A Clinic

This weekend I took the girls to a Horsemanship and Barrel clinic at Bound's Showtime Arena. Despite the fact that it was November 3rd, for the most part the weather was beautiful. The girls might have disagreed, as they froze for most of the time, but then again so did I. I love fall weather!

I had hoped to tape the clinic but ended up with two low batteries. Remember back in the olden days when you would get batteries that would need to be drained and then recharged in order to hold a charge? Well, that's what I ended up with. For Christmas I am asking for a Digital Camcorder, or perhaps some better batteries? Yea, that would be cheaper. The camera worked great though!

Here's a few things they were taught:
The value of a good stop and how to get it though certain exercises.
How to keep their horse shaped up.
How to rate their horses and have a good seat at a fast lope.
An exercise to help their horses learn to run in 4-wheel drive around objects. This helped with both keeping the horse off of the barrels and building muscles to prevent miss-firing.
In addition they learned from watching others.

The girls and I learned a lot. Sometimes it helps to go to a different person to actually "hear" what someone is trying to tell you. At the clinic there were a couple of comments that I have heard Tammy tell N over and over that hopefully have now sunk in. The big one? The clinician told her to either hold the reins with an open hand or hold them with a closed hand, not half and half. Having this told to her over the loudspeaker in front of 20 other people seems to have helped. The other tip we gleamed was to shorten the reins. More of that below.

A couple of nice comments for the girls was when they were asked how old they were. S was told she was doing very well for her age. Dixie was being stubborn as she sometimes can and S is naturally an aggressive rider, so when lots of kicking wouldn't get the horse moving, they had another rider get on with spurs. The spurs weren't helping so they tried a whip. The whip did the trick and they put Shyla back on. Shyla took to the whip like a pro. Just to let you know there was no digging into her sides with the spurs or whipping that left welts. This was just reminder of who was in charge. Or as the clinician said "you're the sheriff!" Horses can be stubborn, and this little mare is both stubborn and pushy. She is lazy and does not understand why she has to do exercises, show her the barrels and she's a different horse. I have some ideas on how S can work with her to make her a better barrel horse and to help the two of them become better connected. They say an older horse takes longer to teach because you have to retrain them, but what the heck.

N was complimented on her stick-to-it-ness. For the first half of the clinic when it was her turn to work Gunner would hump up and want to buck. The clinician told her that he was the type of horse that would have to be warmed up for a long time before going in to her classes. We had already started seeing glimpses of this at the events she went to this fall. He "listens" after being warmed a long time. This can be a pain because while others are warmed up and chatting with friends the two of them will be long trotting or loping circles. It also is a pain because not all places have a good warm up area.

I had intended to have the girls work hard at warming their horses up before the clinic because of Gunners attitude and because we hadn't been consistently riding, but we were told not to worry there would be a warm up time. I figured they would be exhausted by the end of the day and trust the warm up time would be sufficient. A minor judgment call that I made wrong.

There were probably four or five high-school rodeo girls at the clinic. A couple had just the most gorgeous barrel horses you had ever seen. They made ours look puny, but I understand that we can't afford to run with these people and accept that. It's just amazing to see how beautiful and athletic they are. As N said "for once Gunner wasn't the most beautiful horse there." Not by a long shot. There were also a couple high school aged girls who had horses they were training or they had just bought. With just a few exceptions most of the riders were very talented, patient and willing to learn.

Both girls were exhausted but very happy with the days events. They both have saddle sores, but that's to be expected. They both also said they would like to go back to the same clinic because they felt they could learn more. It was a good day!

Here's a shot where N has Gunner nicely shaped with his nose tipped and he's listening to what she wants. In the second picture she has a hold of the reins too far back and he has dropped his shoulder into the barrel. (I flipped the one on the left to give a better comparison)