But is your horse dinosaur broke? 🦕
But is your horse dinosaur broke? 🦕
Life made easy with @smartpak #kateabar
Refined backing on the ground
I love it when clients do their homework and put in the work with their horses themselves to build that bond and respect. Then they just ask me to refine and build on that:) makes. My job easy 😜
We use the One rein stops to work on our horses brake and gas pedal, but I also use it in nearly all my lessons to improve the riders confidence in controlling their horse.
Check out this quick video!:)
Let them commit to the mistake.
Melissa is working a horse new to the method. This is her second session. She was having trouble turning in instead of out. Melissa stuck with it, letting Lena commit to the mistake before correcting her. You’ll see at the end that it’s working! Lena almost turned out but caught herself. Good job.
Feedback for Melissa? I thought she did a great job! I noticed that her first “step out in front” was more of a “jump out in front” but she improved on the next two turns!
What Groundwork Can I Do To Stop Buddy Sour?
Sending is a good exercise to do with lunging to correct a buddy sour horse on the ground! In this video Melissa sends Case between her and his buddies. Then she sends him away in the opposite direction using the C pattern exercise and ultimately rests him away from his buddies. She’s making being by his friends work and away from them is where he can rest and get his air. This got him using the thinking side of his brain. Melissa reports it only took doing this once for Case to figure out being with his buddies was too much work!
Long distance Training
Melissa is my student at home. To help her continue to improve her skills while I’m away, I review videos and critique her work. In this video, I advised Melissa to not bend over so much; just take one step; and make sure she swings her stick up and over her shoulder towards the top of his hip (when she needs him to have a sharper yield), not down towards his legs.
Greetings from Portage, Indiana! Last Friday was my final day training at my Cleveland, Texas home base for about 4 months.
I put together one of my “chats” for You before I left, but in the craziness of leaving, failed to post it. That’s ok! I’ll post it now!
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The chat talks about Pops, a young horse that was just acting too “squirrelly” for his owner. He was fidgety, jittery, a little bit batty and a LOT in a hurry to go nowhere.
So, I took him through the Fundamentals IN ORDER. He needed to learn to be accountable for his actions. Then I basically did a TON of one rein stops and lots of cruising at the lope. He just needed to learn that we weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere and he could just relax. After one rein stops and cruising, we went to follow the fence. He picked this up faster than I expected! We put miles under his feet during his stay…and it worked! I followed the Method in order and made sure I was always patient and soft with my hands.
I can’t stress this enough. Horses of all ages really benefit from STRUCTURED training. Pops grew and learned at his own pace, but everything he learned had a specific exercise just for that place in his training. These exercises done correctly and in order helped him learn how to carry himself and how to hold himself accountable instead of his rider having to babysit his every move. Now, lightly ask, drop the reins and off he goes, softly and willingly. 😊
A couple of other things. I want to let you know that although I’ll be taking a break from training, I’ll be staying in touch with you through my page with videos from some of my students and how I’m using technology to help them, as well as other useful posts for you.
Finally, since I told you about the upcoming new arrival to our family, I thought I’d share that we’re having a girl! Sweet Lyla Marie is due in October.
Training People and Starting Over
Melissa came to me with a three year old recently gelded horse that had developed a bucking problem. Melissa had attended one of my three day clinics and three individual lessons but while she wanted to be the one to help him, she knew she needed help. So we worked three days a week for two weeks going through the Fundamentals with him and getting ready to “restart” him under saddle safely. After showing us he could lunge without bucking, today was the day for his first ride. Melissa desensitized, lunged, yielded the hind quarters and fore quarters and did lots of flexing, then Melissa mounted him and flexed him from the saddle. The next step was where having the two of us made all the difference. (See video) Going through the Fundamentals, Racer developed respect and confidence from someone on the ground. To help him maintain this respect and confidence, use the thinking side of his brain and focus on me, not Melissa, I used the stick and string to help him move his feet while Melissa worked to disengage his hindquarters and forequarters. From there, Melissa has Racer trot and canter on a loose rein while I support her from the middle. We ended the session with flexing and dismounting. A successful and safe “first” ride thanks to the Method!
Wildfire Training Day 1 Recap
Wildfire is a 4 year old mare in for training and today was her first day of bootcamp. She did really well with the exercises but is just quite a bit jumpy and skittish. So she gets extra desensitizating:) I’m excited to watch her progress over the next 6 weeks and I’m going to do my best to keep everyone updated as we go:)
#ApplyTheMethod
Friendly Time Chat
Here’s another video while doing our friendly time! This time walking around the front of the property with a beautiful sunset:) let me know what you think!
#ApplyThemethod #downunderhorsemanship #methodambassador #kateabar #aqhaproud #horsetrainer #horsetraining
