America 2009 page 2

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This was my fourth trip to Harry Whitney's place in Arizona, staying there for 3 weeks. As always, riding in and spectating Harry's clinics is an eye opening experience. His ability to see things from the horse's point of view helps us to adapt what we are presenting to each horse depending on their needs. This happens while getting a job done with the horse and by the end of the session, the horse feels better for it. Being around Harry often involves laughter and horse stories, which is a wonderful environment in which to learn and experiment. Thankyou again Harry.

In my spare time I went riding in the desert with Libby. On one occassion a four hour ride led us into the wilder parts of the desert where we came across Desert Bighorn Mountain Sheep. Some of you may remember Libby from when she came to England to teach a clinic in 2008 which myself, Tom and Sarah Widdicombe organised.

One of the things that Libby and I thought about while riding in the desert was that it's always good to have a horse moving out with a purpose, but sometimes when this happens, the horse leaves us mentally. One way of spotting this is that when we ask something of our horse he/ she gives a delayed response or braces against what we are asking through the rein or against our leg etc. Like Harry says "In getting a horse's mind with us, we first have to help a horse release any resistance/ braces in their mind and body to help them feel good about being here with us". It's a wonderful feeling when a horse finds comfort in our rein or leg and they relax underneath us in a situation which was worrying them.

In the right hand picture above, Kaloo and I are finding our way down the mountain. I'm looking down to avoid walking into the path of a rattle snake or prickly cactus which can get stuck in their feet.

Above, is Harry on his horse, Sandy. To me, one of the striking things about watching Harry on a horse, is seeing him ride with the horse's mind, not just manoeuvring their physical body. He helps the horse to let go of thoughts and settle here with him. In Harry's own words "If we could see a horse’s thought and help the horse to let go of it, before their thought has become strong enough to be a physical body movement".

Horses are constantly learning. They learn from us things that we want and things that cause them and us difficulty, which we didn’t mean to teach them. I find it's good to think about whether what we’re doing with a horse is causing them to feel better or worse, so they are they relaxing or building tension when we work them.

Elise brought Dash along to Harry's clinic and she kindly let me work with her, as seen in the above photos. Elise works constantly to build her horse's confidence, because Dash is a very sensitve mare who is currently susceptible to getting worried. In the right hand photo, I'm helping Dash learn to stop when I pick up her tail. It didn't take her long to work this out. This can help a horse understand about yielding to pressure in many areas in their life. Doing something like this is one of those things I prefer to interactively teach people how to help a horse understand, to avoid any misunderstandings when reading a piece of text. It certainly involves no pulling or pushing but mostly feel, timing and patience.

Above Ieft, I am sitting on a barrel directing Dash to move between barrels by following the feel of the rope. This was partly to build her confidence in the stirrups bumping on her sides, which worried her. In all the work that I do with horses, I do my best to break things down into segments that a horse can understand. While doing this it's also important to let the horse have time to think his/ her way through what we ask. As Tom Dorrance wrote "slow down to speed up". When we have taken the time for a horse to truely understand something, then in the long term a horse is more likely to respond willingly and quickly.

In the above left hand photo, Libby had been spending time helping her horse Willy to help him feel better about being ridden. She had just stepped off the fence onto his back. She purposely didn't have a bridle or halter on him, so that he didn't feel restrained. Like all of us, Libby spends much time riding out and about. For her this means in the desert, rounding up ranch cattle or taking youngsters to local fun rides etc to build the horse's confidence. Here above she is taking the time to help her horse work through things that worry him and this often makes the world of difference to a horse when we address the little things that bother them.

In the above right hand photo we have set up a situation for the horse Dash to overcome her uncertainty of the tarpaulin and stand on it. What was most interesting about Harry's idea here, was that we didn't direct Dash; we let her search through all of her options before she found what we wanted and then it had become her idea. This can be done quickly by directing a horse but that limits a horse's options and gives them less chance to think clearly and find it as their idea.

In my work with horses, I'm always searching for ways to help each horse think their way through situations and follow our feel rather than just react. This is one of the things that I aim to do in working with horses for the public. This helps to create a safer outcome for the horse and rider in future unpredictable situations.