The Horse Comes First
If you do the work, you get rewarded. There are no shortcuts in life. …
Collection: Part Four
Today we’ll wrap up this video series on the basics of collection. I hope you’ve all found it helpful in your journey with your horses. In case you missed them, here’s part 1, part 2, and part 3.
Collection: Part Three
We’re covering more ground in our series on collection today! A couple things to note — in the video below: Cosmo wasn’t perfect with her lateral flexions. We are still…
Life Lessons from the Horse
This mare here, I’ve never picked at her. Never ever. Ever never. She can do no wrong.I’ve never said a negative word about her.She’s been my pride and joy since…
Collection: Part Two
In our continuing series on creating a collected horse, the next thing we need to talk about is how to carry what the horse is learning on the ground to…
My Warm-Up
Keep in mind, you only have about 10 minutes of quality time to train at the lope. Due to this, I do most of my softening work at the walk.
Curing the Fidgety Horse
The last thing any horse really wants to do is fidget. No, seriously, think about it. If you’ve watched them in the pasture, when they’re not eating, they’re lazing, and if they’re young and full of energy, they’ll play for a bit and go back to eating or lazing. They’d rather be at peace than bothered, and to me, a horse that paws is a horse that’s bothered.
Speed Control
We like our horses to tune into our seat and our body, so we can use the reins and our legs to refine the cues we give them for turnarounds, rollbacks, spins, or gathering up so we can do a canter pirouette (or swap directions quickly to corral an unruly bull come fall). Plus, anyone else can use “whoa” or “ho” and that might mean something to our horse when we don’t need it to.