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Case Study: Cowboy
Last month I talked about shoulder
control, beginning transitions and having control over all the major
parts of the horse: jaw, pole, neck, shoulders, ribcage and
hindquarters. Let’s now put these into action with a set of terrific
change of direction riding exercises designed for more advanced
transition work. It’s a great opportunity to begin to use multiple
cues and to really be coordinating the control and movement of all
of your horse’s major body parts. As always, I recommend using a
snaffle for these training exercises.
For this transition exercise, we
will be working in a circle. Now depending on the size of the horse,
I prefer working in a 15-20 meter circle. When doing our circles, we
always want to be keeping the horse slightly bent to the inside. If
you have been practicing your gives, the horse should yield nicely
and this next exercise should not be a problem. You may want to
practice your basic circle work for a few minutes first as a warm up
before the transition work. Once you have the nice bend and response
you want – then you can begin these exercises.
Start your circle at a nice forward
walk, and I mean a real “go someplace, working kind of walk.” At
this pace you will then develop your 15-20 meter circle. Once this
is established, you will then change direction by finding the center
of your circle and passing through the center. As you pass through
the center, change reins (and you should be working on a loose rein
or “on the buckle” as some say) and then change direction. This is
like a serpentine exercise except you are changing direction. So for
example, if you are going left, turn to the center in a nice arc, go
into the center and then go out in the new direction. The idea is to
get the horse’s body aligned; with the shoulders behind the head,
the hips behind the shoulders at a slight arc. You won’t want to see
any more than a quarter or so of the horse’s eye on the circle as
you are doing this. Being able to see more of the eye will indicate
you have too much bend happening.
Once you are doing this consistently
at the walk for several laps (perhaps two to ten laps), you should
then begin to ride it at the trot. Either a sitting or rising trot
is fine. The goal is now to incorporate a transition into the
exercise, so when you do your change of direction through the
center, begin by relaxing your seat and lengthening your leg, which
will allow your seat to come down. The rein should be the last thing
you pick up if the horse has not already transitioned down to a
walk.
If he resists transitioning down to
the walk, begin circling down to a tight circle until he is forced
(by physics) to break into a walk. Then once again find your center,
pass through and go right back at your exercise at the trot again.
The reason we circle down to the
walk is to get the horse to start listening to your seat as the
primary cue. You should not have to pull on the reins. If you are
consistent, by circling down he will figure it out within 5-20
minutes.
Once you are doing this well for
both walk to trot and trot to walk transitions, then you can advance
to trotting through the center and asking the horse to move out into
a canter. If we do our serpentine properly, when we are going to the
left, we will ask for the canter with the right leg, and the horse
is then put into position to take the correct left lead.
You should now do one complete
circle and then transition down with a deep seat and by dropping
your heels. If he fails to transition down off these cues, go ahead
and spiral down to smaller circles until he breaks into a trot. Once
this happens you should again find your center, pass through the
center, and change reins to the opposite direction.
Not only is this a great transition
exercise, as mentioned earlier, it really teaches your horse to
listen to your seat and further enhances his ability to bend
beautifully. It allows you to put the different parts you need that
control your horse (jaw, pole, neck, ribcage and hindquarters) – and
get all those parts working together for you. While you want your
horse “listening to your seat” for a huge number of reasons, it
really comes back to the key element of control.
In addition to all the benefits you
gain for both showing and pleasure riding purposes, this is also a
very important problem-solving exercise for horses that are “too
forward.” And too forward can be a huge problem. Many riders may try
to deal with slowing down a “charging” horse by using a lot of rein.
The problem with this is without the proper technique and foundation
– you end up also putting a lot of pressure on the horse which may
actually raise his emotional level, make his flight instinct kick
into gear – and the end result can actually be speeding him up! This
is a very common problem with off-the- track-thoroughbreds (OTTB),
and for whatever reason – I meet a lot of green and novice riders
that decide to get an OTTB as their first horse. No don’t get me
wrong – I love thoroughbreds – they are super responsive horses. But
they are typically one of the more emotional of the horse breeds,
and especially those that have been trained to race – well that go
button can get stuck in the on position and that’s a tough problem
to deal with as a novice horseman. Shoot, it’s tough enough for
experienced horse people!
I actually work with a lot of OTTBs,
but one horse that really comes to mind as a great example is a huge
OTTB named Cowboy. He was a gorgeous animal, a true black gelding
that was easily 17 hands plus. He came in for re-schooling when he
was about seven. And again, like a lot of OTTBs – he was just too
forward for his rider. He wanted to zoom everywhere during his
rides, always moving out at full speed. His owner Samantha had a
very hard time keeping control over him. She was not a bad rider by
any means, but her inability to slow him down had really shaken her
confidence as his rider. And of course the more timid we get, the
more the problems can pile on.
So with Cowboy – we spent the time
doing the basic foundation work that we have covered in the earlier
columns. This got Cowboy to a place where we was nicely supple, and
more importantly, was now listening to us and looking for the cues.
I knew the transition work would be key for getting him to slow down
and pay attention to his rider.
Largely because of all the prior
work we had done with him, sure enough within about 30 minutes of
doing these change of direction/transition exercises, he was already
starting to relax considerably, with a very nice trot and canter.
Because of the transition work, there was no resistance at the bit,
and he was learning to take the correct lead. As I mentioned earlier
– this does actually kind of “force” the horse to take the correct
lead by going through the center of the circle and asking for the
lead before the circle. Ninety-nine percent of the time you can do
simple lead change work by doing every half circle, and then picking
up on the opposite lead. This is basically like a figure eight,
which is also preparation for flying lead changes and a great
exercise to prepare for true serpentine work. And why we do
serpentines is because it asks the horse to bend and soften the
body, as well as teaching them balance. And it really helps get them
off their front end for transitions.
Once you have mastered these
exercises well while riding with a light rein, we can then begin to
use more connection with the rein and can start seeking true
collection. And it is no coincidence that Collection is the subject
of next month’s column!
In the meanwhile, I am very pleased
to be doing a great new contest with Ride!, and we would very much
like your participation! As we are almost done with our first year’s
worth of columns on “Solving Problems with Foundation Training”
using case studies, we began talking to the staff at Ride! about
what they would like to see the next year’s topics be. And then it
hit us all: what we really want to know is what you, the readers,
would like to see us cover. What would be the most interesting and
helpful topics for you?
So Ride! magazine, myself and a few
of my sponsors have come together to hold a contest to get your
ideas. We would like you to submit a topic idea in 50 words or less
for upcoming columns. And please - really challenge yourself to
submit exciting and innovative problems or issues that I can help
you solve through foundation training. The details of the contest
will be available in this issue and the next of Ride!, as well as on
my own website, but I can tell you now that the sponsors, especially
Jamco Trailers – have really come up with some great prizes,
including Jamco sponsoring the grand prize of a one week
apprenticeship for you (and your horse if you want) with us at CW
Training. Other prizes include top quality horse products from
Supracor, Wahl and many others.
So read up on the contest details in
this issue of Ride! and on our website, and put on those thinking
caps! I am really looking forward to seeing your ideas for some
exciting and fun column ideas. Please remember you can email me at
cwtraining@comcast.net if you have any questions. We also have a
complimentary newsletter available that we are doing every 6-8
weeks. You can sign-up for that on our website as well at http://www.cwtraining.com.
Until next month,
Charles Wilhelm |
