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Reflections on Riding

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Reflections on Riding

Search results for: make him round

Make him round

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by Katie in Equitation, Tack, Training

≈ 7 Comments

There are certainly other phrases of three words that I don’t care for, but “make him round” makes my top ten list.

It’s a popular instruction to a rider whose horse has his head above the vertical — horrors! — and who seems stiff or hollow in the back.

Let me preface by saying that I have nothing against helping a horse to relax over his topline and stretch into the contact.  Unfortunately, that’s not usually the meaning of “make him round,” which is the dressage trainer’s answer to the hunter-jumper trainer’s equally misguided “put your horse in a frame.”

The command to “make him round” ignores both the why and the how — why is the horse not round?  And, if you try to make him round, how do you do it? Beyond that, there is an additional why — why would you want the horse to be round?  And beyond that, how round is round?

Let’s look first at why the horse isn’t round.  There’s a reason.  There may be many reasons.

Has anyone checked saddle fit?  Recently?

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How to “make” your horse pay attention

07 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by Katie in Training

≈ 4 Comments

My loyal readers know that I don’t believe in “making” horses do anything.  I don’t even believe it’s possible to “make” horses do anything (and neither do others, as evidenced by the famous saying, “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink”).

So why am I talking about making your horse pay attention?  Simply because it would sound a little strange if I talked about how to persuade your horse to pay attention…or encourage your horse to pay attention.  Those phrases sound too half-hearted for such a serious endeavor.  And they miss the point — that paying attention is non-negotiable.

Still, it doesn’t have to be as deadly or as dreary as this spelling lesson in Chelsea, England in 1912

If you have horses that are unfocused or easily distracted…or more concerned with their own welfare than yours…or convinced that their agenda is more important than anything you might come up with…or who tune you out when they decide they feel like listening to a different kind of music than whatever it is you’re playing, read on.  I have some ideas that might help you.

Unfortunately, as usual, the onus is on you.  Here are some questions to ask yourself:

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Best of the blog

Here are some of the most popular posts based on reader response, along with some of my personal favorites.  Enjoy.

How to space your cavaletti

How to Ride a Circle

A Clicker Training Tale

How to improve your canter departs

From the horse’s mouth

Instructors vs. trainers

Another look at the two-finger rule

How to fall off a horse

Make him round

How to introduce the half halt

My take on the fake (tails in the hunters)

Balance

Beauties on the backstretch

Setup for success

An exercise for better corners

Song for summer’s end

Forward – say what?

Check the number

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How horse training is like making an omelet

01 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by Katie in Training

≈ Leave a comment

A couple, who are dear friends of ours, are coming to the farm for brunch tomorrow.  800px-Omelet_med_ramsløg_og_rygeost_(5650393498)They’re both horse people.  The wife is a fantastic cook (and a fantastic rider). They both eat eggs, so I asked how they feel about omelets on the menu.  The wife said she had never learned to make a great omelet, so I’m going to teach her.

Which got me thinking about what it takes to make a great omelet…how it’s an art as much as a skill, and requires feel and timing and the right tools.  It occurred to me that horse training is a lot like making an omelet.

The_Boston_Cooking_School_magazine_of_culinary_science_and_domestic_economics_(1905)_(14586388698)The right ingredients.  In order to make a good omelet and a good horse, you have to have the right ingredients.  Let’s start with your eggs.  Or in this case, your horse.  Horses vary just like eggs (large, small, fresh, stale, etc).  Evaluating your horse, like knowing your eggs, will help you move forward in your horse training (and omelet making).

There’s even more variation in horses, being sentient beings, than there are in eggs, so getting a sense of what it’s like working with different kinds of horses, with different temperaments, is well worth the time, even if you’d rather spend every waking moment with the horse that belongs to you.

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Who comes first – the horse or the rider?

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by Katie in Training

≈ 7 Comments

800px-White_chicken_eggWe know the eternal riddle as “which came first – the chicken or the egg?”  But when you’re giving a lesson to horse and rider, there’s a question that’s more important, which is “who comes first – the horse or the rider?”

Most instructors address themselves exclusively to the rider, every lesson.  Some tell their riders to make the horse do something, but don’t explain how. Some make improvements in the rider’s position that in turn improve the horse’s way of going.  Some focus on exercises or gymnastics, as part of a set program of instruction.

Rare is the instructor who focuses attention on the horse first, not simply as an athlete but also as an individual.  I’m sure you’ve heard instructors say, “the horse comes first,” but the phrase usually refers to the horse’s welfare (and it’s too often said but not meant, just like those electoral promises).  I agree that the horse’s welfare should come first, but I also think that focusing attention on the horse first, as an individual, can improve the horse’s performance.

After all, what is the essence of a great performance under saddle?  It’s the partnership between horse and rider.  And a great partnership isn’t based on selfishness. It’s not based on using; it’s based on giving.  I’ll admit, it’s hard to give the horse something that he or she rarely gets, which is to come first. But the payoff can be huge.

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Trailer loading and clicker training

07 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by Katie in Training

≈ 12 Comments

If I say “no horse is perfect,” I won’t be surprised to hear that I’m wrong, and that one of my readers has a horse who is perfect.

That’s because one of the things I believe is that once you believe you know everything there is to know about horses, you will make the mistake of making a blanket statement that applies to all horses, and then one horse will come along and prove you wrong.

So let me say instead, “no horse is perfect but there may be the exception that proves the rule.”  In fact, I’d love to meet that exception.

Until that time comes, I don’t expect perfection.  In fact, I expect problems. Especially trailer loading problems. They’re as common as high-fructose corn syrup in processed food and just as troublesome.

Many horses' worst nightmare

Many horses’ worst nightmare

I’ve worked with horses who were in trailers that blew apart while traveling…who thought it was more fun to play than to load…who would rather lie down and die than put a hoof on a ramp…and who were allowed to decide if they wanted to get on or would rather not.

I learned the Monty Roberts way, and use the dually halter with a lunge line or long-line for horses who need to re-learn how to load.  The pressure-release method usually works, and once you get a feel for how much pressure you need and when to release the pressure, you can turn most problem loaders around.  It’s not that difficult, and it’s easy to pass along the skills needed, so once you’ve fixed the horse, you can help the owner to keep the horse fixed.

Unfortunately, the pressure-release method didn’t work with the most recent horse I had to retrain to load, who spent nearly two weeks with a well-known Monty Roberts protege, working on loading.  When it was time for him to go home, he still needed three people and two longlines to get him on the trailer.

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A rider’s prerogative

17 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Katie in Inspiration, Training

≈ 13 Comments

When I was growing up, it wasn’t unusual to hear someone say, “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”

This now-archaic truism with its almost archaic noun still has value — especially if you include men and children.  It’s okay to change your mind. And riders need to remember that.

It’s hard for riders to change their points of view and habits, in part because it takes so long to develop those habits, and so long to learn enough about horses to even have a point of view.

We seldom question the first things we learn about horses or equitation but we have yet to call those ideas our own.  Later, we search out trainers and instructors, mentors, gurus, leaders and experts, and readily adopt their points of view, calling them our own.  Eventually, the time comes to evaluate, with the courage to question and the wisdom to reassess our beliefs.

"Know thyself"

“Know thyself”

The thinking rider can — and should — challenge himself to welcoming new perspectives and new techniques.  If you do, you’re among good company.

Philippe Karl, for instance.  New copies of his book Long Reining:  The Saumur Method are now being sold on Amazon for $413.22, and used copies are being offered from $125 to $900.  Why such high prices?  I have it on good authority that the reason is that Philippe Karl changed his mind about long reining.  He won’t authorize a reprint of the book because he no longer believes in this method of training, despite the fact that he is an expert on it.

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Post Olympics

08 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by Katie in Equitation, Horse Care, Training

≈ 6 Comments

It’s post-Olympics and, although I’m out of synch

London, Picadilly Circus 1903

it’s time to post at least a few of my thoughts and impressions about the equestrian events.

I was afraid that I wasn’t going to have time to watch the Olympics at all, but I made the decision to eat into my already abbreviated sleep time to go to nbcolympics.com to catch what I could (rather than blog).  Kudos to NBC for finally giving us a way to see everything and anything we wanted to see on our computers, whenever we wanted to see it.

From the comments following last Wednesday’s post, I know that there are prominent proscratinators among my readers.  If that predilection for procrastination kept you from watching the coverage, you’re in luck.  You can still see it — and see it all — here.  I doubt whether this will be the case forever, so if you want to catch what you missed, you might want to put your proscrastinating on hold temporarily, just this once.

There sure was a lot to watch.  It took me days just to get through the eventing dressage.  And then I watched the rest of it.  I watched almost all of the dressage and almost all the show jumping.  The parts I missed weren’t at the end of the competition but rather throughout the competition, randomly and frequently.

Increasingly frequently as time went on.  Early on, I optimistically expected that disappointing rides would somehow magically improve rather than remain the same or detriorate further.  Realizing that my optimism was unfounded, as rides went on, I made the decision to use my curser to fast-forward.  That saved time, which was important because sleep deprivation is cumulative in its ill effects.

Overall, I think the horses outshined and outclassed most of their human counterparts.

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The why?! files – bugs, bear & BOOM!

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by Katie in Farm Life, The Why?! Files

≈ 5 Comments

This is my least favorite week of the year, because where I live, the Fourth of July is cause to celebrate for at least a week.

That means lots of BOOM!  Not only fireworks — official (on at least two days of the week) and unofficial (whenever the neighbors feel like it).  Along with target practice at unusual hours.  Gunfire can be heard as late as 11:30 pm. Target practice round these parts is usually limited to the weekends, but not on the week of the Fourth of July…when it’s party, party, party.

A young bear chose this week to make an appearance on the property, knocking over the trash cans and lumbering hither, thither and yon.  My retired Thoroughbred thinks that a bear means the end of life as we know it. The other horses just raise their heads and look alarmed, try to comfort him and fail.

Several days ago, two Herefords and one Black Angus cross appeared at the fence of the sacrifice paddock, took a tour of the pastures and settled in to eat the Grand Prix field.  It took us a day to find the owner and the owner took another day to find the cows, who had then moved on.

This week, we also got a present of a new, mutant bug.  Of course, it bites. It’s one I’ve never seen before.  Has anyone else in the Northeast seen what looks like a huge (over 1″ long) fly?  What ARE they?  

And why do the bugs and the bears and the BOOM! and the stray cows have to converge this week, along with the rogue thunderstorms and temperatures in the 90s?

Maybe, if at least some of it goes away, I will be happy, next week, that it all came at once.  At least I won’t have to wait till the cows come home.

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On time

02 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by Katie in Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

It was nearly a year ago that I fell off a horse and broke my back.  Before my fall, it was a different time.  A time when I had big dreams and what looked like a way to achieve them, a three-quarters full teaching load, a financial partner backing me, and my Yankee-Irish horsewhispering boyfriend picking up the slack (and boy, was there was a lot of slack).

Everything changed when I couldn’t get to my feet after getting to my knees after falling off. Someone carried me out of the ring – the worst thing to do, according to the EMTs.  But no harm was done.  I consider myself lucky.  I still don’t know what made my horse take off that day, but my best guess is a bee sting.

What did I do right?  I shut my horse down and I tried to stay on.  What did I do wrong?  I didn’t stay on and I didn’t tuck and roll and I landed the wrong way.  I felt the strongest contraction I can imagine in my lower back but nothing else.  I felt nothing at all where the break was (it was at T12, the twelfth thoracic vertebra) until I’d been en route to the hospital for 20 or 30 minutes.  The sirens were blaring, the lights bright inside the space-age compartment of stainless steel, aluminum and white plastic, and the time was punctuated by little jokes among myself and the crew, distracting us all from the larger, not very funny, reason I was there.

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