Horsemanship Clinic

September 2, 2007

Put 45 Horsemanship Principles Into Practice

Key Objectives:

At the end of the clinic, you will:

  1. have more of an understanding and hands-on experience in i) how horsemanship principles are the general guidelines (the toolbox) of what to do and how to do it when faced with a horse problem; and ii) how exercises are the actual tools (within the toolbox) to help resolve the problem.
  2. have enlarged your tool box and increased your mastery over the use of the tools to help solve common horse problems.
  3. have developed a consistent approach that will always lead you to the correct underlying cause and solution to a horse problem.
  4. have developed your self confidence in your horse handling skills and ability (both on the ground and under saddle) to the extent that you feel you are on a definite path to becoming a better horseman.

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: In this clinic will work with horses both on the ground and horseback.

Key Points of the Clinic:

  1. Horses know when you know and they know when you don’t know.
  2. Developing horsemanship skills and abilities is a lifelong learning process that involves getting experience solving problems with all the different horse personality types through all the common problems.
  3. The path to becoming a better horseman is to start by developing your skills and abilities by helping one horse (your horse which is ideally the easiest horse personality to work with) through all the exercises designed to grow respect, trust, focus and confidence in riding/schooling and then gradually repeating the entire process (or bits of the process) with incrementally more challenging horse personality types.
  4. If you follow the path to becoming a better horseman, at some point you will genuinely feel confident that you know what to do and how to do it when faced with any horse problem. At that point, every horse you meet will know you know and respond accordingly.

Clinic Agenda:

12:00 - 12:10 Overview of Clinic Objectives & Agenda
12:10 - 12:30 Principles and Practices of Horse Psychology, Body Language and Communication
12:30 - 01:30 Principles and Practices of Gaining Respect and Focus
01:30 - 02:30 Principles and Practices of Growing Confidence and Trust
02:30 - 03:45 Coffee Break
02:45 - 04:30 Principles and Practices of Riding and Schooling
04:30 - 05:30 Problem Solving using Horsemanship Principles and Practices

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.