Silversand Horsemanship

Buck Brannaman Clinic, Feb 6/7/8^th 2010

“You don’t train a horse – you get with the horse”.

This was the message Buck was trying to get across to the many participants and spectators that attended his Australian clinic in Tatura.

Buck finally made it back to Oz so a few of us made the most of his visit and traveled up, across or down to Tatura, in Northern Victoria to watch his 3 day clinic.

Steve hired a mini bus and together with Jason, Kurt, Reiner, Rose, Justyna and Janella traveled over the day before and met up with Dominique, Kylie, myself (Helen) and Joyce (who was actually riding in the horsemanship lessons),.

Tatura boasts a very large horse facility which includes an Olympic (or bigger) size indoor arena as well as a large outdoor arena attached at one end. There is a stable complex and undercover float parking, as well as a separate float and truck/camping area. This is adjacent to a caravan/cabin park and is over the road from the local swimming pool so as you can see it has an ideal setup/location for events such as this.

The morning session of the 3 days was dedicated to colt starting and the horsemanship lessons started after lunch. Nine people brought their colts into the indoor arena and Buck began the day with unsaddled ground work as he worked his borrowed mare inside the portable round yard that was erected inside the arena. Once the colts were saddled this was probably the safest place as he instructed the handlers to take halters off and then form a human fence to stop them from using the whole arena. A couple of the colts showed some mild rodeo displays. They soon settled but one coloured gelding in particular took a dislike to anything that came within cooee of his space by kicking out. Buck then roped this horse with a fine display of rope handling skills and let the horse sort things out for himself, instead of taking it out on innocent bystanders.

Over the 3 days these colts were ridden, firstly in the round yard then in the bigger arena, by some very ‘brave’ people as it would have been very scary to do this in front of a large crowd of spectators. By the end of the clinic these horses were left in a pretty good place, emotionally, and hopefully they will continue to improve in the coming months.

The horsemanship class had 22 riders which, at first glance, seemed a lot of horses in the one arena but everyone got on well together and there was actually lots of space to practice what Buck was trying to get across to them. I took down some notes so I’m going to do a quick rundown of SOME of them, if I can decipher my writing with a pen that didn’t want to write!

• Buck’s emphasis was on the horse’s EXPRESSION and not to be so worried about how he was moving because as his expression changes for the better, so the movement will come with it. Also, don’t accept a bad expression now (talking particularly with the colts) as it’ll become worse later on.
• Buck explained that he has 3 main positions when riding – Position 1 is a forward seat as if you were about to do a small obstacle, position 2 is sitting upright on your pelvis and position 3 is sitting back on your pockets in a more relaxed place.
• Ride your rectangle. Get the horse centred within this rectangle. The greener the horse, the larger the rectangle. If the horse goes forward, you ride back. If the horse goes left, you go right until he is soft and waiting for you. If he anticipates, stop then wait.
• A backup set is as follows – walk forward 10 steps then back 10 steps, walk 9 steps then back 9 steps, walk 8 steps then back 8 steps etc. Just because you are backing a set number of steps, say 7, doesn’t mean that you have to back those 7 steps all at once. If the horse offers you softness at step 3 then stop and release and then continue your set, stopping again if softness is offered at say step 5, then continue on again. If, when you come to step 7 and there is no softness then back a few more steps until this is obtained then release. Every transition must end with a soft feel.
• To get a soft feel, firstly at halt, take a firm hold with the reins (don’t pull) and just wait. Keep hands low to help horse to turn loose. Release IMMEDIATELY there is a change. If he doesn’t give a soft feel straight away then he’s not ready to hold it so don’t hurry the horse at first. Once this is coming along then we can ask for it at walk by doing the same thing – holding and RELEASING – at the slightest try but start off by walking with a longer rein, shorten reins, hold then release back to a long rein. This can be done gradually over every, say, 10 strides until the horse is accepting of this then you can do it more often. To get a soft feel at trot – start with a long rein trot, soft feel (as above) for one step, release into a long rein. Do this a few times then get a soft feel down to walk and a then a long rein again. Gradually shorten your times between asking as long as the horse is accepting of this.
• To stop with a soft feel – ride in position 2 with the hands low then once stopped go to position 3 and just teeter back until the horse transfers his weight to the hind quarters, then release once soft.
• For a horse that drags his front feet when backing – back him in a circle as they can’t drag both legs when backing circles.
• Every transition must finish with a soft feel. The better the soft feel in forward the better it will be on turns, stops etc.
• Hook the rein to the feet – get to the legs and any bit chomping will stop.
• Lots of backing in circles, hind quarter and fore quarter yields will help a horse that lifts his head in transitions.
• Buck does a lot (read hundreds) of short serpentines – eg, as if you were riding circles around lots of bushes. Take a short rein in Position 1 and ask for a soft feel as you walk around the object. Bend the horse short and keep them going forward and get the horse to bend around your inside leg. If going to the left, put your left leg back and right leg forward. You have to be in time with the feet and all quarters of the horse have to feel the same. Don’t let the horse just bend his neck only, to get around.
• If the horse has trouble taking the right canter lead – do lots of left backing circles and left hind quarter turns.
• For a left lead in canter from a walk (or a trot) ask as left front leg leaves the ground. The right hind will be about to leave and this is the leg that initiates the canter transition.
• There are 4 ways to shift the hindquarters -

                   Bend neck and use inside leg                       No rein and use inside leg only

                   Soft feel and use inside leg                          Bend neck and use no leg

• In the round yard don’t let the horse come to a standstill (on the outer circle) and just do nothing. They need to be moving or turning loose to you. They also don’t need to be let run needlessly round and round in circles as this causes them to escape. Do something to get them back with you and start again.

Buck gave a very funny display about mounting blocks and asked the question – Why would someone want to move an inanimate object (mounting block/crate etc) to an animate object (horse) when you could ask the animate object to move to the inanimate object? Isn’t he right? How many people struggle getting the mounting block to the horse, then get on the mounting block only to find that the horse has shifted in the meantime? He said to get your horse to where he can be mounted from any object in any situation.

Also he was very serious about not physically looking for your stirrup iron once mounted. You need to be able to do it through feel as very serious accidents have happened through a rider actually leaning over the horses shoulder when trying to find their stirrup irons.

This was an amazing clinic to watch and I would recommend anyone that is serious about their horsemanship to go and see Buck ‘at work’ if ever you get the opportunity.

Pain in our horses!

How do we associate pain with what our horses are trying to do (or not do) for us?

Other than an obvious lameness or injury how can we be aware of any pain that our horses may be in?

How observant must we be?

Compare what you have now to what you had yesterday or last week. Some differences are so subtle that it may be difficult to detect them. Look at the way your horse travels, his gaits, moods swings, general well being.

I can give a classic example of how horses manage pain and learn to cope with what they have, as best they can.

Six years ago I purchased a young Appaloosa gelding who was only 11 months old at the time. He was (and still is) a pretty laid back sort of chap, happy to give anything a go and will do anything I ask of him. I basically started him myself when he was about 2 years old but sent him up to Steve for a couple of weeks for him to ‘finish’ the job! Over that time Steve found him pretty amiable but there were a few issues that were a bit more difficult than they should have been -  i.e.: not going forward and reluctant to canter to the left to name a couple. Things to work on!

Over the next 12-18 months we went places to get exposure. There wasn’t a lot of pressure put on him but still there was something ‘not quite right’! He would rarely travel a straight line, could now canter to the left but it was ‘ordinary’, and would almost always fall in on a circle in either direction. Any saddle that I used on him kept slipping to the right, as did the saddle that was fitted and made for him. Lateral flexion to the left has been very difficult for him as has anything that involved ‘left’. He would twist his head rather than turn it and he couldn’t give, or hold, a soft feel very easily. At the time I couldn’t work out what would be causing these things to be happening as he didn’t show any lameness or obvious emotional or behavioral stress; no bucking, rearing or taking off. Lead changes? – forget it.

I eventually took him back to the bloke that made his saddle (and who, incidentally, also bred him), thinking that maybe there may have been a problem with the fitting of the saddle because he’d changed shape. Well, he found there was a problem – but NOT with the saddle. He has a very good eye when it comes to horse confirmation and he pointed out to me that the muscle on the right side of the wither and at the top of the shoulder region was more pronounced than on the left side!

I was given the name of a well known Equine Chiropractor and as I literally lived ‘just up the road’ from him he suggested that I bring the horse to him in case we needed to use his facilities. We put him in the round yard to see how he moved and after a comment like “Has his head and neck always been like that?” I knew that he had found something ‘not quite right’!

To cut a long story short it was found that my horse probably had a whopping headache for a fair while along with the fact that his neck and poll were way out of alignment which just about upset the going of every other joint and muscle in his body. Hence the reason for his lack of forward, etc. The neck of a horse is its mainstay for balance. His neck was not sitting square on his body and he had a tendency to travel as if he was always going on a right hand circle. When the Chiropractor asked if there had been anything that could have caused this injury I initially said no, but then the cogs started turning. OMG! I reckon that tripping over a 3 ft wall of tyres and landing on ones head would do the trick. He was 12 months old at the time and I was there when it happened. He was chased out of the arena by my 2 other horses, jumped over the tyres but caught his knees on the top and down he went. He got up on the other side and shook himself and walked off and I NEVER gave it another thought. When I visualize the accident he landed on the left side of his neck and head, thus kinking it to the right.

After several treatments there started to be an improvement but of course there would be a lot of ‘muscle memory’ that would take ages to resolve. Even so, there was STILL something that wasn’t right. I had various other people look at him and work on him to the point that I thought that things would never be 100%.

NEVER GIVE UP – KEEP SEARCHING FOR THE ANSWERS BECAUSE ONE DAY THEY WILL COME!

Even if I did have to move interstate to get them!

Initially, once we’d moved, things got worse. Whether it was because he was now living in the hills (born and bred on the flat plains) or the fact that he’d lost weight and muscle tone I’m not really sure but I needed to find someone to have another look. His back was hollowing and the muscle under his neck was thickening so he was obviously not using himself in the way that nature intended. He got to the stage that he hated anyone touching his back or neck, regardless of whether they were trying to help or not, so he was trying to tell me it still wasn’t right.

Finally, I got the number of a highly recommended muscle manipulator -‘a magician with magic hands’ who just happened to be in the area at the time I rang him and was able to come straight away. In 10 minutes that bloke did more for my horse than anyone had in the last 4 years! He pointed out to me that most of the back problems were, in fact, coming from the neck and that the way he was, my horse could not physically give me a soft feel. He did ‘something’ under his neck, just down from the jaw line and the results were almost instantaneous. Even though the Chiropractor had done the first steps in changing the way my horse was, (and he was much improved after a few visits) it needed a different type of therapy to make the next change.

A left lateral flexion  is now offered as is left canter, we can travel a straight line and lead changes are a possibility as I have personally witnessed them being done in the paddock! Don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot of work to be re-done and much muscle memory to be changed but with time, patience and a now greater awareness of what feels right and what doesn’t, we’ll get there.

What’s in a name?

For all of us it’s a means of identification and it’s also our personal identity – who we are as a being.

Do horses have an identity crisis (so to speak) if we change their name?

Consider the following story as an example and make up your own mind.

The names have been changed (no pun intended) but this is a true story.

An acquaintance at work was talking to me one day about her new horse. He had arrived from an outback station where he had been a working horse – though not for the past couple of years – and the people there always had called him Lightning. Not really keen on that name she decided to rename him Thunder. She was having trouble catching him, he was nervous to handle on the ground and she hadn’t been able to even think about getting on to go for a ride. When she went to view him prior to purchasing him none of this behaviour seemed to be present until she got him home. She had sent Thunder off to a ‘reputable local trainer’ who did nothing more than take her money and return the horse in a worse emotional state than when she had left him there 4 weeks earlier. I offered to go out and see the horse but after taking 20 mins to catch him and a further ‘stressed out’ 20 mins of handling I decided that he was too much for my experience at the time.

We’d see each other through work occasionally and she said the horse was Ok, slowly coming around and that was the last I thought of them.

Then about 18 months later a lady with her young daughter arrived at a clinic that I was hosting for Steve. I watched the horse they had brought with them for a while and at the back of my mind I knew there was something familiar about the horse. Then the penny dropped. It was the same horse!

My curiosity got the better of me and, after confirming that it was indeed the same horse, I asked the new owner how she came about him. It turns out that Thunder’s owner, the lady that I had tried to help, recently had some medical issues that made it difficult to carry on with the horse at the time. An offer had been made to purchase the horse off her and reluctantly she had made the difficult decision to let him go to new owners.

The new owners took him home, the horse settled in but was still nervy and anxious to handle. They had only had him for a few weeks when I first met them at the clinic. They had continued to call him by the name of Thunder, which they didn’t particularly like. He wouldn’t acknowledge this name when called, he wouldn’t come when called and was still hard to catch.

Then one day the new owner had a thought. They were aware that he was called Lightning for most of his life, in fact he was registered as Lightning on his papers so she wondered what would happen if she went out into the paddock and called him down using the name Lightning. She said what happened next was amazing. After calling out “Lightning” he lifted his head, whinnied to her and came trotting over to her. He was happy to stay for a pat and from that day there was never much of a hassle in handling him or catching him. They changed his name permanently back to Lightning and from what I saw at the clinic he was a changed horse. He had really bonded with the young girl, even though the parents had originally purchased him for the older daughter, and he was showing no signs of the stress that he had when I first saw him. The new owner could not believe the change in the horse and she swore black and blue that all they did was change his name back to Lightning.

Co-incidence? Who knows – but the last picture in my mind that I have of that horse was one akin to ‘belonging’ and being at peace. Hmmm – food for thought!

MY JOURNEY TO SUCCESS THROUGH NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP

I rode my first horse and had my first riding lesson in my mid thirties. I soon after acquired my own horse, Snoopy who was an advanced dressage horse and his previous owner, Barrie Stratton, was to become my riding instructor. Although I never competed on Snoopy we had many wonderful years together until he died at age 31.

My next horse was a Quarter horse named Will and it appears that his greatest ambition in life was to bolt with the slightest provocation, nearly causing my demise (and his) on many occasions. I then realized that although I rode reasonably well, I knew very little about horses and was ill equipped to deal with these sorts of issues. I did not need riding lessons I needed lessons in how to understand horses and fix horse behavioral problems!

Pictured is Jack Patch, sliding to success at the Reining Australia Futurity 2009 Continental Championships. Photograph by David Christensen

I discovered “Natural Horsemanship” and went to a couple of different Natural Horsemanship Clinics before I decided to embark on the Parelli program. It was here that I met Steve Halfpenny. Steve assessed me in the first stage of my Natural Horsemanship journey and encouraged me to push ahead. He believed in me and his support and his gentle approach to both horse and human inspired my determination to become a better horseman. Steve introduced me to a brilliant horseman named Phillip Nye and I became more convinced that this way of teaching and understanding horses was going to be my way. I dedicated myself to learning, by video, books and attending clinics. It was a long, testing journey. There were times when I wanted to give it up because my failures and weaknesses seemed insurmountable. It seemed that I had to learn us much about myself as I did my horses.

Eventually, with the support of people like Steve, Irena and students on the program, (and my long suffering husband) I began to become more confident in my own way of communicating with my horses, (by now I have acquired my 3 year old Appaloosa) by endeavoring to see things from the horse’s perspective. I was able to achieve some incredible results and began to believe that I could embark on the next phase of my journey – the world of competition. I saw a reining video and decided that this was for me. I was over 50 by now and competed for the first time in a reining class at an Appaloosa Show in SA in 2001.

My Appaloosa, Boy and I had a very successful show career in SA, and also placed in Victorian & National Reining shows for 5 years before he was retired and now lives a happy life of semi-retirement on our property at Great Western, Victoria.

We purchased Jack Patch, our SA bred Quarter Horse, in 2005 as a 3 year old and he has gone on to bring us considerable success in the show ring. In the 2008-2009 show season he won the VRHA Non Pro Championship at the Derby Show in November 2008 and has since gone on to win 3 Championship buckles at the Water Wheel Reining Classic Show, May 2009 at Tatura and then 2 Reserve Championships and a Championship buckle at the Nationals, Tamworth , August 2009. Jack Patch won 6 VRHA High Points awards and 3 High Points awards at the GVRHA for the 2008-9 show season.

Sadly, I have received many negative comments by fellow competitors and trainers over the years when I credit much of my success in the show ring to my growth and development during my years of study and involvement in natural horsemanship. Mistakenly they think that Natural Horsemanship is all about waving sticks & bags at horses and playing mindless games. They just don’t get it. I explain that I would not be competing had I not been well grounded in my horsemanship skills which gave me the confidence and emotional fitness to compete and to gain success in the show ring relatively quickly. I have found that the good reining trainers that I respect and admire really are “Natural Horseman”, they just don’t know it. To be a really good trainer/teacher of horses you know that you must seek the horse’s co-operation through understanding and knowledge, nor through fear and intimidation.

Natural horsemanship taught me to:

Be particular (or the horse won’t be), not critical.

Give my horse confidence in himself (and me) by helping him to understand what it is that I want him to do.

Be prepared to find another way (the horse’s way) if what I am doing does not get the desired result

Make the wrong things difficult and the right things easy.

Reward the slightest try. The horse will then want to do it.

Focus on what you are trying to achieve both on the ground and astride.

Have a purpose and be consistent.

You have heard all these things before. Really understanding what it all means and working on yourself for change is what will bring you success. When your horse knows that you know and he knows this by your actions, then you will win his respect and develop a true partnership with your horse.

At the beginning I wanted to be a beautiful rider. Then I wanted to be a truly Natural Horseman. I am still working very hard at the latter. I have also learnt not to be too tough on myself because I know that my heart is in the right place.

We tend to measure success in the show ring by the trophies/awards, or in my equine sport, money that a competitor has won. My personal measure of my success comes from receiving comments like: “you look like one with your horse; he is so happy to give you his all; he waits on you; he wants to be with you”.

When the competition is just a memory, there will still be the striving to be a better horseman, that will go on for as long as horses are part of my life ……………they are my life and they still have so much of themselves to share with me on our journey - together and God willing, in harmony with each other.!

Thank you to the Steve Halfpenny’s out there sharing the concepts of Natural Horsemanship to you all and thanks to my hero, recently deceased, RAY HUNT.

Sharon Delaney