I’ve just spent a couple of hours watching Tik Maynard competing in The Road to the Horse, and found it fascinating. This deals with gentling and training a QH colt in the three day competition. He evidently went into this because of the challenge of trying something out of his comfort zone. His approach has been quite different from the other contestants. Worth watching.
Details are on Eventing Nation. Live action is on Pluto TV (which I had never heard about). I’ll have to find out when round 2 is tomorrow and tune in. Replays are supposed to be available, according to Eventing Nation, but haven’t looked. I missed the first half hour or so, and I’ll have to find the replay of that.
Today was the first day and I think he did really well. However, I can’t access scores so far. Eventing Nation has all of the information and how to get to the site, so I’ll leave it to them. Tomorrow morning features half hour clinics, and then the competition resumes in the afternoon (2ish?). I’m not a real fan of the quickie training, but Tik’s colt was nice and calm through most of today’s session. Was not as happy with some of the other trainers.
Replays seem to be able to viewed a day or two after each session.
He won 1st day. $5K I got part of the replay then switched and found this end of first day interview.
Judges:
Judge 1 – David O’Connor, Judge 2 – Cody Lambert, Judge 3 – Eric Hoffman, Judge 4 – Jesse Westfall, Judge 5 – Jeff Williams
Judged Criteria:
Catching & Haltering | Saddling Preparation | Saddling | Introduction of Rider | Obstacle Preparation | Groundwork | General Interaction | Timing – Reward & Release | Forward Motion | Willingness to Guide/Steer | Progression of Colt’s Softness -Yields to Pressure | Clarity of the Message | Overall Horsemanship – Reading of Colt | Clinician’s Conduct / Demeanor | Clinician’s Confidence & Understanding | Clinician’s Ability to Build Confidence in Colt | Clinician’s Ability to Adjust to the Colt’s Needs | Clinician’s Ability to Build a Solid Foundation | Appropriate Use of Pen Wrangler | Colt’s Demeanor at End of Session
How it works:
Scores for each criterion are judged from 0-5 in half point increments. Scores are cumulative across all rounds, and the high and low score are discarded for each round.
Pluto TV is offering free signups to watch it at no cost. But I’m curious what people’s experience has been of marketing blitzes once they have your email.
Great that he won the first day. I particularly liked the end of the session where he was just sitting on the horse with a loose “rein,” and then walking around quietly on a really loose rein. The horse never really got wound up during the session. I really liked the way he worked with the horse.
Ironically, Tik got torn apart on here years ago whilst writing the blog posts that contributed to the bulk of “In the Middle Are the Horsemen”, re: Ian Millar. It resulted in his COTH articles being cancelled.
Wasn’t there also a lot of discussion in response to his blog about being detained/turned back north at the US border on his way to a working student gig? In which he came off as bit of a snot for someone who was, you know, technically trying to flout the law. Granted that was 10-15 years ago, and not that it invalidates him as a trainer or writer, but I still think of it when his name comes up.
Tik worked with a difficult horse of mine at a Sinead clinic once (he was there and she said this horse needed him, not her, so he took over the instruction). It was the most valuable clinic session I’ve ever attended. Thanks for mentioning this. I haven’t been following it, so I’ll look it up.
He also won session #2 on Saturday. I really like his quiet way of working with the colt. Finals are today when the contestants compete individually. Lowest score goes first.
Wonder how he would have fared with some of the other colts in the competition…
I am not an eventer, but have been very impressed with Tik. He is gentle and encourages the horse to develop self confidence. I wouldn’t hesitate to send a horse to him based on what I have seen this weekend.
Tik’s horse was extremely quiet and approached him during the selection process, though not as flashy as some of the others. He does seem to have a great mind, which is the best part.
If Tik doesn’t win this, it was rigged. I would love to see him come back next year, and use an English saddle, which he said is what he usually works in. I also love the fact he is wearing a helmet and makes no excuses for it. I hope it makes more Western riders go the route of wearing a helmet!
The horses used in the Wild Card Challenge were all fillies. The horses for this part of the event are geldings. All have incredible Quarter Horse pedigrees. Oh how I wish I could afford one!
Some people just seem interesting to horses, even the wildest ones focus on them and follow them around, fascinated.
Maybe some people smell or move/stand a certain way that horses find irresistible?
Tik was the third person to choose a horse, and the one he choose had approached the two competitors who choose before him. He was curious, but not scared of humans.
I have thoroughly enjoyed these three days, and it introduced me to programs that I knew very little about. Needless to say, Tik’s quiet manner won the trust of his little gelding and consequently the competition itself. I particularly was impressed by his “no hurry” approach and working through each movement beforehand. His little horse and he were on the same wavelength until the drag the unicorn element, which completely upset the gelding. I was then really impressed at how well Tik rode through the bucking episodes.
Another rider who really grew on me, especially today, was Ken McNabb, and the way that he and his horse had gained trust in each other. The little guy, who really was quite the handful, really listened and really tried his very best. Others showed some holes in the training framework when push came to shove.
The $75,000 plus $10,000 in prize money should keep the horses in oats for a while.
Maybe Boyd Martin would like to take the challenge. But maybe not–doesn’t he consistently get hurt when he’s working colts? Maybe Elisa Wallace.
I only saw today, the other days may have been different.
Tik won it hands down and his horse was not as quiet as it looked.
I think he won because he did as all good trainers do, every movement was geared to teach something, it becomes a habit to do so when you start colts, every little pull and push and word and hand on the horse, just all around you shape what is happening for the horse to do it right.
The first man was “stealing a ride”, he was working at getting his horse to not act up, but leaving horse without direction, clearly seen as the horse had not learned yet to respond to hands, was resisting continuously any attempt to guidance and that seemed to be the only aid he was giving, no leg or seat to help horse get it.
When it all started and he kept trying to catch horse, I was getting nervous for him, he kept doing same time and again, in fact teaching horse to avoid him, horse was getting better at it.
A different trainer, Mc Nab one, tried one way once, next time a bit different, next one even another way, not repeating what didn’t work.
The second one, Ken Mc Nab I think, my TV didn’t run CC and I could not hear what they were saying, so muted it from the start, was showing his experience and had the best, softest hands of all four, horse rarely and mostly at the end, when it was running out of patience, was starting to show some resistances.
The third fellow I thought was supposed to be Tik, thought there were only three.
After all the talk that he was so good and winning, it took me a while to realize that could not be him, Mc Nab just was better?
I googled it and there were four, is where I read second was Mc Nab and the fourth would be Tik and yes, he was the best, definitely and all could learn from him and we can learn from all of them, what they did is not easy!
Sitting down and judging them is much easier than getting out there and doing it.
