Horsemanship Clinic

August 5, 2007

Ride With Control, School With Intent Level 1

Key Objectives:

At the end of the clinic, you will:

  1. have an understanding, appreciation and hands-on experience in how you control your horse’s body through his mind and his spirit (emotions).
  2. have an understanding and hands-on experience in how to best communicate with your horse while on horseback using your reins, legs and seat (core).
  3. learn exercises that will develop both you and your horse’s self-confidence under saddle.
  4. learn how to ride in balance with your horse using feel, timing and rythym.
  5. have an understanding, appreciation and hands-on experience in how horses learn and thus the principles of schooling your horse.
  6. learn and have hands-on experience in how to develop a step-by-step plan to teach your horse something you want to teach him to do.
  7. have hands-on experience in schooling your horse to improve his emergency control, impulsion control and direction control.
  8. learn and have hands-on experience in how to correctly determine the root cause of any emergency, impulsion or direction control problem you are having while on horseback and implement a step-by-step plan to resolve it.

Clinic Format:

At the beginning of each segment:

  1. I will talk briefly on the principles and practices involved.
  2. I will demonstrate and teach the principles and practices with a suitable horse.
  3. One-on-one, I will help each participant put into practice the principles involved with their horse. Afterwards, each participant can either continue to practice with their horse in the arena while I help another participant or continue watching other participants.

Note:
This clinic is all on horseback.

Key Points of the Clinic:

  1. Unless you are a very confident rider and can develop respect and trust under saddle, before you get on any horse you should develop respect and trust on the ground first.
  2. Before you school your horse, you must be able to put your horse in a learning frame of mind, i.e., your horse should be calm and focussed on you and what you are trying to communicate to him rather than be distracted by safety, heirarchy or physical discomfort concerns.
  3. Through consistent use of the 3 phase cue system, your horse will become more and more focussed on listening to what you are trying to communicate to him and consequently, will become lighter and lighter.
  4. The better your timing of your release of the cue, the quicker your horse will learn.

Clinic Agenda:

12:00 - 12:10 Overview of Clinic Objectives & Agenda
12:10 - 12:30 Principles and Practices of Riding with Control, Schooling with Intent
12:30 - 01:30 Emergency Control - The One Rein Stop
01:30 - 03:30 Emotional Control
03:30 - 03:45 Coffee Break
03:45 - 04:30 Impulsion Control
04:30 - 05:30 Direction Control

Note: If you'd like even more detail, i.e., a description of all the exercises we'll cover in this clinic, email me and I'll send you the file.