Anna Bonnage
Horsemanship
America February 2010 page 2
I was fortunate to ride Joe’s own cutting horse. When a horse understands his job to cut a cow and an amateur cowgirl like myself gets on, well lets just say I kept my eye on the cow and enjoyed the ride! The speed, efficiency and accurate timing that a horse has when it’s their idea to move their feet in order to do a job is like no other. It was rather like being on a fair ground ride and my job was to keep out of the horse’s way by just going with the movement. Joe emphasizes the importance of using a horse’s energy and natural interest of things in order to create maneuvers which we want. In doing this a responsive lightness develops all the way through to the horse’s feet because our idea and the horse’s idea come together and maneuvering becomes as soft and light as blowing a feather. This is also making the right thing (what we want the horse to do) feel easy to them. Sometimes being a better rider is our ability to go with the horse once we’ve asked something of them, instead of keeping asking and wanting to ‘make’ every step happen by micromanaging.
(Click on photos to see them full size)
In the left hand photo the horse that I’m riding is mentally hooked onto (tracking/ following) a moving flag on a wire, which can be a great way to get a horse mentally and physically engaged and with us. On the right I’m working with Cows, picking one to cut from the heard.
In the photos above Joe is teaching a colt to be halter broken and how to lead up freely. After roping the colt off of his horse, he trotted around following the colt and started to incorporate pressure down the rope in order to help the colt think about turning to face him and yield his quarters to find a release of the pressure. Within minutes the colt understood that it was his responsibility to keep the slack in the rope by following it’s feel rather than brace against it in fear and uncertainty.
Even though much of Joe’s work is training horses to cut cattle in the show ring, the way that he does this applies to every horse and every riding discipline. Here are some of the things that I think about which I heard Joe say and saw him do:
Have the awareness to read the horse.Be aware of when a horse needs support or freedom to move. Be ready when the horse is ready. Be constantly aware (feeling) of where a horse’s mind and feet are and go with them in order to then direct them.Be able to not hinder the life (lightness) in a horse’s movement. Be able to instantly yet quietly bring the horse’s energy up and down.Preparation is important, that we feel prepared and we prepare the horse. Looking where we’re going gives our horses direction but also takes the pressure off them and so helps them to relax. Honor (release) when a horse tries to do (thinks about) what we’ve asked because there’s got to be something in it for the horse.
Above we're lining up outside the Bunkhouse after our group ride in the snow "seeing some country " as Joe called it. Followed by a photo of 3 yr old Willo and I taking a break to watch other students.
After the second week riding in Joe’s Clinic, I returned to Texas to watch the Ray Hunt Memorial weekend. At this event 23 students of Ray Hunt started colts over the two days, each having an hour a day to work with their unhandled colt in the round pen. It was interesting to see how people’s nerves affected their horses and how some horses had a stronger sense of self preservation to others and how individuals approached situations differently either bringing the horse’s self preservation out or calming it down. Overall I observed that some of the most important factors influencing how the horses felt were: how the horseman felt; if he liked the colt or not; if he had confidence in the colt or not and if his ego/ nerves got in the way of being there to help the colt or not. These observations reminded me of Joe when I’d ask him if I could ride off somewhere on a colt that had only had about 20 rides ever before. Joe’s answer to questions like this was always “well if you think it’ll be alright then it’ll be alright!”.
I spent the end of my trip at Harry Whitney’s place riding in his Clinic. While being around Harry the learning truly never ends as his patience, awareness and laughter create an ideal learning environment for both human and horse.
The view from the bunkhouse where students stay on Harry's property.
At Harry’s I worked with a young Azteca horse. The Azteca is a modern horse breed developed in Mexico combining three different bloodlines including the Iberian blood Line, specifically Andalusian and Lusitano breeds, the American Quarter Horse and Criollo bloodlines.
This youngster showed signs of not always feeling good about his work. In the pictures below i’m asking him to think out onto a circle and follow my feel and the feel of the rope around his neck. In the second picture I’m slapping my leg to add importance to him letting go of mentally pushing on me while he felt troubled. It was important that he felt content to move his mind and then shoulder out onto the circle to help him feel comfort in me giving him direction. I've included the third picture to show that his expression changed for the better and so in this session he started to feel better about being around a human.
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