"As Clinton Anderson would say, the less you know and the more you flop
around a horse, the more de-sensitized they become. It looks like Cary is
doing a good job to me of getting her used to someone flopping around on a
mounting block!!"
Seriously, I think there's something to that...within reason, of course.
Cary makes "mistakes" but the horses know he loves them, and they trust him,
so yes, he does help to desensitize them. :) I'm probably giving him a
hard time though. He's not totally clueless - some things he's actually
pretty good with. We've had horses for 19 years. He's only recently become
interested in starting young horses, but he is confident in his handling of
them, and that is a very good thing. He's never paid any attention to
anyone starting a young one though, so this is new for him.
He made one BIG faux pas today - luckily we saw him before it became a
disaster. Actually it was a double mistake, but no one was harmed, horse or
human. He wanted to see exactly how much tack he could pile up on poor
Maja, and since it didn't seem to be worrying her too much, he just let him
do his thing. But, then I turned around, and he had cinched up the saddle -
only loosely - AND over the bareback pad that has stirrup rings on it -
OUCH. You do NOT use a pad with hardware under a treed saddle...EVER! Not
only that, he hadn't gone through enough steps before cinching up the
saddles. I've seen young horses get spooked at that point, and take off,
and if the saddle slips under their belly, they can really freak out. I
would never have a horse take her first steps with a saddle on her back,
unless their was no girth at all, or the girth was snug enough that the
saddle isn't likely to slip. We got him to take it off before anything bad
happened. We take several steps before cinching up snugly too - at first we
just hold a lead line around their middle, then we wrap the girth, but just
hold it without buckling so we can drop it if necessary. When all that is
no-sweat, then we will cinch it...but usually the surcingle or bareback pad
first. I can't find my surcingle though...I must have loaned it to someone
but I can't remember who.
Our motto: Training is always easier than RETRAINING! We aim for zero
remedial work, even if we go very slowly.
We learned that the hard way, from our own mistakes...as well as from the
mistakes of others. I so wish I had not made so many of the mistakes I did
with Holly. For several reasons, that mare developed a hard brace in her
neck - what might be called a "hard mouth" but was actually all over her
body, particularly in her head in neck. I took her to a clinic with Dave
Seay, and it took even him about two hours to learn to really give to the
bit, and he specializes in problem horses. Holly didn't really appear to
anyone there to be a "problem horse" - she certainly went through the
motions of being well-behaved most of the time. But, until I got her
relaxed, we were at a brick wall - I couldn't improve her gaits, I couldn't
really do anything with her. I could go on and on with other examples in
our herd.
I know I'll never actually achieve the goal of zero remedial work, but at
least with it as a goal, we seem to get SLIGHTLY closer to that goal with
each young horse we start.
Karen Thomas, NC
I'm including several links below, whichever may be easier for you to view:
