FRIDAY 10/24/97
Colt Starting Demonstration
The place was packed. Cars were parking up and
down the main road. I got there about 9:15 or so and had to stand in the
back. He was working a bay gelding that I think was about 3 years old.
This colt had very little respect for humans and had learned to run over
them. He was braced on the left side and did not like anyone in his right
eye. Buck was working in a small round pen that was set up in the arena.
I don't remember all the details and did not write them down so I'll have
to go by memory so this might be a bit sketchy. Buck worked on getting
the hindquarters to disengage. The colt would shuffle its feet, not really
wanting to step over. Actually, it was more the case of not wanting to
step back as Buck pointed out later. This was a very forward moving/pushy
horse and he did not want to yield any part of his body but especially
his feet. Buck mentioned that he did not like this pen since it was not
that high (typical pipe panels not set into the ground since they like
to be able to move them around). He said the colt may try to go through
the panels and he did. This was after Buck had done quite a bit or work
with halter/lead rope and then without any head gear. Buck got the saddle
on him and he was OK for a little while until he felt the stirrups (at
least that is what I recollect). Then he started bucking/crow hopping.
When the accident happened it was a case of the horse suddenly catching
his eye on the right stirrup and/or having it hit the metal pipes of the
panel. The colt lost it and proceeded to climb the panel. He did not flail
around too badly and was able to step out of it but did bend them up a
little. Buck then proceeded to use the arena for the rest of the demo.
He got on his horse and uses his rope coils got the colt to move around.
Had trouble with the colt getting into the corners which he said only happens
with "domesticated" horses since they learn to hide in corners. He said
a real prey animal would never trap themselves that way. This colt took
a while to get responsive. One of the problems was that he would "tune
out" where he wasn't paying any attention to his surroundings. I don't
think it was a case of mental shutdown due to over stress but rather a
case of if I don't pay attention to you then you are not there to bother
me. What would then happen is that Buck would "wake" him up and he would
panic about the saddle like he completely forgot it was there (which was
probably the case). Someone with less savvy would have thought the horse
was being responsive when he tuned out and would be in for a big surprise
if they went to get on him. Buck would move him out when he had been still
for a while just to make sure he remembered that the saddle was on him
and the stirrups were still there. This colt was really bad about pulling
back against rope pressure so when Buck did get on him, he used the noose
of the rope for a temporary halter but soon took it off when he was up
there. He did the usual preparation stuff before he got on but did not
take a lot of time with it since with his vast experience he could read
that the horse was OK with everything. He did talk about taking the saddle
horn and rocking it back and forth to get the horse to stabilize ( spread
their legs a little) so he was ready for the weight on one side. While
on the colt, he used his rope coils to direct him. He had already gotten
him somewhat used to having someone go from one eye to the other. Buck
mentioned that he was working this colt harder and doing more in one day
than he would normally do. I don't think he would have got up on the colt
if he was at home but that "was what the people paid to see." Now that
strikes me wrong. Even though he said the words, I think all the spectators
will remember what they saw more than what they heard. How many people
will now go out and try and break a colt in four hours? I would hope that
most slightly savvy folks would realize their limitations but who knows?
Colt Starting Class
After the colt demo, he had the first group of colt
starters come in with saddles, blankets and their horses on halters/lead
ropes. They got to do what he had done although everyone had a saddle on
their horse already so the preparation was not as drawn out. There was
one mare that had been an orphan foal and then raised in a box stall that
did not want anyone in her space. Buck worked with her on his horse to
try and get her to accept another horse near her. She got a little better
but it is hard to reverse what years have done in half an hour. Buck decided
that she would have to be worked on her own in order to avoid damage to
the other horses mainly because the arena was too small and she could trap
a horse and do some serious damage. The colts were left saddled while we
had a late/short lunch. After lunch he flagged them, getting them to run
somewhat in a herd and working on the trouble makers in the bunch, mainly
the ones with no respect for other horses or him. Then the owners came
in and he got them to circle the colts, making sure they did not lean into
the owners, then got them to get good disengagement's of the hind quarters.
Then the worked on the disengagement of hindquarters and then bringing
the front quarters across for a turn on the haunches without the owners
having to get out of the way. With two groups of colts this took a while.
They were left with some homework the most interesting one to me was the
backing circles which I finally got to see. He does 4 versions, backing
left while on the right side so the horse's nose is tipped out, backing
left on the left side (nose tipped in), backing right while on the left,
backing right while on the right. He put his hand on the halter above the
knot and directed the hind quarters with his other hand. He would pull
left right on the halter to break the horses feet free. Interestingly,
the colt he was working on has a sticky left front which my horse, JR,
also has. Buck emphasized that the backing circles exercise was very key
in getting to all four feet. This colt also had problems with his right
lead which due to this sticky left front. Again, JR has the same thing.
So guess who will be trying this out now that I saw how it is done. He
told everyone to get a strap for the front of their saddle since it was
essential to help keep you on the green horse in case they decided to zag
when you thought they would zig. Of course, I have a hard time believing
he is ever caught thinking the horse would go one way when it decided to
go another but I'm sure he has had some very quick turns to ride out.
Horsemanship Class
The horsemanship did not start until about 3:30 or so.
First he asked everyone for their problems that they wanted to work on.
He demonstrated some very nice riding on the colt that he brought. Riding
circles and turns without the reins, bringing the life up and down to speed
up and slow down. He emphasized getting the horse to walk out not letting
it just poke along. (Something I have been working with on JR but have
to reverse years of poking along so I have a ways to go). (Side note: I'll
tell you when I see a Western Pleasure class, I cringe to see how slow
the horses go. I would fall asleep on any of those horses on a trail ride.
I can't see how that can be "pleasure" but enough ranting.) Having the
horse bring his nose in to a soft feel on the reins. When a horse is green,
he does not ask for a soft feel at the lope but sticks to the walk/trot.
He also does not ask for a quick stop with the soft feel at the lope since
he feels that it can hurt the form of the stop if done too soon in a horse's
training. His saying was a horse has only a certain number of good stops
so he doesn't want to use them up. He showed how he shortens his reins
but putting a coil in the rope that he holds in his left hand. We then
headed outside where the sun was about an hour away from setting. In the
bigger arena he had everyone work on their disengage of hindquarters to
a one rein stop with a soft neck bend at the end. Then he had everyone
doing the same at a trot telling them to try using the life in their body
to get the horse to speed up / slow down. He had them do serpentines while
going around the arena, again emphasizing the use of the seat/legs before
using the reins. It was hard for me to see anyone that could do that but
perhaps I'm too critical. This is another exercise that I'm doing with
JR. Right now, I over do it the way Leslie had showed us with turning your
head/body in the direction you are going. (Another side note: JR 's response
is getting better. At one point I asked for a canter and forgot to give
a slight push with my inside leg as well as my outside leg so I got a very
sharp turn to the inside which surprised the heck out of me but he was
just doing what I had been telling him to. I also find that I can tell
when I'm leaning/out of position because he starts doing turns when I think
I have not asked him to. I guess I should be happy he figures anything
out with all the "static" I give him. I know I need to concentrate more
and get more precise.) The last exercise I saw before I left (at this point,
I had been shivering for about 2 hours), was getting the horses to give
to a soft feel, rewarding for the try with a great, big release. One horse
in particular felt that he was not getting a good release and started rooting
on the reins, pushing his nose out. Buck worked with the rider getting
her to give a bigger release and "punish" the rooting by giving a quick
tug on one of the reins. The horse got better as long as he felt the release.
SUNDAY 10/26/97
Colt Starting Class
Yes, I missed Saturday. Today was a beautiful late Fall day with
temps in the 40's F but lots of sunshine. Everyone was enjoying it since
they said our first snowstorm was on the way. There seemed to be a lot
less people there than on Friday but most of the action was outside so
people could spread out more. We got there on time but the clinic did not
start until 9:45. It turned out that Buck was working the colt from Friday
in the arena since he was going to use him to flag the colts today. All
the colts were put together and the flagging went well with very few of
the horses not respecting his space. He spent a bit of his time working
with the colt he was on, getting him to disengage when he was getting out
of control, tuning up his turns. The colt did well, I don't know if he
used him to flag on Saturday but I know he rode him. Buck is a great proponent
of getting a horse busy doing a job is the best thing for them. If they
have their attention on the work, they are less likely to get into trouble.
The first task which had been learned Saturday was for the owners to get
on their colts from the fence. It seemed to go well. Buck explained how
he got mecate organized before he ever stepped on his horse. Keeping the
tail end of the mecate out of his way but ready to be wrapped around the
horn. This was a fairly well behaved group of horses except for one mustang
mare that had an attitude. Well, the owner had an attitude too and I've
always heard that the horse is a reflection of the owner. She left early
today and I heard she had quite an altercation with Buck. I won't go into
any details but everyone said that Buck treated her well considering how
she acted. It was like she was a horse, he did not take any guff but put
it out of his mind after the argument was over so he gave her fair treatment
afterwards. The main task was disengaging hindquarters and one rein stops
(They had to do 50 of them and if they lost count, they had to start over).
Buck pointed out that he one rein stop was supposed to support the horse,
bring the energy level down and comfort them. He made it very clear that
you were not suppose to release until the horse was soft to the rein otherwise
you teach them to pull. You were also to make sure that the horse truly
disengaged its hind end by stepping the inside leg in front of the outside
leg. As he said, they are as light (to the aids) as they are ever going
to be (so don't teach them bad habits.) There were a couple of people that
had trouble getting their horses to go. One in particular caught my eye.
There was a man on a horse that looked like a pretty green rider, bouncing
around at the trot, not flowing with the horse. He finally got a hold of
the crop to insist the horse went but his timing was real off. He constantly
would hit the horse after it went, not hard but it was easy for me to see
that the horse was having a real problem understanding the requirements
and therefore was not getting any lighter to his legs which were also too
busy. The group did some serpentines and started to work on the soft feel,
getting the horses to tuck their chin which was the beginning of what was
done in the horsemanship class. He said some horses would give right away
and others would starting backing up. In either case, reward with a release.
Later on, with the horses that backed up, hold for a give and with the
ones that would give, hold for them to back up. He said very rarely he
had seen a beginning colt give and back up the first time. The idea was
to hold but not too firm or the horse would try to escape and like with
all things the timing of the release is very critical. Work on seeing how
little it takes to get a reaction. He mentioned that if a horse can tuck
his head to bite a fly during a windstorm, it should not take a lot of
pressure to get them to give. He also mentioned in the beginning it helps
to keep her hands spread and always keep them low. Some of the horses took
a while to search through the possibilities of what was the correct behavior,
moving their heads left, right and up before they hit on tucking their
chin. Again, I did not take a lot of notes so I think that was about the
final exercise. There was one girl that was having a heck of a time trying
to get her horse to canter. She finally ended up getting a rope which helped
but Buck would not let her give up. He said, "You brought it up so I'm
not going to let you get out of it." You could feel all the auditors using
their legs to help her ;-).
Horsemanship Class
The horsemanship class worked on walking, trotting
and doing lots of serpentines (basically shallow turns that were initiated
with the leg and then followed through with the rein). One of the exercises
that he described confused the heck out of a lot of people including me.
He said to shorten up your rein like you would with a one rein stop and
sometimes release for the give of their neck. Then take it to not releasing
until they broke over with their hind end. Then when they started to anticipate
that and would disengage quickly, hold the rein until they stopped. I thought
how confusing for the horse since you keep changing the behavior that you
reward for. His theory is that it validates to the horse that they are
allowed to search for an answer. It encourages them to think it through
without being rushed. It is an interesting concept. I'll have to see what
my horses think about it. They worked on getting a soft feel and carrying
it at the walk, gradually increasing the time the horse carried it. They
would stop with a soft feel and if they felt a brace back up a few steps
until the horse broke lose. This was supposed to keep them from stopping
on the front end so that they were all prepared to go into a 180 turn.
That was the other exercise, doing turns on the hind ends (bringing the
front ends across). Later on the idea was to do that with a soft feel so
that the riders legs produced the turn while the reins supported the soft
feel. The soft feel was carried into the trot. The owners were asked to
back up x number of steps, rewarding with a release as the front foot hit
the ground. A good back has diagonals like a trot so it would be left diagonal
( left front, right hind), release, right diagonal (right front, left hind),
release, etc. One of the last exercises he had them do was to see how slow
the horses could walk (using the seat, supporting rein) and then how fast
the horses could walk, releasing the supporting rein and being more active
with the seat, encouraging with the legs if needed. Then were to try for
a quick stop from the fast walk, getting the horses to tuck their hind
ends in like a small version of a sliding stop. This was to be accomplished
by sitting on you pants pockets quickly, pushing the horse into your supporting
rein. They then tried it at the trot. There was one little mare that was
having a very hard time with the soft feel exercises. She was getting quite
anxious and flipping her head. Buck told her to discourage the behavior
by giving a tug on the reins when she flipped her head. Her owner was having
no luck with it so he tried it from the ground. He soon found out that
the mare needed to be retrained from the ground. He had the owner get off,
he put on a halter and lead and worked her. The mare had a very sour expression
on her face and a completely upside down neck where all the underneath
muscles were over developed from trying to escape rein pressure. (It is
painful to admit but my horse JR was getting these same muscles from my
lack of a good release. I am seriously working on this and am happy to
report it looks a lot better). Buck explained that years of bad releases
or no releases with the reins made the horse the way she was. He also mentioned
that when she escaped by tucking her chin to her chest that other methods
were used to try and deal with her problem. He did not mention specifics
but I thought of martingales and/or draw reins that were probably used
to hold her head down. Buck had to do quite a bit of work to get the mare
to give her hind end and not drop her shoulder into him. He explained that
this was not punishment but training the horse to a new set of rules. He
was not angry at what she was doing but he just needed to enforce the rules.
After she was doing well at that, he went to working with her giving to
the reins. As long as she was still, he rewarded her but if she started
flinging her head, he kept the pressure on. He would bring her head around
and rub on her saying she had to keep busy and needed to understand that
humans were a good deal. He worked on getting to her hind end using the
rein, pulling the outside rein to get her hind end to move towards him.
I thought the mare softened a lot quicker than the colt used in the demo
which had many of the same problems with sticky feet. He also did lots
of backing circles (see Friday's notes for explanation) rewarding her by
releasing when she dropped her head, tucked her chin and flowed more than
dragged her feet. He explained how dangerous this little mare was becoming.
She could fling her head into her owner and kill her or go over backwards
to try and escape. In the end, her expression was noticeably better and
the underneath of her neck was relaxed. He had the owner lead her off and
jumped on her when she held the reins too close to her head. He said "
I don't want you to EVER lead her that way again. That is exactly why she
is the way she is." The owner quickly obeyed and the little mare was lead
off very nicely. I just hope the owner remembers the lesson, I know it
is hard one.
