Now I knew with him this was going to be intense, there are so many things happening here that it will be very hard to mention all of them, but as you see when he gets his feet stuck and as his concern grows the inevitable was always building, Now I make important choices when I work horses, if I had a round yard I could have kept him, But what I learned early is that this is a false sense of control like riding in a round yard, I want this to be worked out and if I use a fence to stop this then it will never be finished with and dealt with, now I have so slight pressure on him here and this is what happened can you imagine being on his back and hurting his mouth trying to stay there, it would have been terrible to say the least and the risk of injury would have been massive, I was always told by allot of greats to avoid eye contact as this makes Horses more upset, I have found the opposite to be true, patting their head and looking somewhere else is deadly, what ever happens with a horse will happen in their eyes first, it is the mirror of their soul. if they are distressed and your looking in their eye, then I can tell you they were distressed like this lovely man was already, it did not get worse because of the eye contact. Now when his feet got stuck it was getting increasingly tough to start them again and each time he made more room in my rope top give himself the timing and room to break and turn, once turned they have already beaten you, Now yes if I had a chain under his chin I would have stopped him but I can tell you it would have been painful for him and I would have scared him mentally but yes had I been younger and with my training I would have chosen this option because it is all about my winning and showing him who is boss. Now I am here and I am now, what I have learned taught me this is all rubbish, He got away this once and I went down to the fence and he was snorting and upset and stressed, I picked up the rope and walked him back, now as I did this he was bullish and pushy because he was so upset, but he was asking me questions and I moved him and told him answers, Interestingly for you guys there was no rough stuff at all, just solid answers of move off me dont try to take over and cut me off, but at not one time did I show any emotion or upset, He worked the whole rest of the 2 hours without incident without tantrums or running off, if fact he never challenged me again at all and this was in a web halter where he has the advantage. He got better and softer and more understanding all the time, such a lovely horse that was just in a bad place in himself, he will come along, he is very smart and he is very intelligent. I find often these Horses do get into trouble because of their sensitivity and rough hands would end up with a horse like this not surviving, oh I know people who could ride his worst buck I am sure, but this horse would never allow less of a rider then that and it would cement his resolve.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:24:49 +0000