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glenatronThis was a nice weekend with a few different riders who usually take part in the Hereford clinics but had come to join us in Kent for this one. Also for most of the clinic Steve was riding one of Camilla’s big warmbloods, which meant he had a really good opportunity to show us things and also he could keep up with us and talk us through some of the faster stuff. Also good work for the horse, who did really well by it.
Steve has a horse to ride.
We began once again with lateral flexion. This has to start at the nose and go right back from there- our reins are connected in front of the horse’s poll and the signal we put down them can be stopped by a brace anywhere along the neck, but it needs to travel in order, so we would expect their ears to follow the horse’s nose. The goal is to be sure the head turns first. Sometimes the horse will try some other things when you ask for this but you can just wait them out.
Steve talked about how important bending is- he has lost friends because their horses would not bend when they needed them to. This is a genuine life-and-death matter. We have to get it good if we are going to be safe.
We worked on getting our circles circular on the ground, with the horse bending correctly and following their nose around the circle, and then exaggerating that a little more to get a circle with the head turned in a little and keep the shoulders out.
Steve helps get flexion on the ground.
Working on three tracks with Brecon. Steve doesn't get to borrow other people's stirrups too often.
Both Raz and Celebrity were tending to want to leave before rather than with their humans when starting out. Most people don’t even notice if they have a horse that runs away in walk, but if a horse does do that it gives you a great opportunity to work on changing that pattern while everyone is working at a low speed and lower level of emotion.
"Are you ready to go, little guy?"
They worked on this through a simple turning exercise, moving forward then taking the hindquarters out away from the handler by allowing the horse to run into a feel on the rope, then changing from turning on the forehand to turning on the hindquarters to complete the circle and continue in the same direction.
Zorro steps across behind as he runs into a feel on the lead.
In some horses what was tending to happen was that they were bending their necks with the rein but keeping their feet moving forward. This is an indication that you haven’t got the horse’s mind with you yet. You could work with it by keeping the rein in place until the outside foreleg stops falling out, getting closer to the timing of the outside hindfoot, or you can stop, turn them around their quarters back into the direction they were moving away from and continue that way.
When working on anything like this we need to make sure that when we come to a halt we don’t give the rein back straight away if the horse isn’t soft to it. It’s really easy to do this and end up teaching the horse to brace on the rein. Avoiding this is an ongoing project.
Small looks at Steve intently. But then Small does, so far as we know, understand English.
Rose and Steve watch as Celeb goes by.
Steve talked about back-up cues as well- I have learned different cues with different people - Martin picks his weight out of the saddle a little, Steve leans back and drops his heels a bit, Tom and Sarah teach backing up off rein alone - they all work pretty well so it comes to picking one and sticking to it. Steve’s logic is that bringing his weight back is part of his stop cue, so the back-up becomes an extension of that, which seems sensible to me. But then I can also see logic to the alternative.
Raz was spending some time under saddle trying to sneak up to other horses and give them a crafty nip. Steve talked about how one approach he uses with horses that want to do that is to side-pass up to them and just rub on their foreheads. Get them used to another horse being there, make it comfortable for them but make sure they can’t bite his horse.
Small being a responsible adult for Celeb in the school - Celeb found the big field a bit intense.
The next morning discussing our ideas we covered moving forward- someone’s black hairy cob needed to be moving out more - getting timing right and raising the bar in our expectations. We need perfect flexion every time we pick up the rein and ask for it. We need to get the whole of the horse’s attention when we work with them - we only demand perhaps 5% of their time, so it’s not unreasonable to ask for 100% of their attention during that time. But we have to make sure there is something in it for the horse as well. We need to be connecting the inside of the person to the inside of the horse, and if we’re going to demand all of their attention it is only fair that we offer them all of ours.
I admit I mostly include this picture because I like Zorro's "80s rock" mane.
Looks like the really interesting stuff was going on just off to the right of this picture.
Becky and Camilla were both thinking about reading their horses better- if you’re going from A-Z you can’t just start at N because that is where you were yesterday. You need to work out where you’re starting up. Camilla was thinking about where her horse needed her hands to be as opposed to where she had been taught that they should be.
Small, only just back into work after his surgery but already looking really great.
Steve talked about how when he rides he thinks of it as being like Scrapheap Challenge- he has an idea of what he wants to get done, but he has to work with what is available to him at that moment with that horse- just because he wants something doesn’t mean the horse can offer it right now.
“I don’t want to scare my horse,” he said, “but sometimes he might get scared while he’s learning to be brave.” That is unavoidable with a fear-oriented animal like a horse- so much of our work with them is just helping them to become more confident. Sometimes you might have to make a choice between doing the right thing and doing the righteous thing, the two have been known to be different.
When we are working on this stuff it is best not to have an amount of time in mind- you need to get to a good point before quitting, but then if it’s really good quit sooner. Steve also observed that people tend not to wait around long enough after something good- it would be best to give the horse minutes rather than seconds when they have done really well.
Karen French, one of the finest riders I have ever had the pleasure of seeing sit on a horse, with her big warmblood Sheik. An amazing team.
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sleepsy_mouse was allowed to ride him too. A truly stunning horse.
Rose is another of Steve's associate instructors and Brecon is an impressive testament to her skills.
Steve used to teach people to work long and low to get the horse stretching but he observed that a horse can be long and low and light and filling the saddle or they can be heavy and diving on their forehand- he would come back the next year and find that a lot of people had something that looked right but their horses were just bearing down.
Working with Toffee, Steve pointed out a bulge showing in his neck behind his poll when he was being asked to bend- this indicates a brace in that joint that was creating a disconnection between the rein and the feet. Likewise if you see wrinkles on a horse’s neck when they are working they are not soft - softness goes right through the horse in every direction.
By this point Steve was pushing us all on a little- “Do you want life to be easier or do you want life to be better?” he asked.
Zorro stepping across behind rather nicely.
We did a lot of work on backing on circles- this is a great technique for getting a horse to work better from behind, to help them learn not to push on the bit and to build up towards rapid turnarounds. It’s also quite practical if you ever need to get a gate open.
At the start of the last day we talked about where we are going now. Steve told us that it’s important not to try and move on until the things we have now are truly weightless. Then we have the foundation that makes everything else feasible.
With the horses where they couldn’t yet offer their heads, or where they were reluctant to in some situations, Steve recommended getting in time with the feet at first to get connected to those. Over time they will get better at flexing. The feel of a push on the bit or on the halter needs to be eliminated if our horses are going to be able to respond to us as best they can.
Raz was starting to lean on the rein a little now - having gone from lacking in confidence to becoming confident enough to take over a little. Steve talked about how you can think of this as a pendulum between fear and overconfidence and that is always going to be swinging one way or the other a little- our job is to find the sweet spot in the middle and keep things there as well as we can. By the end of the session he was starting to be really settled when he halted, without jigging about or trying to move off anywhere, which was a big step for him.
As Becky got more effective Jake was starting to get sharper and move out better.
In the afternoon we played some cutting type games where the group stood in a group, one rider was on the outside of the group trying to get in and one of the other riders was between them and the group trying to turn them away. The rider getting in could be turned by the rider who was guarding the herd, but if they could get around quicker and sneak behind them or get well ahead they were in. This is reliably good fun and a useful way of getting us thinking about a job rather than trying to micromanage our horses.
Brecon and Seren have a grump at each other.
After this Steve got Zorro and I working on moving out faster and we spent a while cantering around the outside of the dressage arena - his big lanky horse was a lot quicker and poor Zorro didn’t much like being behind ( and having to go quickly ) and kept trying to cut corners. When we had got this done, Zorro wanted to go hang with the other horses rather than listen to me so we did some of the typical herdbound work where whenever he went back to the other horses he went faster and moving away he went slower. This is a great opportunity to work with your horse’s mind because they decide where to go but you ensure there are consequences for their decision. There is a definite feeling when the horse changes their mind about dropping back to the larger group as well, like elastic snapping, you suddenly have more available to you.
We finished the day with a game of follow the leader, which Zorro and I dropped out of as he was a tiny bit lame after all the running about and I didn’t want to make him work if it was uncomfortable for him, so we sat out and watched. The next morning he was fine - I think it was just a tweaked muscle.
I really enjoyed this clinic. I know I always say that- that’s why I keep going to them, but there was a lot going on and having the wide field to work in was a real benefit. Also Steve continues to push us out of our comfort zones and the results are really showing in all of the regular riders in this group, we’ve all changed a lot and our horses certainly seem to appreciate it.
You can find more about Steve Halfpenny and Silversand at the Silversand website. You can find the pictures from this report bigger over on Flickr.
Steve has a horse to ride.
We began once again with lateral flexion. This has to start at the nose and go right back from there- our reins are connected in front of the horse’s poll and the signal we put down them can be stopped by a brace anywhere along the neck, but it needs to travel in order, so we would expect their ears to follow the horse’s nose. The goal is to be sure the head turns first. Sometimes the horse will try some other things when you ask for this but you can just wait them out.
Steve talked about how important bending is- he has lost friends because their horses would not bend when they needed them to. This is a genuine life-and-death matter. We have to get it good if we are going to be safe.
We worked on getting our circles circular on the ground, with the horse bending correctly and following their nose around the circle, and then exaggerating that a little more to get a circle with the head turned in a little and keep the shoulders out.
Steve helps get flexion on the ground.
Working on three tracks with Brecon. Steve doesn't get to borrow other people's stirrups too often.
Both Raz and Celebrity were tending to want to leave before rather than with their humans when starting out. Most people don’t even notice if they have a horse that runs away in walk, but if a horse does do that it gives you a great opportunity to work on changing that pattern while everyone is working at a low speed and lower level of emotion.
"Are you ready to go, little guy?"
They worked on this through a simple turning exercise, moving forward then taking the hindquarters out away from the handler by allowing the horse to run into a feel on the rope, then changing from turning on the forehand to turning on the hindquarters to complete the circle and continue in the same direction.
Zorro steps across behind as he runs into a feel on the lead.
In some horses what was tending to happen was that they were bending their necks with the rein but keeping their feet moving forward. This is an indication that you haven’t got the horse’s mind with you yet. You could work with it by keeping the rein in place until the outside foreleg stops falling out, getting closer to the timing of the outside hindfoot, or you can stop, turn them around their quarters back into the direction they were moving away from and continue that way.
When working on anything like this we need to make sure that when we come to a halt we don’t give the rein back straight away if the horse isn’t soft to it. It’s really easy to do this and end up teaching the horse to brace on the rein. Avoiding this is an ongoing project.
Small looks at Steve intently. But then Small does, so far as we know, understand English.
Rose and Steve watch as Celeb goes by.
Steve talked about back-up cues as well- I have learned different cues with different people - Martin picks his weight out of the saddle a little, Steve leans back and drops his heels a bit, Tom and Sarah teach backing up off rein alone - they all work pretty well so it comes to picking one and sticking to it. Steve’s logic is that bringing his weight back is part of his stop cue, so the back-up becomes an extension of that, which seems sensible to me. But then I can also see logic to the alternative.
Raz was spending some time under saddle trying to sneak up to other horses and give them a crafty nip. Steve talked about how one approach he uses with horses that want to do that is to side-pass up to them and just rub on their foreheads. Get them used to another horse being there, make it comfortable for them but make sure they can’t bite his horse.
Small being a responsible adult for Celeb in the school - Celeb found the big field a bit intense.
The next morning discussing our ideas we covered moving forward- someone’s black hairy cob needed to be moving out more - getting timing right and raising the bar in our expectations. We need perfect flexion every time we pick up the rein and ask for it. We need to get the whole of the horse’s attention when we work with them - we only demand perhaps 5% of their time, so it’s not unreasonable to ask for 100% of their attention during that time. But we have to make sure there is something in it for the horse as well. We need to be connecting the inside of the person to the inside of the horse, and if we’re going to demand all of their attention it is only fair that we offer them all of ours.
I admit I mostly include this picture because I like Zorro's "80s rock" mane.
Looks like the really interesting stuff was going on just off to the right of this picture.
Becky and Camilla were both thinking about reading their horses better- if you’re going from A-Z you can’t just start at N because that is where you were yesterday. You need to work out where you’re starting up. Camilla was thinking about where her horse needed her hands to be as opposed to where she had been taught that they should be.
Small, only just back into work after his surgery but already looking really great.
Steve talked about how when he rides he thinks of it as being like Scrapheap Challenge- he has an idea of what he wants to get done, but he has to work with what is available to him at that moment with that horse- just because he wants something doesn’t mean the horse can offer it right now.
“I don’t want to scare my horse,” he said, “but sometimes he might get scared while he’s learning to be brave.” That is unavoidable with a fear-oriented animal like a horse- so much of our work with them is just helping them to become more confident. Sometimes you might have to make a choice between doing the right thing and doing the righteous thing, the two have been known to be different.
When we are working on this stuff it is best not to have an amount of time in mind- you need to get to a good point before quitting, but then if it’s really good quit sooner. Steve also observed that people tend not to wait around long enough after something good- it would be best to give the horse minutes rather than seconds when they have done really well.
Karen French, one of the finest riders I have ever had the pleasure of seeing sit on a horse, with her big warmblood Sheik. An amazing team.
sleepsy_mouse was allowed to ride him too. A truly stunning horse.Rose is another of Steve's associate instructors and Brecon is an impressive testament to her skills.
Steve used to teach people to work long and low to get the horse stretching but he observed that a horse can be long and low and light and filling the saddle or they can be heavy and diving on their forehand- he would come back the next year and find that a lot of people had something that looked right but their horses were just bearing down.
Working with Toffee, Steve pointed out a bulge showing in his neck behind his poll when he was being asked to bend- this indicates a brace in that joint that was creating a disconnection between the rein and the feet. Likewise if you see wrinkles on a horse’s neck when they are working they are not soft - softness goes right through the horse in every direction.
By this point Steve was pushing us all on a little- “Do you want life to be easier or do you want life to be better?” he asked.
Zorro stepping across behind rather nicely.
We did a lot of work on backing on circles- this is a great technique for getting a horse to work better from behind, to help them learn not to push on the bit and to build up towards rapid turnarounds. It’s also quite practical if you ever need to get a gate open.
At the start of the last day we talked about where we are going now. Steve told us that it’s important not to try and move on until the things we have now are truly weightless. Then we have the foundation that makes everything else feasible.
With the horses where they couldn’t yet offer their heads, or where they were reluctant to in some situations, Steve recommended getting in time with the feet at first to get connected to those. Over time they will get better at flexing. The feel of a push on the bit or on the halter needs to be eliminated if our horses are going to be able to respond to us as best they can.
Raz was starting to lean on the rein a little now - having gone from lacking in confidence to becoming confident enough to take over a little. Steve talked about how you can think of this as a pendulum between fear and overconfidence and that is always going to be swinging one way or the other a little- our job is to find the sweet spot in the middle and keep things there as well as we can. By the end of the session he was starting to be really settled when he halted, without jigging about or trying to move off anywhere, which was a big step for him.
As Becky got more effective Jake was starting to get sharper and move out better.
In the afternoon we played some cutting type games where the group stood in a group, one rider was on the outside of the group trying to get in and one of the other riders was between them and the group trying to turn them away. The rider getting in could be turned by the rider who was guarding the herd, but if they could get around quicker and sneak behind them or get well ahead they were in. This is reliably good fun and a useful way of getting us thinking about a job rather than trying to micromanage our horses.
Brecon and Seren have a grump at each other.
After this Steve got Zorro and I working on moving out faster and we spent a while cantering around the outside of the dressage arena - his big lanky horse was a lot quicker and poor Zorro didn’t much like being behind ( and having to go quickly ) and kept trying to cut corners. When we had got this done, Zorro wanted to go hang with the other horses rather than listen to me so we did some of the typical herdbound work where whenever he went back to the other horses he went faster and moving away he went slower. This is a great opportunity to work with your horse’s mind because they decide where to go but you ensure there are consequences for their decision. There is a definite feeling when the horse changes their mind about dropping back to the larger group as well, like elastic snapping, you suddenly have more available to you.
We finished the day with a game of follow the leader, which Zorro and I dropped out of as he was a tiny bit lame after all the running about and I didn’t want to make him work if it was uncomfortable for him, so we sat out and watched. The next morning he was fine - I think it was just a tweaked muscle.
I really enjoyed this clinic. I know I always say that- that’s why I keep going to them, but there was a lot going on and having the wide field to work in was a real benefit. Also Steve continues to push us out of our comfort zones and the results are really showing in all of the regular riders in this group, we’ve all changed a lot and our horses certainly seem to appreciate it.
You can find more about Steve Halfpenny and Silversand at the Silversand website. You can find the pictures from this report bigger over on Flickr.
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Date: 31 Dec 2010 18:04 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Jan 2011 16:38 (UTC)What? How did that happen??
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Date: 2 Jan 2011 21:04 (UTC)