Deanne Del Vecchio & Gabe wrote:
>I've wondered what is better to do--fight with the horse at the beginning of
>a ride to try to keep some control or to let him run like a fool until he
>calms down (don't know if my guy will actually calm down before he runs
>himself to death...never really wanted to test that one.)
Here's my opinion on this subject:
The new, not quite conditioned, maybe young, endurance horse might be able
to go full out for 5-7 miles before letting the rider start to control him.
Then as the horse gets in better condition, it will be 10-15 miles.
Then a bit later, it will be 25-35 miles. And so forth.
Or, the rider can insist that the horse start to obey, go nicely,
go round, and do what the rider knows is best from the start.
After a few miles, or a mile and a hour, the horse will start to listen
and the rider can take off at the rider's pace.
After a few rides, the horse learns that the sooner he settles down,
the sooner he'll get to go chase those other horses.
(The learning process can be embarressing to the rider. First ride
with Drake we went a few hundred yards and had a major discussion
before he finally gave in to me. It took half a hour or so right
in front of all those people watching the start.)
Let's say that you take a young horse on a ride and don't insist that
the horse behave immediately. You are trucking along, hanging on,
come around a corner and there is some spook in the road (a rock,
a dangerous hole, a horse rider wreck). Can you at this point in time
take immediate control and get your horse through the problem?
If the horse hasn't been listening to you before the spook, why would
the horse start listening to you now. But, if you took control from
the start, then let the horse out a bit, you'll have a much easier
time of getting control and avoiding the problem.
Think a minute about the "proper" way of going for a horse.
You'll note that "proper" is in quotes since everyone will have their
own opinion on proper.
A horse should be light on the bit, responsive, round, using his rear
end. This is not a particular *set*, but rather a way of moving with
the terraine. It takes work for a long time to get the horse to go
properly. For awhile, the amount of work the horse is doing is greater
if they are moving properly than if they are going incorrectly, head
in the air, back hollow, not using their rear ends, etc. However,
once the horse learns and muscles up correctly, going properly means
they are doing less work in the long run than if they are going incorrectly.
Then, you and your horse can go longer and faster.
So, knowing this, why would anyone let their horse run incorrectly
when they would be breaking down the horse sooner?
(On an early ride, 25 miles, with Drake, I had him in a very nice,
easy to ride, slow trot. Along came a rider, horse hollow back, rider
bouncing something terrible. She looks at me and says I need to teach
my horse to trot. At the end of the ride, I came in second based on
BC, and she came in last with a tired, sore horse.)
One of the reasons that the shorter 25 mile rides are nice is that you
are not racing (or shouldn't be). You can use the rides as training
rides. Train the horse how to act at the start. Train the horse how
to move down the trail. Train the horse how to listen to you. Train
the horse to move correctly, just as you would insist in the practice
ring, just as you would in dressage lessons. It doesn't take long, if
you are consistent, to train the horse to do as you want rather than
what his excitement wants to do.
-- Wendy\|/ /\ -O- /**\ /|\ /****\ /\ / \ /**\ Here there be dragons / /\ / \ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\/\ /\ / / \ / \ / \/\/ \/ \ /\/ \/\ /\ /\/ / / \/ \ / / \/ /\ \ / \ \ / \/ / / \/ \/ \ / \ \ / / \/ \/\ \ / \ / / \ __/__/_______/___/__\___\__________________________________________________
Wendy Milner HPDesk: wendy_milner@hp4000 Hewlett-Packard Company e-mail: wendy@fc.hp.com Mail Stop A2 Telnet: 229-2182 3404 E. Harmony Rd. AT&T: (970) 229-2182 Fort Collins, CO, 80525 FAX: (970) 229-4292