Equity Horsemanship

11/07/2024

love is resistance

11/07/2024

At least this time I bought a vehicle younger than I am.

11/07/2024

Sometimes the only lesson we need to learn is how to refocus on connection when we're in unfamiliar and frightening territory.

11/07/2024

Houston we have a logo!

11/07/2024

Going a bit off brand but today has been hard. Yuri Gagarin and his rainbow unicorn plushie would like to remind you that now is the time to go chaotic good for those who need it most.

11/07/2024

This is a bit old news, but Major is part of the family! We celebrated by buying him his own brand-new bosal hackamore. Between that and his saddle this poor boy is a fashion disaster. The burrs in his hair really tie it all together.

10/27/2024

At Pony Express Obstacle Challenge! Peep our Rings of Power hair 😍

10/11/2024

🧡Neckrope Dressage🧡

For Bongo and me, it has been an incredible journey overcoming numerous challenges to ride him in neck rope dressage. ❤️We meticulously broke down every aspect into smaller pieces, ensuring he comprehended and synchronized with my 'new' aids effectively. On the ground, we devoted ourselves to teaching all cues with love and passion, which we now impart to our students.

Transitioning Bongo from riding with a bridle to bridleless riding was not without its challenges, yet it taught me invaluable lessons. These lessons may resonate with you and your horse as well:

Gratitude for Subtle Transformations: Appreciate and acknowledge even the smallest progress and understanding shown by your horse. Celebrating these moments reinforces positive learning experiences.

Breaking Down Challenges: When your horse struggles to understand something, break the exercise into manageable steps. This approach ensures consistent small victories, boosting both your and your horse's confidence over time.

Groundwork Problem Solving: Address riding challenges by first solving them on the ground. This approach minimizes tension during mounted sessions and fosters clearer communication between you and your horse.

Cherishing Magical Moments: Enjoy and cherish the small, magical moments spent with your horse. These moments strengthen your bond and make every interaction meaningful.

Regular Video Analysis: Record your sessions regularly to observe your horse's movement objectively. This visual feedback helps align your perception with the reality of your horse's performance.

Embrace these lessons as part of your journey with your horse, nurturing a deeper connection and enhancing your training experience.

Link in bio🐴

10/02/2024

Major's bosal setup arrived today! It will take some time to mold to his snoot but look how handsome he is!

Pardon his hair, the wild lentils are in season and they are a horsey delicacy. 🫠

09/29/2024

When I get a horse who's just completely unwilling to engage at all, we step back to just this. Even before 'liberty kindergarten' some horses need to realize that people can even hear them when they talk.

Is this rewarding behavior that we *don't* want? Why are you removing pressure when the horse avoids you? Then he'll just learn he can avoid everything...

No! We're rewarding communication. This stage creates the spark of trust that everything else is built on. Eventually we'll be able to say "I see that you're bothered, but I'd like you to try just a little bit." That horse trusts our leadership to know we'll keep him safe even when he's scared. But first he needs to know we're listening.

09/29/2024

Geronimo and I took a field trip with his new bestie Pal, to event 1 of the Pony Express Obstacle Challenge Buckle Series! The times were super competitive and Geebs did great, so I think we would have placed if I had let him boogie a little more!

09/25/2024

The Major Moose and I out for his physical therapy walk on the levee. We zigzag up and down the slope to strengthen his back and core. We have exercises we do at home too to help with those things plus proprioception.

09/12/2024

Everyone is safe and dry, with their temporary tats still intact (but thankfully unneeded). The only real flooding was on the road into the farm and the back acre of the hay field. The road is already clear and the field is drying up fast!

08/01/2024

It's after midnight so it's official! Welcome to the family!

Major Freak, known as Major and sometimes Moose or Moosie at home, is a 7 year old Louisiana-bred Thoroughbred gelding. He raced a total of 10 times as a 3, 4, and 5 year old. After some bodywork he will be learning liberty and obstacles and maybe schooling dressage. ❤️

05/04/2024

I have this old hot walker in my backyard, between the house and the pastures. I don't know if it works, but it's great for teaching horses how to tie! (I also clip my retractable clothesline to it 😅)

After they know how to give to pressure and behave on-line, they are introduced to the high tie. They've got very little leverage with which to hurt themselves, and the whole thing does rotate a bit if you work hard enough so it's not a completely hard tie. That little bit of give helps relieve the feeling of being trapped, and they typically only pull hard once, if at all.

Major is an OTTB in for training. So far he's learned liberty basics for connection and trust, hobbling, standing tied, standing for tacking up and hoof trims at liberty. He's currently working on bridleless riding and improving his canter transitions.

05/04/2024

Some good points! I do hobble train my horses to broaden their grazing opportunities, especially when away from home. I do it as described in this post, by first teaching to lead by a rope around any leg. They're never left unattended, and I put them away when their tummies are full and they start looking for other things to do!

GADGETS

I got an email asking for my opinion on the use of nosebands when working with horses. This prompted me to dig out a post from a few years ago that I wrote on the use of gadgets.

It is a very controversial subject and tends to create extreme views from both the proponents and opponents.

I guess before discussing them; it would be best to define what we are talking about when we talk about gadgets.

What is a gadget?

My definition is a gadget is any device designed to impose a behaviour on a horse that a person can not use with feel in real-time.

This may not be a satisfactory definition so if you have a better definition please feel free to add it in the comments.

The sort of devices that I feel can be described as gadgets are tie downs, nosebands, side reins, training hobbles, Chambon, Pessoa, tied lead ropes, blinkers, anti-cribbing collars, etc because the human can not use them with feel and make adjustments moment to moment in how they are applied.

Items that I don’t believe fall into the category of a gadget are bits, whips, spurs, reins, flags, halters, untied lead rope, etc. The effectiveness of these devices as communication aids is entirely dependent on the input from the rider or handler.

Both gadgets and non-gadgets are designed to convey an idea to a horse. Nevertheless, when a device works without the need for a rider or handler to present feel through the device, the idea now becomes imposed on a horse. Any time a human cannot constantly adjust the feel that a horse experiences, the device becomes a gadget.

But what is so wrong with using a gadget to communicate an idea to a horse?

In good horsemanship we want our idea to become a horse’s idea. Remember, I’m talking about what the horse is thinking, not what it is doing. If it has the same idea we want it to have, it will do as we hoped because a horse is always trying to do what it is thinking. The most important component of helping a horse to have the same thoughts as us is to encourage it to search through all of its options.

This means we allow our horse to have choices. If we make the idea we want our horse to have appear like it is the best option, it will dismiss the not-so-good ideas. The important part here is that our horse decides for itself that out of all the available choices, the one we want it to choose is the best. It dismisses the others as a bad idea.

When presenting a horse with an idea we are always competing with alternative thoughts that pop in and out of a horse’s mind. By allowing our horse to explore those alternative ideas, we allow it to reject each of them one by one until it finds the best idea. When it discovers the idea that our horse believes provides safety and comfort, there will be minimum resistance and trouble between us.

This is where gadgets fail us. By their nature gadgets do not allow a horse to freely explore alternative responses. A horse never gets to dismiss a bad idea because it never gets to explore it as an option and decide for itself that it didn’t work out well. Instead, the gadget just imposes the response or behaviour we want and leaves the alternative idea as a potential choice in a horse’s mind.

Let’s look at an example of this. Tongue plates are used to prevent horses from putting their tongue over the bit. A horse that wants to put its tongue over the bit does it for a reason. It is usually searching for safety and/or comfort and putting the tongue on top of the bit is part of its exploration to find the best response. A tongue plate physically blocks the tongue being placed over the bit. However, it does not address the reason why a horse keeps trying to get its tongue over the bit. It just minimizes the behaviour. It never becomes the horse’s idea to not get its tongue over the bit, so the horse never feels okay about the tongue plate. It also never entirely dismisses the possibility of one day trying to put its tongue over the bit again. This same principle applies to just about any gadget I can think of.

I sometimes hear that the problem with gadgets is that people don’t know how to use them correctly. When used properly they are a great help to a horse. Often side reins are cited because the Spanish Riding School, one of the esteemed centres of classical riding, invented them. I have been told that if the SRS uses them they must be a good idea. But of course, this is nonsense. The SRS does not own “good ideas” when it comes to training horses. Just because they are good at what they do, does not mean that what they do is good.

The desire of people to solve a problem as easily and quickly as possible is why gadgets have become so popular. They are a shortcut means of getting something done. My response to people who say that when a gadget is used correctly it can be a great benefit to a horse is if you don’t know how to train a horse without the use of the gadget, then you don’t have the skill to use them “correctly”. The simple answer is that they are just anti-good training.

Having said all that, I will admit that I have trained my horses to wear hobbles. It has always been in preparation for travelling on long distances treks where it has been necessary to allow my horses to graze overnight. Hobbles enabled the horses to move about while grazing, but restricted their roaming while I slept at night. This was so I didn’t spend half of the next day looking for them.

Training horses well is a skill that is learned over a long time. It is not possible to circumvent the process by taking shortcuts. The behaviour that gadgets are intended to shape is something that good horse people learn along the way to becoming good horse people. A person cannot learn to be a talent with a horse by resorting to gadgets because they undermine the process of becoming a good horse person.

Here is a quick quiz. I have often said there are no golden rules in horsemanship. So can you think of any gadget that is an exception to the rule that gadgets are not good training?

Photo: Here is an example of a gadget a.k.a. noseband.

05/01/2024

What potentially life-saving skill has Major learned? Hint: it's not eating!

04/06/2024

We're going to miss Ruby when she finds her forever home! Now that she's at a good weight she's getting to really start her liberty foundation. She is already broke to ride but I'm working with her from the ground up to build her confidence and find any sticky spots she might have. Feel free to reach out for more information on this special girl!