February Clinic

"Not only should we ask the horse.
Let him work it out too."

One of the things you pick up early on working with Carlos, is that real learning can only take place when your horse is calm – just like we learn best when we're calm. Perhaps just as importantly, when we have the chance to work things out for ourselves, we really understand the experience. That applies to our horses as well.

This concept underpinned our activities at our February clinic. It required us to really think about what we were asking of our horses, to identify the 'tries' and to enlist the necessary patience to give our horses the chance to work out what we were asking instead of moving quickly to 'demanding' a certain response.

This clinic was again a fantastic group of horses and people at very different stages of skill, confidence, and relationships with their horses, as well as quite a few fence sitters who added further dimensions to our experience.

Given the breadth of our backgrounds, we did some fundamental groundwork revision, including getting our horses to back up in a collected frame by 'following our feel' instead of relying on just pulling the lead rope. Using this same technique, with the rope as a light guide, we were also able to easily encourage our horses to lower their heads.

Many of us don't always look forward to working with our horses' feet, so that was the next area we explored. By getting our horses to 'give' their legs using the rope, we not only increased our confidence in handling their legs and feet, we also helped them to understand that it's OK to have something wrapped around their legs and to stand calmly. This can be a lifesaver if, for instance, a horse gets his legs trapped in a fence or loose wire. Handy, too, when it's time for the farrier!

Lani follows Hayley's feel to back up in a collected frame with her head lowered.

Telly, a four-year-old Welsh Cob Pony with only four days of training,
understands what's been asked of him.

Telly quickly picks up the idea of giving his feet calmly.

Then we did more desensitising to establish confidence with our
horses, using everyday items that we might come across at public
outings, or even just everyday riding. Even unusually confrontational,
flapping umbrellas lost their power to surprise or concern most of the horses.

On to some work under saddle, this time focusing on developing our seat and leg aids. Through the exercises we did, most of us discoveredthat we relied first on the reins to communicate with our horses andto assist in balance ourselves, and only secondly on our seat and leg aids. We were really able to experience the freedom – and lightness of the aids required – by using a string around our horse's neck and relying on a halter only as a backup to reinforce our seat and leg aids. Our horses' sensitive reactions to the use of such subtle communication confirmed for many of us that we needed to spend some time isolating and perfecting our seat and leg aids.

This sensitivity was really obvious when we
worked on maintaining 'cruise control' at the trot and canter, particularly in our circle work. Less is definitely more when it comes to communicating with horses so, needless to say, we asked to do some revision of this at the next clinic!

A full schedule, lots of time spent testing the principles and
questioning our progress meant that we didn't have time for our
usual game at the end to draw together all our experiences for
the day. But we spent a lot of time asking questions of Carlos
who, as always, ensured that what he was saying made sense
to us so that we could follow up with our horses. So much
information, so little time! But always good to save something
for our March clinic!

There's always plenty of time for questions – and meaningful
answers are essential to real understanding.

Time for a rest, a drink and a feed!