Talk to the leg.

The kidlette is 19 now and would like to be introduced. Meet Clare on Snicket

I'm posting my article for my horse column again. Sorry I missed Mouthy Monday, I'll get on it. I learned something very interesting about my sweet, well behaved mare this morning. One of the barn help offered to catch her for me as I was wearing my work clothes (we were getting feet trimmed).

This horse has manners, manners, manners. I thought. But when a stranger tried to catch her she ran. When she finally was cornered she pinned her ears, squealed and STRUCK.

I was horrified. Luckily the gal was horse savvy and just caught her. Sigh.

I'm going to hang a sign on my pen.

Please Don't Feed or Pet.

Feel Free to Beat Often.

At least I know she'd be hard to steal.

I'm working on a Tally story so stay tuned.

6-16-10
Talk to the Leg
By Janet Huntington

My daughter, Clare, has a very nice cow horse she trained herself named Snicket. He is a solid, good minded gelding and has grown into a beautiful mover and a flashy competitor.

We having been having a blast sorting cows with the Fountain Riding and Roping Club (FRCC) this year. Sorting is proving to be an interesting , laid-back experience for all of us, riders and horses alike.

My horses have taken to it with a healthy amount of curiosity and competence, proving, as always, they could be extremely successful if I would learn how to stay out of their way.

Snicket , on the other hand, has been nervy, chargy and a little anxious.

Part of his problem is he likes to be a booger and mess with my daughter. The other part is he would rather be hot and in charge than listen and do what he’s told.

Clare and I have been trying to dissect the issue and figure out how to fix him.

We have realized this is a two-part problem, which means this will be a two-part article.

One of Snicket’s issues is thinking control of his cow means throwing himself at it like a coyote on a cat.

Since sorting is a game of quietly and efficiently moving your cow (at least with the FRRC), Snicket could get in a little trouble if he comes out of the herd with a mouthful of hide and hamburger.

We also started to think about how Snicket is working off Clare’s leg.

Or not.

“When I started him (as a two-year-old) sulling up was his big issue,” Clare told me.

“He would resist my leg, my hand, everything and then he would blow.”

When Clare talks about Snicket blowing up she’s talking about a big explosion.

As a two-year-old he could bucket harder than most and was a “blind” bucker which bounced off walls, slammed through people and over benches. He was determined to keep with it long enough to be sold as rodeo stock.

I think that’s the reason Clare is so attached to him. She rode through some incredibly nasty stuff to get the sane, responsive horse she has today.

She’s proud of her horse and she should be.

When she was working through young Snicket’s explode-o-meter she got in the habit of being very soft and quiet with him.

She would give him plenty of time to think and let him work through his sulk. Then she found he would move off just a touch of her leg.

“I hardly ever touch him with my spur, he just goes,” Clare said.

Which leads me to think this is the first problem to address.

Our legs need to be a clear method of communication with our horses.

Lightness needs to mean our horse responds to what we are telling him with our legs, not that he blasts forward if dare to give him any more than the slightest cue.

I’ve always trained based on the idea that poor behavior from a horse is 90% because he is misdirecting our cues.

It is usually our fault, because we haven’t made ourselves clear, but sometimes it can be an evasion.

If a rider doesn’t dare take a hold of their horse’s face, or can’t put a leg on him for fear he will bolt, that’s an evasion, not a light horse.

Snicket isn’t that extreme, but Clare has decided she is going to slowly go through her cues with him and make sure she can grip him with her legs, send him forward, side to side and back without him evading her by over reacting.

She is also going to make sure she can bump or pull or bang on him and have his response be to wait and see what she means, not to leap forward.

The trick is to be very careful. Clare doesn’t want to desensitize her horse to her legs, she wants him to wait to see what she’s saying.

It’s easy to get excited when things are going wrong with our horses. Sometimes even when things are going right we’ll get fired up and miscue or over cue our horses.

If I go into the show pen and turn into some Gomer who can’t remember to stay calm and ride my horse (no, not me!) then I need a horse who stays calm and doesn’t start blasting around just because I turned stupid.

If I need to show my horse something she doesn’t agree with, I need her to let me show her what I want, not blow up.

The first step in creating a horse who calmly sorts through our cues is for the rider to be fair and consistent with the cues.

For me, go forward is always asked with my body before I go to my leg. Then I ask with both calves.

Then a smack with my reins or romel on the hindquarters.

I try to remember my spurs are a directional tool, to lift the back or to turn left and right.

I do my very best to ride my horse the same every ride with the same set of cues.

I also, every once in a while just pull them around, or kick them forward or side to side for no reason other than I can.

I’m not mean about it, I’m just staying ahead of my horse and being more aggressive than usual with my hand and leg.

When I feel a hesitation in my horse, almost as if she is pausing and saying, “What in the world are you doing?” I’ll ease up.

This creates a moment where we both can regroup and do things correctly.

I call it a cowboy half halt and it has saved my bacon more than once.

Clare is planning on much the same program, but she is beginning by going through each of her basic cues, left, right, forward, back and making sure both she and Snicket are on the same page.

I’m planning on bringing some popcorn and a beer so I can sit back and watch the fun. Snicket does like to mess with her.

Next week I’ll talk about how we get a horse quiet on a cow.