Would I tell the clinic organizer ahead of time that I’m interested in learning about the bridle horse progression?
Well, that probably wouldn’t be necessary. Any horse at all (if we’re talking about Buck or Bryan) is going to go about his development as a bridle horse would progress. And if it were, say, longtime Buck students Betty Staley or Susan Hopkins making a dressage horse, or Tina Cornish making a jumper, you wouldn’t know the difference in the ‘dry work’ except for the saddle and the rider’s outfit.
I remember there was a fellow in the Bryan Neubert clinic I rode in ten years ago, with a nice competent ranch horse (not a bridle horse, tho) who had a spade or half-breed curb hung on him. Not too bothersome to the horse, but the horse had lost his lateral ability. The guy kept wanting to ‘do the advanced stuff’, and ‘learn about a bridle horse’, and Bryan kept saying, well, you’ll have to get this working (lateral flexion) before you do anything at all…and the guy kept riding the same exercises the rest of us were doing. Because his horse needed that lateral ability. The guy just wouldn’t change out of his curb bit, and Bryan just kept having him two-hand to get the horse to bend laterally.
I think the guy probably went home a little disappointed, but not because his his horse didn’t get a lot better. He just thought he was doing stuff beneath him, I think, couldn’t see that what he was doing was to build up what his ‘bridle horse’ was missing.
But Bryan wasn’t going to blow smoke up that guy’s butt, he was going to help that horse where he needed it.
That sort of reminds me of Buck’s story about Bill Dorrance in “The Faraway Horses”. Buck is having lots of trouble getting his horse to do a turnaround (moving front around hind quarters). He calls Bill, and Bill tells him all about how he needs those hindquarters to move away real nice…and Buck thinks Bill is getting senile. Buck is thinking, no, Bill, not HINDquarters, I’m having trouble with the FRONT quarters moving around like they’re supposed to…but Buck is polite and just suggests again that he’s having trouble with the front end. Bill patiently tells him to get the hindquarters right. So then later Buck gets on his horse, tries to move the HQ, and nothing doing. So he gets to fixing that, and the turnaround is there. At which point Buck realizes that Bill Dorrance is not senile…
But I’d encourage you to go to Alturas. Total immersion on a ranch would be great!
Loads of fun, and it isn’t necessarily fast stuff–cow working should be as sympathetic to the cow as the ground and riding work is to the horses.
Yes! Most people chase cows. They use corrals/fences that the cows are unlikely to go through, and then just chowse them/bother them/compel them to GO. Drive them, push them, whoop and holler at them. Learning to work cows on a feel (by SENDING them, by ‘asking with a good deal’ before you ‘make it happen’ by driving/chasing them) is a skill, and it is beautiful when done right. And the cows appreciate it, too.
Have you ever seen a good Border Collie work cows? He almost never bites them. He will if he has to, but mostly he just suggests, shapes things up, uses his eye. That’s a feel.
The lousy dogs just run in and bite and get the cows running away.
There are still lots of ranchers in big country who know how to work cows on a feel. There are lots of cutting horse folks who know how to do it- good ‘herd help’ is invaluable to a cutter. Your average team penner, sent to ‘help’ a cutter, would make a big mess in a short hurry.
But do expose yourself to cow work done right, that’s a good thing.
