Time to Apply What I Learned

Today was our opportunity to apply some of what I learned at the gaited horse clinic I attended last week. We were at Galloping Grace Youth Ranch yesterday.

I also wanted to share my learnings with Betty, but in a gentle way. Husbands and wives don't make the best teachers for each other and I'm well aware of that. My goal is to share what I've learned and let Betty work with it as best she can. When we go back to Tennessee for our private lessons Betty will get the great instruction from Jennifer Bauer who is a much better instructor for Betty than I can ever be.

The ultimate goal of all the training I experienced and what we're trying to give to our horses is to develop a soft, light horse, responsive to our aids, who looks to us for his/her security.

We wanted to work on just two things this morning. First, we worked on ground movement that helps the horse find a comfortable frame as we ask him to go forward. This involves moving into an inside bend and learning to go forward into the bridle.

Second, we worked with Sugar and Morgunn lungeing them with side reins on. The goal is the same - to help them find a comfortable frame with an inside bend and going forward into the bridle. The advantage of lungeing with side reins is they put a constant contact on the bit without the mistakes we make with our hands and bodies.

Sugar did well with the lungeing in the side reins. Morgunn was less sure about the experience and Betty did great with him. She eventually took him into the round pen to do this lungeing because that's where he has been lunged before. This helped him a lot and Betty will continue to work him in there for awhile, but the long term goal is to be able to lunge him outside the round pen.

All in all, our morning went very well. Betty and I are learning how to use our bodies and Morgunn and Sugar are learning how to move forward in a better, more relaxed frame. A good start.

Tomorrow we repeat the process with a little more pressure from the side reins. Hopefully, I can get some pictures and/or video to better illustrate what we're doing and why.