The goal for both the bending and turning aids is to control the horse’s body position and his balance. We will use a circle pattern to demonstrate how to correct one of two common problems that occur when trying to keep a horse straight through a turn. This week we will cover the problem called falling out.
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I grew up in Florida, where the main riding season is the winter. Our main chore to get ready for winter was body clipping the horses, to get rid of the winter coat they were not going to need.
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Dear Julie: This may be a very odd question, but I was curious how many times have you been kicked or caught in the crossfire in your training career? I’ve been kicked three times, but tonight I got kicked square in the pelvis by a dominant mare who was going after my mare while I was putting a halter on her.
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I remember growing up and hearing that we must use light hands and not pull on our horses. However, when we kept our hands light on the reins, we did not necessarily communicate with the horse. So, through lack of education and knowledge we ended up making our horses heavier.
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Trouble-free trailer “unloading” is really quite easy… just reverse the steps used to teach your horse to load. Let’s start with your horse already loaded in the trailer, ideally with another experienced horse to give him confidence. If you followed my recommendations, his loading experience was a good one.
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BUILDING A PARTNERSHIP WITH YOUR HORSE In this article, I continue with the series “training...
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One of the current topics of discussion and an important part of horsemanship is timing and feel. For me it is more correct to say feel and timing. You must feel what the horse is doing and then act promptly. Let’s look at what these aspects are and why they are important?
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Recently at one of my clinics, a rider told me that three different trainers told him flat-out that his horse did not like him. He was hoping that the clinic would help him understand if the horse would ever come to like him or if he should get a different horse.
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There is nothing more frustrating than having trouble loading your horse in a trailer. The way to avoid this is to take the time in the first place to properly teach your horse to load and unload properly.
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Recently, there has been a lot of discussion in the media about western or cowboy dressage. I have also seen comments on Face book regarding making it a discipline. According to one Western Dressage website, “Western Dressage is not just another class to enter, not just another skill to learn.
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