Circle2 Horsemanship

01/19/2023

Having the round pen away from the walls has turned into one of my favourite things. Here Luke is on a young horse he’s starting and it hasn’t freed up it’s feet yet. I’m riding another c**t that’s been a little skittish. As we cruise around the outside Luke is able to cruise along with us on the inside and before you know it he’s up to a trot then a lope and everything stayed calm and relaxed.
And Luke brings a much cooler soundtrack to our day!

01/18/2023

A pretty cool coming-3-year-old headed home.

01/16/2023

It’s always interesting to see what Tatum might do. This 3 year old is quite a bit bigger than most of our other horses and Tate has a bit of a stubborn streak when it comes to asking for help saddling. So she spent some time getting him to snuggle up to her on the step. I’m sure I’ve said it before but when she’s around some horses it would be worth having a camera on her all the time.

12/21/2022

Luke and I have been starting quite a few c**ts this winter. There’s a variety. Some are easy going and some are pretty suspicious and wary. We find ourselves taking a lot more time with these to win their trust. It’s pretty easy to keep score and feel we aren’t moving along as fast as we should. To be clear it’s our own pressure, not our clients pushing us. Our clients are all in it for the long haul.
I’d seen this picture some time ago and it stuck with me. The extra time we take if a horse is struggling is just adding a rung in the ladder. Some horses can make bigger steps while others need the steps to be broken down into quite small ones. It’s not worth it to force a big step and sacrifice the trust and emotional well being of the horse. Just add another rung.

10/21/2022

Luke putting the second ride on an exceptional c**t. Luke has a quiet way about him that’s helping this c**t to stay relaxed and yet responsive. Just taking it slow. Like my friend Shane says “We’d hurry but it takes too long” I think that saying fits here.

05/20/2022

Laurie Messner at Winning Strides put Shorty through a Ranch Horse Versatility course today. Shorty is consigned to the Cut Above Superior Horse Sale tomorrow. Check out the catalog. See you tomorrow!

05/19/2022

I got Shorty over to work with Dustin Gonnet of Gonnet Performance Horses to work some cattle. Nothing too dramatic, just nice easy work. The sale day is coming up. Shorty is one of a lot of great horses consigned to the Cut Above Superior Horse Sale on May 21.

05/19/2022

Bridleless one-man doctoring on Shorty. It’s a little long. I tried to drive the steer off the fence but he wasn’t having it. Shorty is consigned to the Cut Above Superior Horse on May 21. If you’d like to share that would be appreciated. Check out the sale catalog.

05/03/2022

Doing a little breakaway roping on Shorty. He’s making his way to Claresholm on May 21 for the Cut Above Superior Horses Sale.

04/26/2022

I love this trailer. It was designed and owned by the legendary horseman Bill Collins. If you don’t know of him it would be worth looking him up. He was a rock star.
I only got to meet him when I bought this trailer. I wish I’d have met him earlier. He passed away not long after.
Bill designed it so the horse rides facing the rear passenger side. I liked this because I’d found when I’d haul a horse loose in a stock trailer he’d stand that way. I attributed it to they keep their face away from dust and noise of oncoming traffic especially on gravel roads. And as far as backwards, we generally accelerate slowly and sometimes brake pretty abruptly so the horse can brace himself into the front of the divider or what have you and have a more stable ride.
What Bill did differently is he set it up to back his horse up the rear ramp. Bill was well into his eighties when he was explaining this to me. I remember well him pointing at my chest with his weathered hand making me promise to do the same.
So I had to go figure it out. I never would have thought of backing a horse to load. I still remember having trouble loading frontwards!
But it taught me several lessons.
Being in a hurry doesn’t work. Take the time it takes.
Try to find the slightest try and release the pressure. If we could release when he even thought the right thing we’d be away.
Intimidation and bullying don’t work.
You can’t force them. If you try it just gets worse.
Build on confidence and trust.
Help your horse to think through it.
Wouldn’t it be great if we applied these lessons to all the other things we do with our horses? I’m pretty sure that’s what Bill was hoping I’d learn. I wish I could say I always do but sadly I don’t. But, I know when I’m the most proud of what I’ve done and feel the best about how I’ve worked with a horse it comes back to that I followed these lessons. I’ll always be thankful to Mr Collins and his trailer.

04/17/2022

Here’s a couple more ground work videos.
A lot of it is redefining what pressure means to your horse. Instead of getting tight and worried with the reacting brain it’s about changing the default setting to soften and yield and get back to the thinking brain. We’ll replace the lead with the rein and the flag gets replaced by my leg when we ride.
The better I can get this going on the ground the better it’ll be when I ride.
A lot of it is just a conversation. We’re asking our horse to do some manoeuvre and see if he’s ok in it. If he gets worried and tight we can address it. It’s if we don’t address it that trouble can come. He’s maybe been telling us he has a problem but we never checked in then it’s a big issue and here we go. We need to look for what happened before what happened happened.

04/12/2022

I got a new toy to take videos without a cameraman. Here’s a short video showing a bit of the ground work I do with all my horses.
On the young ones it’s how I teach a horse that he can control the pressure that comes from my leg or rein. If he braces against it the pressure stays but if he softens to it the pressure comes off making a good deal for him.
It also lets me work on different manoeuvres like a leg yield, roll back or turnaround while on the ground. If I’ve got things working well here it goes smoother when I’m on his back.
On older horses it’s a pre-flight check. I’m just asking how he’s doing. Is he tight and worried? Will he let me direct his feet? If I run into an issue I’d rather deal with it here than on his back.
It’s like when you hook your trailer up to your truck. You check the lights, try the brakes. Much better to see how things are before we hit the highway.
I broke this session into 3 parts. The others will follow. If you have a question or comment I’d like to hear from you.

04/01/2022

Something that gets overlooked a lot is our horses teeth. I know I have.
I’m fortunate that I have an excellent equine dentist just down the road.
Daryl Sutcliffe is an equine dentist near Nanton that has been working on my horses. He does a great job and he’s very good at explaining his approach. I learn a little more each time.
I’d highly recommend him for your horse.

03/19/2022

It’s fun to see a horse you had a hand in training go on to do some cool things. A couple weeks ago a horse I worked with was shown by Jake Rodriguez at the American Rope Horse Futurity in Arizona. Although they didn’t make the short go Cuda showed very well.
His owner Dr. Beth Young now of Wickenburg sent him up to me to start and he proved to have an exceptional mind and an easy going personality. He went on to learn to be a rope horse with Weldon Peters. Weldon took his time and did a great job bringing him along. Cuda made his way back here to be a ranch horse, dragging calves and doctoring yearlings as well as anything my daughter Tatum could come up with. He went back down to Arizona last fall to continue his career. Such a cool boy. I’m looking forward to seeing what his future holds and I’m grateful for being a part of his story.

02/07/2022

We’re gearing up to do group lessons at Medicine Tree Equine near High River. It’s run by some great folks that make a laid back, fun atmosphere.
To start off it’ll be general horsemanship geared around getting handier working with cattle.
It’ll be 2 hour long lessons and I’d like to keep it around 6 per session.
If you’re at all interested give me a call or a message and I’ll be glad to talk more in depth and hear what you’re goals are.
Bill

10/01/2021

Great day for ropin! Matt has brought his horse a long way. So cool to see these two getting handier. A lotta heart in both.

08/26/2021

Whole lot of fun helping these young folks get handier. They just got started roping from horses but you can see they’ve done a lot of homework from the ground.

08/20/2021

08/12/2021

One of the best parts of doing clinics is meeting folks. Athabasca Ag Society invited me to do clinic recently and a young lady, her new daughter, mother in law and a cool horse came down from Ft. Mac to be a part of it. Chandra explained that there are limited places to ride up there so her and her husband leased land and built their own facility and they board horses there as well. Pretty cool I thought then she said her full time job is operating a massive rock truck and the world’s largest grader. How awesome is that? I asked Chandra if I could brag on her a bit because I think she’s inspirational. I have a young daughter thinking about career choices and I think young people and maybe girls in particular could benefit from seeing it’s a big old world with more options than maybe they thought. So here’s my tip of the hat to Chandra and her family.

08/07/2021

I never grew up with horses. Everything I learned was as an adult. I remember doing everything wrong at least once and trailer loading was no different. I was so fortunate to have great horsemen around I could learn from as well as tapes, yes this was before YouTube, and books to study. It’s something I’m proud of to help my kids learn these lessons. I’m pretty sure one day I’ll be the truck driver and barn help for Tate but for now it’s a treat to have her come travel with me when she can.

08/07/2021

People have asked why I back my horses up the ramp into my trailer. Trust me, I didn’t come up with the idea. I bought this trailer years ago from the great horseman Bill Collins. He designed it this way and made me promise to always load this way. I’m glad he did. I had to go home and figure out how to do it and that forced me to be patient and look for the smallest try. You absolutely can’t rush or bully a horse to back up a ramp. If I can keep this frame of mind in all the other things I do with my horses I’m so much better off and so are they.

08/07/2021

It was a great time to go to Meanook to help Josh Nichol with his cow clinics. We did one together last year and two this year. These 4 day clinics worked on different aspects of ranch work and finished off with brandings over the next couple days. One of the great parts of these is the positive atmosphere and the community that they foster. Look Josh up at A Horseman’s Pursuit.