I have to say, from the time I got my hands on my horse that morning until I got off him at noon that day, he was completely different.

And you know why? Some of you reading this already know the answer. Some of you may not. The answer is that I was different. I was there to support him, believe in the work that I’ve done with him, and wasn’t worried about how well we’d do that morning. I just “knew” it was all going to be alright, and it was.

Again, the morning started with practice of our flexions (which I tend to do a lot of while I just sit on my horse. You can’t get your “soft feel” too good, folks)! There were a lot of serpentines, and the “pick up and set a front leg down” drill. This time, however we were nailing about 50% of them to the right, and almost all of them to the left. It’s all in the timing. You need to ask for that foot right as it’s leaving the ground, so you can “direct” it. It’s pretty easy to figure out where the front feet are on your horse, the back feet however, are sort of blind feel, because you can’t look down and see the shoulder moving. I’ll be explaining foot falls, and foot-cadence more in-depth on our ranch blog. That said, timing of this drill isn’t easy to begin with, and I’m still working on it at home!

I did a lot of moving Dino out as needed- since we were 25+ riders in an arena that would have more comfortably held 15 people. And as I recall, there was a lot more working at the trot, because, well, that’s the only balanced gait your horse has. So we did a lot of picking up a soft feel, while getting proper elevation. There was a lot more backing up, and Buck told me that when my colt gets stuck (which he had been doing while backing up) to take more hold on him, and provide more energy, and as his feet break loose, give something back to him. I said, even if he’s behind vertical? And he said, yes, “he’s behind vertical because his feet are stuck.” Well doesn’t that just make all kinda sense? It’s not always about doing more with your hands- you can’t pull your horse backward- you can make it uncomfortable for him to do anything but back up. Open your legs, tip your shoulders back, pick up a soft feel, and wait for the feet to break loose. Your horse may back up with his nose in the air, but that’s improper form, and as such it’s better to never release your horse until his nose is down and there’s no resistance on the reins. You want his poll, and jaw soft and relaxed.

Here’s Dino picking up his right front:

It’s good to note here that I might have better success with this drill if I wasn’t looking at his foot. Often if we look down, we will “over-weight” that foot making it harder for the horse to move. And honestly, if you can feel the foot moving, there’s not really any need to be looking at it!

Here’s me picking up a soft feel:

And here is in what I’d say is smashingly good form:

Allow me to digress for a moment:

Did you know that each time you ride your horse you teach him something? Good, bad, indifferent- he’s learning something. The best gift we can give our horse is the release and relaxation that comes from us just allowing them to “be”. So when you stop your horse, if you let go the reins when he stops and his nose is in the air, you’ve just taught him that if he puts his nose in the air you will release the reins. How many of you reading this have then been told, “your horse needs a tie-down?” He doesn’t need a tie-down, he needs only consistency from you and he needs to learn to carry a soft feel. Interestingly enough, Buck said the exact thing I said above, though this was the first time I’ve heard him say it. I tell folks all the time that they’re always teaching their horses something be it good, bad, indifferent.

If you’d have told me what would happen next at this clinic, I’d have slapped you and said “Get Out!” But it did happen. My day, and probably my year, got better than it was already going. I loped my horse across the arena, and I guess Buck must have been watching because I got to the other side and heard these words- “Jenn, that is going to be a nice horse”. I nearly fell off. I just gulped and said, “Thank you”. The thing about hearing those words from him are this: He doesn’t tell you what you want to hear. He tells you how it is. He tells you what’s going to make you better for your horse. In fact, he actually told us that at some point he hopes he can get enough of us to a place, where he can teach us what he knows instead of the stuff we should know. I’m striving to get there! Buck doesn’t blow air up your skirt. He makes you work for everything so you learn it, appreciate it, and as such you get better for your horse.

There are no horse problems. Only people problems. People who don’t take responsibility for their inability to communicate with their horses. When you lose your ego and realize that your horse cannot do wrong, your horsemanship will grow in leaps and bounds. I know this because I’m walking proof. Ask me next time you see me.

The rest of the day is a blur, though I know my horse really did ride good that day, because I was aware of where he was and was there to support him when he needed the help. If we become aware of what our horses need from us, everyday horseback will become a good time horseback. You’ll never have a bad ride again!

Stay tuned- Day four is forthcoming, as is a post about a night at the movies!

Happy Trails!

More about my time riding with Buck is below.

Day One from Iowa

Day Two from Iowa

First Clinic in Belton, TX:

Belton, Tx- Day One

Belton, TX- Day Two

Belton, TX- Day Three

Belton, TX- Day Four

Second Clinic in Steamboat Springs, CO:

Day One, Part One

Day One, Part Two

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Decorah Iowa is a sleepy little town, nestled in amongst bluffs and trees in the Mississippi River Valley. It doesn’t look like what most of Iowa does- it’s really quite pretty. Definitely not what I expected. This year I took Kelsey (Most of you know her as My Cowboy’s daughter), my niece, and Zach’s cousin, who also went with me last year to Steamboat. It was, once again, a great experience for all of us!

I’m not sure exactly where to start writing this time. A lot of what we covered is stuff I’ve already written about and some of it might be more than you’re interested in knowing. But since most you that read this have never ridden with Buck, and I figure more people want to do right by their horses than not, I guess we’ll start at the beginning. We’ll cover day one today, and then move on to day two, three and four in separate posts.

If you’ve not read my previous installments about riding with Buck, and you want to, I’ll post links at the end of this blog so you can go back and find them easily since my search button seems to be missing at the moment. I’m working to get that fixed ASAP (I have NO idea what I did!). There is also a series on riding with Buck on our ranch blog, if you’re interested in reading that.

It always seems surreal to me to ride in the same place as Buck. It’s an honor and a privilege and it takes me at least one day of the clinic to come to grips with where I really am. Friday started like any other day, except this time, Buck had a pretty, gray, 3yo mare, a new snaffle bit horse, that he’d started. She had all of 25 rides and was the handiest 25 ride colt I’ve ever seen. But what would one expect from the handiest horseman on the planet? It was great to see him get to handle a colt, since all he’s had with him since I’ve been riding with him are two rein and bridle horses (and I’m aware, I’ve slacked on what a bridle horse is- I am still formulating that post).

I said good morning to him, asked if he remembered me and he said, “sure do”! I nearly fell off. How does a man who sees thousands of people each year remember? I’m not sure how he does it- it’s possible it’s the awareness in him that allows him to notice the details and remember them. We’ll talk more about awareness as we go through these blogs.

The morning began with the usual Q & A, in which Buck asked if anyone was having specific problems/issues they wanted to work through. It is always interesting to me to hear how people phrase their questions. Most being with “my horse is” or “he seems to want to”- in which case they’re anthropomorphizing their horses- and not understanding that the horse is only doing what it feels it needs to do to survive in the given circumstance. But isn’t that what we’re all taught? That the horse has to take responsibility? That it’s never our fault? That we need a different bit, or that we need a pair of spurs? That it’s certainly not our inability to communicate with the horse that’s the real issue? What Buck teaches is contrary to these notions and it does take some getting used to. But our horses thank us for it, continually, if we really take this to heart.

We started this clinic with elevation and lateral flexion. Two of the MOST important things you need in a well-broke horse; more specifically a bridle horse. Most people don’t have the need (or the patience) to make a true bridle horse, so they need elevation and lateral flexion simply so their horses are as safe and soft as possible. And besides, when you’ve ridden a horse that’s soft as butter, you don’t want to go back. And the “soft as butter” horse, starts RIGHT here.

This drill was a good reminder to me that while my colt is soft, he wasn’t in quite the right position as he was last year. Last year in Steamboat I was one of the first people to get this drill right, and have it look like it was supposed to. You want to imagine a string hanging from your horse’s foretop (forelock) and as your horse’s head meets you laterally, you want the string to stay hanging in the middle of his face, as well as down the center-line of his head touching, all the way down.

You want your horse’s jaw to roll up and under and slightly left or right. Hand position is important in this because you do not want your hand to go across center, and ideally, you don’t need your hands higher than your belly button, or askew for that matter. Straight up and down will do just fine. I believe, and there are those here that may disagree, but I think you can actually change the angle of your horse’s head by your hand position- from perpendicular to the ground even as little as 15 degrees off perpendicular (in the photos, look at Buck’s hands). Further, when you ask your horse’s head to come around you want to ask “around”. Meaning you don’t take hold of the rein and go straight back with it. You take hold of the rein, “ask” out and then back toward the mane to finish.

There’s three parts to this: Elevation, lateral flexion and vertical flexion. Most people won’t have all three at first. You can tell if you’re getting all three by 1. Your horse’s poll is above his withers. 2. His ears are level and not all screw-jawed, and 3. He’s reaching back to you by being rolled up through the jaw.

Once Buck has you work on that for a while, we go into short serpentines. Which serve several purposes- though I seem to learn more about them every time I do them. First, it’s really just practically applying the proper flexions. Second, it’s about learning to move your hands on the reins. Everyone has seen, or knows someone, or they themselves play the piano. Think of your reins as a piano keyboard. The better you are at moving your hands on the reins, the more you can help your horse. If you can only move your hands over 12 inches of the rein, as opposed to 36 inches of the rein, you’re not going to be able to “dance” as Buck likes to say, nearly as elegantly as someone who can really move their hands up and down the rein as necessary. Third, it’s about teaching your horse to be balanced and move equally, all four quarters. Serpentines are great for building up a horse’s hindquarters.

Here’s some photos of serpentines taken by my niece.

Dino and Me. I have too much lateral flexion and not enough vertical in this photo:

Buck and his pretty filly, Gidget:

When doing serpentines, it’s best to be in position 1- “your going forward in a hurry, or jumping something position”, I like to call it!

Here he is changing directions:

It’s important to note that the fourth part to a serpentine is foot cadence (I really don’t know that these “parts” are in any particular order- they’re my observations. Buck may have entirely different reasons for people to do them. Honestly, I’ve never asked). People really have no idea how rude they are to their horses when they ask them to turn a direction that they’re not physically ready to go. And by that I mean that if you ask your horse to turn right, but his right front foot is on the ground, well, you’re not going to have much luck, are you? More than likely what will happen is that your horse may move his hips to the left, to take the weight off of that right front foot, or the left front will have to step across first, or both may happen, before the right front foot could come off the ground.

If you want to have good success keeping your horse calm, quiet and relaxed learn their foot cadence so you can ask them to change direction when they’re set up for success. Here’s Buck, doing just that.

I bet my niece had no idea she was getting such “educational” photos! Good job, girl! And how lucky to have a mom that lets you out of your first week of school to get an education that’s just as important as the one you get in school! Note that in the photo below, if a string were hanging from Gidget’s foretop, it’d be touching her head all the way down and would be dead-on in the center.

Here’s me doing the same thing!

Asking when the right front foot is in the best position to leave. His ears are even, and his jaw is rolled nicely up under him with pretty good lateral flexion. It could be just a tad deeper though:

Going the other way:

His jaw isn’t rolled up quite under him in this photo. But a girl has to have goals, right?

Anytime you’re riding and you’re still centered on your horse, you should be smiling. But I’ll admit, I smile a LOT bigger when I get to ride with Buck!

That’s not altogether bad form. Can you tell I’m right-handed?

We stopped doing serpentines to have another discussion and Kelsey, looks pretty darn happy to be there too, eh?

After the serpentines, there was a lot of walking, trotting and if you were me, loping around, picking up a soft feel and carrying that down to the walk, or the stop or through the back-up.

What’s NOT to love about this:

Such a handsome horse with good elevation and flexion!

At the end of the class, or near the end anyway, there was a woman who had been having trouble picking up a soft feel with her horse. I’ve described in detail, what a soft feel is in previous posts, so you’ll have to go back and read those to understand, if you’re currently lost. Anyway, I digress. Buck stood over this woman’s horse, with his hands on either side of her reins, and helped her horse to pick up the “soft feel”.

After about 15 minutes it was happening pretty regular like, though she was having trouble believing it to be so. She had the reins, and her horse was having trouble picking up what she was asking for, so Buck said, wait, watch and stepped to the horse. As he did the horse picked up a soft feel. Now that, my friends, is presence. He knew it would happen and his energy had the horse believe it too!

And with that, class ended. But not before Buck announced that he’d be making an appearance at the premiere of the Documentary about him, Buck, that evening, at the local theater! More on that later!

Stay tuned! Happy Trails and Happy Tuesday!

More about my time riding with Buck is below.

First Clinic in Belton, TX:

Belton, Tx- Day One

Belton, TX- Day Two

Belton, TX- Day Three

Belton, TX- Day Four

Second Clinic in Steamboat Springs, CO:

Day One, Part One

Day One, Part Two

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Well, we’re here. The last day of the clinic. I am always sad on this day because it’s ending. But I’m also always glad because my horse is so much better. And my 40 ride colt made great strides during these 4 days.

I think this is a good time to review what we’ve covered so far, so before we get to it, let’s do just that.

Day One- we covered proper head carriage, the beginning of elevation/collection and a discussion of what physiologically takes place in the horse when collection/elevation occurs. We also covered getting a soft feel while walking out and for me day one was filled with loping across the pen to work on my legs no longer being impotent.

Day Two brought more of the same from day one, though we worked on actually getting some collection/elevation at the walk/trot, did more sets, and more moving out, if you’re me! We also had a discussion on the turn around, which is one of the important things for your horse to know how to do properly. That said, they can’t properly turn around if they’re not first elevated and collected correctly.

Day three we did cow work, sets, backed circles and worked on getting our horses to really flow through their hips which will help us today as we do lead changes, and cow-work in the rodear.

Which brings us to today. I must admit that part of me was really bummed for not having one of my horses that is farther along with me. We had a LOT of beginners at the Belton Clinic, we didn’t get to lope in class at all, save for the last day of cow work, and when we warmed up in the morning. Both The Gump and Sonora “Nora” (and of course my crippled mare, Shuttle) are to a place were we can pick up the lead of my choosing from the standstill, and are soft enough to let me gather them up at the lope, break to a trot and then back to the lope in a different lead (simple lead changes). In fact, last week I put my first two rides on Nora in the hackamore. And like Buck told us at this clinic, for a while we’ll go back and forth- and I can’t tell you how badly I want to do that, so I may break down and do just that. We’ll see- after all my horse doesn’t get into the hackamore because she failed the snaffle. She’s graduated to the hackamore, so we can always go back to the snaffle. Gump needs a lot more riding in the snaffle before he’s ready for the hackamore, seeing as how he’s a reformed run-away match-racing horse he’s still not hardly as soft as any of my other horses; at least not on a consistent basis. As an aside, that doesn’t make me love him less! He’s still my favorite horse to ride across the prairie!

Getting down to business- after a good warm up of doing more flexions, elevations, picking up a soft feel and carrying it up, down and for a stride or two at the walk and trot (and for me loping off a few times- and getting the right lead, at which point I exclaimed rather loudly, “I’ll be &*) @%*&%@! I got the right lead!” which warranted a big laugh from Buck and Shayne Jackson (who is a loyal student of Bucks)!

It was time to work on some leg yields and haunches in. For those of you unfamiliar with a leg yield and haunches in, never fear. The explanation is forthcoming. And it’s what’s essentially needed as the foundation for your lead change (non-horse folks- the lead change is simply the lead foot when the horse is in the canter. Notice your dog run sometime, there will always be one front foot leading the other- when they’re going left- it’s the left front foot; right is just the opposite)

In a leg yield, your horse is bent into the direction you’re riding, holding what we hope is a pretty round shape- and what you’ll do is yield them away from the direction you’re going by still going forward. This maneuver is not to be confused with a counter-bend which is an incorrect maneuver. That requires an explanation all to itself, and as a *recovering barrel racer, I’ll explain that to you in a post someday. A leg yield’s purpose is to keep your horse round and have the ability to move the circle wider if you want. Here’s what you’d do. At the walk (because we all have to walk before we run!) you would pick up a soft feel, properly elevate you horse, take away your outside leg, because we have to give the horse a place to go. In this case we’ll be walking left circle, so we’ll add our left leg, remove the right, and bump, push, or urge your horse’s shoulders to the outside of the circle. You’ll get a bit of movement at first (release), then a step (release) then several steps and at that point you can let your horse come back to the circle and walk out naturally again. And of course we won’t get several steps at once.

As a second part to the lead change, and a good transition from the leg-yield, you’d ask for the haunches in. I find I struggle tremendously with this drill- even on my horses such as Gump and Nora. I got the chance to ask Buck about the fact that my horses slow down when I ask them for this, and he said it has to do with the uncertainty of what I’m asking for, and the fact that it’s new. He said to just ask, and if they slow down, speed them back up when I’m done with the maneuver. They will eventually learn to travel out while I do it. I should add to this though, that timing is everything with this drill. If, in our above example, I’ve leg yielded my horse to the right (or outside of our left circle) and it’s now time to push the hips to the left, or to the inside of the circle, (haunches in) you want to do so as the right hind leg is coming up off the ground, so that your horse can step up under himself and over. Much easier said than done, I assure you. It isn’t rocket science however- it’s simply a changing of the leg you use- from left leg to right leg (moving your left leg out of the way) and your horse is, voila! set up for a lead change to the left.

The proper way to change leads is from back to front, of course. And you want your horse slightly bent to the direction you’re going to go. So if you were loping, say a circle to the right, and you came across the center of the pen, you’d drop to the trot for a stride (theoretically) pick up the left rein, add your right leg, which should tip your horse’s hips enough to left so they can pick up the left lead, and away you go. This is exactly what Buck had us doing- though we used the arena on a diagonal which was super clever! Why I’d never thought of that before, I don’t know! But we’d be going around to the left at the walk or the trot, and he’d have us, at one corner, pick up the left lead, which of course we were rockin’, break to the trot (for a stride was the goal- we didn’t reach it), and come out the other side on the right lead. I was late the first time and had my horse all set up to do it and missed it. Buck and I both groaned about it at precisely the same time! Then we switched directions and did the same thing to the right. Even though my horse wasn’t able to do this, I’ve been able to take what I learned and apply it to both Gump and Nora, and while I’m still not quite able to just trot one stride we’re getting there. Buck said eventually it will be the changing of the legs (ours) that has our horses changing leads. He doesn’t determine when the lead change will happen. He only sets it up so that the horse can be successful. Again, as in the haunches in, timing is everything. You want to ask when the horse’s right front foot is going to hit the ground, so that he can change while his other three legs are suspended. Is anyone else tired now? Just reviewing this makes my head spin.

On to the cow work in the rodear. He broke us off into two groups, and I was fortunate enough to have Shayne be my partner. In rodear work, if you’re having trouble with your horse’s leads, as I was, you always want to be the cow horse. The cow horse stays between the “herd” on the inside and the “cow” on the outside, and as such is set up to get the correct leads in a way that easiest for the horse. I was kind of struggling through my turn arounds to the right, not asking with enough life, because I was trying to make everything be perfect with my horse all at once. Buck finally said to me- “do this like you’re doing the job at home, and it has to get done!”. At which point, I made a sweeping turn to the right, and my horse just hopped into the most beautiful right lead. We all cheered, and my colt really did look good. I love “cow” work like that. As an aside- I took him to do some fall work, just a few days after we got back from the clinic and he rode through the pasture on his first outside trip like he was meant to be a saddle horse. We even picked up the right lead several times. Though I’m still struggling with it in the arena.

With that right lead, we quit and that ended the clinic for me. I always hate when they end, but I am looking forward to taking my colt back next year, so we can see how much we’ve improved.

I hoipe y’all enjoyed this trip as much as much as I enjoyed sharing it. I look forward to more adventures down the road.

*I have not quit running barrels. I am just not the typical barrel racer. I don’t desire to be lumped in with a group of people that for the most part think they practice horsemanship, when what they really practice is sacrificing their horse’s comfort and training (brokeness) for winning. Not every barrel racer does this- there are lots of girls who have horses that can do something besides run barrels- but I know PLENTY who do.