AAJC Horse Training

02/23/2022

One handsome peanut!

11/01/2021

Happy Halloween! 👻🦄🎃

07/31/2021

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06/13/2021

Look who finally made it out to the barn again! Eddie had an awesome day with his favorite 4 year old!

10/31/2020

👻 Happy Halloween! 🎃

09/25/2020

Kids get it done! Couldn’t have had a better ride on Eddie myself if I tried.

09/05/2020

Doesn’t look like much but this was huge for our mustang friend! Luke is the type of horse where trust means the world and until that bond is cemented with his handler he is afraid of everything and ready to bolt even if that means running you over. Ari has been working on ground work everyday with him and although he’s obviously unsure about things still, he will follow her anywhere!

09/03/2020

Throwback to one of our despooking training day! It’s important to not only work on despooking your horse but also for you as a rider to know how to go through that process! Don’t just have your trainer do everything! Ask to be involved in the process that way if you ever run into a scary item on your own you will know how to handle it.

08/23/2020

“Almost had to use the wall to stop ourselves there!”
We finished our 30 days with Mr. Wick! Here are some of Wick’s results from his month staying with us. This video shows the first and last day that we worked with him. (As well as his mom’s first ride back on him)
Wick was normally ridden in a hackamore, but we placed him in a snaffle in order to try to soften him up in both the face and body. He was very heavy on the reins, as well as hard to bend in the body. Our main goals here were:
1. Head collection
2. Bending (not leaning) in a circle
3. Actually stopping when we ask and not running through the reins.
This handsome boy is such a quick learner. He’ll make a dang good rodeo partner with his mom off in college!

07/29/2020

In this video, Anna is showing Wick how to use his body in a different way than he’s used to. Training a horse to collect their head and bend at the ribs is fundamental to getting a horse that’s light in the bit, and light on their leg cues.
Throughout the video, you can see Wick drop his head when asked, and —instead of planking through them, he starts to curve his body around the turns. Anna asks these responses of him with less and less rein and leg cue, and eventually, he will get more tuned to what the rider is asking of him with each movement.

We’re working on giving Wick lore “buttons”!

06/16/2020

Your horse isn’t the only one who needs to be in shape! Leg exercises ranging from in the saddle two-point and posting to ba****ck riding are great means for conditioning to make sure not only your horse but also the ride is at the top of their game.

06/13/2020

Here’s Anna trail training with a bike! During this exercise, Ed was exposed to bikes riding next to him, behind him, passing him, and leading him throughout the whole 9 mile trail. This method helps horses feel less apprehensive about bikes in general; this way, when bikes pass or follow them in the future, they know they’ll live to see another day 😂.

06/09/2020

Horses’ brains are fantastic and intricate organs. Just like us, they get bored with the monotony of doing the same thing every day, it’s fun for both us and them to teach them new things!

Luu and Ari have been working toward improving their spins lately, particularly spins with one hand.
These are Luu’s first two sessions of putting her brain toward learning a new command (since normally spins with her have been done with two hands.) She’s learning quickly how to collect her head in the spin, cross over more efficiently, and plant her back feet. The goal is for Ari not to have to raise her hand to prompt Luu to collect herself, but for the horse to just maintain the desired body position herself. Watching her process and figure out the new command is always interesting to watch, and always makes us feel so prideful that our horses take so much energy to try to learn to communicate with us.

06/07/2020

“That neck thing”; Movement and flexibility of your horse’s body is of benefit to both you and the horse you’re on. If you have control of where and when your horse flexes his neck, you have control of what he’s looking at, where he’s going, and what his front feet are doing.

Having a horse yield his neck to your hands will also help the horse feel softer in the bit. Horses like to move in the path of least resistance. In this video, Ari is not allowing the horse to return his head to the more comfortable place until he has ‘given’ his head, and only then takes pressure off of her rein. Ari is reinforcing that the horse yielding his head voluntarily is preferred to him pulling his head back with brute force. This will lead to him starting to move his head and neck with more ease. This movement is the foundation for getting a nice headset, is helpful in getting movement back in a horse who “stoves up”, and is also a great ‘emergency brake’ if your horse starts bucking/rearing.

This video was taken in the middle of a conversation with the owner of the horse Ari is on. The audio isn’t the best because it is windy outside, but we pride ourselves in doing more than just ‘tuning up’ horses. We like for our clients to be able to use the same concepts we used on their horse to continue the horse’s progress regardless if we are present or not.

05/30/2020

Exercising a horse’s patience is just as important as exercising their bodies. Here, Anna is having Eddie stand patiently while she holds his foot up (for much longer than she normally would when picking his feet.) This is good for everyone involved, Eddie learns to relax when tied and handled, anyone picking his feet doesn’t need to worry about him pulling away, and it will also help him stand patiently for the farrier!

05/26/2020

When it’s too hot to ride, brain days are in order!
This is a trust exercise Ari did with Luu earlier this week. Backing into strange contraptions is a hesitation of most horses; they can’t see exactly what they’re going into, they’re placed in vulnerable positions in confined spaces, and they also must be directable enough to actually back in correctly without hitting something. Because of all of these factors (and possibly more) the horse has to rely on the person directing them into the contraption, and trust that they won’t put them in a dangerous place. This concept can help with almost all situations one can come into contact with in their horsemanship journey!
This video follows Luu’s progression through backing into, and following Ari into the contraption that was made for this purpose.
It shows both the first time and the last of the session of each!

05/24/2020

We went on quite the trail yesterday! (Almost 15 miles worth 😯)
Our day was filled with learning experiences for both of our horses; we got to expose them to not only a new place, but also alpacas, cows, large (so scary) rocks, and tiny, technical trails to navigate their way through. They also got quite the butt workout 🏋️‍♀️

05/23/2020

The trails are a nice variety from the arena, and they’ve been so beautiful lately!

05/21/2020

Want to turn your horse into the perfect lazy trail horse?

When beginning your trail training it’s important to approach the outside world just like you would if in the arena or round pen. Just because they are outside where everything is extra “scary” doesn’t mean they can forget their manners! So even starting with the most basic of things such as lunging will be a useful exercise for laying the foundation for a good trail horse.

05/19/2020

Arena too small for social distancing? Go get your work done outside!

05/18/2020

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05/18/2020

05/18/2020

“Brain Days” are some of our favorite things to do with our horses. We use them to break up the monotony of working in the arena and round pen, and engage a different part of the horses body, their brain!
This is Anna’s horse, Ed, after she taught him how to pick up a cone. (He now loves every cone he sees.)
Never have get off to pick up a cone again!

05/18/2020

Here’s a few clips of Ari’s progression with Luke on their first day working together!
The first day working with horses is usually spent familiarizing them to our cues and getting them to understand what we are asking when we do specific movements.

The first clip shows Luke first learning to yeild his hind end to the rope, which you can see improve significantly by the third clip.
The second video is showing Luke figuring out the cue of which direction Ari wants him to go when walking in a circle.
And the third clip is the end of the session with Luke, who’s much more responsive to our subtle cues and much softer on the lead in just one session!

05/18/2020

Here’s a video of our trainer Anna’s third day of working with Whiskey!
Ground work is the foundation for everything we do here. If we’ve got good manners on the ground, there’s always a way to transfer that to the saddle.
Whiskey is quickly picking up our method of working on the ground, where we like to have the horses stay with us and respond to our cues without any pulling, pushing, or contact.

05/18/2020

Our favorite thing to see is how horses progress through their training. This is our trainer Ari and her horse Luu’s progress with being ridden bridle-less!
The first two clips are from about two weeks ago, and the last one (at about 1:45) was a video of the first time we ever went bridle-less about 6 months ago.
Couldn’t be more proud of this nugget and her progress!

05/17/2020

Welcome to “Double A” JC Horse Training’s page!
A little about us; we’re a small, two-person horse training business looking to help horse owners and their horses find common ground to communicate with each other, no matter the discipline. We train with the goal of horse owners being able to train their horse themselves! We specialize in ‘problem’ horses of all sorts; bucking/rearing/bolting under saddle, trailer loading issues, overly spooky or skittish horses, dangerous habits on the ground or even horses with problems as small as refusing to collect up and soften in the bit. We’re also trail junkies, and have a passion for teaching horses and their owners to feel confident on the trails. Whether your horse is afraid of water, jigs on the way home, or just can’t calm down on the trails, we can help make nature the relaxing experience it should be.
We offer single and bundle packages for our training sessions! Double A offers training sessions with both horse and owner, trail training sessions, conditioning/tune ups, and even round pen/riding exercise sessions. (Rates below!)