 |
[RC] Thinkin' about trail training - Chris PausMy experience this weekend got me to thinking, a lot. The clinicians I don't think were inherently bad people but they were completely clueless about what is appropriate training for real trail horses vs trail class show horses! I'm sure they are in the group of people who use the phrase "just a trail horse" as if that requires less skill, conformation and brains than a show horse. Maybe for the new riders and for those of us who need gentle reminders from time to time, what are qualities you value in a good trail horse. How do you train that horse. What's important to you? This weekend, I learned a lot about my own gut instincts and what not to do with horses, LOL! I feel bad about asking my mare to do something that was foolish and unwise. She and I both will be OK. I'm glad she got through to her thick headed human before we had a wreck. She is the third horse of my own I've had under training for distance riding and the first I've started from the ground up all by myself. In the past, I've taken horses who already are schooled to the saddle and teach them about trails and competition. Here's what's important to me: 1. Lessons I've learned from my mentor.. never ask anything of your horse that is foolish or unwise AND your ultimate goal is for your horse to believe that as long as you are on it or near it, nothing bad will happen. 2. One must know when to urge and when to listen to the horse. I don't want BLIND obedience from a horse and that seems to be what so many trainers are striving for. I want a horse who can THINK on the trail and solve problems. I need to be able to trust a horse to tell me when something is wrong. And the horse needs to be able to trust me when i tell it that this is OK, go forward. As goofy as my gelding Star can be, he has saved our hides more than once by recognizing danger that I didn't see and refusing to go where I was pointing him. When I figured out what was wrong, I thanked him. Ali proved herself by stepping over and around the christmas lights obstacle instead of stepping into the middle of them as we were instructed to do. I don't want a horse who will blindly go into a hornet's nest or rattlesnake den just because I tell him to go there! 3. It takes years to develop a good competition trail horse whether you do endurance or CTR or ride and tie or CMO.. You need to take the time to let the horse learn and understand what is expected of it, to gain confidence in its own abilities and to develop and strengthen bone, muscle, cardio and ligament and tendon tissue. That doesn't happen overnight. It happens through careful training. We don't take our horses out on a long trail ride in the woods if they've never done such a thing before in their lives. We usually get another experienced horse and rider to go with us and show the greenie how it's done. We do it in small increments, building up the horse's stamina and confidence. If we are smart, we don't throw everything at the horse at once. I figure one or two new experiences in a lesson is PLENTY. 4. Asking too much too soon causes trouble in any horse activity. I've seen bad wrecks at endurance rides when people take a horse they don't know and ask it to do things it doesn't know. Bad combo. Take time to get to know the horse and introduce the horse to the things it will need to know, if you just bought a new horse. It is different if you purchased a seasoned campaigner or are riding one for someone else and you already have some experience of your own. But if you've never done this and your horse has never done it, take some time to learn before you expose the horse and yourself to a real competition. I asked too much of my horse on Saturday and nearly had a meltdown. I should have quit after she quietly walked into the barn and stood there watching the demo. At that point, she did something very well that she had never done before in her life, and that was enough for that day. 5. If your gut instinct tells you something is wrong, despite what an "expert" tells you, then go with your own feelings. you'll never be sorry for saying no, but you might really regret contininuing on. I lost a horse to a broken leg because I listened to someone who I thought knew more than me in a situation. My gut told me no, but this person told me it would be fine. My gut was right. My horse died. Anyway, what are your thoughts? chris ===== "A good horse makes short miles," George Eliot Chris and Star BayRab Acres http://pages.prodigy.net/paus ============================================================ The two best drugs to have in your kit are Tincture of Time and a Dose of Common Sense. These two will carry you through 99.999% of the problems associated with horses and endurance competition. ~ Robert Morris ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
|