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glenatronI just realised that although I wrote this, it never got posted, so here is a catch up on the clinic with Tom and Sarah that we spectated way back in September.Nice to have some pictures to remind us of what blue skies look like.
Tom is not the kind of trainer who I think of as sitting on the fence. Except literally.
Tom talks about how sitting on a horse, for him, should be a bit like sitting on a ball- if you change your weight in any particular direction the horse will go that way. When a horse is more braced up the ball is an uneven shape, not a perfect sphere, so some ways are easier to go in than others.
The starting point is asking the horse to balance up, basically to ask them to back up but stop asking before the feet move, so that their weight is ready to go back but doesn't necessarily actually go back.
They worked on getting Sunny to listen to Danielle's balance- Tom talked about a change in philosophy he is currently undergoing- where previously they used to fix up braces and make some small changes to things that built towards a balanced horse, he is now more inclined to work on getting the horse balanced and from there a lot of the braces and other little issues they may have worked on in the past will clear themselves up.
When Sunny was staring out over the fence, Danielle needed to be doing something to bring him back, either leaving pressure on the rein where he was pulling on it and asking him to come back that way or changing the angle of the rein to ask for his head back.
They worked on building up more of a bend in his neck in response to the rein - it needs to be possible to flex the horse to both sides without their feet moving. A correctly flexed neck will have bend right the way down it from poll to wither, some horses will tend to bend at the wither but keep tension in their neck which stays more or less straight. With this bend they did some work on going around the arena, flexing the head to the outside and using the neck rein to guide them around the corners, which is a useful exercise for teaching the neck rein.
Having got the neck rein working they did some exercises on moving the horse in a spiral based using the neck rein to ask them to contract and expand the circle. This is a useful part of getting control of the horse's shoulders.
Tom started working with her on the ground, just asking her to pay him attention and work on a circle, making sure he was doing something to bring her attention back any time it wandered. He didn't stop her focussing out on things in the distance, but whenever she did he made a bit of a fuss and made sure that it was harder work for her to be out there than it was for her to be listening to him and also that he was quite a distraction from inventing things to spook at.
While he worked he talked about the problems of sitting through a situation like this on a horse- if it takes half an hour to get them back to paying attention, that is plenty of time for them to practice not paying attention to you. If you can get them back more quickly on the ground then it's probably easier to get off, get them back with you and then get on again later.
Once Leia was paying attention Sarah got on and Tom asked her to make sure that she was never pulling back on the rein- a direct backward pull is much more likely to get the horse to drop their shoulders than one that has a bit of lift to it. Whatever you are asking for, the result will be better if you don't pull back.
The bit needs to be a source of comfort for the horse, a real route to their mind. If they are relaxed with that you have a great advantage in all your work with them.
Part of that comfort is that it needs to be consistent and perhaps counterintuitively, part of that for Sarah was needing to firm up a little when she asked for Leia to stop. The bit should never get out of the horse's way. These "never" and "always" statements are really important because once you've established a rule like that, you really need to stick to it if you're going to show yourself to be reliable as far as your horse is concerned.
Janet needed to work on setting things up so that Fin could find what she was asking for rather than constantly asking for things, she was showing a bit of a habit from years of riding of tending to squeeze with her legs on every stride. This meant she was working quite hard to keep Fin going when she could just be asking once and getting the things she was after.
Also she was tending to make bigger cues than Fin needed. The smaller your cue is, the more closely the horse has to listen, so actually by expecting them to respond to less you are also asking them to pay you closer attention.
By letting herself be softer and relax more, she could offer that feeling to Fin, who could relax in turn. The difference was very noticeable by the afternoon when both of them looked much softer.They worked on flexing on the circle, asking Fin to bend from head to tail and let go through his poll and through his topline, which he started to do very nicely as they went along.
They worked on leading around obstacles and getting Gold Dust to stay with Kerin and Kerin to go with Gold Dust, in much the same way that Janet and Fin were doing from the saddle.
Gold Dust got to explore lots of different things and even do some jumping, which she was pretty good at for a baby horse.
Working with the lead around her leg.
Kerin gets "more schoolmarm."
The three core things it is for as far as he is concerned are:
Tom and Sarah school their horses to relax around the bit by lifting the it a little. To build this on you can just lift the bit a little in the horse's mouth until they soften and relax their mouth and then release. Pretty soon they'll relate the two, which can be useful if you need a way to bring their mind back to where you are if it's wandering out in the world a little.
They continued their work on balance. The horse's balance is really important to them- after all being set to move is a survival strategy as far as they are concerned.
Picking up on the neck reining work, Sarah ( who had taken over at this point ) mentioned that bending the head to the outside of the turn as they do when first developing the neck rein puts the horse's weight on the inside shoulder, which makes it easier for them to turn without dropping their shoulder.
They moved on to doing a bit of work on getting in time with the feet. You can recognise when a hind-foot is leaving the ground because the barrel has to move out of the way, so at the furthest extent outwards of the horse's barrel, the corresponding hind foot is about to leave the ground. This is the best time to influence that foot as that is when the horse is able to change where it is going- once it leaves the ground it's typically on a fairly straight trajectory and as it reaches the ground the horse's weight is coming onto it so it can't change until it is ready to lift again anyway.
Tom had Danielle asking for the hindfoot in time with the barrel, using that to build up a bit more of a turn on the forehand from the rider's leg. By working on a tight circle both horse and rider can experience the feel of that in a situation where the horse will be stepping quite deeply under themself anyway, associating the cue with that feeling for future use.
In the afternoon they began with Tom drawing a couple of circles in the sand and asking Danielle to ride around them, a good way of making sure that they were working with the correct bend.
With Sarah they moved on to developing some shoulder in, where Sunny needed to learn that he doesn't always just follow his nose. Danielle was having to really listen for the smallest try from him to reward it because he was finding it quite hard to understand but he began to get quite clear on it by the end of the session.
Sarah observed that sometimes we will kind of ask "how can a horse tell the difference between these two cues" but really the how of it isn't that important as long as they can tell the difference.
On the ground Tom had Sarah concentrating on making sure that when they changed direction she made Leia walk around her not the other way round and that she didn't back out of Leia's space if the mare pushed on her at all.
In the saddle they needed at first to concentrate on just bringing her mind back into the arena, working towards a place where asking the horse to bend will bring them back mentally into the arena. With a horse at this early stage in her ridden career, Sarah really needed to be riding every step. They worked on trotting, making sure that Sarah was in control of the speed. When Leia's head started to come up Sarah was just lifting her hands and then allowing Leia to come forward and down when she decided to. This is important to build up - after a few strides with her head down they could go back to walk and build it down.
It's important to be aware that as a rider you can't pull the horse's head down ( thinking about this, I guess you could with draw reins, but I'm not really too sure about those, I rather suspect they're unnecessary frippery ) but when Sarah picked her hands up with Leia's head she offered the choice to lower her head and by rewarding that Leia would learn to start working correctly of her own accord, because she can understand it as a consequence of her own choice.
The afternoon got off to a similar start because a quad bike was moving around in the fields elsewhere on the yard and Leia was very unimpressed by the whole idea, although actually as a young horse spending much of her day in a clinic pen I suspect that she would have found an excuse to blow some energy off anyways. They continued with the same work, getting her mind back and asking her to be in more of a working frame of mind. The aim at this stage is for her to spend more time in a working frame of mind than out of it, so they practice the thing we're asking them to do.
By the end of the session Leia was looking really different and really good, spending much more time thinking about what Sarah was asking for than worrying about events on the horizon and generally starting to look like a working horse.
They were aiming to get Fin paying attention to Janet's balance, using that to present changes of speed, so they could walk along and Janet could change her balance a little to get him to walk slower or faster.
Fin was in a slightly fidgetty mood, tending to wander off when Janet hadn't asked him to so Sarah made a point of asking her to move him back whenever he set off of his own accord, so it's absolutely clear to him that he doesn't need to do that.
Talking about weight aids, Sarah observed that older horses have often learned to filter out the rider's weight as an irrelevance, but young horses tend to respond to it pretty well and if you are riding a young horse you can really use that. Different people suggest different things in terms of what is the correct weight aid to use, so the best thing to do is to experiment for yourself and find out what works for you.
Sarah's experience is that for work like turns on the haunches or forehand you want to put your weight a little onto the leg you are pivoting around, but this can be very minimal, often as little as just thinking about it.
They did some work on shoulder-in, aiming to develop it towards shoulder in on a circle. Janet needed to be careful about getting the correct amount of bend, too much and Fin will just fall in through his shoulder.
With transitions he tends to go straight from trot to a slow walk so they did some work on making Janet's request smaller, so that she asked slightly on the rein and released as she felt him getting organised to change. If she left the release until he actually did change she would get too much.
They worked on getting his front end lighter in trot, which is easiest done using back-up. When he does back up it's important that he isn't tucking behind the contact as that loses the connection through the bit and tends to result in the horse pushing with their front feet rather than pulling with their hind feed. They worked on going from trot to rein-back to trot again, trying to make the changes after short bits of trotting so there wasn't time for him to start diving onto his forehand again.
They also did some of the same work in canter, again aiming to help him to relax and then pick himself up a little more- he's learned to canter quite flat and low, which is quite comfortable for him but tends to put him on his forehand a little.
Gold dust moving on a little.
Baby horse tries a jump.
Kerin and Gold Dust continued to work on tasks to keep them working as a team, going over poles, into a zig-zag of poles and then backing up, and so on.
They tried using a Rockin'S bit which seemed to help her get a little less fidgety in her mouth than she had been about wearing a regular happy-mouth straight-bar the day before ( there was nothing on the bit, she just had it in her mouth while they worked off the halter to get her used to the idea of it being there.)
Leading over poles.
By the end of the session she was able to go over the tarp or to stop on it and was in a pretty good working frame of mind.
In the afternoon session they did some saddling preparation.
With gold dust having experienced most of the process already, the saddle itself inspired only inquisitiveness.
The sun continued to shine for our third day and Sunny and Danielle began by working a bit on getting him to bend on the ground, just asking Sunny to yeild to gentle rein pressure to each side. With this it is important to be sure that the horse is flexing their whole head in a level way, rather than twisting their nose around- bending and twisting come from different vertebrae and for this purpose we need the bend to be available to us.
They worked a bit on getting Sunny to move forward and Sarah had Danielle carry a soft rope she could swing to back up her leg rather than just keeping using it and risking throwing her balance and desensitising him to her leg. Sarah always prefers to back up the cue she asked for first rather than keep applying the cue while the horse can practice ignoring it.
It didn't take long for him to start getting the idea and then Danielle had to be careful not to stop him if he was setting off faster than she expected- by doing that she'd be in a good place to confuse him and probably slow him back down again. Instead she just had to recalibrate her leg a little to make sure she was only asking for what she wanted having got him listening more closely.
A few times over the weekend Tom and sarah talked about another reason for smaller cues being that because they are smaller the horse needs to be listening more closely for them so it helps to build a more responsive horse.
Sunny was tending to fall out a little through his shoulder and part of the "never pull back" philosophy is that to work on that Sarah suggested lifting the inside hand up rather than pulling it back as a way to control that somewhat.
With Tom they worked on building up turns on the forehand and hindquarters to get a rollback. The important thing in developing this is to get the two ends seperate because if you get a spin where both ends of the horse are moving at once you don't really have a lot of control. If you get them separated out it's a really useful exercise.
They began with groundwork where Tom talked about moving the goalposts a little with this horse- she's starting to get the idea but now it was time to ask a bit more of her- start moving her hindquarters away if her mind is wandering out of the arena rather than just waiting for her to come back, making it more involving for her.
In the afternoon they worked a little on cantering with her, but she was really too tired for it, so they only did a short session with letting her find where her feet are of her own accord. She was alright on one rein but tending to disunite on the other- to help her with this Sarah suggested helping her hind leg come through a little more by anchoring slightly on the other side, so if you want the left hindfoot to be able to come through you could anchor the right side a little to facilitate that.
Fin and Janet had a little bit of a play with some jumps- they warmed up and it was clear that Janet had already changed her riding a little- her legs were a lot quieter and Fin's feet were sounding a little lighter. It was nice to see that as Tom and Sarah had predicted Janet was getting better results by doing less and allowing Fin's sensitivity to come through a little.
They set up a jump and Fin showed off his skills- he can really pick himself up, but partly he needs to because he doesn't seem to be so good at lifting his front legs up. This could be part of a physical problem- although he's quite sound in movement he seems quite tight through the shoulders. He's been given the all-clear by various physical therapists so he should be alright, but there did seemto be something up.
With this in mind there are some things that could be done in the saddle to help him free up his shoulders a little. Working over poles with alternate ends raised creates a setting where he has to start picking up his shoulders a little more and really think about his feet. The longer term goal is to set things up so he can open those shoulders up a little and move more freely, which should be quite possible for him.
Working over some poles on the ground to help him move his shoulders. To get an idea for comparison Kerin brought Lottie in to go over the same poles. As the mature and experienced horse Lottie immediately had a fit but once she got over it there was a pretty good demonstration of how much those shoulders can come up:
He is in the situation where he needs to be a working horse now, a bit like Gold Dust. He tends to get stressed and anxious when things happen. Tom observed that it isn't pleasant for a horse to be stressed out so by helping them to be calm we're making ourselves useful to them.
Amelia went to get on and a car went past on the neighbours drive whereupon Bogarde had a big spook and bucked a little. Tom suggested that it might be wise to do a little more on the ground and just set to make himself the centre of Bogarde's attention. As he said: "You can't have a horse that you can only ride as long as the universe is perfect."
Tom asks for Bogarde's attention.
While he did that work he asked for distractions, so I rolled some barrels past, dragged a tarp along the path and generally made a bit of a fuss, which Bogarde wasn't really that bothered about.
Once he was really focussing on Tom, it was time to quit for the first session. The important thing was to set up a positive situation and quit while it was still positive.
In their second session they worked more on getting control of Bogarde's shoulders and hindquarters when he was staring out into the distance.
Moving the hindquarters to get more attention.
They moved on to leading from the bit, which is something that I've only seen Tom and Sarah do, where they just literally place a hand on each side of the bit and use that to ask for flexion and to ask the horse to lead and change direction. The aim is to create a feeling as though there is nothing in your hand.
Continuing the same work from the saddle.
I helped to load Bogarde at the end of the day. He is one heck of a tall horse.
They did some further work on leading and reminding Gold Dust ( and Kerin ) about setting up the bundaries of personal space and making them solid.
They went on to looking at some free schooling, at which point Gold Dust just charged about with no mind to anything that was going on in the arena. Kerin realised that probably the only time she had been in a situation like this was when she was being shown to potential buyers where she was chased around with a bag on a stick to show off her paces, so she probably had the idea that running about was what was needed from her here.
Gold dust goes for a run.
Back to Kerin.
By the end of the day she was working with a bit in and the saddle on.
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sleepsy_mouse and Karen heading off into the sunset.
If you found that interesting or inspiring you can find out more about Tom and Sarah Widdicombe here - they will be back in Mayfield for clinics on April 22nd - 25th and July 1st - 4th, both Thursday - Sunday booking details here.
Tom is not the kind of trainer who I think of as sitting on the fence. Except literally.
Friday
Danielle and Sunny
Sunny is good, a bit distractable, does what he is asked pretty well. But he tends to do it going around a bit on his forehand. Tom talked about the numbers he has heard for the horse's weight in terms of which parts are where. Sixty percent of a horse's weight naturally falls on the front feet, forty percent on the hind. When they have a rider it is typically closer to 70:30 in favour of the front feet and a big part of what we want to do is to rebalance them a bit so that it comes closer to their natural state or even better beyond it towards fifty-fifty.Tom talks about how sitting on a horse, for him, should be a bit like sitting on a ball- if you change your weight in any particular direction the horse will go that way. When a horse is more braced up the ball is an uneven shape, not a perfect sphere, so some ways are easier to go in than others.
The starting point is asking the horse to balance up, basically to ask them to back up but stop asking before the feet move, so that their weight is ready to go back but doesn't necessarily actually go back.
They worked on getting Sunny to listen to Danielle's balance- Tom talked about a change in philosophy he is currently undergoing- where previously they used to fix up braces and make some small changes to things that built towards a balanced horse, he is now more inclined to work on getting the horse balanced and from there a lot of the braces and other little issues they may have worked on in the past will clear themselves up.
When Sunny was staring out over the fence, Danielle needed to be doing something to bring him back, either leaving pressure on the rein where he was pulling on it and asking him to come back that way or changing the angle of the rein to ask for his head back.
They worked on building up more of a bend in his neck in response to the rein - it needs to be possible to flex the horse to both sides without their feet moving. A correctly flexed neck will have bend right the way down it from poll to wither, some horses will tend to bend at the wither but keep tension in their neck which stays more or less straight. With this bend they did some work on going around the arena, flexing the head to the outside and using the neck rein to guide them around the corners, which is a useful exercise for teaching the neck rein.
Having got the neck rein working they did some exercises on moving the horse in a spiral based using the neck rein to ask them to contract and expand the circle. This is a useful part of getting control of the horse's shoulders.
Sarah and Leia
Leia is quite young, only recently backed and tends to not concentrate well on her work although she is good at concentrating on the search for new and interesting things to spook at.Tom started working with her on the ground, just asking her to pay him attention and work on a circle, making sure he was doing something to bring her attention back any time it wandered. He didn't stop her focussing out on things in the distance, but whenever she did he made a bit of a fuss and made sure that it was harder work for her to be out there than it was for her to be listening to him and also that he was quite a distraction from inventing things to spook at.
While he worked he talked about the problems of sitting through a situation like this on a horse- if it takes half an hour to get them back to paying attention, that is plenty of time for them to practice not paying attention to you. If you can get them back more quickly on the ground then it's probably easier to get off, get them back with you and then get on again later.
Once Leia was paying attention Sarah got on and Tom asked her to make sure that she was never pulling back on the rein- a direct backward pull is much more likely to get the horse to drop their shoulders than one that has a bit of lift to it. Whatever you are asking for, the result will be better if you don't pull back.
The bit needs to be a source of comfort for the horse, a real route to their mind. If they are relaxed with that you have a great advantage in all your work with them.
Part of that comfort is that it needs to be consistent and perhaps counterintuitively, part of that for Sarah was needing to firm up a little when she asked for Leia to stop. The bit should never get out of the horse's way. These "never" and "always" statements are really important because once you've established a rule like that, you really need to stick to it if you're going to show yourself to be reliable as far as your horse is concerned.
Janet and Fin
Janet and Fin are doing pretty well but Tom and Sarah spotted a bit of a disconnect between her and her horse. She was getting responses from her cues but there was a certain feel lacking so that it felt like "if I ask this way I'll get a step sideways" rather than just being a flowing step sideways. Janet's a really good rider so this is a fairly subtle difference but an interesting one.Janet needed to work on setting things up so that Fin could find what she was asking for rather than constantly asking for things, she was showing a bit of a habit from years of riding of tending to squeeze with her legs on every stride. This meant she was working quite hard to keep Fin going when she could just be asking once and getting the things she was after.
Also she was tending to make bigger cues than Fin needed. The smaller your cue is, the more closely the horse has to listen, so actually by expecting them to respond to less you are also asking them to pay you closer attention.
By letting herself be softer and relax more, she could offer that feeling to Fin, who could relax in turn. The difference was very noticeable by the afternoon when both of them looked much softer.They worked on flexing on the circle, asking Fin to bend from head to tail and let go through his poll and through his topline, which he started to do very nicely as they went along.
Kerin and Gold Dust
Gold dust needs to get into a working frame of mind, which meant Kerin needed to, in Tom's words, "be more schoolmarm" and really get specific about getting the things she was asking for and nothing else.They worked on leading around obstacles and getting Gold Dust to stay with Kerin and Kerin to go with Gold Dust, in much the same way that Janet and Fin were doing from the saddle.
Gold Dust got to explore lots of different things and even do some jumping, which she was pretty good at for a baby horse.
Working with the lead around her leg.
Kerin gets "more schoolmarm."
Saturday
Danielle and Sunny
Tom began by talking more about the bit and the roles it has as far as he is concerned. He talks about it as being a direct connection to the horse's mind.The three core things it is for as far as he is concerned are:
- Giving comfort to the horse
- Acting as a boundary
- moving the horse's head around.
Tom and Sarah school their horses to relax around the bit by lifting the it a little. To build this on you can just lift the bit a little in the horse's mouth until they soften and relax their mouth and then release. Pretty soon they'll relate the two, which can be useful if you need a way to bring their mind back to where you are if it's wandering out in the world a little.
They continued their work on balance. The horse's balance is really important to them- after all being set to move is a survival strategy as far as they are concerned.
Picking up on the neck reining work, Sarah ( who had taken over at this point ) mentioned that bending the head to the outside of the turn as they do when first developing the neck rein puts the horse's weight on the inside shoulder, which makes it easier for them to turn without dropping their shoulder.
They moved on to doing a bit of work on getting in time with the feet. You can recognise when a hind-foot is leaving the ground because the barrel has to move out of the way, so at the furthest extent outwards of the horse's barrel, the corresponding hind foot is about to leave the ground. This is the best time to influence that foot as that is when the horse is able to change where it is going- once it leaves the ground it's typically on a fairly straight trajectory and as it reaches the ground the horse's weight is coming onto it so it can't change until it is ready to lift again anyway.
Tom had Danielle asking for the hindfoot in time with the barrel, using that to build up a bit more of a turn on the forehand from the rider's leg. By working on a tight circle both horse and rider can experience the feel of that in a situation where the horse will be stepping quite deeply under themself anyway, associating the cue with that feeling for future use.
In the afternoon they began with Tom drawing a couple of circles in the sand and asking Danielle to ride around them, a good way of making sure that they were working with the correct bend.
With Sarah they moved on to developing some shoulder in, where Sunny needed to learn that he doesn't always just follow his nose. Danielle was having to really listen for the smallest try from him to reward it because he was finding it quite hard to understand but he began to get quite clear on it by the end of the session.
Sarah observed that sometimes we will kind of ask "how can a horse tell the difference between these two cues" but really the how of it isn't that important as long as they can tell the difference.
Sarah and Leia
Leia had a bit of extra energy when she first came into the arena, springing around and going into a lollopy rocking-horse canter for no clear reason, but Sarah just kept asking her to walk on quietly and soon Leia was able to come back and pay her more attention.On the ground Tom had Sarah concentrating on making sure that when they changed direction she made Leia walk around her not the other way round and that she didn't back out of Leia's space if the mare pushed on her at all.
In the saddle they needed at first to concentrate on just bringing her mind back into the arena, working towards a place where asking the horse to bend will bring them back mentally into the arena. With a horse at this early stage in her ridden career, Sarah really needed to be riding every step. They worked on trotting, making sure that Sarah was in control of the speed. When Leia's head started to come up Sarah was just lifting her hands and then allowing Leia to come forward and down when she decided to. This is important to build up - after a few strides with her head down they could go back to walk and build it down.
It's important to be aware that as a rider you can't pull the horse's head down ( thinking about this, I guess you could with draw reins, but I'm not really too sure about those, I rather suspect they're unnecessary frippery ) but when Sarah picked her hands up with Leia's head she offered the choice to lower her head and by rewarding that Leia would learn to start working correctly of her own accord, because she can understand it as a consequence of her own choice.
The afternoon got off to a similar start because a quad bike was moving around in the fields elsewhere on the yard and Leia was very unimpressed by the whole idea, although actually as a young horse spending much of her day in a clinic pen I suspect that she would have found an excuse to blow some energy off anyways. They continued with the same work, getting her mind back and asking her to be in more of a working frame of mind. The aim at this stage is for her to spend more time in a working frame of mind than out of it, so they practice the thing we're asking them to do.
By the end of the session Leia was looking really different and really good, spending much more time thinking about what Sarah was asking for than worrying about events on the horizon and generally starting to look like a working horse.
Janet and Fin
They began by working on getting Fin balanced before they even set off- this rebalancing is what dressage riders mean when they talk about a half-halt- it's the same thing with a different name. Sally Swift calls it "rebalancing" as well and it's certainly more explanatory with regard to it's function.They were aiming to get Fin paying attention to Janet's balance, using that to present changes of speed, so they could walk along and Janet could change her balance a little to get him to walk slower or faster.
Fin was in a slightly fidgetty mood, tending to wander off when Janet hadn't asked him to so Sarah made a point of asking her to move him back whenever he set off of his own accord, so it's absolutely clear to him that he doesn't need to do that.
Talking about weight aids, Sarah observed that older horses have often learned to filter out the rider's weight as an irrelevance, but young horses tend to respond to it pretty well and if you are riding a young horse you can really use that. Different people suggest different things in terms of what is the correct weight aid to use, so the best thing to do is to experiment for yourself and find out what works for you.
Sarah's experience is that for work like turns on the haunches or forehand you want to put your weight a little onto the leg you are pivoting around, but this can be very minimal, often as little as just thinking about it.
They did some work on shoulder-in, aiming to develop it towards shoulder in on a circle. Janet needed to be careful about getting the correct amount of bend, too much and Fin will just fall in through his shoulder.
With transitions he tends to go straight from trot to a slow walk so they did some work on making Janet's request smaller, so that she asked slightly on the rein and released as she felt him getting organised to change. If she left the release until he actually did change she would get too much.
They worked on getting his front end lighter in trot, which is easiest done using back-up. When he does back up it's important that he isn't tucking behind the contact as that loses the connection through the bit and tends to result in the horse pushing with their front feet rather than pulling with their hind feed. They worked on going from trot to rein-back to trot again, trying to make the changes after short bits of trotting so there wasn't time for him to start diving onto his forehand again.
They also did some of the same work in canter, again aiming to help him to relax and then pick himself up a little more- he's learned to canter quite flat and low, which is quite comfortable for him but tends to put him on his forehand a little.
Kerin and Gold Dust
Gold dust moving on a little.
Baby horse tries a jump.
Kerin and Gold Dust continued to work on tasks to keep them working as a team, going over poles, into a zig-zag of poles and then backing up, and so on.
They tried using a Rockin'S bit which seemed to help her get a little less fidgety in her mouth than she had been about wearing a regular happy-mouth straight-bar the day before ( there was nothing on the bit, she just had it in her mouth while they worked off the halter to get her used to the idea of it being there.)
Leading over poles.
By the end of the session she was able to go over the tarp or to stop on it and was in a pretty good working frame of mind.
In the afternoon session they did some saddling preparation.
With gold dust having experienced most of the process already, the saddle itself inspired only inquisitiveness.
Sunday
Sunny and Danielle
The sun continued to shine for our third day and Sunny and Danielle began by working a bit on getting him to bend on the ground, just asking Sunny to yeild to gentle rein pressure to each side. With this it is important to be sure that the horse is flexing their whole head in a level way, rather than twisting their nose around- bending and twisting come from different vertebrae and for this purpose we need the bend to be available to us.
They worked a bit on getting Sunny to move forward and Sarah had Danielle carry a soft rope she could swing to back up her leg rather than just keeping using it and risking throwing her balance and desensitising him to her leg. Sarah always prefers to back up the cue she asked for first rather than keep applying the cue while the horse can practice ignoring it.
It didn't take long for him to start getting the idea and then Danielle had to be careful not to stop him if he was setting off faster than she expected- by doing that she'd be in a good place to confuse him and probably slow him back down again. Instead she just had to recalibrate her leg a little to make sure she was only asking for what she wanted having got him listening more closely.
A few times over the weekend Tom and sarah talked about another reason for smaller cues being that because they are smaller the horse needs to be listening more closely for them so it helps to build a more responsive horse.
Sunny was tending to fall out a little through his shoulder and part of the "never pull back" philosophy is that to work on that Sarah suggested lifting the inside hand up rather than pulling it back as a way to control that somewhat.
With Tom they worked on building up turns on the forehand and hindquarters to get a rollback. The important thing in developing this is to get the two ends seperate because if you get a spin where both ends of the horse are moving at once you don't really have a lot of control. If you get them separated out it's a really useful exercise.
Sarah and Leia
They began with groundwork where Tom talked about moving the goalposts a little with this horse- she's starting to get the idea but now it was time to ask a bit more of her- start moving her hindquarters away if her mind is wandering out of the arena rather than just waiting for her to come back, making it more involving for her.
In the afternoon they worked a little on cantering with her, but she was really too tired for it, so they only did a short session with letting her find where her feet are of her own accord. She was alright on one rein but tending to disunite on the other- to help her with this Sarah suggested helping her hind leg come through a little more by anchoring slightly on the other side, so if you want the left hindfoot to be able to come through you could anchor the right side a little to facilitate that.
Fin and Janet
Fin and Janet had a little bit of a play with some jumps- they warmed up and it was clear that Janet had already changed her riding a little- her legs were a lot quieter and Fin's feet were sounding a little lighter. It was nice to see that as Tom and Sarah had predicted Janet was getting better results by doing less and allowing Fin's sensitivity to come through a little.
They set up a jump and Fin showed off his skills- he can really pick himself up, but partly he needs to because he doesn't seem to be so good at lifting his front legs up. This could be part of a physical problem- although he's quite sound in movement he seems quite tight through the shoulders. He's been given the all-clear by various physical therapists so he should be alright, but there did seemto be something up.
With this in mind there are some things that could be done in the saddle to help him free up his shoulders a little. Working over poles with alternate ends raised creates a setting where he has to start picking up his shoulders a little more and really think about his feet. The longer term goal is to set things up so he can open those shoulders up a little and move more freely, which should be quite possible for him.
Working over some poles on the ground to help him move his shoulders. To get an idea for comparison Kerin brought Lottie in to go over the same poles. As the mature and experienced horse Lottie immediately had a fit but once she got over it there was a pretty good demonstration of how much those shoulders can come up:
Bogarde and Amelia
These two came over for some work on Sunday following on from a previous clinic quite nearby to continue the work they began there and to give him experience of being off his home yard in a well supervised situation. Bogarde is a huge young hanoverian warmblood with a history of injuries that have meant he has been able to do minimal work until quite recently.He is in the situation where he needs to be a working horse now, a bit like Gold Dust. He tends to get stressed and anxious when things happen. Tom observed that it isn't pleasant for a horse to be stressed out so by helping them to be calm we're making ourselves useful to them.
Amelia went to get on and a car went past on the neighbours drive whereupon Bogarde had a big spook and bucked a little. Tom suggested that it might be wise to do a little more on the ground and just set to make himself the centre of Bogarde's attention. As he said: "You can't have a horse that you can only ride as long as the universe is perfect."
Tom asks for Bogarde's attention.
While he did that work he asked for distractions, so I rolled some barrels past, dragged a tarp along the path and generally made a bit of a fuss, which Bogarde wasn't really that bothered about.
Once he was really focussing on Tom, it was time to quit for the first session. The important thing was to set up a positive situation and quit while it was still positive.
In their second session they worked more on getting control of Bogarde's shoulders and hindquarters when he was staring out into the distance.
Moving the hindquarters to get more attention.
They moved on to leading from the bit, which is something that I've only seen Tom and Sarah do, where they just literally place a hand on each side of the bit and use that to ask for flexion and to ask the horse to lead and change direction. The aim is to create a feeling as though there is nothing in your hand.
Continuing the same work from the saddle.
I helped to load Bogarde at the end of the day. He is one heck of a tall horse.
Kerin and Gold Dust
Gold Dust was looking a lot more like a working horse by Sunday's session. Kerin was still tending to not want to blow Gold Dust up and consequently risking not following through enough on what she was asking for.They did some further work on leading and reminding Gold Dust ( and Kerin ) about setting up the bundaries of personal space and making them solid.
They went on to looking at some free schooling, at which point Gold Dust just charged about with no mind to anything that was going on in the arena. Kerin realised that probably the only time she had been in a situation like this was when she was being shown to potential buyers where she was chased around with a bag on a stick to show off her paces, so she probably had the idea that running about was what was needed from her here.
Gold dust goes for a run.
Back to Kerin.
By the end of the day she was working with a bit in and the saddle on.
sleepsy_mouse and Karen heading off into the sunset.If you found that interesting or inspiring you can find out more about Tom and Sarah Widdicombe here - they will be back in Mayfield for clinics on April 22nd - 25th and July 1st - 4th, both Thursday - Sunday booking details here.
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no subject
Date: 10 Feb 2010 14:10 (UTC)Hmm, I find that interesting. And probably true. But I think like Tom, most of what I've been taught through NH has been about fixing those braces, with not a word about balance being mentioned.
Also, I like the ball analogy. That's what it feels like to ride dressage. The horse follows your balance like that.
no subject
Date: 10 Feb 2010 14:13 (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Feb 2010 17:24 (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Feb 2010 14:18 (UTC)What is meant here by dropping their shoulders? That the horse is much more likely to maintain self-carriage if the rein has a bit of lift in it? (I ask because my trainer says the whole 'lift' thing to me all the time but has not explained why.)
Excuse the gazillion comments. With monster posts like these there's no way I can remember everything I want to say for one big long comment at the end. And LJ is wonky and I don't trust it to save all those thoughts in an unpublished comment while I keep reading. Which is why, as always, i vote for these posts being done in installments--one horse/rider combination at a time--to facilitate ease of commenting.
:)
no subject
Date: 10 Feb 2010 17:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Feb 2010 23:54 (UTC)Horsemanship always moves on - maybe it doesn't really, but it has that kind of feel, so looking back it sometimes feels dated. I guess it because we learn so much all the time - different ways of seeing things and so on. I guess the progress we make is what keeps us in there doing it.
Thanks for the report Breakfast - that's some job.
no subject
Date: 14 Feb 2010 00:35 (UTC)Благодарю за статью
Date: 8 Jun 2011 02:34 (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Feb 2012 03:24 (UTC)