I picked up a copy at that Buck Brannaman clinic I attended recently.
What is that magazine and which segment of the horse training world does it represent?
Do you vaquero peeps like it?
Oh, and they have a (little) forum.
ETA: Here’s the link:
Apologies for not including it the first time.
Good magazine, and i have a number of issues, but I don’t subscribe because I tend to learn better from the video mags. The articles are a little short to get too in depth (any mag, not just this one), and I’ve found what people say and mean are often different.
It’s generally Great Basin Buckaroo horsemanship; so Buck, Martin etc with a few crossover articles.
Their video mag is VERY good. I order every now and then, and did so more when their free shipping covered Canada too. Got dinged once when I almost paid more for a DVD in shipping and duties, so I’ve been a little leery since.
Forum is basically dead.
Great magazine, for the most part. Not much ‘how to fuzz up your horse and then desensitize it’ or ‘how to get your horse broke in the face’.
Frequent contributers are Tom Moates, Buck Brannaman, Martin Black, Joe Wolter, Gwynn Turnbull Weaver, Terry Church, Wendy Murdoch, and Dr. Deb Bennett.
The article series that Dr. Deb has been writing, “How Horses Work”, has been absolutely invaluable to me.
Riding with Buck has been quite an experience for me…very often, he asks you to do something that seems quite the opposite of ‘mainstream’ dressage- for example, Buck wants your inside leg BACK on a circle, outside leg forward.
Now, first of all, you really have to try these things out (in a clinic, or with an experienced-in-this helper like aktill, or whoever might be locally available, so you don’t go about them the wrong way) and see how your horse responds. My experience has been phenomenal in terms of getting a horse really balanced and responsive.
So anyway, Dr. Deb’s articles really clarified the ‘why’ of these exercises, because when you figure out how a horse’s body has to carry itself in a turn, and what happens within a horse’s body when it collects…wow. You can get so much farther with your horse, even an ‘untalented’ horse, as long as it isn’t lame, can be amazingly athletic if we get out of the way and quit asking things of the horse that are bio-mechanically ridiculous. (Like using a running martingale to ‘collect’ a horse).
I think there could be a lot more ‘dressage’ and even jumping represented in the magazine, and the photos don’t always illustrate what the articles are trying to convey…
I also think that a lot of what is in there, won’t make sense to people until they get to a certain level of understanding. Sort of like Tom Dorrance’s True Unity book…I was like…what in the world is he talking about? the first time I read it. And Bill Dorrance’s book makes a lot more sense to me now than before, and I’m sure it will get ‘better and better’ as I understand more.
I have a friend that stopped her subscription because ‘there isn’t much there that I’m getting out of it’ which was too bad…but she just wasn’t able to understand it yet. Two years later, she ordered the back issues she missed, and started her subscription again- after going to a Harry Whitney clinic, she read back through some older issues and got a lot out of them.
Anyway, I like the magazine. I might not ‘get’ any particular article just yet, but hopefully I will later. Not so different than an article talking about schooling a jumper to move up from 3’6" to the ‘real’ stuff…it might be a while yet before the article is helpful to me!
But yeah, I like it. And Dr. Deb’s series has been HUGE for me.
/\ What fillabeana said, agree completely.
I’m thinking about subscribing. My trainer recommended it to me, and loaned me one issue. That was about a year ago, and yeah - most of it sailed right over my head.
I am not a quick study.:no:
But now, I think I might get something out of it. If not, you’re right - I can always hang on to the issues till later. It comes out every other month, right? So only six issues a year to store?
But now, I think I might get something out of it. If not, you’re right - I can always hang on to the issues till later. It comes out every other month, right? So only six issues a year to store?
yeah, and only a few classified ads, so it’s never very thick.
Best horsemanship info out there.
thanks very much for your thoughtful reviews.
I liked the idea of it-- especially going about getting a horse broke and balanced in a way that differed from Dressage World or even Good H/J/Equitation Horse World. I was a tad worried when I read an article about leg-yielding. (Who doesn’t know this? Can I trust them if they don’t?). But hey, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Sometimes the cat doesn’t have to leg yield first, so that’s new to these Great Basin guys. And I don’t understand why Brannaman wants your inside leg back. That is anathema to my English World upbrining.
And I don’t understand why Brannaman wants your inside leg back. That is anathema to my English World upbrining.
It was to mine, too.
I didn’t realize that when a horse travels in a circle, he has to ‘swing’ his HQ to the outside of the circle. To do that, he steps laterally behind, the tighter the circle, the farther under (laterally) the hind leg goes.
A horse’s spine can bend only so much. So going around a curve, he has to travel a bit like a big orange Costco cart making a left down the cereal/bread aisle. Or like a hospital gurney turning the corner into a patient room.
It’s why Dressage Mavens tell you to ALWAYS use your corners. The better the horse can step deep behind (laterally), the more supple and balanced he will be.
Now, I KNOW the Dressage Mavens also tell you to put your outside leg back, and bend the horse around your inside leg like it’s a flagpole. But the horse just doesn’t work that way, biomechanically.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzml4gs8jCs
Take a look at this Fourth Level horse going deep in his corners. At 0:36 when he comes off the center line, you can see that RH stepping all the way over in front of the LH. And the LH steps OUT. And right at 0:54 when he makes a corner to the left after coming across the diagonal, the LH steps across pretty deep, so the RH can step out to the right-which is how a horse propels himself around a corner.
Dressage ridden right, when it feels right, feels exactly like a good Vaquero Bridle Horse ridden right.
I think it’s a case of trainers saying what they think is right, not what is actually happening. Like a horse going around a curve like he’s on railroad tracks. It doesn’t work that way, unless the horse is really braced behind and isn’t laterally supple.
You CAN use your inside leg fat the girth, outside leg back if you want. But that takes away a huge ability to rebalance your horse, help him release a brace in his loins, by asking him to step laterally under himself more- like when you spiral out on a circle, by just asking with a leg.
So when you feel it, you will probably say, Oh, WOW! So that’s why I’m supposed to use my corners! And very likely, you’ve felt it done right before- just not described this way.
I knew what a horse properly balanced on a circle felt like, not falling in, staying on the curve I describe. I would imagine you do, too. I just didn’t know precisely what the horse was doing with his balance, with his legs, to make it work- to be ‘straight’ on the circle (not falling in, dropping a shoulder, overbent or not enough bend).
So in other words, you are really not leg yielding first- you’re just going around corners, or around circles, properly supple laterally.
Anyway, my getting a handle on this was not from riding in Buck clinics, but from reading Dr. Deb. It was a long while before I could figure out why the fruitbat you would use your legs backwards like that.
And besides Eclectic Horseman, I really love Tom Moates’ books, (the Journey into Honest Horsemanship series: A Horse’s Thought, Between the Reins, Further Along the Trail, and Going Somewhere.) mostly about what/how Harry Whitney teaches. I think Mr. Whitney is every bit as genius as Buck (and he really DID study with Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt)…but not too many people have the first clue who he is.
http://www.tommoates.com/books.php
Sometimes the cat doesn’t have to leg yield first, so that’s new to these Great Basin guys.
And you wanna see a nice leg yield, watch Martin Black (or Buck, or Bryan, or Joe…) working a green horse on a cow. They’re doing leg yield, to canter depart (or leg yield to rollback, which done right is a 1/4 canter pirouette) to mirror the cow as it turns 180 degrees and runs off the other direction. The not-green horses, just stop, anchor their weight on the outside hind, and rollback to gallop the other way.
Yeah, don’t go thinking Buck doesn’t really know Dressage deeply. That would be a big oversight.
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7106659]
And you wanna see a nice leg yield, watch Martin Black (or Buck, or Bryan, or Joe…) working a green horse on a cow. They’re doing leg yield, to canter depart (or leg yield to rollback, which done right is a 1/4 canter pirouette) to mirror the cow as it turns 180 degrees and runs off the other direction. The not-green horses, just stop, anchor their weight on the outside hind, and rollback to gallop the other way.
Yeah, don’t go thinking Buck doesn’t really know Dressage deeply. That would be a big oversight.[/QUOTE]
I would suggest that the leg-yield-to-pirouette description does a bit of disservice. While accurate, it reduces the work to “movements” when in fact it’s simply having complete understanding and use of the horse’s body. Exactly what good dressage should be, of course, but people who “do” dressage sometimes get caught up in “movements” and lose sight of the bigger picture. Or, perhaps, the better picture. Not a criticism of your use of the description for the purpose of translation, just offering another perspective.
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7106659]
Yeah, don’t go thinking Buck doesn’t really know Dressage deeply. That would be a big oversight.[/QUOTE]
Hold up!
I didn’t think the guy didn’t know dressage. Nor do I think the only path to Nirvana goes through DressageLand.
Brannaman commented at the clinic that he never needs to teach the shoulder-in. He says he has everything he needs without that particular movement. I believe him in two senses:
Any of these labeled ways of using a horse’s body is a means to an end. So long as you get the horse broke to the aids you want and physically conditioned to use his body the way you want, it shouldn’t make a difference whether or not can do The Other Guy’s Trick.
He has ideas about how to use reins and leg (in preparation for a horse to eventually go in a spade bit) that differ from my English-Centric idea. Dressagers do teach a horse how to respond to the outside rein. The horse should be able to accept half-halts from that while keeping a bend in the other direction. As far as I can tell, Brannaman is a Direct- or Opening-rein Only type guy.
As I mess around with combining what I have learned in each world, I’m not sure I want to give up the Dresseur’s interest in the outside rein or the shoulder-in. I think they might be useful in making the finished bridle horse that maintains a bend and neck reins. I don’t know if this will work or not. I’ll use it on the horse I’m working with and let you guys know in 5 years.
I would suggest that the leg-yield-to-pirouette description does a bit of disservice. While accurate, it reduces the work to “movements” when in fact it’s simply having complete understanding and use of the horse’s body. Exactly what good dressage should be, of course, but people who “do” dressage sometimes get caught up in “movements” and lose sight of the bigger picture. Or, perhaps, the better picture. Not a criticism of your use of the description for the purpose of translation, just offering another perspective.
Monstr, I LOVE this!!
If you really observe Buck ride; his horses are ridden in first position, or in shoulder fore. He calls it “straight”. The more you ride with him and the more he gets to know you, you realize just how much depth of knowledge he really has to offer you. His horsemanship classes are geared for the rider who has never had a riding lesson, so dressage speak would not make sense to them. If you want the good stuff hang out with him long enough to ride in an H2 class and don’t be shy about riding up and asking him a question. The tough part now is when I go to a dressage clinic, it is so painfully obvious how many riders have no clue where their horse’s feet are and so their timing is terribly off. The horses do the best they can, but I see so much jabbing and whipping and yanking even among upper level riders because they are asking a foot to move when it is weighted. The clinicians will attempt to teach the proper timing, but riders tend to just blame their horse for not getting it. That’s one thing that the Dorrance brothers, Ray Hunt, and Buck have always said; “the horse is never wrong”.
Eclectic Horseman is the best out there for any discipline! But it is definitely not flashy, but more for the serious student of the horse like the old, now defunct Dressage and CT.
As far as I can tell, Brannaman is a Direct- or Opening-rein Only type guy.
Nope, Nope and Not At All.
You have to have the horse’s body balanced with his weight to the outside of a turn.
You do that by asking him to step laterally behind.
Then, and only then, is the horse IN your outside rein.
Watching a snaffle bit horse versus a two-rein or bridle horse: Buck will use a LOT of inside/opening rein to help the greener horse balance himself. Like the setting-up-for-a-turn-on-a-cow that I described above. When the horse MAKES the turn, you bet your boots Buck is using outside rein, and outside leg (forward, and perhaps at the horse’s elbow) to come through to make the turn. On a bridle horse, you won’t see much inside/direct rein, if any at all- because the inside leg is back, and that’s all he needs, if anything, to get the horse balanced through to the outside leg to make the turn. If he needs a bit more on his two-rein horse, he IS going to use an inside indirect rein on the bosal. Buck was showing us how to get the horse bending like that, stepping his hindquarters across, with one hand on the snaffle bit reins (the other hand occupied by the lass rope coils)…by using an indirect rein.
Mvp, you’ve got me thinking through this, and now I see more clearly why you would use inside leg back- because it helps make clear to the horse how to balance through, step laterally behind, so you CAN use the outside rein. And if the horse is well schooled to the use of inside-leg-back, you don’t even need to get into his mouth. That’s where a properly balanced ‘dressage horse’ who is balanced through to the outside rein, can go along just the same when you push your inside hand forward dropping the contact on the inside rein.
So where you hear, Inside leg to Outside Rein…Buck is very much developing his horses that way. He just doesn’t use his inside leg at the girth to do it.
I think if you asked the nice lady riding the lovely dressage test I posted above, she would tell you that her horse is bending deeply through the corners, but that unless she is on two tracks (shoulder in, half pass) her horse is making hoofprint tracks as though on parallel railroad tracks, hind legs following front legs. Slow the video down, and it’s obvious that the horse is NOT making parallel tracks that way.
Anyway, that is the essence of how you get the horse balanced so you CAN use the outside rein.
Buck was just starting on Reuben with haunches-in at the clinic I rode in this summer. First day, a few steps, by the end of the clinic it was pretty nice in walk, and started along in trot. By next summer, I bet he’ll be able to go all over the arena in half pass, walk, trot, or canter. So, maybe he doesn’t use shoulder-in, but he uses the HECK out of half-pass. And for that, and for developing a balanced horse in a curb/spade bit with one hand, it’s all about getting to the outside rein.
Re: Brannaman’s “straight” being a shoulder-fore.
A Dressage Pro I rode with for a bit spoke in what might be similar terms. Her point was that the shoulders of a horse were wider than his hips. So if you wanted a horse to go straight down the rail and considered his spin, you’d have to have his shoulders in off the track a tad.
And on Brannaman with apparently no outside rein: Your point is well-taken. I saw him teaching an H1 Cluster-F with 30 or so people in it. I think he might have been keeping things basic and clear for that huge crowd.
If you were keeping your ears peeled for some news about how to use your leg and not just hand-ride, you could find that. I’m sure the guy uses his outside leg.
The biomechanics of the hind end moving laterally on a turn and why someone might put their inside leg back makes sense. So do cultures that eat insects (crunchy good source of protein. You can deep fry 'em or include chocolate.) It’s just going to take some work for me to adjust.
But I want my protein, aka a horse who I can teach to be light without too much stress because I set him up to succeed biomechanically.
Along these lines, the point about feeling where your horse’s feet are and asking when the horse is lifting that foot, not while he’s standing on it and can’t do otherwise is important. It’s just an obligation for the rider to get more skill and feel, that’s all. But it seems worth it.
Your point is well-taken. I saw him teaching an H1 Cluster-F with 30 or so people in it. I think he might have been keeping things basic and clear for that huge crowd.
Yup.
You just can’t get to the outside rein (riding the horse in balance) without lateral softness, without that hind leg stepping laterally.
And I think that’s why he (and Bryan Neubert) will just take a curb bit and two-hand it…or tell a novice to do so. Because that hind end stepping across is not just ‘important’, it’s everything to the horse’s balance.
(Now, really, if you’re in a curb bit and you have no lateral softness, you need to get back in a snaffle or sidepull and get it back. Or get it on the ground with a halter. And then proceed. But these guys see all kinds of wrong- they’re just trying to get the basics going.)
The biomechanics of the hind end moving laterally on a turn and why someone might put their inside leg back makes sense. So do cultures that eat insects (crunchy good source of protein. You can deep fry 'em or include chocolate.) It’s just going to take some work for me to adjust.
Took me about a year to adjust to the whole ‘inside leg back’ idea. I’m still figuring stuff out. And I’m sure I’ll be finding things Buck tried to tell me in a 2010 clinic, in 2020 (oh, so THAT’s what he meant…)
You’ll see people who have been riding with Buck, riding along happily with the cluster-mess in an H1 or even Foundation clinic. And raving about a great ride. You’d think they’d know what’s going on by now, but it seems like the farther along you get, the more you get out of riding in the H1 class.
What a horse will do for you, when you ask when appropriate (ie you aren’t ever asking a horse to move a currently-weighted leg)…amazing. You get your timing good, you quit tripping your horse. Quit tripping your horse, and you find out you don’t need boots (splint, tendon, bell) boots anymore. And your horse isn’t lame, doesn’t get bodysore, doesn’t need the chiropractor unless he slips/falls in the field.
I rode a borrowed horse at a branding last spring. I had ridden him also the year before.
Anyway, I traded off ground-crew duties with another fellow, he told me “You need spurs. You have to MAKE him do things.”
Oh, yeah, thank you.
Mr. Ranch Owner walks past, I’m adjusting stirrups. “Got spurs? You need spurs on Spotty.”
Oh, yeah, thanks. I rode him last year, we got along OK.
Mrs. Rancher walks by. “Do you have spurs? Spotty needs spurs…”
No, but I rode him last year…
(Mrs. Rancher) “Yeah, you got along with him really well…”
I got on Spotty. I asked him to walk forward, prefacing my kick/bump with shake feet/ask for life to come up. A couple of tries, and Spotty remembers from last year, and steps forward nice and light, happy with the feel offered before I thump him.
Next, I ask him two-handed in his bastard shanked curbish bit, with inside rein, to bend left and step his HQ to the right. Sure, just fine.
OK, bend right, and step HQ left.
Nothing doing!
I held steady, and waited, and a big brace came unlocked, and he bent RT and stepped his HQ left.
Anyway, his usual riders wanted him to turn right, neck-reining that outside rein too far, across his neck, and he would have his right side weighted so he couldn’t just step off to the right. The only way they could get him to turn, was to spur him so he sort of jump-shuffled-fell to the right. Spotty was happy to turn without spurs if I asked him to use his legs like they were meant to be used.
Mvp, I’m sure he’d have felt all wrong to you, too, trying to turn right- you’d have probably felt like, I can’t get his balance on the outside rein.
(And I finally caught/heeled a calf with my rope for the first time…I’m a dreadful roper!)
But I want my protein, aka a horse who I can teach to be light without too much stress because I set him up to succeed biomechanically.
And mvp, our conversation has clarified some neat stuff for me, too. Also special thanks to Adam, Monstr and Retro.
You’ll know you’ve really arrived when you give up riding the CFs and decide you get more out of auditing, and watching everyone else deal with the CF, lol. 
Well, not really, not if you have something you need to work out with your horse, or your horse just needs the experience riding in a herd. But never feel you’re missing out if you don’t get a riding spot. Auditing, watching everyone else struggle, goof, backslide, and then finally poof the light goes on, can be just as educational. Watching the horses never gets old. Along about Sunday morning, there’s this big, collective sigh of relief, and the horses start to really make progress. Riding with Buck is very much like drinking from a firehose. Once you get it enough to realize there’s something there worth having, and that you’ll miss more than you get in any one clinic, but that’s okay, it’ll come–then, you keep going back for the right reasons. Not just because it was a neat movie …
Really, really good discussion, all; my thanks, too. It says something about what underlies the horsemanship, I think, that we can have a healthy discussion–even a compare and contrast involving dressage, for heaven’s sake–and still set a standard for civility on COTH.
Fillabeana, I cut out the parts of your post that don’t relate to the one point of this post, ok?
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7107244]
You have to have the horse’s body balanced with his weight to the outside of a turn.
You do that by asking him to step laterally behind.
Then, and only then, is the horse IN your outside rein.
…
Watching a snaffle bit horse versus a two-rein or bridle horse: Buck will use a LOT of inside/opening rein to help the greener horse balance himself.
Buck was showing us how to get the horse bending like that, stepping his hindquarters across, with one hand on the snaffle bit reins (the other hand occupied by the lass rope coils)…by using an indirect rein.
…
now I see more clearly why you would use inside leg back- because it helps make clear to the horse how to balance through, step laterally behind, so you CAN use the outside rein. [/QUOTE]
That all makes sense to me.
The “why you’d want to move your inside leg back, so as to push the HQs out” part makes sense in terms of getting the horse to meet the outside rein. Also, he needs to meet that by bending and stepping under with that inside hind. And it seems to me that you’d better have that tattooed on the horse’s heart by the time you ride him in a curb bit.
I’d like to think that I’d be a purist: If I had a horse in the bridle, I’d never flake out and two-hand him in that bit. I might have to humble-up and go back to the snaffle to re-establish that.
[QUOTE=monstrpony;7107622]
You’ll know you’ve really arrived when you give up riding the CFs and decide you get more out of auditing, and watching everyone else deal with the CF, lol.
…
It says something about what underlies the horsemanship, I think, that we can have a healthy discussion–even a compare and contrast involving dressage, for heaven’s sake–and still set a standard for civility on COTH.[/QUOTE]
Haha, I’m smart enough to know that I’ll get more out of a clinic by auditing than by joining the good folks paying to ride. I’m grateful those types will do it because I’m gun-shy about choosing trainers now.
I insist, too, on civility. It took me a bit of a mid-life crisis to get here. But looking at the drugging ponies that’s going on in my first love, aka, Hunters aka Bridle Horse With Jumps In The Way… and then the sniping-type cannibalism that goes on in DQ World (which makes no difference because no matter how right you are theoretically or what a big fish you are on this continent, you suck indeed in comparison to things in Europe), I felt forced to do something different.
Fillabeana, I cut out the parts of your post that don’t relate to the one point of this post, ok?
Spotty couldn’t turn properly unless you asked him to first step under laterally and weight his outside hind, to THEN go around the turn.
His other riders tried to turn him right by neck-reining right (left rein against his neck), when his weight was (when halted) on his RH. So he had to be spurred into hop/falling to the right.
Buck shows clinic-goers at least once at every clinic, how he asks his horse to shift its weight onto, and off of, each individual leg.
It isn’t a party trick!
If I understood this more deeply, I could have asked Spotty to simply shift his weight, and then walk off to the right from the halt, without first going forward and moving his HQ laterally.
There is now smoke coming out of my ears.
And mvp, I have a lot of honor for your gun-shyness about trainers.
I would suggest, though, that you do ride with Buck next time he comes to town.
What happens, when you get your horse biomechanically right, and truly on the aids (on a feel, as he says it), the feeling transcends everything else. It’s magic. It’s why people post , “I’m going to a Buck clinic”, and then seem to get religion. Most folks, including Buck, say that they first saw Ray Hunt (or Tom Dorrance), or rode in a clinic, and felt that magic, and they’ve been chasing it ever since.
I don’t know how Buck does it in a 25+ rider clinic, with so many CFs, on day three when he gets just about everyone feeling that transcendent peace with their horses.
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