We had a wonderful day out at Bargo with Pieta from Kalimbah standardbreds who demonstrated her methods of natural horsemanship to safely mount and ride a young standie off the track. Shadow is bound for a bright future and he was a lovely boy to work with, I had a little hands on work with him myself and was delighted at his calm response to flexing and finding a safe place with an on the ground one rein stop, for want of a better description.
Once the horse is comfortable in this on ground technique it is a safe place for him during a disturbing moment under saddle. By bringing his head around to his shoulder, calmly and gently, giving him a nice pat and telling him what a good boy he is, reinforces that under saddle this position, which is achieved in the same way with rein, allows him to de-stress and find some safety in your instruction. So faced with say a scarey motorcycle on a trail ride, a one rein stop, placing his head around into his shoulder reminds him that you have the matter in hand and all he need to is wait it out in his safe place for your next instruction, the worse they can do is circle around for a while but will be unable to take flight, buck or spook to any great extent.
I knew of this technique of course and have done some at times myself but have never had the total package explained to me so well before. It only makes perfect sense to reinforce the technique on ground first and I can not wait to start to work with Rock.
Apart from the Saturday being a total mess with the float being hired to me both unroadworthy and too small, an angle float when I had asked if it was a straight load. Rocky just doesn't fit in a standard angle load. He was squished in and I could not tow him for 1 1/2 hours like that.
I got my money back for the float cost, but forfeited the course fee. Never mind, it is all a learning curve, and I will be more careful next time.
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