Your Horse is Trying to Talk to You...Are You Listening?
Hello Everyone, Last article we talked about doing Competitive Trail Obstacles and we discussed side passing over logs. This month I would like to talk about backing through L shapes. The reason why that obstacle is used often is because it shows how much control the rider has over their horse’s hips and shoulders verses [...]
Hello Everyone, I get a lot of questions from readers and clients about how to train your horse to do some of the Obstacles in the competitive trail challenges. So I am going to do a series on some of the obstacles that you might see doing a trail challenge or at a fun play day. This [...]
First I will help you figure out how to worm your horse and then I will tell you how you can make your horse actually like being wormed. When worming, you want to hold your horse’s halter by the piece that goes over the bridge of his nose with your left hand. With your right [...]
Have you lost your confidence to ride? This is a very common problem. It may be due to an accident, hearing about an accident, or for no perceivable reason at all. However, whatever the cause, there is help for you! First, don’t rush yourself and get on when you feel you are not ready, you [...]
While standing in front of your horse, start wiggling your lead line, just a soft wiggle at first, most likely your horse will just stand there or some come forward, just keep wiggling. Wiggling harder and harder until he takes a step back. When your horse takes a step back stop wiggling, then repeat the [...]
Horses have thresholds. What is a threshold? It’s the end of the horses comfort zone. If he goes beyond it, he is going to get scared. For some horses their comfort zone is just their corral or stall for others it is their whole pasture, it depends on the individual horse and how confident he [...]
Horses need confidence; confidence in people, in surroundings, in themselves, and in you as a leader. We need to help build our horses confidence. How can you tell when your horse is lacking confidence? You can see it in his body. Now consider these things when trying to figure out whether horse #1 is dominant, [...]
The First of a Series on how the horse moves its body and how riders can help their horses! Series – How Horses Move Their Bodies and How Riders Can Help Them – PART ONE – Footfalls of the Walk Hello Everyone, As you all know I am a Natural Horsemanship Clinician and Instructor. I [...]
The Second of a Series on how the horse moves it’s body and how riders can help their horses! Hello everyone, So last month we talked about Foot Falls. The Foot Falls are how the horse moves their feet. What foot goes when and then what one comes next. And last month we talked about [...]
Hello Everyone, This month in the series we are going to talk about the canter foot falls and right and left leads. So let us first start with how many beats in a canter. The Canter has 3 beats. There are 4 legs and only 3 beats, so this means that 2 legs move together [...]
Hello All, Well last month I left you with that little question. ‘Is a gallop a different gait than the canter?’ Answer: Yes it is! The foot falls for the gallop are: In a right lead, LH, RH, LF,RF, and then in a left lead, RH, LH, RF, LF. So it goes hind, hind, front, [...]
Hello Everyone, This month we are still talking about knowing how our horse moves so that we can better help them in their movement. We are going to talk about a Disengagement. What is a Disengagement, and how knowing what the foot falls in a disengagement are can help our horse. To disengage your horse [...]
Hello Everyone, I am still talking about how if we know how our horse moves, we can better get them to do what we want. Last month we talked about the Disengagement. Now this month I am going to talk about ‘Turning on the Haunches’. What is a ‘Turn on the Haunches’? It is where [...]
Hello everyone, This month I am going to talk about canter leads and departures. We talked about the canter foot falls a few months ago. Knowing the canter foot falls is going to help us here in getting better canter departs and the correct lead. So to just recap, the canter is 3 beats. The [...]
