Tammy from Bruthen in Victoria, with her beautiful 1/2 Percheron mare Dana only a few weeks ago was too scared to ride her out in the paddock – in fact the yard wasn’t even much fun. They changed that in the clinic at Bruthen earlier this month - big time! And now look at them!
Tammy and her lovely mare Dana bareback and bridless. Don't try this at home folks unless you KNOW that you are safe!
Go girls and wooohooooo!
In our herd UT is the leader – he’s very quiet about it and hardly ever has to get physical to get what he wants.
This blog is about how the behaviour and interaction of the herd leader, the alpha horse (two very separate horses) and the young horse raises some interesting questions for us humans about how we might choose to get the best from our horses.
I’m not bragging about my cute grandaughter or anything – much! But here’s some photos of what a 4 year old can do with one of the ten scaredest horses I ever met.
Hi Jenny ~ I have a yearling Pre.Andalusian that has just come down with a condition that looks very much like Stringhalt the vet is saying that it’s an intoxication i.e. poisoning which I’m assuming is from the plant Catsear! This
year we have had an extremely hot summer and although I’ve been feeding myhorses my youngster seems to have gone down with this condition and as you can imagine I’m extremely upset for him as he’s such a beautiful young horse please can you give me any help regarding this condition and is it curable ? Yours Karen
Stringhalt is absolutely curable, so do not worry except for using that worry to change what needs to be changed! Click here to read the rest of this article
Debra wrote: Hi Jenny,
TC and I have been making great progress. I find him more excepting of me and he seems to be teaching me a lot.
I have a question I hope you may have an answer to. I have been doing a form of Natural Horsemanship and in the course they do what is called a ‘passenger lesson’ where the horse can go where ever he wants to as long as he maintains the gait you ask for. The rider doesn’t direct the horse at all for a total of 30 mins.
Upon working with TC and using your suggestions, I am starting to feel this is giving the leadership role to the horse. What do you think?
I am now changing to your ways of communication and it is a success I sure thank you for reading this and your help a couple of weeks ago. Regards Debra
This is such an interesting question, click here to read my reply
Horses have often been reviled by environmentalists as causing degradation to the Australian environment, so it was refreshing to listen to Graeme Hand explain how they were the answer to some of Australia’s environmental problems.
Graeme is an agricultural scientist, radical by some standards, who specialises in a big picture, holistic approach to land and stock management – helping people regenerate native pastures in a way that sequesters more carbon than trees do. And he says the fastest and easiest and cheapest way to do that is with hard footed animals such as horses and cattle.
Yep, I agree with you, that’s a big statement, but he claims he can back that up.
Certainly, what he explained to a bunch of us here at Tanjil South last Friday, will cost us very little, save a heap of money and make a significant contribution to saving the environment at the same time. Yes that really is right, cost little, save heaps and be seriously environmentally progressive.
Just picture it, us destructive horse owners (yes, I am being facetious) leading the way in farming for the future of the earth itself!
One of the principles of the Kikkuli method of horse training is to do everything without a rider on their back before adding the rider. So, for example, the horse would be very happy, very fit and very comfortable at trotting a big trot for 3 kms before being asked to trot with a rider on their back for 3 kilometres. This gives the horse great confidence and comfort at what they are being asked to do before adding the rider.
In the Kikkuli Method, as translated by Ann Nyland (google it for more information), the horses were led from another horse’s back or maybe even by chariot (it’s a while since I read the book so I may have made that up!)
I put on a lot of weight since I stopped smoking and Bobby has been out for about a year growing a whole new hoof capsule, and he turns 17 in a few weeks, so I thought that getting him fit before asking him to carry my weight might make it easier on him.
So, using just this one principle of the Kikkuli method (there is much more to the method than this) I built up Bobby’s comfort zone and his fitness to do about 3 1/2 Kms while I led him through the car window, on a 22 foot lead line, around one of our big paddocks.
Well, one of our discussion group members laughingly challenged me to do it at liberty (completely loose, no ropes, no nothing) instead of on a line and I thought it would be fun to try.
What makes the task more interesting is that the paddock that I’m working in is locked up for spring growth and has much, much more feed than their spring restricted paddocks. So keeping Bobby more interested in what we were doing instead of eating the new fresh grass was an issue!
So here’s a photo of Bobby, I think he’s cantering, working beside the car at liberty. This was taken Day 3 of asking for this new task and by then he was sticking like glue with the car. (You should have seen him tonight – woo hooo!)
I am carrying a carriage whip to tap on the side of the car to call him up beside the car.
Later the same day we started teaching Bucky to do the same thing, with Bobby at the same time. That’s gonna’ be fun!
What a star!
Noticing your intuition when you are around your horse is the first step to dramatically improving your fun, safety and results. And believe me, I mean dramatically…
Here’s a free horse riding lesson sitting right there at home:
The first step to this improvement of intuition is to notice when you feel something that I call Not Quite Right, when you are around your horse.
Not Quite Right is a slightly uneasy feeling, an early warning signal if you like, that something is not OK. You can systematically strengthen this early warning signal and figure out what it means.
