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I
have three words to solve your weak link problems with horses:
basics, basics, basics. Teach them to your horse and review
them often. These two suggestions help smooth out more training
programs than anything else I know. Here are some mistakes
people make with the basics:
Assuming
the horse knows the basics.
If a horse you are riding doesn't respond when you cue him,
perhaps the person who started his training neglected to
teach him the cue. Regardless of the horse's age or who's
been riding him, don't assume he knows the basics. Maybe
that's why the other rider couldn't get along with him.
If you run into resistance, stop and review, or pretend
he doesn't know the basics and start over from scratch.
Assuming
the horse knows the basics better than he does.
A
horse might learn a cue but won't be consistent in his response
to it for some time. Allow him to be forgetful and not precise
at first. As riders, we're smarter than a horse, but we
can be forgetful and less than perfect. So we shouldn't
expect more from our horses.
Give
a horse time to learn the cue and even more time to be solid
in responding. If you are sure the horse knows the cue and
you're having a problem, then slow down and review it for
him. If he's confused, adding more pressure just creates
more confusion.
Assuming
that, once the horse performs the basics, he knows them
for life.
This
is similar to the point above. Perhaps the horse knows all
the basics. Maybe he has won championships. If so, at the
time he won them he was probably being trained every day
and was at the top of his game, physically and mentally
tuned to do his best.
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Here,
I am doing a drill that will give me more control of
the shoulder that was slow coming through the turn.
In other words, I am fixing what's causing the problem. |
Layoffs
and lack of competition can make a horse rusty in his response
Give him a refresher course and time to build back up.
Assuming
that nothing is keeping the horse from doing the basics.
As
horsemen, we need to make sure we're not asking the horse
for something that's too hard or impossible for him to do.
A horse could be sore or stiff, in which case pain could
be keeping him from responding correctly. Maybe the horse
is carrying some mental baggage from a previous rider.
Give
him time to get over it, or perhaps teach it to him again
(this time correctly). It could even be that your horse
is limited in his ability. Horses are not all champions.
I would rather have a horse perform his best at a lower
level than push him too hard and cause physical and mental
problems.
If
you're a novice and unsure about your training, you might
ask yourself: "Does my horse have weak links? How do
I find these weak links? How do I know which one I should
work on first?"
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