Hi folks,
Fillabeana asked that I write in with a quick description of a clinic I took a few weekends ago, in case anyone is looking for some interesting challenges to take on (my favorite sorts of challenges!).
I love getting out and working cows when I get the chance, and learn so much when I do. More than even in a show situation, it gives me a chance to figure out which parts of our training work well, and which parts need improvement. People can argue back and forth about what parts of a dressage test are “correct” and which aren’t until the sun goes down for example, but watching a cow trot off happily back to the herd is a pretty good demonstration that things have gone somewhat awry somewhere!
A few weeks ago I got to spend 3 days working in the sorting/working area at a feed lot west of Airdie AB at a cow working clinic taught by Martin Black. The folks that hosted were really fantastic, and given that they also run an organic bison ranch, the food was pretty much unbeatable as well. Didn’t actually get to work any bison at the clinic, but given what I’ve heard of how that can go, I was okay to stick with regular cattle!
I went in there expecting a bit more of what I’d seen in other similar clinics; namely some quiet herd work, then a bit of cutting, and generally things getting a bit on the exciting side once the dust started to get kicked up. While little glimpses of that did sneak out at appropriate times, I was absolutely floored to see that it was actually going to be my first proper instruction in old world stockmanship.
Martin Black has a background in the buckaroo traditions which fascinate me, but unlike some he was always extremely respectful and helpful when imparting that knowledge (not quite universal with clinicans today, sadly). His focus was on being able to work stock effectively either single-handed or at most with a very small crew, since that’s how he’s generally worked in the past. While Martin can make a great show horse as well, he emphasized many times that being a “good show horse” in his mind is just layering the fashion de jour on top of a solid base of working horse excellence.
My first lesson came in having a fundamental difference between cows and horses reiterated very usefully; where horses tend to discipline each other with their hind legs relatively often, most cows do so with head butts (file that under “seen it lots but never really clued in”). As such, where presenting a hindquarter is quite a threatening move to a horse, cows are much more likely to react to a forequarter or head. To have a horse stare right at a cow in the herd is, to her, like a stranger walking into a bar and pointing a shotgun straight at her…she’s going to be nervous, and pay very close attention, because she’s spent her life avoiding getting head butted.
As such, when most of us walk towards or amongst a herd and wonder why we’re stirring up a lot of trouble, it’s because we’re pointing our horses at the cow we’re looking for. Even when we get one separated out, when we try to hold her steady but make all our turns towards her, we’re like that stranger walking in and waving his shotgun all over the place; tends to make folks duck and run.
Here was the first crack in an old adage I’d heard many times…namely to never turn your horse away from a cow. Martin commented that it’s a good thought to keep in mind for the show pen, but it’s not a bunch of use when working stock calmly, miles from the nearest fence or corral. He often had us approach either obliquely or even with our horse’s tail or hindquarter leading. It might raise the hackles of a dressage instructor to even consider a lateral movement with the hindquarters leading, but it sure works well to move a cow along quietly!
Some of the things we got a good dose of dry instruction on:
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can you turn your horse not “on the forehand” or “on the hind”, but forwards or backwards around each and every foot as well? Some combinations of those take a bit of thought (ie, turn backwards around a fore or hind pivot foot), but it’s amazing how handy they end up later on.
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having our horse prepared to walk out smartly, but only for a certain pre-dertermined number of paces. Can you walk 10 paces exactly, stopping square on the 10th? Can you then back 4 strides, and smoothly walk forward 6? It’s the first step towards being able to make the tiny movements that may be required later with the cattle. Tindur’s “walk” while in the herd was praised as being a good example of a horse that had a ground covering walk that was available on demand. I was chuffed, but didn’t quite have the heart to mention it was actually usually a tolt lol
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can you move backward with the HINDQUARTERS leading the movement? Most people essentially try to pull the forequarters up and over the hind. While I’d always been very happy that Tindur has got to the point where he’s about as free going back as foreward, it turns out I (along with everyone out of both classes) had got this part quite wrong! If you drag 11’s in the dirt when backing up, or your horse drops his hind when backing, you’re not backing up correctly because eventually your horse will hit a wall where he can’t get any faster. Martin was emphatic about the backup being a case where the hinquarters need to be initiating the movment, rather then the horse backing by pushing with it’s forequarter.
Things we got to do with the cows:
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Be shown how the art of working out a cow was to move all the other cows away from the one we wanted, rather then playing “mighty hunter” and forcing the one we want out of the herd. Done with finesse, oftentimes the one we wanted ended up all on her own before she even clued in that we were interested in her. Even then, because we hadn’t driven her out, she was very calm when she was alone, and simply looked around wondering where her friends had gone. It was a brain buster for most folks to work the herd FAR more then our target cow.
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realize that if the cow trotted, the worst thing we could do in most cases was to speed up to keep ahead of them. Most times we needed to realize that the cow was just responding to the decreasing gap between us, and that turning towards the herd was often better then rushing towards our cow and applying even MORE pressure.
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being shown how to turn them towards or away from us, intentionally. To turn them towards, we needed to approach onto their balance point (where they were just as likely to move forward or back), and tip our horse’s nose towards them slightly. That closed the door ahead of the cow, and then a step with the horse’s hindquarter opened the door for the cow to reverse direction towards us. To turn them away, we’d instead bring our horse’s tail to their tail in a haunches in position, sidepass our stirrup to their eye, and the cow would turn away because our horse’s tail was closing the door against a rollback. Here I discovered why I needed a better understanding of half pass in particular! This felt like trying to get inside and outside turns with a liberty horse in the round pen, only our “flag” and feet (my horse) had opinions of their own and the round pen changed shape and orientation depending on where the rest of the herd went!
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have the COW take a set number of steps in different directions.
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Teach a cow to back up by standing perpendicular to it, then nudging each attempt by the cow to turn one direction or the other using our horse’s head or tail. When they were happy to stand, sidepassing until the cow rocked it’s weight back, when sidepassing directly away, started the movement that eventually led to the cow taking a step back.
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having Martin draw a circle in the dirt, then trying to get a cow to stand in it. This was a bit beyond my level, but the advanced group eventually was coached into doing this with groups of three cows using two riders. When those folks were thinking they were getting slick at it, Martin had folks pick out three cows at random, and BY HIMSELF had the three standing in a bucket sized dot within about 5 mins, never really seeming to be in much of a rush to get anything done quickly. Really pretty mind blowing.
Talking to fellow riders at the clinic who manage livestock for a living (there were a bunch), most everyone was just as impressed. I suspect that this level of stockmanship is just as rare as the really amazing examples of horsemanship are. He said that at first it was tricky to find folks willing to lend cows for these sorts of clinics (since traditional cutting-type clinics can be stressful on the cows), but after seeing how he worked them folks now line up to have their cows “trained”! Our lot seemed to agree ”" by day three it wasn’t unusual to see some lying down in the middle of the herd. At any rate, I have a full plate of things to play with for a while yet, and I really had a blast.
Cheers, and have a good weekend folks!
