Bob Wood Horses For Life

06/23/2025

Pictured is General George Patton jumping on a wooden bridge, probably at the Fort Riley Cavalry School. Such jumps were required because in war a military rider would inevitably encounter wooden bridges with obstacles. Lieutenant Patton was a Cavalry School graduate in the beginning of the 20th century. Military riders in that era could execute jumps like this when today few can.

When I began riding in the early 1900s under the instruction of a former military rider. My teacher, who was always mounted in lessons, did incredible things during our "follow me" rides out over terrain. When I taught riding, I explained to my students that on my best day I might be able to do 65% of what my instructor could do on a horse. I told them that they eventually might be able to do 65% of what I can do with a horse. Such is the downward progression of American riding during my 60 years of riding.

The result of this decline can be seen in the fact that many US Fox Hunts now hire Irish Staff to run their packs. Some Hunts breed slower hounds to accommodate today's riders. For those of you who know me and my barn, and know my apprentice Amanda, she was perhaps the best Staff rider in a local Hunt here in south Central PA.

For perspective, I sent Amanda to ride with the Genesee Valley Hunt in upstate NY. She had a great horse, Mosby, but returned to the farm from her trip saying she could not keep up with the 1st Field in NY. The reality is that some generational Hunts Like Genesee Valley have maintained standards while some have declined to become dress up trail rides with a nice tailgate.

I believe that this decline can be turned around if a cadre of traditional riding professionals is formed to offer something new that is really old, which is the traditional US balanced seat riding based on the French inspired Fort Riley Seat that included ranch riding principles. If this does not happen, the only remedy I see would be for serious US riders to train by hunting in Galway Ireland, training in the Czech Republic for their local steeplechases, studying dressage in Saumur.

America needs a horse center like Saumur in France or the Spanish Riding School. Since the 1970s our riding has devolved into superficial trendy "styles" from various disciplines. People need a place to go to see and learn balanced horsemanship that does not interfere with their horse's balance and movement.

06/20/2025

Horsemanship is about effectiveness in horse and rider safety. Old sayings like "The devil is in the details" and "It's a game of inches" apply to authentic horsemanship. I was taught horsemanship and how to ride by a US Army Cavalryman. He explained that there is a right and a wrong way to do everything. And he meant everything, never kind of, sort of, maybe. Everything at his barn had to be done the right way.

The other day, I went to get my new young off the track mare from a paddock. She is doing well, learning how to become a riding horse. I went into the paddock, snapped a lead on her and went to the gate. Once there, I saw that someone had placed a large object in front of the gate such that I could not swing it outward. I unsnapped the mare and went back outside the paddock to move what was blocking the gate.

Went back in the paddock, led her to the gate and swung it outward the way I was taught to do it correctly. I closed the gate and a young person there told me I didn't have to move the obstacle to get my horse out of the paddock because the gate also swings inward into the paddock.

I saw this as a teachable moment and I explained why I moved the obstacle so the gate would swing outward, which is safer. The young person told me again that I didn't have to go to the trouble of moving the obstacle.

I just thought it might be helpful to explain the right way because it is safer. Instead, I got a lesson on how I had wasted my time.

The top set of images shows the risk of taking a horse, especially a young not fully trained horse through a gate that swings inward. Young untrained horses when they see the opening will often bolt out of a paddock or pasture. In the process they can yank you into the gate if it's swung inward, cracking a couple of your ribs or some other injury. This is why my first instructor explained that there is a right and a wrong way to do everything. The bottom images show the correct, safe way to lead a horse out through a gate.

06/19/2025

Core strength is essential for correct and safe riding. It is from our core that we can most effectively apply the seat, hands and legs aids. The left image shows a rider with a firm effective core. The right image is of a collapsed core. Such a collapse can be momentary or chronic. We all have had moments when for one reason or another our core has collapsed. It's no big deal if you recover your core quickly.

As a riding instructor, the most challenging students are those who have minimal core strength. The difficulty is teaching the fundamental use of the aids when there is little or no core from which the aids must draw the strength required for effective precision. Horses experience floppy legs and hands or a gushy seat as "noise". A rider cannot achieve specific responses from aid cues if the horse interprets their aids as noise. Many horses get confused or irritated by constant noisy aids.

Many instructors care about a student rider's weight. I do not. I have had students show up for lessons that look fit, but they have only starved themselves into looking trim and fit, and they lack core strength. And I have had students show up that appear to be overweight and out of shape that have a well developed core strength. My advice, therefore, to all students is, "Get stronger" and forget about your weight. I have a horse for you regardless of your weight.

I will recommend a very good book on this. While it is often misunderstood, Riding Logic by Wilhelm Museler addresses core. It is a German translation with a few antiquated words. Unfortunately, Museler uses, or the translator choose the term "brace your back", when today the word "brace" has a new negative meaning. When the book was written in 1933, core as we understand it today was unknown. Regardless of the translation, Museler offers insights and techniques to use the aids effectively by integrating core strength. The book is only a 120 pages and it is very useful for all disciplines.

Riding Logic free PDF -www.archive.org/details/ridinglogic00muse

06/16/2025

There are barrel racers and there are barrel racers. There are the kind that help their horses balance and there are the kind that don't. Good riders balance their horse to help them keep their center of balance centered in their body mass, not leaning outside of it. Riders do this by keeping their body mass and center of balance over their horse's center of balance.

The rider on the right is putting more weight in the outside stirrup, which helps the rider stay more upright and centered over the horse's body mass to maintain a more effective shared balance with their horse.

The horse's head position at right is aligned vertically with the rider's balance. This demonstrates the more effective shared balance between the horse and rider. Effective shared balance makes the turn easier for the horse, and it eliminates much of the horse's difficulty in transitioning to the upright position required to take off fast to the next barrel.

The left rider is a passenger aligned with their horse's lean into the turn. The rider is aligned more with the centrifugal force of the turn, which drives the horse outward from the line of the turn. It also intensifies the angle of the horse's lean in the turn, which can slow the horse's transition to an upright exit from the turn into the needed acceleration to the next barrel.

Note that the balanced horse on the right is already lifting their inside foreleg to begin accelerating to the next barrel while the left horse is struggling with their leaning in the turn. Look at the left rider's feet in the stirrups. The outside foot has almost no weight in the stirrup while the inside foot has almost all the rider's weight in the stirrup. This intensifies the horse's leaning in instead of limiting it for a better balance turn.

Riding in shared balance with your horse means you must bring your own good balance to the party in order to share it with your horse for a more effective ride. When a rider balances only by following the horse's balance, they are a passenger contributing nothing to the ride.

06/13/2025

Some information about horsemanship requires the information to be elaborated beyond a simple explanation. My yesterday's post about the sequence of building riding skills is one such topic. You can't do X properly until you can do A properly. Yet I see so many riders starting with X.

The sequence of learning to ride that I posted about is not about riders as much as it is about how horses learn and retain learning. It is difficult for me to watch how today's riders and horse owners feel entitled to do it "their way" when that is not the horse's way.

One element of today's social correctness is a belief that everyone has the right to their own truth. I think this is what entitles riders and horse owners to feel their way is the best way without any regard for the horse's way.

Relativism has no right and wrong, but horses are unaware of relativism. They are prey animals with fight and flight, which are absolutes. When we stopped needing horses fo transportation, farming and war, horses lost their need to exist. People have now substituted some pretty stupid and dangerous "reasons" for horses to be part of their lives and those "reasons" are ruining horses and injuring riders.

Both pictures show people doing it "their own way". The left image needs no explanation. The right image shows someone tending to a horse, soaking a foot, which is painful. Pain can trigger sudden movements in a horse. The person is immobilized sitting while doing the work. Should the horse react to pain, (note lead thrown over the neck) the person is unable to quickly move away from their static position. Most horse accidents that end in injury to a person are over before anyone knows what happened. Therefore, preventive actions, like not sitting, are the only defense.

Yesterday's post on the teaching sequence -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid0GSmtQyFhK9vLdksT83PzCbEaseGBU5jBviPhNQieNg3JA317DUuCUR2C3jqyxyHul

06/12/2025

Discipline specialization has created discipline centered "horsemanships" that ignore the universal fundamentals of riding. This post is my logical progression of instruction for teaching the universal fundamentals that produce effective, as opposed to stylized, riders. It's a long post because it has to be to explain it. This process is much like building a house, beginning with the foundation, with a progression of steps, one upon another in sequence, until the builder reaches the roof.

Effective Riding's Teaching/Training Sequence -

(1) the Aids – Hands, Legs, Seat
(2) Balancing
(3) Tracking
(4) the Gaits & Transitions
(5) Evenness of Gaits
(6) Bending & Turning
(7) Collection & Extension
(8 ) Impulsion & Engagement

The first step is teaching a student the (1) Aids, which are the Hands, Legs and Seat. These are the tools of communication from the rider to the horse. The next step is teaching proper (2) Balance in the saddle as the horse moves. Without the basic skills of using the Hands, Legs and Seat Aids and learning Balance while riding a moving horse is extremely difficult, so we start here.

Once the student learns the Aids and has acquired basic balance when riding a moving horse, we teach the student to correctly require the horse to move in a straight line, or to (3) Track straight, meaning the right hind foot follows in the track of the right front foot and the left hind foot follows in the track of the left front foot. This is also true for a horse in a turn or bend.

Once the Aids, Balance and Tracking are established, we can teach the (4) Gaits and Transitions between the Gaits as well as the proper halt. And once these are established, we can teach (5) Evenness of the Gaits.

At this point, the riding student has learned to effectively control their horse in a basic way, and they can progress to learning how to correctly turn or (6) Bend their horse. Once the student learns these steps from the (1) Aids through (6) Bending, the student is an effective beginner rider.

The next steps, in this progression of basic effective riding, are (7) Collection and Extension, which is how a rider controls their horse's striding, both long and short. The final step in this progression of learning to become a basic effective rider is to learn how to develop (8 ) Impulsion and hind Engagement in the horse.

At this point, the student rider is at the threshold of being a solid and effective intermediate rider. From here, and only from here, should a rider begin to focus on a specific discipline because this is the foundation of effective riding for all disciplines based on the fundamentals.

Too many riding students today start their riding instruction in disciplines that lack these required fundamentals of basic horsemanship. A common example is in Show Hunters where riders are taught to focus on details that judges look for, such as correct trot diagonals or canter leads, before the students have established their fundamental skills beginning with the (1) Aids and through to (6) Bending, not to mention (7) Collection, Extension, (8 ) Impulsion and Engagement.

Without these fundamentals, things like focusing on diagonals or canter leads is like installing doorknobs and light fixtures in a horse before the foundation and structural framing are completed. Sadly, teaching riding without all these fundamentals is how riding instruction is often done today in many disciplines. This results in fundamental skill voids in a rider's ability. These voids eventually catch up to the rider, sometimes with dire consequences.

06/06/2025

06/05/2025

"Oh, you're just a trail rider." Many riders, particularly those in the arena disciplines, do not appreciate the qualities of a good trail horse. Any horse that can take a rider on a good long trail ride has to be versatile. The horse has to get along with other horses. It has to be open to new sounds, smells, footings, visual impressions and more without spooking. A trail horse has to listen to the rider in a crowd where other horses that might act up, take off, or otherwise threaten the peace and safety of the ride.

I have a lot of respect for anyone who can take a young horse and make it a good trail horse. The bottom line is these trainers have to build a high degree of trust with the rider in the horse. A good trail horse can handle mud, deep water, ice, rocky terrain, slopes, railroad tracks, pavement, traffic, ditches, logs, bridges, ticklish hedgerows, other animals from goats to cattle, or a bear to a rattlesnake, all without panicking.

I came up on a rattlesnake on a trail ride. It was coiled and threatening. At first, I thought the rattle noise was crickets. I was riding a well trained and valuable polo horse I quietly stopped and carefully backed up away from the snake without a problem.

I have had a trail horse with steel shoes that could be ridden over a bridge with a metal grid roadway you could see through to the creek below. We both could see the river 30 feet below as the horse's metal shoes made their way across the metal grate footing.

While trail riding with a group on a full moon night we once mixed in with a large grazing herd of deer as if we were invisible because the horses' scent covered up our human scent. On a January trail ride after a long snowstorm, my horse enthusiastically made a pathway through a five foot high snow drift for others. While crossing a hedgerow my horse's legs once got tangled in unseen barbed wire. He stood perfectly still while I dismounted and unraveled the tangle. All these are traits of a good trail horse. All these horses had been trained to face any circumstances on a trail ride.

If you think a trained trail horse is "just a trail horse", you are mistaken. Trail horses are among the best mounts because of their versatility, temperament and problem solving abilities. A trained trail horse can go anywhere in any season, at any time of day, in any weather. Please think for a minute and compare these trail horses to the specialized discipline horses we see today. I'll take a trail horse every time.

06/04/2025

Correct tracking is like train tracks with two rails, the left rail and the right rail make up one track. Horses must have a left or nearside "rail" and an offside "rail" to establish and maintain one correct track. In the diagram, the blue footfalls are the forehand hoofprints and the red are the hind hoofprints. The left graphic 1 track is correct.

In the two track 2 track diagram at right, we see that the hind has slipped out of correct tracking, thus creating a second track. If a horse slides their butt out to one side, we must correct it and return the hind footfalls back in line with the forehand footfalls.

There are two ways to make this correction. One example of a correction is if the horse's hind slips out to the right, we move our right foot back behind the girth and push the hind back into line. We hold the horse in line with inside leg to outside rein and outside leg to inside rein. Another way, if the buttt goes out to the right, is to apply both reins but have more rein pressure in the right rein. That right rein pressure, when the hind is out to the right, "compresses" the horse's right side, which is uncomfortable for a horse, so they put their hind back in alignment with the front footfalls and track correctly.

I prefer the first method, which is inside leg to outside rein and outside leg to inside rein. But with stubborn horses, the same side rein pressure that compresses one side of the horse can be quite effective.

Tracking is not only in a straight line. The footfalls must remain in alignment in a bend as well, as shown with railroad image. Tracking in a bend is when the inside leg to outside rein and outside leg to inside rein method works the best.

Proper tracking should be established at the beginning of training a horse to be ridden. This is because when a horse doesn't track correctly, it can't stride correctly, and if it can't stride correctly, then all other movements are compromised. Take the time and lay a foundation with correct tracking.

* link to tracking in a bend post -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid0JrSzN8F8nSGXSG8bZJgpsDpyWTXhbJBEjh3YQrHmSMGkSsXajSxPeYFkinFBT7aSl

06/03/2025

Here is a quick update on my new TB mare off the track. This picture is a few months old. When she arrived, she had lost some weight that we are putting back on her. She has been in quarantine in a dry lot and she comes off it on Thursday. She has settled in well, No signs of illness. She seems a little bored.

I have been working with her a little every other day, and she is quite intelligent and does not overreact. She gets a sleepy eyed look when she is groomed. I like her a lot. Thursday she will be introduced to being out on grass (the farm had great pastures).

I will be starting her training with the basics like standing still to mount, not trying to walk off in front of me when she is lead, boundaries, etc. She came with a little bit of rain rot and when I was working on it, she swung her head and showed me her teeth. Someone, it seems, taught her not to bite but allowed the teeth showing. She quickly learned not to do that. The rain rot is gone now.

It's been over three months since she left the track, and my sense is she might have bounced around a little in the time since then. We will build up her muscle before riding her by doing groundwork in the round pen. I have lunged her in the dry lot, and she is light, using her nice butt.

I sticked her the other day and she is a tad over 15.1H, which will be great for when she becomes a lesson horse. I played a lot of polo on small TB mares, and I can't wait to ride her and eventually hit a ball off her. Life is good.

Thanks again Turning For Home for finding this great horse for me.

06/02/2025

The linked video below is difficult to watch. It shows a horse landing a big jump on one foot and one knee. There are two problems in the video, one with the horse and one with the rider. Look carefully at the horse's right front leg that is caught in the girth as it descends into the landing. I suspect the front shoes had trailers, which are a length of overhang of the shoe that extends back beyond the hoof.

I am generally opposed to trailers for safety reasons. In polo, with close contact between horses, a horse can step on another horse's trailer and rip the shoe off, tearing the hoof apart. In trail riding trailers can get caught on roots, vines and rocks. Some people say trailers are safe in arenas because of the loose footing, but this video will change your mind if you think that.

Regarding the rider, look closely at her leg position when the horse descends and falls. Her legs are not in a defensive position forward of the girth, which allows a rider to better manage a landing when the horse collapses on their forehand. She does not land with her weight in her feet in the stirrups because her legs are back anticipating a safe normal landing. Horses collapse on landing a jump more often than riders think.

All the problems in the video are avoidable if safety is the highest priority. Get rid of the trailers and ride defensively, and the odds of this video ending as it does are reduced dramatically. I have had horses collapse on landing a jump several times and I avoided injury by landing in my feet forward thus having the ability to lean way back while slipping the reins, thus avoiding the kind of fall in the video.

This defensive riding technique comes from military riding. It is called the "C" position. I learned it as a child. As a cowboy I worked with once told me years ago, always keep the horse between you and the ground. It's not that difficult if you are prepared.

Video of shoe caught in girth that causes fall -

www.facebook.com/reel/3993194354227193

05/30/2025

Yesterday I wrote about the all too common riding flaw of today's riders, interfering with their horse's balance. (link below). It didn't get much interest, so this is a follow up. This rider is doing the minimum to not interfere. The image shows a partial attempt to center their balance.

The yellow line shows the horse's line of balance in a turn. The orange line shows the same for the rider. Note that the two lines intersect below the rider's throat, high up within the rider's mass.

The rider is leaning in less than 5 degrees, which is the maximum acceptable rider lean in any direction. Leaning beyond 5 degrees in any direction substantially interferes with the horse's ability to balance.

The inside leg pressure (red horizontal arrow) gives the horse a specific point for the of the center of the bend in the turn. The outside leg (downward red arrow) pressure helps the rider to stay more vertical, thus aiding the horse's balance. We can project that if the rider was more vertical (greater pressure in the outside stirrup), the orange and yellow lines would intersect just above the rider's belly button and thus be a lower center of balance and more correct, being closer to the horse's center of balance.

The closer we can get to having our center of balance lower and closer to the horse's center of balance, the more we begin to share balance with our horse in unity, which results in making the work of our horse easier.

One difference between being a beginner rider, regardless of years riding, and being an intermediate rider is the ability to balance in a way that does not interfere with your horse's balance. Beginners do not know how to not interfere. The difference between being an intermediate rider and a master rider is the master rider does not interfere with their horse's balance, and the master rider can also improve the horse's balance. Where are you in this spectrum of rider training and ability? Beginner? Intermediate? Master?

*link to post on how to share balance with our horse in unity -www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid0ZrJavVbEXonTKLx4gXA4bJrg43z1wxkphd133DzvaLt42QLGWbZZ5TFNqd5fAdYFl

*link to yesterday's post about not interfering with your horse's balance -www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02rKfzED7WUnjX5qge4MbTEH9tmwt75xUC5bzGZZchkzW3JAeV4f86R2nyDGu7Fk7Dl