One of the areas I’ve really been struggling over lately is the usefulness (and ethics) of using correction tools in training.

I’m talking things like spurs, draw reins, side reins, gag bits – anything outside of your basic saddle and bridle with a gentle snaffle. I think there are three general camps that we fall into as horse men and women:

1. These tools should never be used any under circumstances.
2. When used judiciously, these can be useful training tools.
3. Always use these tools to get training done quickly or to mitigate issues.

I am not a believer in quick fixes. Training a horse to be a successful partner long-term takes patience, kindness, firmness, and consistency. I also think the goal of solid training is to teach your horse to require as little cue as it takes to get the desired result. The slightest closing of the leg sends him forward. Quieting the seat slows him down. The slightest squeeze on a rein increases the bend or straightens the neck. And eventually, with time and patience and consistency, we should be able to do this without spurs, whips, or correction bits.

However, when your horse is just learning (and sometimes later if he forgets) it will take more than the lightest squeeze to elicit a response. Sometimes he ignores the light bump of your outside leg that keeps him from overbending as he drags you into the wall and a bigger kick (or even a little spur) is necessary to get his attention.

Lately Ace, who has been very nicely light in the mouth from day one, has started leaning on the bit. He’s not really using it for balance and he’s still responding and moving nicely – he’s just heavy. If I give him more rein he just bears down until he’s trotting with his nose at his ankles (literally). Sending him forward doesn’t help, and light jiggles of the reins to remind him not to lean only help temporarily.

So when my mom offered me an elevator bit on loan to see if the leverage would help him learn to quit the lean, I gave it a shot.

It’s a single jointed Happy Mouth elevator, sometimes referred to as a bubble bit. I could attach two reins – one as the regular snaffle rein, and one on a lower ring to add the upwards leverage as needed. Ace loved it. And so far – just two rides in it did the trick. I kept my hands light, and if he started to get heavy would gently activate the lower rein until he lifted up again. It only took two or three times for Ace to “get it.” He was happy, light, forward, ears perked, soft in the poll, and gentle in the contact.

Next ride we went back to him normal loose-ring Myler bit, and he was still happy, light, forward, soft in the poll, and gentle in the contact.

For Ace, one ride in a judiciously used correction bit solved more issues than the nagging and constantly reminding him with leg and reins to lighten up. Used this way, I’d say it’s a very useful training tool – and one that was much kinder on my horse.

What are your thoughts on tools like spurs, correction bits, draw reins, etc?

Ace had been mine for about a month. As an 8-year-old gelding who was out of practice but had obviously been handled well in his past and I knew had been ridden plenty in his early years, I expected that a simple walk under saddle should be easy. But once again we were planted in the center of the ring – unmoving.

There were a few times that I felt a little like this about horses behavior:

Sure, we don’t actually expect our horses to be capable of learning to speak French. But how often do we expect them to automatically “speak” our language when we ask them to:

• Step forward when we squeeze with our legs.
• Load into a trailer.
• Walk quietly beside us at all times.
• Stand still when we spray them with fly spray or put on a blanket.
• Stand quietly in the cross ties.
• Lunge around us in a perfect circle.
• Allow us to touch them anywhere.

For some reason, we expect that our horses are born knowing these – and many other – behaviors.

For most of my life, I thought that if a horse didn’t do as I asked or expected he was being bad. As a teenager, if Ace has jerked his head sky high when I lifted the reins over his ears (like he did two days ago), I would have given him a smack on the neck for acting up. I wouldn’t have thought about the fact that for some reason he was feeling the need to protect his head, and even though I was prepared and being careful he felt threatened. I wouldn’t have thought about the fact that I needed to be understanding and carefully and gently re-teach him that I’m not doing anything that will hurt him.

There’s little that breaks my heart more than when I see someone punishing a horse for a behavior he’s just never been taught to do. As horse people, we need to always remember that horses must be patiently taught everything we expect and ask of them.

At the same time, while we can’t expect our horses to know everything about how we expect them to behave automatically – we still need to have high expectations of their manners. Those high expectations then become training goals.

If a former owner hasn’t already, we need to take the time and effort to teach our horses to:

• Stand quietly unless asked to do otherwise – under saddle, tied, on a lead line.
• Be handled all over.
• Stand quietly for your hoof care professional and allow feet to be handled.
• Be sprayed all over with water or sprays.
• Walk quietly beside a handler.
• Respect your space.
• Give to pressure – whether it’s moving forward under saddle or responding to the halter or just your hand.

For your safety and the safety of others who may handle your horse, it’s critical that you instill good manners – including but certainly not limited to the above.

Your horse may not be able to learn to speak French, but he certainly can learn basic behavior skills if you take the time to teach him!

I could write all day about his amazing horsemanship skills; how those horses obviously love him and want to be with him and vice versa. Or how funny (and accurate) Guy is as an entertainer. Or how moving his Australian bush poetry can be. But nothing I can say can compare to seeing him yourself. That is why I adore YouTube! So here for your Tuesday morning entertainment is Guy McLean, his Australian Stock Horse Spinnaby, and his homebred Australian Stock Horse crosses Hope, Pride, and Sequel (I got to pet all of them!).

I was hemming and hawing about whether or not I was going to go to Equine Affaire this year, and then I heard on Horses In the Morning that Guy McLean is one of the presenters this year! Look for me in Columbus in April. I’ll be wherever you can find Guy, his four horses, and his lovely girlfriend and assistant Emily.

Where We’ve Been

It’s been slow riding for the last two months for several reasons. We spent half of May and most of June without a properly fitting saddle. I rode bareback maybe once a week while we waited for the new one to arrive. Then when it finally did (and boy is it wonderful!), I spent most of the next month traveling.

Now I’m home for a while, and ready to get back in the swing of things. My rides over the last two months have been nice, relaxing, and largely aimless. Since Ace has been out of work, they’ve mostly been geared towards maintaining the basics and keeping his muscles going. He has fallen a bit out of condition, and that right stifle is a little weak.

His feet have been looking the best they’ve ever been. His frogs are thick and healthy, and bear no more signs of the thrush of the last year or the abscess that blew out in the spring. They are ugly and misshapen at the moment, as they decided they couldn’t wait six weeks until the next trim (which is tonight) and started chipping at the toes. They’ve grown really fast and the ground has been very hard, so they really just wore naturally albeit unevenly.

It’s nothing that won’t be fixed with one trimming, but his feet are all uneven and goofy looking, so I’ve had to take it easy over the last week. I’ll try to get some pictures for you pre-trim tonight so you can see what these silly feet did. It made me realize that if left without hoofcare (which won’t happen under my ownership), Ace would never have those crazy-long-elf-toed feet I’ve seen only in pictures.

Where We’re Going

I’ve been feeling rather aimless in our training for the past months. And have enjoyed just going for pleasure rides and doing whatever we felt like doing for the moment.

But now that I’m staying home for the rest of the summer and Ace gets his feet fixed tonight, I’m finding myself feeling motivated to set some goals and make an actual training plan.

Maybe it’s finally hitting up a local show this fall for some flat classes. Maybe it’s what we want to accomplish in training. Maybe it’s both. Here’s what I’m thinking …

I’d like to set three days a week (can always be more) as riding and training days. One would be for dressage/lateral work (which we really need to start but that has been intimidating me). One would be for pole work and jumping. One would be for conditioning and hill work outside in the large field. Then any other rides we fit in during the week could be for whatever we feel like doing … extra jumping, a hack out with friends, an easy 3o minute walk/trot session.

By the end of August, I’d like to have solid leg yields and be jumping small verticals again.

Sound like a good plan? What would you add or subtract? And how on earth do I start teaching him leg yields?

We’ve also been doing some fun ground work – including jumping on the longe and going for trail walks.

On Monday, we went for a short trail hand-walk around the property and through the woods. The bugs, deer flies particularly, were horrible, so we didn’t stay long. But Ace was very brave as we wove between the trees by ourselves without his trail buddy Nikki to protect him.

I decided that since I was on the ground (which makes Ace braver), and happened to be wearing my lovely Dav rain boots, we would go check out the stream and do some schooling through water. It was all of 2 and a half feet wide with a few inches of water, with 2 foot banks on either side. I led Ace up to it, and I walked down and stood in the middle of the water. He took some time to stare at the stream, nibble some grass, and blow at the bank. When I decided he’d checked it out long enough, I gave a few gentle tugs on the lead rope – expecting compliance but prepared for Ace to either resist or go charging through.

I tugged once. Ace looked at me and blinked a few times. I tugged again. He looked at me again. And then proceeded to march calmly down the bank, through the water, and up the other side.

I was impressed, and praised and patted him like crazy (and thanked God he didn’t run me over!). We proceeded to walk  back and forth through the stream several times, stopping once to play in it a bit. He didn’t hesitate at all after his first march through.

And then we left because the deer flies were getting very nasty and I didn’t want my big Thoroughbred baby to have a chance to throw a tantrum.

I was absolutely thrilled with how brave Ace was about the stream, as he tends to get nervous when we try new things. It gave me a huge boost of confidence in his ability to trust me in new situations as well. I’m sure it would have been more of an issue with me on his back, as he is much more confident still when I’m on the ground. Now to get that same trust under saddle…

And on another note, we haven’t had a recurrence of the hives. It definitely wasn’t something he ate in the pasture or my fly spray, as both have been tested and used multiple times now without adverse reaction. My best guess is that it was a reaction to the bugs … as he got the hives the first time they got bad this year. Hopefully it was just an initial reaction and his resistance is building to them.

All in all, we are happy and healthy and having fun together – but getting super anxious for the new saddle to come!

Why I Wear Spurs

Ace was a totally green horse who didn’t understand “forward.” We had it just fine on the ground, but under saddle just wasn’t happening. Leg got no response, a whip got no response, and spurs became a necessary training tool for Ace to learn to go forward. And it didn’t take long for a little bit of spur use to do the trick and for Ace to learn to GO and I could start limiting their use.

I’ve since become a big fan of wearing spurs when I ride for the refined control they offer when absolutely needed. I keep them on my boots at all times, but only use them when absolutely necessary.

With lots of time and patience, I’ve gotten Ace in front of my aids and very responsive to the lightest of leg aids. I’d say 85 percent of the time the slight closing of my leg is all it takes to get forward, bend, straightness, etc. The other 15 percent of the time Ace decides to cop an attitude and “forget” what he’s supposed to do. And that’s when I need the spurs.

When Ace cops an attitude, he’s not stupid or dangerous or crazy, he’s just plain bull-headed. This often means planting his feet and refusing to budge and do what is asked of him. Fortunately, while this use to be a common occurrence during his early training days, now it’s pretty rare and not so extreme. While it used to be stopping in the middle of the ring and either growing roots or going backwards, these days his bull-headedness usually manifests in canter transitions.

And Ace has beautiful canter transitions. When he decides he’s being cooperative.

When he decides he doesn’t want to be cooperative, he ignores me asking nicely, and he ignores me asking a little more firmly. And then when I add the slightest touch of spur, he gets mad and does a lovely buck as part of the transition when he finally gives it.

It kind of makes me laugh to have such an expressive horse. But at the same time, bucking canter departs aren’t a great habit.

A Gentler Yet Effective Spur

God must have been watching  our antics, because just a few weeks after Ace started kicking out when I used the spurs, I got an email from Linda Hauck offering to send me a pair of her “spursuaders” to try out.

They are a unique shape that is designed to be gentler yet  just as effective as regular spurs. They are heavy, flat, with a round surface area bigger than a quarter.

The Spursuaders felt awfully weird at first, both just walking around and riding in them. It’s a completely different feel from regular spurs that is a little difficult to describe. But when I used them on Ace when he wasn’t listening to my aids so well, they did the trick.

Canter depart minus the buck accomplished.

I rode in the Spursuaders for about a month. Ace was a much happier horse, and stopped giving me little fits of attitude when spur use was necessary.

However, I would say that the Spursuaders aren’t quite as effective as regular spurs. We had one incident where Ace was being bull-headed and ran me into the wall as we were circling – and it was from enough distance that I had plenty of time to correct him – and the Spursuader just didn’t pack enough punch to get his attention. Any time Ace went into his really pig-headed mode, I wasn’t able to correct the behavior quickly enough.

I have gone back to my regular spurs, but after a month in the Spursuaders Ace no longer reacts so negatively to them. Or at least not as frequently.

I think my best bet with Ace will be to go back and forth; the Spursuaders work well for soothing his attitude when he gets annoyed, but I need the regular spurs for when he gets really resistant. He’s just a weird horse, sensitive thoroughbred most of the time and thuggish brute the rest.

I would highly recommend trying the Spursuaders if you have a super sensitive horse who could still use the more refined aids a spur can offer. They are definitely gentler than other spurs, and more effective than just your leg by itself.

Let me know what you think of this innovative spur design. Do you have a sensitive horse who you think might respond well to these?

Ace was on high alert as we rode late Saturday morning, spooking and dancing and generally feeling good. I had actually taken the time to set up three whole jumps in the arena, a small crossrail and two small verticals that were barely 18 inches. Nothing he hasn’t done  many times before with no problem.

We started with the crossrail. He got a little squirrely in front of it at first, making me work to keep him straight, and then he’d take off crowhopping afterwards because he was having fun. Once he settled down a bit, we trotted for one of the straight rails, and he decided to try to run out. He’s a bit nasty about too, and can really pull out to the side hard at the last minute. Fortunately, I stuck with him and got his nose back over the jump, eventually just stepping over it. We didn’t have to circle or come back to it, so at least that was good.

When he did it again a second time, I had my awesome jump crew (aka my lesson student Hannah), put one side down.  The next time he went right over but jumped as if it was 2 feet high instead of just sitting on the ground. We spent the next 45 minutes trotting the fences in both directions until Ace settled down enough to just trot over the fences in a relaxed state. And he eventually did.

The funny thing is, Ace seemed like he enjoyed the whole thing. Besides being on high-alert with everything going on outside the ring, he was happy to be working and jumping.

I’m not a fan of him trying to run out, because he is really quite adamant about it and even when I’m ready and being proactive there’s not a lot I can do to stop it other than getting him back in front of the jump after he’s gone to the side. I don’t want him to learn that anything but “over” is even an option. My plan is just to keep putting him over the little stuff until he hardly notices it and just goes over like it’s the oldest news in the world.

I so badly want to start putting the heights up and really jumping, but I know that Ace needs a whole lot more schooling over the tiny ones to get his confidence up before he’s ready to handle anything bigger. He’s a smart horse, and he genuinely likes to jump, but he gets worried easily and it is just going to take longer with him than with other horses. I just hope that putting in whatever amount of time it takes to build his confidence will eliminate his worrying so that eventually we don’t have issues with runouts. I don’t want to him learn that not going over is even an option and start making a habit of it.

It really was a fun ride, despite the things I worry about afterward. And I must admit, I do really like it when Ace has his thoroughbred days! The energy and the forward are so nice. And to top it off, we went for an easy ride yesterday to stretch his muscles after the hard work, and it was one of the best rides we’ve ever had. It was certainly the nicest he’s ever moved!

With Thoroughbreds the only breed in the Kentucky Derby and a dominant breed in eventing, I thought this was  the perfect time to talk a bit about one of my new favorite books, Beyond the Homestretch. As a total bookworm and crazy horse girl, I tend to be a harsh critic of horse books. But this one earns four hooves up from me!

Author and founder of LOPE (LoneStar Outreach to Place Ex-racehorses), Lynn Reardon happened to discover Regarding Horses and learned that I’m a bit of a Thoroughbred nut, and thought I might enjoy her book Beyond the Homestretch, which I believe was just released last fall. I think the initial email Lynn sent me describes the book well:

I’ve become a fan of Regarding Horses and of course of Ace’s blog too! Our nonprofit organization, LOPE, helps ex-racehorses find new homes after they are done racing — so I especially have enjoyed reading about Ace’s adventures with you.

I wrote a book — Beyond the Homestretch — about the different ex- racehorses I encountered in my work with LOPE. Although I had little horse training or ranch management experience, the horses here gave me the most effective “on the job” training program ever.

I’d like to send you a complimentary copy of my book — I think you would enjoy the “big” horse personalities I encountered and also would be entertained by my attempts to learn horse training on the fly.

(Please note too that she did not ask me to review the book on Regarding Horses. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t have bothered to waste my time writing about it!)

I’ll admit, I was a tad skeptical about the book, because I tend to be skeptical of anything I get for free and because I wasn’t sure about a self-proclaimed inexperienced horseperson training ex-racehorses. But it’s always fun to get packages, and I enthusiastically tore into the box when it arrived. And I fell in love instantly when I saw the cover:

The picture captured my imagination and the soft, matte texture had me hugging the book to my chest as if it was a well-worn copy of my most favorite book in the world.

And I wasn’t disappointed once I opened the cover.

Not surprisingly, I fell in love with all the horses, each of whom get their own chapter in Beyond the Homestretch. But I also became a huge fan of Lynn, a DC accountant who started riding as an adult and quit everything to start a non-profit ex-racehorse placement program in Texas. (and yes, LOPE is a playoff of the well-known thoroughbred organization CANTER, who helped mentor Lynn).

I mean, what horse owner can’t appreciate a book that begins, It was 3 a.m., and I was trying to decide whether to shove pieces of rubber hose up a horse’s nostrils?

In Beyond the Homestretch, we meet a handful of LOPE horses with great personalities and stories who overcome injuries and retirement to find new jobs and forever homes.

There’s Zuper, a flirtatious gelding nicknamed the Sean Connery of horses who helps Lynn run LOPE and integrate new horses into the herd:

There’s Tulsa Mambo of whom Lynn says, “Tulsa Mambo’s personality showed immediately under saddle – he was opinionated about where we should go, exuded a jaunty cheerfulness during trotting, and liked to make faces at the neighbor’s horses over the fence. Tulsa reminded me eerily of Charles, a chatty European polo pro from my exercise rider days, a slim man who liked to smoke, make cynical witticisms, and curse in French while riding his herd of moody polo ponies.”

PJ’s antics made me laugh a lot: “A big, stocky three-year-old with a red coat and blaze face, PJ had the build of a dairy cow. When in doubt, panic and run into things – this was PJ’s philosophy on life. No matter how patient the handler, PJ was always on the edge of a minor freak out. The complete disconnect between PJ’s behavior and his appearance was maddening. You expect lanky, taut-muscled horses with high heads and white-rimmed eyes to act nervous – not round horses that always seem to be in a placid doze.”

And sweet Spider (who incidentally did not get the rubber hose shoved up his in Chapter 1 after all): “Spider quickly established himself as the clown of the farm. He liked to turn over troughs and splash the water out. If he saw you in the pasture, he would run across the field to greet you, gangly legs flying, with a delighted “you-must-be-coming-to-see-me” look on his face. It was impossible to be in a bad mood around Spider’s enthusiasm. Spider had an innate premise that the universe was a benevolent, wonderful place where everyone was there to pet him.”

And then there’s Lynn, who despite her self-deprecating ways, is uncannily horse savvy. She’s the very best type of horse person too; she doesn’t take herself too seriously and she listens to what each individual horse wants and needs. And in her business working with ex-racehorses, those are key traits to have.

Today, Beyond the Homestretch sits on the special bookshelf in my living room that is reserved for only my most favorite books in the whole world.

Support LOPE Horses & Get A Signed Copy of Beyond the Homestretch

Because I loved this book so much, I wanted to be able to share it with you all in a special way … one that not only gives you some added value but supports the horses of LOPE. Lynn has generously offered to provide personalized signed copies of the book with a $20 donation to LOPE. How awesome is that?

Visit the LOPE support page to make your donation via PayPal or check. Then email Lynn at lynn@lopetx.org to let her know that you are a Regarding Horses reader and would like a signed copy of Beyond the Homestretch.

And please come back here and let me know if you do; it’d be great to see how we are banding together for such a great cause!

You can learn more about Beyond the Homestretch and LOPE Texas on their respective sites.

I don’t do anything big for horsey birthdays, but I will of course stop out to clean out his foot (abscess is clear and healing nicely, by the way) and spoil him with a few extra cookies than normal.

I’ll also give him some birthday hugs and rubs and boost his confidence by telling him how wonderful the muscles in his neck and topline are looking. All boys like when you admire their muscles, right? Ace may never be a bodybuilder in the horse world, but he’s really developed some lovely lean, strong muscles lately.

With blowing an abscess and me being gone at Equine Affaire last weekend and to a wedding in Florida this weekend (rough, I know), we’ve been getting in very little riding time lately.

I rode Ace on Tuesday for the first time in nearly two weeks, and was pleasantly surprised with how good he was. Well, not so much that he was good because he’s always well behaved, but that he was still rounding up and offering to carry himself nicely. That was a big deal for two reasons:

1. He had nearly two weeks off, and he starts to lose his hindend strength if he goes more than 2 days without being ridden.

2. I was trying him in a new bit, a simple Myler loose ring jointed snaffle.

Ace is a little weak in his right stifle and he needs consistent work to maintain his strength. While he certainly wasn’t moving his best and his stifle was clicking from time to time on the turns, he was still offering to use his hind end and round up. I’m sure a lot of this is because his overall strength and muscle memory has been developing. Jeremy Steinberg talked a lot about this in his dressage clinics at Equine Affaire last weekend. He said that horses can actually get in shape cardiovascularly very quickly – within a week or two – but that it can take them 6 months or a year to build up muscle. And we are just hitting the 6 month mark since we moved to Shooting Star and started riding more and focusing on conditioning and carriage.

I think the Myler loose ring is going to be a good bit change as well. While Ace listened to the old French link eggbutt pretty well, he was a little reluctant to come on the bit and would frequently grind his jaw side to side.

I took it easy with the new bit on Tuesday, doing lots of transitions and turning to see how he’d respond. I know Ace needs some time to get used to it, but he was already seeking the contact more and jawing less. Might just work out well!

I’m very much looking forward to this weekend in Florida, but boy am I going to be ready for some time at home with my horse!

I went for the entire four-day event, spending the first day on my own and the rest with my momma and our wonderful horsey friend (and my psuedo-sister) Laura. We had a blast! The dressage and jumping clinics were fantastic, the weather was mostly nice, and we got some good deals.

Clinics at Equine Affaire Ohio 2010

I pretty much stuck to the dressage and jumping clinics this year with Linda Allen and Jennifer Nadaline for hunter/jumper and Jeremy Steinberg and Reese Koffler-Stanfield for dressage. Big fan of all of them, but especially of Reese! All of the clinicians this year did a fantastic job of teaching the audience and not just the riders assisting them. And they all also focused very heavily on building a strong foundation, which was exactly what I needed with my green horse.

Linda Allen, Jumping

Linda Allen, an internationally renowned and FEI certified  jumping course designer (she has the Olympics on her resume) focused on the two most important rider functions for jumping: pace and location. She emphasized that too many riders focus on getting over the jump; but that’s the horses job. As riders, we should be focusing on the approach and where we are going when we land, and let your horse do the rest. She also recommended not practicing courses at home, but practicing elements of courses and exercises that will make them better. A major takeaway from Linda’s clinics was that you can do all kinds of training with just one jump because there are 25 ways you can jump one jump. You have 5 ways to approach and 5 ways to land (which gives 25 total combinations):

• straight
• angle left
• angle right
• turn left
• turn right

If you want an idea of the kind of exercises she uses, pick up a copy of 101 Jumping Exercises. Fantastic training tool!

Jennifer Nadaline, Hunters

Jennifer Nadaline was a last minute substitute for the recently injured Pamela Graham, and we loved her! Her session focused largely on preparing a novice horse for anything on course. It was about developing a desensitization and encouragement technique that teaches your horse to look to you for leadership and to determine when something is safe or if they need to turn tail and run.

She had her riders demonstrate developing a signal for you horse that a scary fence or situation is indeed OK; a slight relaxation of the inside rein. As with any type of training, this is a process. She had the riders patting the horses all over as they rode, swinging their arms around, and moving all over to first teach the horse not to worry about what the rider is doing or if she gets a little unbalanced. From there, any time something went well, the riders gave the horse a light pat on the wither with the inside hand. She then used the technique during an increasingly difficult course with funny looking fences to reassure the horses that all was well. It couldn’t have been planned or demonstrated better, as a bunch of Friesans for a breed demonstration entered the far end of the arena – one flipped out and dumped his rider, and several came in attached to large carriages. The horses all handled it very well with the reassurance from their riders.

Jennifer trains from Sugar Run Farm in Plain City, Ohio.

Reese Koffler-Stanfield, Dressage

I’d have to say that Reese Koffler-Stanfield, a dressage rider and training from Lexington, was my favorite of the weekend. She was so sweet, encouraging, and knowledgeable in her sessions. While she was working with 2nd and 3rd level horses, she identified some of their foundational issues affecting the higher level movements and put them through exercises to strengthen the basics. It was perfect for me and my green horse, with whom I’m trying to establish a solid basis.

Reese emphasized quality over quantity in her sessions, which tied in well with Jeremy Steinberg‘s emphasis on building muscle memory. They both talked about how horses aren’t necessarily made to do dressage, and some aren’t built for it conformationally like others are. But they can all learn. When you are teaching something new or your horse struggles with a particular movement, just ask for a few good steps at first instead of going and going until they get it right. This teaches them to do the right thing and helps them build the strength and muscle memory to do it well and for longer stretches.

I also go to talk to Reese afterwards and get some specific ideas to address some of Ace’s particular weaknesses. So helpful!

Equine Affaire Shopping

What horse girl doesn’t love the hundreds and hundreds of booths of stuff to buy for you and your horse at Equine Affaire? Even on a small budget I was able to find some great deals and get some good loot for me and Ace. Here’s what we came home with:

The best deal was the Ariat down winter coat that I got half off. I bought it Thursday, just in time to wear it Friday when the temps didn’t get above the low-40′s. Hopefully I can put it away until next winter now! I’m also very excited about trying out the loose ring snaffle Myler bit (with bit guards) and the 101 Dressage Exercises book that Reese Koffler-Stanfield recommended. Oh, and I got a good deal on the sweatshirt from Planet Cowgirl, as well as a green thermal that was in the wash and missed the photo shoot.

Equine Affaire 2010 was officially everything I hoped it would be. I learned a ton, had fun with family, got some fun stuff, and connected with all kinds of wonderful people I’ve met through blogging.

And of course I went to the Extreme Cowboy Race finals, which are a blast and you definitely need to see should you have the opportunity. I was just disappointed that my favorite cowgirl Casey Pierce didn’t win. She always had amazing runs and flair. I’ll be there to cheer you on again next year! (and I might just come take a reining lesson or two from you as well…)

I’m already looking forward to next year …