Ross Jacobs is another one that can bridge dressage & H/J with this type of horsemanship (in his case, Harry Whitney)
Ross did everything from racing to show jumpers to dressage and more, before he found Harry Whitney and the good horsemanship (Ray Hunt, Tom & Bill Dorrance)
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7245462]
Yes, I’ve also heard Buck say that it’s perfectly OK to start a horse in a bosal. What he doesn’t often say is that lots of folks don’t have the skills to actually do it. In my last clinic he told a story about Mindy Bower using a bosal on a re-start, that had a problem with a bit…Buck told her she needed to go back to the bit and solve the problem, Mindy preferred keeping the horse ‘happy’ in the bosal. Mindy was never able to make a bridle horse out of that one…and Mindy in my estimation has some serious chops.
A.[/QUOTE]
Wow. :eek:
Someone asked about a spade photo. Here is one, I hope it works…
https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/188677_10150112895308805_774542_n.jpg
[QUOTE=Wirt;7246252]
Someone asked about a spade photo. Here is one, I hope it works…
https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/188677_10150112895308805_774542_n.jpg[/QUOTE]
Worked fine, horse’s teeth look like a 7 year old.
For those interested on how a hackamore works, as I was talking about the bumping around on the nose, here it shows how it moves up and down a good 1" to 2" and 3" under the chin and somewhat sideways.
Those bosals are not very steady on a horse’s head.
Horses have to learn to respond to such a somewhat crude tool, but nice as they are, they do:
[QUOTE=Bluey;7246254]
Worked fine, horse’s teeth look like a 7 year old.
For those interested on how a hackamore works, as I was talking about the bumping around on the nose, here it shows how it moves up and down a good 1" to 2" and 3" under the chin and somewhat sideways.
Those bosals are not very steady on a horse’s head.
Horses have to learn to respond to such a somewhat crude tool, but nice as they are, they do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2XVcQr97y4[/QUOTE]
That fellows video is not the definitive word on the use of a hackamore. Perhaps you have never really seen a good hackmore horseman,since you seem to have a low opinion of a hackamore. From what I have read of your post, you really don’t understand them. From the looks of your photos, you use one as if it is a side pull, and have taken all the movement out of one, and there is no nose button on yours, it looks like. It needs to move and swing a little, but it needs to be properly adjusted, be the correct diameter, softness, life in it,and have the right feel to the horse The swinging that is caused just by the horse in motion is minimal, and is not really an issue. Too loose it will twist, but that is why the nose button has to be the right shape for the horses face. That is also why you have to pay attention to what you are doing, and make sure you get the correct response. Starting a horse in a hackamore is very revealing in how it works, and how much feel you have, and you have to go slower, really. If you have a horse with a lot of feel, it is the best tool to create a bridle horse. The guy in the video doesn’t have a lot of feel, in my opinion.
The best hackamore book of late is Bobby Ingersols “The Legendary California Hackamore and Stock Horse”
[QUOTE=Wirt;7246286]
That fellows video is not the definitive word on the use of a hackamore. Perhaps you have never really seen a good hackmore horseman,since you seem to have a low opinion of a hackamore. From what I have read of your post, you really don’t understand them. From the looks of your photos, you use one as if it is a side pull, and have taken all the movement out of one, and there is no nose button on yours, it looks like. It needs to move and swing a little, but it needs to be properly adjusted, be the correct diameter, softness, life in it,and have the right feel to the horse The swinging that is caused just by the horse in motion is minimal, and is not really an issue. Too loose it will twist, but that is why the nose button has to be the right shape for the horses face. That is also why you have to pay attention to what you are doing, and make sure you get the correct response. Starting a horse in a hackamore is very revealing in how it works, and how much feel you have, and you have to go slower, really. If you have a horse with a lot of feel, it is the best tool to create a bridle horse. The guy in the video doesn’t have a lot of feel, in my opinion.
The best hackamore book of late is Bobby Ingersols “The Legendary California Hackamore and Stock Horse”[/QUOTE]
I did not show it because of the rider, but as an example of a bosal bumping along, as I made clear in the post.
It is in the nature of the beast, the larger diameter bosals will bump along.
I don’t know if that rider knows how to use a hackamore to start a colt, he said the filly had several months with a snaffle, which is a different kettle of fish, as it obvious, the way she is working with that new gadget, but already knows to listen to the rider.
Definitely the colt starting grass rope nose hackamore is a very different tool and for many, a better one than a bosal.
Those were the original hackamores, what was used before the California vaquero tradition started braiding rawhide into their bosals.
This is the way colts were started in the very early 1900’s, with a woven/braided string homemade hackamore.
The picture, taking right on our ranch, was called “First Lesson” and it was taken around 1911, in the smaller mule pen:
[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;7246037]
OMG, that video - did anyone else watch it?! I always wondered why the mecate is such a long length - see how you can get into trouble?! :eek:[/QUOTE]
That guy is lucky he didn’t get his horse hurt. If he isn’t one of the type who throw on a hackamore just before the show after schooling in a snaffle, I’d be amazed, because nothing about how he’s holding the mecate is safe.
Not only is the get down rope WAY too long (practically below his foot), I think he’s holding the slack in the WAY long reins in a big bunch as well. He was asking for trouble the whole time.
The get down should only be long enough for the horse to turn his head without restriction, and the rest should be tied to a saddle string or through your belt loop.
The entire rope needs to be that long to allow the rider to step off and doctor cattle, but this guy isn’t likely to need to do that in this getup.
Scary…
Well put Wirt!
In particular, bosal balance is a question of matching mecate to bosal, sizing and shaping. Diameter (weight, really) just emphasizes imbalance.
I can’t say what dressage instruction Betty Staley has had, but she has shown…
http://www.centerlinescores.com/Rider/Details/18792#filterBy=scores
[QUOTE=re-runs;7245384]
I believe that Tom Dorrance would definately agree with you on that statement…He always said; and Ray Hunt repeated that, “It is better to leave the buck in them.” (than to bring it out.)
“What a horse does is what he lives.”
And I have heard from people that worked with Tom that he would never get a horse that troubled and feeling alone to cause them to think that they had to buck. Why send a horse to a place where he may at a later point think that bucking is an option, just better not to ever go there.
Then too, you have to take into consideration a lot of other things…like…is the horse the reactive type and do you have to go deep inside that horse to avoid having to over-ride (excuse the pun) the natural instinct of that horse to flee which may take more time on a horse like that to establish the trust that it is going to take to succeed. And do you have the cattle and open space to follow so as to give a horse a real job while you both are “taking the groundwork with you”, introducing little bits of hackamore riding as the opportunity arises.[/QUOTE]
Having a mustang whose natural reaction is “oh shit, I’d better get out of here!”, how to work with and shape that reaction was my main reason in trying something other than conventional english training that I’d had my whole life.
I did a couple clinics with people whose approach was to get him troubled, I guess to either see what he’d do or try to show him that they were in control and could work him out of it or ??? I did ask Buck about it, because I didn’t like it. To me, their energy was too aggressive and I didn’t like the whole rile-him-up and then jerk his neck around to disengage the hind feet and leave him dripping in sweat. It just didn’t sit right with me. Buck was in agreement of not going there in the first place. I mean, why would you want to be the instigator of your horse’s troubles? What they were teaching had no feel; IMHO, it was aggression and dominance. But they said you had to go there with the horse to know what he’s got in him and then to bring him back down.
Thoughts?
Ray Hunt used to talk about “staying this side of trouble” and perhaps he was thinking about situations that you speak about above.
One thing I know for sure…IF you go there, you better be prepared to bring the horse all the way through or you will end up worse. Not many people have the patience or the knowledge to bring a horse all the way through. Which is why I always chose clinicians wisely and audited their teaching styles before I would ever ride with them or let them touch my horse, both dressage or buckaroo type horsemanship.
Which brings me back to what I saw Joe Wolter do. It was a colt starting class and on the second and third day he had those young colts walking over tarps with their riders and you could just see the confidence those horses were building in themselves and their people to help them not be afraid. To an on looker withOUT a foundation in this kind of horsemanship they were probably saying to themselves “Why don`t they just get it done!” but, getting across the tarp was not the exercise…the exercise was building confidence in the horse. Now that tarp could have been a creek, or getting by a scarey rock or…fill in the blanks. These were life lessons that these people and their horses were learning. After a couple of tries, those horses WANTED to cross that tarp, it felt so good to them.
Most people are not going to be able to start out with a blank slate like those colts but I think if you put it in the horse, (no matter how old they are and what past experiences they have had) and there is ALWAYS that good spot to go to in any situation, and the horses know that it will always be there, then that is the place that the horses will be looking up and of course the rider will provide.
I first found this out on my own with a young horse that I was free jumping in my arena. At first he was afraid of the cavaletti with the big white drums on both sides as wings but every time he got up to the jump, I would totally let the energy out of my body…and mind you, this was from 20 feet away. He soon was happily sailing over those little jumps with such confidence, ears up and at a sweet canter, lovely rhythm with the attitude of “This is fun, I can DO it!” But that is not the rest of the story. The best part was that the next day when I turned him out in the arena, the first thing he did was head for the first jump and jump it himself with no encouragement from me. Heck, I hadn`t even made it down to the center of the ring yet. He had been looking forward to it…he LIKED doing it. Now I try to put that confdience and enthusiasm in every horse I ride or work with.
[QUOTE=re-runs;7246864]
Ray Hunt used to talk about “staying this side of trouble” and perhaps he was thinking about situations that you speak about above. [/QUOTE]
The tricky part about this is that the only way to consistently stay on this side of trouble AND get things done in tricky situations is to develop a solid repertoire of knowledge on what “too much” represents. For every person or “program” who obviously blows through okay into way too much, there is another body of folks who never do enough to make much progress. The only way to find out what enough is is to be willing to find both not enough AND too much. Horses will always forgive (if not forget) when someone looks for and finds that line, in my experience.
This is very true, but is also very often misinterpreted by folks. If we use your tarp example, people might be inclined to think that getting the horse over the tarp is “all the way”, but it’s actually to get a horse to even consider the tarp without fear. One could leave the horse there and it would be better next time WITHOUT having to slam him over the tarp. If you address the tarp and the horse finds relief by outwaiting or outwitting the human, the experience will make the next visit to the tarp harder.
Generalized further, the skill of the horseman then dictates how big of a chunk can be bitten off without resulting in a bad experience, the caveat being “you can’t go through trouble and come out okay”.
Using pressure like a horseman/woman is to steadily show a horse how to deal with your requests and their environment in such a way as they become more confident and reliable, not such that they do more things. Getting over a tarp is just a thing, whereas being able to address a scary object, calm themselves AND trust the rider that they will not be asked to do something that will harm them is the horsemanship goal.
To distill it down further to using a flag, most people will reward a horse when it stops or starts moving, as the request might be. The horseman rewards the horse when it softens to the flag (either forward or stationary) AND draws a firm line between incidental pressure and directed pressure. The former “desensitizes” the horse or makes him more reactive but is extremely situationally dependent (that flag in that way in that place), where the latter provides an experience that the horse can generalize. I’m convinced this is why two people can move a horse’s feet in the same patterned exercise and get vastly different results.
The vaquero notion of manana is often taken to be “not in a rush, there’s always tomorrow”. It’s actually the art of making sure that today never compromises tomorrow for the sake of getting something done, IMHO.
[QUOTE=aktill;7246993]
The tricky part about this is that the only way to consistently stay on this side of trouble AND get things done in tricky situations is to develop a solid repertoire of knowledge on what “too much” represents. For every person or “program” who obviously blows through okay into way too much, there is another body of folks who never do enough to make much progress. The only way to find out what enough is is to be willing to find both not enough AND too much. Horses will always forgive (if not forget) when someone looks for and finds that line, in my experience.
This is very true, but is also very often misinterpreted by folks. If we use your tarp example, people might be inclined to think that getting the horse over the tarp is “all the way”, but it’s actually to get a horse to even consider the tarp without fear. One could leave the horse there and it would be better next time WITHOUT having to slam him over the tarp. If you address the tarp and the horse finds relief by outwaiting or outwitting the human, the experience will make the next visit to the tarp harder.
Generalized further, the skill of the horseman then dictates how big of a chunk can be bitten off without resulting in a bad experience, the caveat being “you can’t go through trouble and come out okay”.
Using pressure like a horseman/woman is to steadily show a horse how to deal with your requests and their environment in such a way as they become more confident and reliable, not such that they do more things. Getting over a tarp is just a thing, whereas being able to address a scary object, calm themselves AND trust the rider that they will not be asked to do something that will harm them is the horsemanship goal.
To distill it down further to using a flag, most people will reward a horse when it stops or starts moving, as the request might be. The horseman rewards the horse when it softens to the flag (either forward or stationary) AND draws a firm line between incidental pressure and directed pressure. The former “desensitizes” the horse or makes him more reactive but is extremely situationally dependent (that flag in that way in that place), where the latter provides an experience that the horse can generalize. I’m convinced this is why two people can move a horse’s feet in the same patterned exercise and get vastly different results.
The vaquero notion of manana is often taken to be “not in a rush, there’s always tomorrow”. It’s actually the art of making sure that today never compromises tomorrow for the sake of getting something done, IMHO.[/QUOTE]
YesYesYes :yes:
This is really my top priority in my horse training, to not overface my young horses, but to keep them progressing. Certainly I don’t always get it right, but this style of horsemanship has given me the tools I need to deal with it if I get it wrong. It’s also given me the tools to get it wrong much less often and the ability to see signs I’ve missed in my prior (cough) decades with horses that it might be approaching too much.
I love it.
BTW, I just got the 2013 Spring Eclectic Horseman video journal, and the segment on dressage by Ellen Eckstein would be fantastic for those of the pursasion. Her intro talks about working with Tom Dorrance directly and trying to get what her dressage instructors had told her to do using his mindset, and the working session details a bunch of things we’ve talked about in this thread (backing, forward before being picky, starting from the hind foot etc). Well worth it…should be a good series.
If we use your tarp example, people might be inclined to think that getting the horse over the tarp is “all the way”, but it’s actually to get a horse to even consider the tarp without fear.
REALLY good point there.
The first part of the exercise was to set it up so that the horses even wanted to look at the tarp. The second part was setting it up so the horses to want to put a foot on the tarp and take it off again. I have found that if you get this far and the horses are feeling good about it, crossing the tarp is something the horses want to do very soon after. Helping the horses across the tarp is NOT something that you do TO him, it is something you HELP him do and not by putting more pressure on him but letting him find a place he feels good that you are helping him. A person`s intent and energy has so much to do with it and how the horse feels about it all; things that probably the average person may not consider until they have it pointed out to them. (speaking from my own experience before I embarked on this journey)
Like Joe said once during the clinic… “even trying to ride a straight line is putting pressure on the horse”. So if that is true then we have to stop and think how do we go about helping the horse without putting pressure on him and what that will entail. We set it up so he is always hunting for that 'feel good place", not just trying to get away from the pressure to find it.
This took me to have a mental shift in the way I had been doing things because I was one of those “who obviously blows through okay into way too much”. I had to come from a place I had never gone before that got me way farther along.
[QUOTE=aktill;7247073]
BTW, I just got the 2013 Spring Eclectic Horseman video journal, and the segment on dressage by Ellen Eckstein would be fantastic for those of the pursasion. Her intro talks about working with Tom Dorrance directly and trying to get what her dressage instructors had told her to do using his mindset, and the working session details a bunch of things we’ve talked about in this thread (backing, forward before being picky, starting from the hind foot etc). Well worth it…should be a good series.[/QUOTE]
Ellen is also very easy to find on Facebook, and very open to communicating. Would love to clinic with her if she ever gets close.
Here is a photo better than an xray of a spade bit in the horse’s mouth.:
https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/s403x403/1392940_621194451278607_69074065_n.jpg
Tarp, did anyone say tarp?
Watch these people, I don’t know who they are, working this horse with a tarp: 
[QUOTE=aktill;7247073]
BTW, I just got the 2013 Spring Eclectic Horseman video journal, and the segment on dressage by Ellen Eckstein would be fantastic for those of the pursasion. Her intro talks about working with Tom Dorrance directly and trying to get what her dressage instructors had told her to do using his mindset, and the working session details a bunch of things we’ve talked about in this thread (backing, forward before being picky, starting from the hind foot etc). Well worth it…should be a good series.[/QUOTE]
Her video is on my Giddyupflix queue. She does clinics a couple hours from me and my friend has ridden with her a couple times and really likes her. I’ve thought about it but so far haven’t taken the plunge (although I did watch my friend’s ride and enjoyed seeing the exercises she did).
[QUOTE=Bluey;7247137]
Tarp, did anyone say tarp?
Watch these people, I don’t know who they are, working this horse with a tarp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl66RIj5anE[/QUOTE]
OMG, I love that horse!
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