is what my basic ground work session might look like before I get on my horse. I ask my horse to lead by me a few steps around in a circle making sure he is light without dragging on the line and without me having to drive him forward from behind. There should be slack or "float" in that line the entire time. Then I pickup on the lead rope or mecate and break his hindquarters over, bring his forequarters across and ask him to lead by the other direction and repeat. If he does all of this light and responsive, I might stop him (by breaking his hindquarters over) and ask for a soft back, or maybe a turn around and viola, pre-flight check is complete and I get on. It took me about 2 minutes.
If there is a hole, brace, or jig anywhere in that pre-flight check it gives me the opportunity to fix it before I ever have a foot in the saddle. My horse isn't huffing and puffing, there has been no dust raised or increase in heart rate. It's just a little quiz. "Hello, Moonshine, are you with me and thinking?" and he responds, "Why, yes, I am, get in the saddle and let's go to work!"
Kit, my 2 year old, sometimes will need a little more. He'll bounce off at the end of the lead rope when I ask him to lead by causing me to break him over and send him the other way. Or maybe he is completely not paying attention and misses me asking him to lead by. Then I might get a little more momentum out of him just to say, "Hey, it's time to go to school, my friend!". And continue with him until he is thinking, and responding lightly and calmly.
There are many, many more exercises that are developed for ground work programs with your horse. A little research and you will find a whole slew of different things. Just remember when choosing what goes into your regiment that confidence, willingness and softness undersaddle are your ultimate goals.
Students of natural horsemanship will notice that I left desensitizing off my list of groundwork exercises. That wasn't a forgetful omission. Desensitizing is a very important topic and deserves some time all of it's own. It's incredibly important and often way overdone. We'll leave that for another time.
So, in summary, groundwork is an important piece of your horsemanship toolbox. Use it wisely. Too much groundwork is almost as bad as too little and you have to be careful not to get caught in that trap because it removes the relevance for the horse. If I was queen for a day, teaching basic groundwork principles would be part of the first year 4-H program and chained leads would no longer be seen or needed on the grounds of a 4-H show.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Balancing Act
Balance is so important in riding. It's not only the key to staying on your mount but it's the key to effective communication with your horse. Good balance is part natural ability and part cultured skill.
We often talk about independent seat in horsemanship. This is a term that is meant to describe a rider that can sit and move with the horse without the use of hands or legs to brace the seat. It's important because then your hands, seat and legs are free to guide the horse without having to rely on holding you onto the horse. If a rider with an independent seat is on a horse that suddenly jumps sideways her seat will just naturally follow the horse with the bare minimum of fingernails gouging leather.
I like to think that I have a fairly independent seat. I have been riding for over 30 years and am very at home on a horse. I have ridden various styles and am comfortable at speed and bareback (most of the time!) Natural horsemanship methods that strive for a very light and responsive horse value balance in riding. You want the horse to mirror your body and when you turn your head and shoulders to look a direction you want the horse's body to follow. This is effective and beautiful communication but doesn't work if you are off balance and giving the horse mixed signals. If you are constantly leaning left but not wanting your horse to go left he has to compensate for your off centered weight as well as learn to ignore what could be a guiding signal.
Recently I decided it was time to learn how to jump. I dabbled with jumping in my younger years but had a horse at the time that was just as likely to send me over the jump without him as he was to take me over the jump with him. I wasn't terribly confident anyway and having a horse smarter than I was didn't help. That was 25 years ago. But, Chico seems to enjoy jumping logs out on the trail so I thought we should give it a go.
I had no idea that those particular muscles and the different style of balance needed for jumping had gotten a little rusty in the past few years. I rarely ride english anymore, saving it mostly for the show ring. I was astounded how difficult it was to get up into 2 point position and then hold it there and guide my horse without hanging on his mouth or having a death grip on the reins. When I was in vet school (this is going back almost 15 years now) I rode racehorses for a study on impact of different tracks. I schooled rowdy reject racehorses in 2 point for an hour each and everyday. You would think some of that muscle memory would come back. You would be wrong!
Aside from having difficulty holding myself up in two point position I also had trouble steering. I was surprised because Chico is usually pretty light and responsive and I can direct him simply by turning my body and looking where I need to go. When I was so busy concentrating on keeping myself where I needed to be in the saddle my steering went out. Duh. How was he supposed to follow my body when my body was flopping all around on his back! This cascaded into me holding myself up with my reins (though I was trying like the dickens not to) and him leaning on his bit and complete loss of communication. It ended as you would expect with him running through a jump and me landing on the jump.
So, as I've worked on my balance and two point and a different form of independent seat this past week I've had to come to terms not only with changes related to aging but with the differences between different styles of riding. If you think you are getting really good at something and feeling really confident that I urge you to try something new with your horse. Not all styles of riding are the same and something as simple as changing the type of saddle you are riding in is a great way to really see if your balance is as good as you think it is.
The good news is we are making progress. Through some stretching and practice my 2 point position is coming back. As I get more balanced on his back and can stabilize my wobbliness I can guide him again with my body the way you are supposed to. I was able to gallop a mock jump course and hit the middle of the jumps this weekend without too much trouble and stay in 2 point the entire way.
So, the moral of the story? You cannot succeed in lightness and correctness on your horse if you do not have balance. Especially on a green horse. A young horse has enough trouble keeping their own balance with the weight of a rider. The rider needs to help them out by not getting in the way of their natural movement. Once the horse learns that he can trust the weight of the rider not to throw him off balance he starts to listen to that weight and will move with it. You don't want to loose that natural tendency in your horse by being so inconsistent and off balance that he learns to ignore it.
Lightness in communication isn't just about your hands and your legs. It's your entire body and self awareness and balance is a great big part of it. I challenge you to learn to ride with an independent seat. Ride without your stirrups. Ride bareback. Switch horses with your buddy and learn to balance on a different horse. Switch disciplines!
For those interested in culturing more balance in their riding I urge you to check out the guru of balance, Sally Swift's Centered Riding http://www.centeredriding.org/2column.asp?pageid=10025,10043
We often talk about independent seat in horsemanship. This is a term that is meant to describe a rider that can sit and move with the horse without the use of hands or legs to brace the seat. It's important because then your hands, seat and legs are free to guide the horse without having to rely on holding you onto the horse. If a rider with an independent seat is on a horse that suddenly jumps sideways her seat will just naturally follow the horse with the bare minimum of fingernails gouging leather.
I like to think that I have a fairly independent seat. I have been riding for over 30 years and am very at home on a horse. I have ridden various styles and am comfortable at speed and bareback (most of the time!) Natural horsemanship methods that strive for a very light and responsive horse value balance in riding. You want the horse to mirror your body and when you turn your head and shoulders to look a direction you want the horse's body to follow. This is effective and beautiful communication but doesn't work if you are off balance and giving the horse mixed signals. If you are constantly leaning left but not wanting your horse to go left he has to compensate for your off centered weight as well as learn to ignore what could be a guiding signal.
Recently I decided it was time to learn how to jump. I dabbled with jumping in my younger years but had a horse at the time that was just as likely to send me over the jump without him as he was to take me over the jump with him. I wasn't terribly confident anyway and having a horse smarter than I was didn't help. That was 25 years ago. But, Chico seems to enjoy jumping logs out on the trail so I thought we should give it a go.
I had no idea that those particular muscles and the different style of balance needed for jumping had gotten a little rusty in the past few years. I rarely ride english anymore, saving it mostly for the show ring. I was astounded how difficult it was to get up into 2 point position and then hold it there and guide my horse without hanging on his mouth or having a death grip on the reins. When I was in vet school (this is going back almost 15 years now) I rode racehorses for a study on impact of different tracks. I schooled rowdy reject racehorses in 2 point for an hour each and everyday. You would think some of that muscle memory would come back. You would be wrong!
Me on Decker back in the day.
Aside from having difficulty holding myself up in two point position I also had trouble steering. I was surprised because Chico is usually pretty light and responsive and I can direct him simply by turning my body and looking where I need to go. When I was so busy concentrating on keeping myself where I needed to be in the saddle my steering went out. Duh. How was he supposed to follow my body when my body was flopping all around on his back! This cascaded into me holding myself up with my reins (though I was trying like the dickens not to) and him leaning on his bit and complete loss of communication. It ended as you would expect with him running through a jump and me landing on the jump.
So, as I've worked on my balance and two point and a different form of independent seat this past week I've had to come to terms not only with changes related to aging but with the differences between different styles of riding. If you think you are getting really good at something and feeling really confident that I urge you to try something new with your horse. Not all styles of riding are the same and something as simple as changing the type of saddle you are riding in is a great way to really see if your balance is as good as you think it is.
The good news is we are making progress. Through some stretching and practice my 2 point position is coming back. As I get more balanced on his back and can stabilize my wobbliness I can guide him again with my body the way you are supposed to. I was able to gallop a mock jump course and hit the middle of the jumps this weekend without too much trouble and stay in 2 point the entire way.
So, the moral of the story? You cannot succeed in lightness and correctness on your horse if you do not have balance. Especially on a green horse. A young horse has enough trouble keeping their own balance with the weight of a rider. The rider needs to help them out by not getting in the way of their natural movement. Once the horse learns that he can trust the weight of the rider not to throw him off balance he starts to listen to that weight and will move with it. You don't want to loose that natural tendency in your horse by being so inconsistent and off balance that he learns to ignore it.
Lightness in communication isn't just about your hands and your legs. It's your entire body and self awareness and balance is a great big part of it. I challenge you to learn to ride with an independent seat. Ride without your stirrups. Ride bareback. Switch horses with your buddy and learn to balance on a different horse. Switch disciplines!
For those interested in culturing more balance in their riding I urge you to check out the guru of balance, Sally Swift's Centered Riding http://www.centeredriding.org/2column.asp?pageid=10025,10043
Monday, July 15, 2013
Horse show blues
It's hard to believe but I've been showing horses for 32 years. I started out like many folks do as a kid in 4-H with a pony. She was a great horse. Patient when she needed to be but not afraid to put me in my place when needed. She was also a lousy show horse. She had rough gaits. She didn't like to lope much and had no clue as to leads. She fell asleep in fitting and showing or worse just quit in the middle and dragged me out of the arena. So, consequently, we never did very well. I didn't really mind. She would let me lay on her back and stare at the clouds while she grazed and that meant more to me than any ribbon.
I advanced in skills and horses as my 4-H years continued and by my teens was also participating in the bigger open shows. We had some small successes depending on the judge and how much he appreciated a non-quarter horse. Every blue ribbon I ever won meant a lot to me. That's basically 32 years of comfortable mediocrity.
It's not that I don't understand what it takes to win in the show ring or don't have the ability to reach for those blue ribbons on a much more consistent level (rather than once every 2-3 years). It's my unwillingness to do what it takes to be competitive in the show ring.
First of all, I would need a different breed of horse for local success. For the sake of this blog we are going to ignore that little detail and talk about the other stuff. A perfect Morgan, english or western, is not going to beat even a not so perfect Quarter Horse in this area under 99% of the judges. Believe me, I understand that. 32 years of this, remember? Almost all of those were on a Morgan or part Morgan. We're not going to talk about that year of the 1/2 arab. That's better forgotten.
We participated in the local show this past weekend. It's a pretty big show for our area and well attended. Like most open shows there is a large cross section of the horse world. You have the folks that scraped together tack and clothes and entry fees to come to this show and it is the highlight of their competitive year. You also have the folks that view this as a little Podunk show that serves as a training field for their young show horses. I spent the Western Pleasure day watching from the sidelines and was more emotionally exhausted by the end of the day than I was after riding in the classes the first day!
When we talk about lightness in the context of Natural horsemanship/Ray Hunt style horsemanship/ Vaquero tradition horsemanship, we mean light. Like a feather. Like you think it, the horse does it. You have feel in your hands and communicate with the horse through a vibration in the reins that is almost imperceptible to the observer but that means the world to the horse. You feel of the horse, he feels of you. That kind of lightness. Of course, there are times when the horse doesn't pick up on the lightness on his end and you have to get his attention, but your goal is feather light touch. In the vaquero tradition you have the added thinking that snaffle bits ruin a horse's mouth and you would never put that iron in a young horse's mouth, much less pull on it. The horse's mouth is a sacred temple and you have no business ham fisting your way around his mouth.
I know not everybody thinks that way and they don't have to. What made my heart hurt all weekend is the banging and spurring and jerking of these quiet show horses. I've never seen so many poor hands and jerking of the horse's mouth for no good reason. I swear I felt every single jerk on every single horse right in the pit of my stomach. At the same time the jerking is going on in their mouth a spur is being rammed into their side. I took a picture of one poor horse that had a baseball sized discolored area on his hide from the wearing of the spur right into his gut.
There were a few showmen riding that were not guilty of this kind of behavior and they weren't placing real high. To make matters worse, a local trainer was present and coaching from the sidelines. At one point she was heard to shout to her young protege in the class, "Jerk his face off! Spur him! Show him who is boss!" This was a horse that was loping around slightly faster than paint drying. She eventually got him slowed down to the point that all he could do with his big muscled frame was a short of shuffle/hop/lope that made him look lame. It worked, though, he placed in that class.
So, there must be a lot at stake, right, to abuse these horses this way? You bet there is. They were giving away coffee mugs for first place!
Why, you might be asking yourself, do I bother? Why am I still showing after all these years? For a couple of reasons. First of all I enjoy it. I like being judged (even if I don't agree with the decision) because it pushes me to be my absolute best. I also think it's good for the horse to be put in that environment with the other horses and asked to be concentrating on your cues and stay straight and in frame through the entire class. And, as much as I complain about other horse folks and their methods, I do enjoy hanging with horse people. I don't have to agree with somebody to like them and enjoy their company. I embrace the different strokes for different folks philosophy. I ride Morgans and show only in green. I'm different enough for everybody!
I won't ever change my riding or training to fit in with the styles of the show ring. I won't ever take short cuts to make my horse look a certain way. I am there to show off my Morgan when he is being good and make silly excuses for him when he completely blows me off. Of course I want my horse to be moving in a quiet and collected frame. I want him to respond to my cues and represent himself and his breed well. I won't rip his head off in the middle of a class of 20 horses if he doesn't. That's not what it's all about. I will also continue to not win a whole lot. That's okay. As much as it feels good to have your name called as the winner, I have plenty of coffee mugs.
Somewhere on the list of things I'd like to change about the world, right between establishing world peace and making the Morgan our national animal is changing the judging of horse shows. It would be so wonderful if the horse that won, no matter what kind of show or what discipline, was the one that was lightest and happiest in the bridle/ had the most free and natural movement really showcasing their natural athleticism and beauty. It would also be great if there was a class that the horse got to judge the rider and reward the most balanced seat and softest hands. We could make that one a really big deal and give away a candy dish or something.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Heading for Collection
I've shown horses for a long time. There were two things that my Mom was really good at spotting for me from the sidelines, head set and leads. After I would come out of the ring she would always have a comment for me about Cory's head set in that particular class. It's a big deal when you are showing. For the non-initiated, head set is referring to where that horse is carrying it's head. In most styles of riding you want that horse to break at the poll (the top of the head) and carry his head vertical. Depending on the horse, and the breed and the discipline the head will need to be set either at the withers of above the withers. And we spend an awful lot of time worrying about that in the show ring.
That's been a very hard thing for me to let go of as I've explored this style of riding. There is no "head set" in true Vaquero style riding. Instead of focusing on trends in the styles displayed in the show ring we focus on creating a soft and balanced horse by concentrating on their entire body. You definitely want them soft in the poll and giving to your hands, but where they carry the head when they are working is much less important.
Collection is not a head set. Head set can actually be detrimental to true collection when it is done incorrectly. Many of the horses that you see in the show ring (I'm going to pick on AQHA western pleasure because it provides the most copious examples of this) have a beautiful straight up and down head set that is carried level with their withers. However when you watch that horse move, they do not bring their hindquarters forward under their belly. True collection goes from the tip of the nose to the hind feet, and when you are talking about building collection it actually starts in the hind feet and not in the head at all. Because we as humans are terrible at messing up a good thing, we have actually bred horses to look more naturally like what we want them to look like in the show ring. So horses that have a natural level head and neck and a sloping hip that looks like they are already rounded and tucked up under themselves. Those horses look like they travel along in perfect pleasure collection. You can tell if collection is true or not by looking at their stride. If the hind feet are not reaching forward under the belly to at least the back cinch then they are not collected and truly shifting that center of gravity backwards towards the hind end.
Just to be fair, let's also look at the other extreme in Park Pleasure horses in the Morgans, Arabs and Saddlebreds. Those horses are in a double bridle completely cranked into a hollowed out head set. Their heads and necks are back and up creating a hollow in the back and forcing the hind feet out behind them. They almost can't round and bring those hind feet forward. This does allow for elevation in the front end and that exaggerated prancing gait, but it is definitely not collection in it's true sense. If you watch these horses move and are able to take your eyes off their gorgeous elevated front ends to look at the back end you will find that they don't bring their back feet even under their hips. Often all of the action in the hind feet is right under their hocks. For these horses the center of gravity is still right behind the whither but they have inverted themselves through the back and neck so that they are able to move those parts of their body almost independently. You can mimic this a bit if you walk with a severe reverse arc in your back with your butt sticking out behind you and your shoulders cranked back as far as you can with your head elevated as far as you are able. It's not near as pretty on a person!
Park pleasure riders ride so far back behind the center of gravity that the front end is completely elevated. These horses have been bred with long backward sloping shoulders and heads and necks so naturally elevated that they have a difficult time moving any other way. Here is another example of Park Harness horse in full collection that really illustrates the hollowness in the back.
When a horse is collected properly it shifts his center of gravity back closer to his hind feet. A horse's center of gravity when he is just standing around is about at his withers. This causes him to carry the majority of his weight on his front end. No problems, that's how the horse is designed due to spending the majority of his time with his head on the ground eating. However when a horse has to stop and turn and move to avoid getting eaten by a tiger he picks his head up, elevates his shoulders and shifts that weight to his hocks to improve his athletic stance and get the heck down the road to leave the tiger in the dust. This is all something that a horse does naturally.
All of the athletic maneuvers that we ask a horse to do (with maybe the exception of cutting where a horse is down low in the front staring a cow in the eyes) requires a horse to be back and his hocks, supporting at least half of his weight there so he can stop and turn, roll back, canter pirouette, hold a calf, etc. But when you look at the current trends in many of the western disciplines that pretty and trendy "headset" has that horse's nose at his knees with his head at or below level. What that creates is a posture in the horse similar to a dowagers hump in an old lady that has had poor posture her entire life. Try it for yourself. Scoot your butt under you (you can do it standing on two feet) and then drop your head so you are looking at the world from the tops of your eyes. Your shoulders will have to scrunch a little and your back will round at about the 5th thoracic vertebrae. How athletic do you feel right about now? That's the current stance in a horse doing reining. Try and run forward and stop in that curved up ball.
Now, instead, elevate your head and relax your shoulders. Scoot your but under you a bit and create a slight rounding through your entire back. With your head and shoulders elevated more you should feel ready to turn, stop, go forward and react to stimuli around you. Now run forward and stop with your butt tucked under. If you had to stop and roll back your body and go the other way you should feel better prepared to do that.
Now, of course we are two footed animals so the analogy isn't completely accurate, but when we are riding the horse mimics our body position. Your balance and position help the horse to learn how to carry himself. If you want freedom of movement in your horse's shoulders, you need to have elevation and freedom in your own shoulders to communicate that posture to the horse. If your shoulders are hunched and heavy, your horse's shoulders will be too. If you look at the rider in the picture of the reining horse you can see that his body is perfectly mimicked by the horse.
If you are up in an athletic stance on the balls of your feet in the saddle with your shoulders up and back your weight is balanced and the horse is able to feel the movement of your body and mimic it. They can them come up into your hands and move their front end around their back end with fluid movement. When the horse learns that he can trust where your body position is to give him the right cues for what he should be doing with his body you'll be amazed at the harmony that creates. While it may not look like a pretty finished show horse it feels amazing underneath you because it is soft, and round and responsive. That's what a truly collected horse should feel like.
The other great thing about the vaquero tradition is that no two horses are going to look alike because no two horses are built quite alike. You aren't trying to force your horse into a false frame of collection in order to fit the current trends you are trying to create the most balanced and correct posture that your particular horse is able to carry. Here is a great example of Bruce Sandifer, a California horseman training using the principles of the vaquero tradition. It looks a whole lot different that the sliding stop that is currently winning in the reining pen.
Notice how light that horse is on the bit. A true spade bit horse will not experience much tension in the reins. It's a lifting of the bridle reins, not a pulling. This horse is also mimicking the body position of his rider. His feet are pushed forward under his body and his head and shoulders are up and back in an open position making him ready and able to move his body for the next move of that cow. This horse is in the 2 rein set up and so has the bosal and mecate under his bridle in case things get faster than what he is ready for in the bit.
That's the kind of collection that we are working for. Head set has no meaning to us anymore. The horse should be soft to your hands (we call that soft feel) and should give at the poll but we aren't going to be picky about where that head ends up as long as the collection goes from the back feet, through the croup all the way to the head and shoulders and into our hands. Here's a great example of it looking different because of how two horses are built. The first one is me and Moony, the Morgan horse, the second is Dan and Salsa, the Quarter Horse. Both are showing collection through their body and soft feel in the bosal.
Collection and soft feel go hand in hand, quite literally and I think I'll explore that connection in the next blog post. Stay tuned!
That's been a very hard thing for me to let go of as I've explored this style of riding. There is no "head set" in true Vaquero style riding. Instead of focusing on trends in the styles displayed in the show ring we focus on creating a soft and balanced horse by concentrating on their entire body. You definitely want them soft in the poll and giving to your hands, but where they carry the head when they are working is much less important.
Collection is not a head set. Head set can actually be detrimental to true collection when it is done incorrectly. Many of the horses that you see in the show ring (I'm going to pick on AQHA western pleasure because it provides the most copious examples of this) have a beautiful straight up and down head set that is carried level with their withers. However when you watch that horse move, they do not bring their hindquarters forward under their belly. True collection goes from the tip of the nose to the hind feet, and when you are talking about building collection it actually starts in the hind feet and not in the head at all. Because we as humans are terrible at messing up a good thing, we have actually bred horses to look more naturally like what we want them to look like in the show ring. So horses that have a natural level head and neck and a sloping hip that looks like they are already rounded and tucked up under themselves. Those horses look like they travel along in perfect pleasure collection. You can tell if collection is true or not by looking at their stride. If the hind feet are not reaching forward under the belly to at least the back cinch then they are not collected and truly shifting that center of gravity backwards towards the hind end.
I think you can see by looking at that horse how heavy he will feel on the front end. His butt is going to be higher than his head and whithers and there is no way he can round himself up enough to place his hind feet underneath him. The other interesting thing about this style of riding is that because it shifts the weight so far forward and the pleasure seat of the rider so far back on these long bodied horses the rider is always behind the movement of the horse. You can see it when they lope, especially. Instead of the riders hips and shoulders moving in conjunction with the horse they move just a beat behind. Luckily everything is happening so slow that it looks smooth anyway.
Just to be fair, let's also look at the other extreme in Park Pleasure horses in the Morgans, Arabs and Saddlebreds. Those horses are in a double bridle completely cranked into a hollowed out head set. Their heads and necks are back and up creating a hollow in the back and forcing the hind feet out behind them. They almost can't round and bring those hind feet forward. This does allow for elevation in the front end and that exaggerated prancing gait, but it is definitely not collection in it's true sense. If you watch these horses move and are able to take your eyes off their gorgeous elevated front ends to look at the back end you will find that they don't bring their back feet even under their hips. Often all of the action in the hind feet is right under their hocks. For these horses the center of gravity is still right behind the whither but they have inverted themselves through the back and neck so that they are able to move those parts of their body almost independently. You can mimic this a bit if you walk with a severe reverse arc in your back with your butt sticking out behind you and your shoulders cranked back as far as you can with your head elevated as far as you are able. It's not near as pretty on a person!
Park pleasure riders ride so far back behind the center of gravity that the front end is completely elevated. These horses have been bred with long backward sloping shoulders and heads and necks so naturally elevated that they have a difficult time moving any other way. Here is another example of Park Harness horse in full collection that really illustrates the hollowness in the back.
When a horse is collected properly it shifts his center of gravity back closer to his hind feet. A horse's center of gravity when he is just standing around is about at his withers. This causes him to carry the majority of his weight on his front end. No problems, that's how the horse is designed due to spending the majority of his time with his head on the ground eating. However when a horse has to stop and turn and move to avoid getting eaten by a tiger he picks his head up, elevates his shoulders and shifts that weight to his hocks to improve his athletic stance and get the heck down the road to leave the tiger in the dust. This is all something that a horse does naturally.
All of the athletic maneuvers that we ask a horse to do (with maybe the exception of cutting where a horse is down low in the front staring a cow in the eyes) requires a horse to be back and his hocks, supporting at least half of his weight there so he can stop and turn, roll back, canter pirouette, hold a calf, etc. But when you look at the current trends in many of the western disciplines that pretty and trendy "headset" has that horse's nose at his knees with his head at or below level. What that creates is a posture in the horse similar to a dowagers hump in an old lady that has had poor posture her entire life. Try it for yourself. Scoot your butt under you (you can do it standing on two feet) and then drop your head so you are looking at the world from the tops of your eyes. Your shoulders will have to scrunch a little and your back will round at about the 5th thoracic vertebrae. How athletic do you feel right about now? That's the current stance in a horse doing reining. Try and run forward and stop in that curved up ball.
Now, instead, elevate your head and relax your shoulders. Scoot your but under you a bit and create a slight rounding through your entire back. With your head and shoulders elevated more you should feel ready to turn, stop, go forward and react to stimuli around you. Now run forward and stop with your butt tucked under. If you had to stop and roll back your body and go the other way you should feel better prepared to do that.
Now, of course we are two footed animals so the analogy isn't completely accurate, but when we are riding the horse mimics our body position. Your balance and position help the horse to learn how to carry himself. If you want freedom of movement in your horse's shoulders, you need to have elevation and freedom in your own shoulders to communicate that posture to the horse. If your shoulders are hunched and heavy, your horse's shoulders will be too. If you look at the rider in the picture of the reining horse you can see that his body is perfectly mimicked by the horse.
If you are up in an athletic stance on the balls of your feet in the saddle with your shoulders up and back your weight is balanced and the horse is able to feel the movement of your body and mimic it. They can them come up into your hands and move their front end around their back end with fluid movement. When the horse learns that he can trust where your body position is to give him the right cues for what he should be doing with his body you'll be amazed at the harmony that creates. While it may not look like a pretty finished show horse it feels amazing underneath you because it is soft, and round and responsive. That's what a truly collected horse should feel like.
The other great thing about the vaquero tradition is that no two horses are going to look alike because no two horses are built quite alike. You aren't trying to force your horse into a false frame of collection in order to fit the current trends you are trying to create the most balanced and correct posture that your particular horse is able to carry. Here is a great example of Bruce Sandifer, a California horseman training using the principles of the vaquero tradition. It looks a whole lot different that the sliding stop that is currently winning in the reining pen.
That's the kind of collection that we are working for. Head set has no meaning to us anymore. The horse should be soft to your hands (we call that soft feel) and should give at the poll but we aren't going to be picky about where that head ends up as long as the collection goes from the back feet, through the croup all the way to the head and shoulders and into our hands. Here's a great example of it looking different because of how two horses are built. The first one is me and Moony, the Morgan horse, the second is Dan and Salsa, the Quarter Horse. Both are showing collection through their body and soft feel in the bosal.
Collection and soft feel go hand in hand, quite literally and I think I'll explore that connection in the next blog post. Stay tuned!
Monday, June 10, 2013
Can't call them cowboy until you see them ride.
Ever heard that old saying, "you can't call them cowboy until you see them ride?" It's very true that you can't judge somebody's horsemanship skills just by the boots they are wearing, but you can often tell their lack of horsemanship by the boots/shoes and tack they are putting on their horse.
This blog is probably going to make me sound like a tack snob and may offend some folks, so I apologize for that in advance. If you do get offended, it's probably because I'm talking about you. Instead of being offended, take what I say to heart. Your horse will thank you and your horsemanship journey will take a definitive step forward.
Dan and I recently had the opportunity to go on a group trail ride with about 30 adult riders who were strangers to us. We didn't know a soul there and as we were tacking up it's normal to look around and assess what kind of folks we will be embarking on this adventure with.
You can see all kinds of strange things in these settings. Lots of small ruckuses as horses were being unloaded and tacked up. Lots of "WHOA"s, "STAND"s and "QUIT!"s and the horses danced around or refused to be bridled. We watched one poor lady with a huge draft cross attempt to bridle her horse for about 15 minutes. Of course, many horses don't get out much and this much excitement can sure get a horse acting much less trained than they would be at home.
As the horses all gather around waiting to head out you get to see how folks have outfitted themselves for this little pleasure ride. Obviously, this isn't a show so fancy tack and clothes are not necessary. But we are going to be out in the hot sun, exposed to the elements and riding down what could be a brushy trail. Lots of the women chose flounsy light weight sleeveless blouses and tank tops for the ride. They all returned sunburned and scratched from brush.
The other thing you'll notice is folks choice of saddle. Lots of folks like the lightweight codura plastic saddles. They are cheap, easy to clean (because you don't ever have to) and come in a variety of colors. Unfortunately they don't tend to fit a horse very well, nor do they stay put on a horse very well and often cause sores, galls, and other issues for the horse. Most of the time that's not an issue because they are so uncomfortable folks that use those saddles don't spend a whole lot of time in them. Several of these saddles didn't even make it up the first hill.
Australian style saddles are also a popular alternative for some weekend warriors. They are very cheap to buy (you can get a brand new one for 300 bucks) and they give a new rider a certain sense of security because they have those big things that lock your leg in. Unfortunately they also don't tend to be a great fit and slide all around. They also put you in a weird feet forward lounge chair position causing the horse to lift it's head and hollow out. Not much of a problem for cruising down the trail, until you are going uphill.
The other thing a horseman will tend to notice on another rider's rig is their choice of bit. You can tell a lot about a rider by their choice of bit and what their horse is doing with it. You have the quiet old trail horses that just plug along in any old bit. They are usually wearing something with large shanks, have a pretty decent callus in the corner of their mouths and don't seem to really notice the bit is there. It's fun to watch those folks try and pull their horse's heads out of the grass. On a group trail ride like this you really want to avoid anybody trail riding in a gag bit. Those are generally the weekend gamers that decided to take their hopped up gaming horse out for a bit of a change of scenery. If you see a gag bit, that's almost a guarantee that horse is going to be a prancer, dancer, and whirler. It's the whirling you really have to watch out for. We also were treated to the unique sighting of a horse wearing a bit upside down. The shank pieces were about halfway up the horse's face. I'm sure she had to punch extra holes into the cheek pieces on the headstall in order to get the sides up that far to accommodate the extra long shanks. This bit was also a pelham that had another ring at the sides of the mouth. That's where she attached the chin strap. I pointed out to her that her bit was indeed upside down and made mention that the horse might be more comfortable if she turned it around. She explained that it was a special gaited horse bit and that a professional gaited horse clinician had shown her how to put this bit on. Uh huh. I didn't get close enough to see if she also had the bit on backwards so that the curve was going the wrong way. I hope for the horse's sake that she didn't.
There are a whole lot of folks with horses just doing the best they can. They are learning and attempting horsemanship on a budget and I do understand that. I was there once too. I've ridden in tennis shoes and tank tops with nylon headstalls. It was fun when I was a kid. I didn't really care if my horse was under his best behavior because that was part of the adventure. But if you are serious about your horsemanship and trying to be the best you can be for your horse, you really should buy the best quality tack you can afford and take care of it and know how to use it properly and outfit yourself with the same care.
A good quality saddle that is well made and fits your horse is important. It doesn't have to be brand new, there are many many good used saddles out there that you can find. Good leather and a solid tree are so important for the safety of the rider and the comfort of the horse. You'd be amazed at what putting yourself in a proper position will do for helping your horse move to the best of his ability and keep you both happy and safe on the ride. You would be so much farther ahead to buy a used saddle for 500 bucks that was once a 3,000 dollar saddle than you would be to buy a brand new saddle for 300 bucks. I guarantee that anything you buy new for less than 1,000 if it's a western saddle is not worth the money you paid for it.
Aside from outfitting your horse in tack that is of good quality, clean and fitted to your horse, you should take yourself seriously enough to dress the part of a horseman. If you show up to ride looking like a gunsel, your mental state is already not in the best place. When you take pride in your appearance, your gear, and your horse you will take your horsemanship seriously and attempt to be the best that you can be for your horse. That's a lesson that a lot of our younger generation could take to heart for more than just horsemanship. Take yourselves seriously enough to care about your appearance a little and other folks might take you a bit more seriously as well. I, for one, honestly can't hear a word somebody is saying if they have a huge plastic spacer in their ear or have their pants around their anus.
It doesn't have to be fancy, just practical. If you can't take yourself seriously, how is your horse supposed to take it seriously. We always expect the best from our horses, but we need to be giving 100% as well. Once you learn to give everything you've got to your time with your horse, you can begin to expect 100% from him too.
But wait, you might say, I'm not going to be serious about this, I just want to trail ride. Isn't the trail ride more enjoyable when your horse is a willing partner? Let me tell you, for certainty that it is. Those folks on that ride with us this past weekend had all sorts of trouble. Saddles slipping off, horses baulking because of tack pinching, horses jigging, rearing, bolting, bucking, whirling and kicking. It didn't look like much fun to me. Not to mention the women that got terribly burned and scratched from wearing the wrong clothes. I'm guessing there were also some saddle sores from some designer jeans that were riding up.
So, do yourselves and your horses a favor. Ride like you mean it. The correct attitude about your horsemanship begins with you. Care enough to make having the right gear a priority. Wear proper fitting clothing appropriate to the activity. Groom the stinking knots out of your horse's mane, for crying out loud. Wear boots or other proper riding footwear. Wear a shirt that covers most of your torso and could be of some benefit if you were pitched into a thorn bush. I shouldn't have to say this, but girls, if you are chesty at all, a riding bra is going to make your day much more comfortable.
If you aren't sure if your tack is adjusted properly, ask. But don't ask somebody else with a plastic saddle. Look for the person on the best groomed horse, with a nice leather saddle that has boots and jeans on and has a horse standing quietly. They will be sitting off by themselves somewhere keeping their horse out of the way of all the whirling, kicking, squealing and jigging. Their horse will be standing quietly with a leg cocked. They may be smirking just a little. That's the one you need to ask for some help. Believe, me, they will be happy you asked.
Aside from outfitting your horse in tack that is of good quality, clean and fitted to your horse, you should take yourself seriously enough to dress the part of a horseman. If you show up to ride looking like a gunsel, your mental state is already not in the best place. When you take pride in your appearance, your gear, and your horse you will take your horsemanship seriously and attempt to be the best that you can be for your horse. That's a lesson that a lot of our younger generation could take to heart for more than just horsemanship. Take yourselves seriously enough to care about your appearance a little and other folks might take you a bit more seriously as well. I, for one, honestly can't hear a word somebody is saying if they have a huge plastic spacer in their ear or have their pants around their anus.
It doesn't have to be fancy, just practical. If you can't take yourself seriously, how is your horse supposed to take it seriously. We always expect the best from our horses, but we need to be giving 100% as well. Once you learn to give everything you've got to your time with your horse, you can begin to expect 100% from him too.
But wait, you might say, I'm not going to be serious about this, I just want to trail ride. Isn't the trail ride more enjoyable when your horse is a willing partner? Let me tell you, for certainty that it is. Those folks on that ride with us this past weekend had all sorts of trouble. Saddles slipping off, horses baulking because of tack pinching, horses jigging, rearing, bolting, bucking, whirling and kicking. It didn't look like much fun to me. Not to mention the women that got terribly burned and scratched from wearing the wrong clothes. I'm guessing there were also some saddle sores from some designer jeans that were riding up.
So, do yourselves and your horses a favor. Ride like you mean it. The correct attitude about your horsemanship begins with you. Care enough to make having the right gear a priority. Wear proper fitting clothing appropriate to the activity. Groom the stinking knots out of your horse's mane, for crying out loud. Wear boots or other proper riding footwear. Wear a shirt that covers most of your torso and could be of some benefit if you were pitched into a thorn bush. I shouldn't have to say this, but girls, if you are chesty at all, a riding bra is going to make your day much more comfortable.
If you aren't sure if your tack is adjusted properly, ask. But don't ask somebody else with a plastic saddle. Look for the person on the best groomed horse, with a nice leather saddle that has boots and jeans on and has a horse standing quietly. They will be sitting off by themselves somewhere keeping their horse out of the way of all the whirling, kicking, squealing and jigging. Their horse will be standing quietly with a leg cocked. They may be smirking just a little. That's the one you need to ask for some help. Believe, me, they will be happy you asked.
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