[Consider This] What Is WRONG With My Horse?!!
79 views
Skip to first unread message
Endurance.Net
May 21, 2015, 3:43:48 PM5/21/15
to ride...@endurance.net
Foundationsandbeyondhorsemanship - Full Article
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Ted Nicholes: Foundations and Beyond Horsemanship
Ever wondered this; 'What is WRONG with my horse?!!'
A recent call to Ted centered around that question. Layne Lewis was concerned about her horses recently developed behavior patterns.
The horse in question, Harley, is an experienced (as in 1700 AERC miles) gelding whom Layne has owned since his birth eleven years ago. Recently he has become difficult to work with, showing resistance and disrespect. Having been the rider and trainer of this horse for years Layne had the horse checked for possible physical causes of this behavior. Not only did Harley check out fine physically; Layne considers that he is in fact in probably the best condition of his life.
Frustrated and becoming even more concerned Layne decided to talk to a trainer with a reputation for being able to help with a horses manners. Layne knew of Ted through mutual friends in the endurance community and gave him a call.
After some conversation Layne and Ted decided the best thing to do was get together and have a private lesson session to evaluate what exactly was wrong with her horse. A private lesson was accordingly scheduled to try to provide the answer to the question 'What is wrong with Harley?' and also hopefully determine how to begin the process of fixing what was wrong with her horse. Since I saw only short snapshots (a total of about two minutes!) of the lesson Ted wrote the rest of this blog post.
The following is Ted's narration of how that lesson played out;
The big red horse trotted off to the far side of the round pen, alternating between sniffing the ground and lifting his head to look as high as he could. Perfectly normal, I thought, a prey animal assessing his surroundings, determining limits, evaluating escape routes, possible dangers, threats, etc. Doing everything a horse in his natural environment would do. The only thing abnormal about this behavior was that my round pen is about as far from a horses natural environment as he could get. So why was he acting this way? What was missing between him and his owner?...
Read more here:
http://foundationsandbeyondhorsemanship.blogspot.com/2015_05_01_archive.html
--
Posted By Endurance.Net to Consider This at 5/21/2015 01:43:00 PM
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Ted Nicholes: Foundations and Beyond Horsemanship
Ever wondered this; 'What is WRONG with my horse?!!'
A recent call to Ted centered around that question. Layne Lewis was concerned about her horses recently developed behavior patterns.
The horse in question, Harley, is an experienced (as in 1700 AERC miles) gelding whom Layne has owned since his birth eleven years ago. Recently he has become difficult to work with, showing resistance and disrespect. Having been the rider and trainer of this horse for years Layne had the horse checked for possible physical causes of this behavior. Not only did Harley check out fine physically; Layne considers that he is in fact in probably the best condition of his life.
Frustrated and becoming even more concerned Layne decided to talk to a trainer with a reputation for being able to help with a horses manners. Layne knew of Ted through mutual friends in the endurance community and gave him a call.
After some conversation Layne and Ted decided the best thing to do was get together and have a private lesson session to evaluate what exactly was wrong with her horse. A private lesson was accordingly scheduled to try to provide the answer to the question 'What is wrong with Harley?' and also hopefully determine how to begin the process of fixing what was wrong with her horse. Since I saw only short snapshots (a total of about two minutes!) of the lesson Ted wrote the rest of this blog post.
The following is Ted's narration of how that lesson played out;
The big red horse trotted off to the far side of the round pen, alternating between sniffing the ground and lifting his head to look as high as he could. Perfectly normal, I thought, a prey animal assessing his surroundings, determining limits, evaluating escape routes, possible dangers, threats, etc. Doing everything a horse in his natural environment would do. The only thing abnormal about this behavior was that my round pen is about as far from a horses natural environment as he could get. So why was he acting this way? What was missing between him and his owner?...
Read more here:
http://foundationsandbeyondhorsemanship.blogspot.com/2015_05_01_archive.html
--
Posted By Endurance.Net to Consider This at 5/21/2015 01:43:00 PM
Endurance.Net
May 21, 2015, 3:43:48 PM5/21/15
to consid...@endurance.net
Roger Ward
May 22, 2015, 9:30:44 AM5/22/15
to ride...@endurance.net, consid...@endurance.net, ride...@gmail.com
What a great little article that speaks volumes to horse behavior. Thanks for posting.
As I read the article, I realized I could be that lady focusing on physical conditioning and not enough on building up well rounded horses. Its not that I am ignorant of the need. Recently I took Zip to a qualification ride to do sweep on the Western states run and ride. At a qual ride, it is kind of important that the horse be well behaved. So after saddling up, we did 10 minutes of all the basic under saddle training maneuvers. It worked as planned and Zip was as well behaved as I could have asked for.
It is so easy to get focused on building a hard body and centered riding position, and forget that the mind needs conditioning as well.
Roger Ward
On Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 12:43:48 PM UTC-7, ridecamp wrote:
Foundationsandbeyondhorsemanship - Full Article
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Ted Nicholes: Foundations and Beyond Horsemanship
Ever wondered this; 'What is WRONG with my horse?!!'
.......................
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages