Showing posts with label difficulty saddling horse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label difficulty saddling horse. Show all posts

Pressure and Release Re-Educating Horse that Bucks by Alternative Horsem...

This mare has a history of bucking (and a very traumatic past,) so part of her re-education is to assume nothing and rebuild from the ground up. I thought I'd share a short clip of what preparing a horse to be saddled looks like for me. In this case, I'm looking for feedback from the horse as to what may be triggering her anticipation, physical tension, or mental avoidance. This is the first time we did this. Practice first noticing how many different forms of pressure are being presented. Assess the horse's focus, breathing, movement, the stance at the halt, etc. Watch for how she interacts with my communication. What do you see? Everything is a learning opportunity if you commit to seeing beyond the superficial "obedient goal" and search for quality interactions. **Please do NOT go and randomly try this at home- you and your horse could easily and quickly get into a wreck if you haven't established the fundamentals that go into the "bigger picture."