Monthly Archives: January 2017

The Old Tire Carcass Trick

Training Horses

I remember watching John Lyons work with a young horse at a symposium in San Antonio. He placed an old tire carcass on the ground and had the colt step in it with his front feet. When the colt got quiet, John moved his own leg backward along the colt’s side and bumped him softly. After a while the colt took a step away from John’s leg with only a back leg, because his front legs were confined by the tire.

Nowadays we don’t use the tire so much, although it might be a good idea on some colts. I recommend sitting slightly forward in the saddle, using the reins to keep The head, shoulders, and front legs in position, slide your leg on one side backward. Do not kick, but lightly squeeze, we want the position to mean something not the pressure. Now, as you were doing from the ground, tap just behind your leg with the stick. This already has meaning to the colt. Sooner or later he will step over with a hind leg. Reward him a with a rub of your hand. Now go to the other side. This “one step over, each way” begins the process. When it gets easy, take two steps. Then three. Sooner or later you will be able to turn him completely around without his front legs leaving their position. This is called a turn on the forehand, or indirect pirouette. You have established a communication with your horse that says “when I change my leg position backward, you move your haunches and back legs away from it.” This should be part of every day’s work, but only for a short period of time, not enough to give him or you sore muscles. I don’t mean to come across as the oracle. I’ve struggled with these training problems long enough that wish for others to have an easier path. I’m glad horse’s can’t talk, otherwise I’d have to hire the KGB to guard my string, lest they give you their version!

Two Tracking Two

Equitation, Training Horses

Back to the subject of “two tracking”, or lateral movement of a horse. I’ve discovered that people and horses both tend to avoid performing lateral movements of the horse’s hindquarters. The horses don’t like it because it’s hard to do, and they would rather do things easily and efficiently, rather than elegantly and athletically. People have a similar problem, because using the legs to signal a horse is difficult, but also because we seem to have a penchant for using our hands (even though most of us don’t spend a lot of time hanging from limbs anymore).

Watch a youngster or beginner try to open and close a gate horseback and you’ll see what I mean. First the horse won’t “parallel park” next to the gate to allow the person to reach the latch. Then, the horse wants to push the gate open with its nose.

Moving the hindquarters starts from the ground. When you are working with the horse at halter, stand near his shoulder, and with a stick or light dressage whip, softly tickle his ribs near where your leg would be if you slid it back from its normal resting position. If he doesn’t step over, get a little more insistent with the stick until he takes a step away from you. At that point stop asking him immediately, and stroke his neck with your hand. Now go around to the other side and repeat the procedure. Do this on both sides until he moves away from the touch of the whip as light as a fly landing on his hair. Every day when working with the colt do the exercise until it is so routine that all you have to do is touch his rib cage to move his hindquarters over as much or as little as you need. This is the flexion of the haunch, and is an important building block for collection, either in a cow horse or a dressage or dancing horse.

Soaking Your Horse

Training Horses

“Let ‘em soak a while”,was what Buck would tell me. Sometimes that meant that when we’d been riding a colt for a month or two, he would turn them out to pasture for a few months before bringing them back in to work again. Also, early on, it meant to allow the colt time to accept the confinement of saddle, bridle and tie ring.

After some “sacking out ” he’d saddle the colt, fit him with “a pair o’bits” referring to a snaffle, and tie him from a limb of an oak tree and leave him for an hour or two. (We’d ride off on other horses to check cattle.) When the colt stopped pawing, swishing his tail, whinnying and tossing his head, Buck would untie him and begin working him on the end of the rope in circles in the small pen.When the colt softened in his attitude, and was moving in a smooth and relaxed way, Buck would quit the work, unsaddle him, and turn him out. After a few days of this, the colt would be pretty accustomed to being saddled and bridled. At that point we’d go on and “pony” him, dallied to the saddle horn of an older horse. Of course the “sack of potatoes” on the colt’s back, to get him used to carrying weight, was me.

The soaking time is important because the horse needs to be in a learning frame of mind in order to be taught or trained. If he is irritated or distracted or scared or angry, the teaching doesn’t seem to “stick”. When he reaches a point of acceptance, his eye will have a softer look, his ears will be up and moving, his nostrils will be relaxed, not wrinkled up, his tail will be quiet, and he will lick and chew with his mouth. Usually he will also have lowered his head and neck. All this without any active work – just time. Learning patience from those patient old oak trees.

Winter’s Solstice

Stories

This past Wednesday night we just decided spontaneously to have a “Leap the fire” Party. You say “what the heck is that?” So, I guess I need to delve into the history of our family. All the branches of our family, whether scotch-Irish, German, Spanish, Native American or in my case Martian, I guess, have traditions relating to the changes of the season produced by the behavior of mother Earth’s relationship to the sun and Moon (and possibly other Celestial bodies). When our kids were growing up we begin celebrating the equinox and solstice with bonfire parties, like the old Gaelic, Teutonic, Native American, etc. We did fix traditional foods and even sometimes dressed up (kilts, etc.). We had traditional libations (wassail, eggnog, coors, black Jack) and sometimes some of us played musical instruments, guitars, fiddles, even bagpipes (musical instrument?) Anyway, and on occasion we did get to singing and even a little dancing and acting silly. Someone even referred to the summer solstice as “the festival of the Bandicoot, when the constellation of Chingas the Duck rises in the west!” OK, that’s enough Dave, sit down and be quiet!

So, on December 21, 2016, we gathered the family, piled up oak limbs and cedar boughs in the front yard,let our grandkids light the fire. And stood around as the sun went down. We ate soup and sourdough biscuits and “Creasy greens”, and sang Christmas songs, ( at least the verses we could remember) and howled with the coyotes who tuned up down the pasture. Goodbye to Fall, hello to Winter. At least the good news is that from this date on, the days get longer. Maybe I’ll be able to stay up past seven o’clock!