Story Time! Tell me about it

A few days ago I was riding Misstack out in the alfalfa field and she was just really exited to be out. Every time I asked her to canter she would start bucking a little. It had been extremely muddy and they had been kept in the barn most of the time. But I thought that riding in the alfalfa field were there was grass would have a little more footing. Yes and no. I trotted almost the whole time I was riding because otherwise she would have slipped. Well my sister was riding Ana and they went inside so I tried to get Misstack to walk calmly back to the barn. We were just about to get out of the alfalfa field when she decided she wanted to go faster. I made her circle until she stopped going so fast and she slipped. I grabbed hold of the saddle horn and she fell onto her haunches. I fell off the saddle onto her haunches. So I was pretty much on sideways gripping the saddle horn in my right hand in the reigns in my left hand. While she quickly regained her footing I pulled myself back into the saddle and regained my position. There was an older dude cleaning out his dog's pen not 20 feet away and he didn't even look up. I was like "I pull a stunt like that and you don't even notice? Come on!"

Respect and Control

In this little section, I will talk about getting some respect and control from your horse. What you want to do is take a whip and point at the body part of your horse with the whip. In this I do it with the feet. If you want your horse to move say his shoulder tap him on the shoulder (extremely lightly) and use the halter and lead rope to move his head and shoulders in the right direction. You could also push against the horse's shoulder too but with some horses that leads to a little war. Do what works best for your horse. My goal with this is that I will be able to point at any part of my horse's body and they will move it. In the video Misstack takes the weight of her hind foot but doesn't lift it. If your horse does this stop and praise him but then go back and ask him to lift his foot off the ground. Shifting his weight is a step in the right direction. If you can get your horse to do this he is showing you a sign of respect by doing what you ask. I read in a magazine that the reason a horse respects you is because you can get him to move.

 

This could also lead to getting your horse to lay down and rear. If I figure out how I'll let you know

Bridling Tip

I have a horse who will try to avoid taking the bit. so I was trying to put the bridle on her and she moved her head away from me. That gave me an idea. What if I had her move her head all the way over to the opposite side (flexing away from me) and then put the bridle on. It worked beautifully. She couldn't move her head as much so she resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't be able to escape the bit. This will not work on all horses. First of all some horses won't stand still if you flex their neck like that. Others are just way to frightened of the bridle to let you do that. I have another horse who had this on an extreme level. He would throw his head, back up, try to run away, and sometimes even rear. With him this would not have worked. He didn't like the bridle to go over his right eye. With time and patience, little by little, he learned that it wouldn't hurt him. Now I can put the bit up to his mouth and he will take it in himself. And slipping it over his head is extremely easy.  Part of the problem with Santana  was that inn earlier years he had been saddled and bridled quickly and probably not with a gentle hand. Try not to hurry through the getting ready process.

Discipline

My favorite thing to say is that "You can't let a thousand pound animal push you around," more than likely you will get hurt and riding a horse that doesn't respect you is no fun. I often wonder how some animal lover would react to how I discipline my horses. Not that I don't like animals, I do, but they can't be the boss. You have to prove to them that you are the boss. This does not mean that you beat on your horse. There is a point when showing them whose boss goes too far. You punish them way to severely and they will eventually fear you instead of respect you. You will have to figure out what your horse needs as far as punishment, and when there is too much punishment, but your horse is not a kitten. If you slap a horse the way you would slap a kitten for biting you your horse won't learn anything. You work with an animal that can run around 30 to 50 mph, can jump some 7 feet high, and can kick a pretty good sized dent into their stall that is made of 2 inches of solid wood. "Oh what a cute little horsey!"

Comments

If any of this helps you or you have questions comment. If you have a horse problem comment, maybe I can help. If you want to know how to do something comment or send me an email. If I don't know how I'll experiment with some of my horses (that's kinda how I work, I try to figure out how to do something by how my horse reacts to something or modifying something I saw someone else do) or see if I can find something on it and try it out on one of my horses.