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 the saddle. Below, in the video, I get on Luna and show you how collection begins to look from their back. Make note that there’s…
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.
Over the course of the next four weeks, I’m going to share with you, the basics of collection. This series will show you where I start, and how I progress. As we delve further into collection, I’ll show you how this relates to the barrel pattern. I need to start by saying this: I believe…
When choosing a horse trainer the options can be endless. With this article, I aim to help you decide what’s important to you, what’s important to your horse, and highlight some things you will want to look for to find a good fit for you. There are a lot of handy horsemen in this world…
Today, I’d like to share with you something that’s been on my mind — Broke vs. Gentle horses. To me a broke horse goes where I want, when I want, at the speed I want. They’re soft in the face, the ribs, and they’re willing. That does not, however make them gentle. Quite a few…
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.
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.