Liberated Equestrian Horsemanship

Jarrah finished up with some training here earlier in the year. He came in as an unhandled brumby not long saved from kosciuszko. He's aged at around 10 and was a stallion with his own mob of mares and foals. He had a long time out there to very much hone and perfect his flight instincts - and they sure were strong 😅 he'd already learnt how to look after himself and others in the wild making a relationship with humans not something he saw as necessary. He didn't need it and so he was resistant to it. There's something very humbling about working with older caught brumbies. If you want to interact with them, you have to have something to offer them in regards to a meaningful relationship or else they would rather remain independent. A lot of the usual tricks for training unhandled horses won't work on them. You need something deeper. Any kind of pressure was frightening for him and would trigger his flight response to a high level so being given the opportunity to start him with positive reinforcement and clicker training was super special. It allowed an avenue for communication to begin. To get the opportunity to work with a brumby that didn't have any other training influence on him, to really let the positive reinforcement do its magic was a really cool learning curve. And it made all the difference for him. Learning the behaviours and the visuals of the cues with no pressure applied, first through clicker training and shaping the behaviours, and then once he was building confidence there asking with a little pressure and seeing the change in his mentality as he learnt to trust what people were saying and started to enjoy the challenge of learning and working out what things meant. He's one of those horses who has a special way about him and a wisdom far beyond most people's. He's a special boy and he's in amazing hands with his owner and I wish both of them the best in their journey together.

Bandit was in recently for a few weeks of training to help him find some relaxation undersaddle. He even had a go trying some bitless riding and it was pretty cool to see how much more he stretched out in his body when the bit was removed. Which I'll post some freeze frames of when I next get a chance cause the difference is quite amazing 😳 The first 2 clips show his "before" where you can see when he gets a bit anxious he tosses his head and jig jogs. The 2nd lot of clips are from one of his final rides where he's a lot less worried about the aids and is trusting in what the rider says more and the final clips are of him bitless 🐎😄