Horsemanship

Day One, Part One.
Day One, Part Two.
Day Two.

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Buck Brannaman: The Turn Around

22 Sep posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

The rest of this week might be crazy, so you’re forewarned that there may be limited blogging from here on out. And for those of you who think I’ve forgotten, I know I still owe y’all one more blog on horse color, a blog on what makes a bridle horse, plus I’ll do my best to wrap up the Steamboat Springs Clinic ASAP! I promise.

Why all the busyness, you’re wondering (or maybe you could care less why a blond headed girl from South Dakota is busy)? Well not only is Fall in the air- it’s also in the schedule, by way of Fall Work- which includes giving fall shots and beginning to ship cattle out for the neighbors. Our cattle won’t get shipped until the middle to the end of October this year. And hopefully it’s not snowing like it did last year.

In case you’ve missed the previous write ups on the Steamboat Springs Clinic, here you go:

Now, because I’m short on time, and I haven’t had the chance to have Zach film me doing turn arounds on The Gump or Dino, I took a shortcut and will be using someone else’s footage of a turn around- someone who filmed Buck at a clinic. Technically he doesn’t allow his clinics to be filmed (because I asked him in SS)- so this person either didn’t ask (which did happen in SS), Buck gave him permission in this instance (the video-grapher does have a website- mikethomashorsemen.com site) or Buck was too busy talking to notice he was being filmed (which just doesn’t seem logical to me). However it happened, it’s good footage and is a better explanation than I could ever give y’all. Note: upon further research I have discovered that the video-grapher and Buck go WAY back, so I’m certain that he and Buck have communicated about the filming.

I will tell you though- that one thing your horse needs to be fairly competent at doing before you can get good at this, is backing in a circle- at least 1/4 of the way. As that’s how he teaches a proper turn around to begin with. Then it’s all about getting in time with their foot cadence, continuing to ride your horse backward, adjusting your legs as needed for whichever direction you want to go and opening up a door-way for your horse when you ask him to go through either to the right or the left. I’ve babbled on enough. Here’s the man himself- and pardon the pink, Buck- but it does match the theme of the blog!

I believe in the above video he is riding one of his most experienced bridle horses named Ark. He rode him in Texas if you’ll recall.

A couple of things to notice about the above video:

1. That horse is turning around with his weight on the outside hind leg- as opposed to the inside leg like you’ll see with a lot of reiners. What he told me at the clinic in Steamboat is that at slow to medium speed that’s how it will be. When you speed it up the force of the turnaround will push them onto their inside leg. But what you don’t want to have happen as a habit, is for your horse to start on that inside leg- as that can get them too forward- and if you’re sitting at a gate sorting cattle you want your horse to be able to stay parked at that gate- so you’re not going want them to get over that inside hind as the force of the turn around pushes them too far forward and after 5-10 sorts the horse isn’t even in the gate anymore.

2. If you watch his timing- when he’s turning to the left (for example)- he sets the left front foot out, and to the left. As that happens, the horse then has his weight on the right hind (because remember our horses trot in reverse). Then as the horse puts his weight on the right hind, and the left front foot gets set out and back, he can ask the right front foot to come around and cross IN FRONT of the left front, and so on. Timing is crucial to getting a good turn around. You have to ask when it’s easiest for the horse. And if his left front foot is in the way, then it’s going to be virtually impossible for him to to turn around with his right front foot crossing in front. That’s why if you back them up and into the turn, you can teach the horse where to put that left front.

Watch again:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I get to go ride a horse and maybe even practice a turn around or two!!!

Yippee for Wednesday!

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Buck Brannaman, Steamboat Springs, Day Two

20 Sep posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

You’ll have to pardon me for not taking notes after the clinic this time, like I did at the previous clinic I attended. We had a killer condo to come home to each night (photos of that coming soon), and frankly, I was really tired after each day.

Day two began with me getting on Dino about 45 minutes before class started. I do my very best to take Buck’s advice, and if I’m given homework, you can bet I’ll do it! We didn’t really have any homework, per say, but he did suggest to us that we do plenty of flexion work before class began so that’s what I did. I did move him out a bit too- and that came a LOT easier than it had the day before.

Day two really wasn’t a lot different than day one, in so much as what we did. Though we did do more sets- and some serpentines. Anyone that has ever been to a Buck Clinic knows that serpentines are one of the favorite things he has us to do. I usually just half-hitch my reins over my saddle horn and use my feet first- which is actually the point of the drill. I know myself well enough to know that if I put the reins over the saddle horn I will force myself to use my feet first- not just go into auto pilot using my hands first. The goal with serpentines is to get the horse operating off the energy and movement and feel in your legs as you change legs with each turn. I’m not necessarily kicking him to move over- I’m directing the energy in his body with the energy in mine. In case you’re lost now:

If going to the right, my left leg will be slightly forward, my right leg slightly back. The reason for this would be that you need to open the shoulders on the right, and drive the hip to the left in order for your horse to hold the pretty, round, “c” shape we desire to have. It would simply be reversed for the left- left leg back, right leg forward. Riding like this, and getting in the habit of doing it every day, even in when riding on the trail really helps your horse. I do try to practice these on my horses, but like Buck says- if they haven’t got it, then you haven’t done it enough yet. We started to make some progress by the end of our time spent on this- enough that even Buck noticed. Hold that…Buck notices everything. Even if you think he doesn’t.

Dino’s backing had significantly gotten better by the end of the day and throughout the weekend we became more proficient. The sets started to flow on the second day. I often have people tell me they have problems with their horses backing and I feel it is a result of the horse being too sticky through their hindquarters. We’ll cover all of that on Day 3! One thing to remember about doing sets is not to be the first one done if you’re on a colt, green horse, or youngster- it is to get a couple good steps, let that soak (rub your horse), get a couple more good steps (rub your horse), let them soak, and then go from there. If you get two good steps and your third might be sticky, well then by asking for a third step you will ruin any good “flow” and “feel” you had going in the first two. You always want to quit while you’re ahead. Horses search for the release. Pressure is simply the motivator which we use to get our horses to search for the release. But if your timing is bad and you don’t release when you should, your horse will become sticky.

Buck said this weekend, that there isn’t a horse on the planet trained well enough that he won’t come untrained to some degree if whoever is on his back doesn’t educate themselves enough to ride and continually search to become better.

We did a lot more work, trying to get our horses to really walk out and Dino was infinitely better than he’d been the day before.

Photo from day three of Dino really striding out (me thinks he’s trotting here):

Today we also worked quite a bit on asking our horses to pick up a soft feel at the walk- by elevating first, then rolling in at the poll, carrying it down to the stop. Same thing from the walk, to the trot, to the stop, or the walk to the trot to the walk. And again, anytime my colt didn’t move out like I’d quietly asked him to, I really got after him to lope across the arena. Please note- on a really green colt, you won’t try to hold that soft feel to the faster gait at first- you’ll get a soft feel at the walk for a step or two, give it back, then ask for the trot, get a soft feel for a step or two, release ask again and then see if you can carry that soft feel down to the walk or the stop. Dino was far enough along with the soft feel that I could carry it from the walk, up to the trot and down again, though I wouldn’t ask him to hold it for more than a couple strides each time. Buck said our trotting looked really good- good elevation and we were rolled in at the poll correctly! Go us!

Watching the folks in the Foundation Horsemanship Class on Friday Morning:

We had a lot of trouble getting a right lead- in fact we didn’t get one at all today- so Buck had us rolling our hips to the right anytime that we got to the other side of the arena on the wrong lead. He wasn’t worried about us being on the correct lead just yet, but he wanted me to be aware of what lead we were on when at the trot (yes, you can be on a certain lead at the trot- and walk too, for that matter- more to come). He told me that if I would be consistent in rolling my horse’s hips to the right when we came across in the wrong lead, that before we knew it I’d get it and say” well, I’ll be go to hell- I just got the right lead.”

He really cracks me up. He is so witty and extremely entertaining. Yet hard on you at the same time.

One last thing we worked on before we ended the day, was turn-arounds. The kind of turn arounds you’d need if you were sorting cattle at a gate, or cutting a cow from a herd, moving or simply working an invisible cow.

I know I covered this in the previous clinic work up, but I will cover it here again- but this time it’s going to get a post all to itself!

Happy Monday!

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Buck Brannaman, Steamboat Springs, Day One: Part Two

17 Sep posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Yesterday we covered the first part of the 3-hour long class of day one. I don’t say 3 hours to make it sound like it drags on and on and on- on the contrary, by the time day four arrives you want to cry because your time with this man is over and you can’t believe it went by so quickly. And if you’re me, you are already planning at least another 2 trips to ride with him next year! I won’t get the opportunity to ride with him again this year because we have too much to do here this month and next- with fall shots and shipping calves. Then the weather gets bad, and well, winter usually sets in too soon up here in our neck of the woods!

We spent probably the first hour and fifteen minutes of the class in a lecture with Buck, and then standing still while we practiced getting our lateral (side to side) and vertical (to the ground) flexions. Then it was time to get moving.

First we were instructed just to have our horses walking/trotting and begin to 1. elevate their neck/poll and 2. roll in at the poll/jaw. We’d gotten fairly competent while we stood still doing this, so working on it while we moved out only makes sense- it’s the next logical progression.

Remember that I’d mentioned that Buck really helped me to get my colt moving out? Well we barely made one pass around the arena and he called me over to him and instructed me to ask him to trot/lope across the arena, anytime I saw an open spot. He said he wanted me as straight as possible, at which point I just chuckled and said, I’d do my best. And that’s all he ever asks anyone to do- if you try, Buck will help you and you’ll see improvement.

So I would just periodically- he said every couple of minutes or so, kick a fart out of my colt and we’d lope off, or trot across the arena. Needless to say, by the end of that day I was really, really sore!

One of the things that I mentioned I learned at the Texas Clinic this year was that you open your legs to have your horse ride off. And I guess I should clarify. My cowboy has been telling me that for a long time, but it hasn’t ever sunk in. It began to in Texas- but then I was riding my older saddle horse, Gump and moving out isn’t something we struggle with.

This time at the clinic, Buck preached about how the more advanced your riding, the more open you are from your hips. If you ride with just your lower leg, your riding is very juvenile. But if you learn to open up from your hips, shift into Position 2 (which is seat bones floating, right smack in the middle of your horse) at the same time, your horse will come to understand that that means go. And then the energy in your body will determine how fast you go. The steps to getting your horse keen on this are as follows:

1. Open your legs; roll into position 2- all at once.
2. If your horse doesn’t move off (and most colts won’t know what that means), then your legs are away from him so you can kick him into moving.
3. If the kick doesn’t work, you should have the tail end of your rein, mecate lead-rope, rope or reata ready to smack him on the hindquarters.

Buck warming up his Two-rein Horse at the beginning of class on Monday- here you can see his perfect body position:

All three of the above mentioned maneuvers should take you no more than 1.5 seconds to do in succession. I got pretty darn quick at these three. The trick is to ride your colts/horses like you want them to be if they were finished bridle horses. Since horses are the masters of remembering what happened before what happened, you must be quick, and eventually, if done correctly, you won’t have to spank, and then you won’t have to kick and your horse will move off a very subtle cue- which is the goal! As a rule- you want to spank your horse across his rump on the outside hip- so if you’re going to the right, you’d drag a rein across his left hip. How you grab your rein/lead-rope is also important. You want to grab it with your thumb towards your horse’s ear, and your pinky finger at his tail. That allows for a better angle, and you’ll be less likely to hit him in the flank, and more likely to hit him across the top of his rump. By spanking the outside of the hip, you are less likely to mess up the proper lead.

We spent the better part of day one, moving our horses out, picking up a soft feel (by getting proper elevation and then rolling them in at the poll) and we did begin to pick up a soft feel and carry it to the stop where we were then asked to do sets.

Sets are great tool! It’s 10 steps forward, 10 steps back, 9 steps forward, 9 steps back, and so on- until you reach 0. Not so easy to do if you have a horse that doesn’t move out- because if he doesn’t move out going forward you’re going to have a hell-of a time moving him backward! Backing a horse isn’t any different than riding him forward. When a horse backs up, he trots in reverse, so you can see how you’d need some movement out of him to be successful! You don’t kick your horse to back them up- again, you open your legs from the hips and ride them backward! This requires a lot of patience and feel- because you can very easily get your hands in a bind where you are tugging on their mouths. Essentially what you desire to have happen is that you pick up a soft feel, sit down to Position 3- where you’re tilted more towards your back pockets and you hold that soft feel to a stop and then for a step or two backwards to begin (remembering to release with each step they take backward). Then it’s simply a matter of riding your horse, by opening your legs, to get them to take more than a couple steps backward. Sets are great because it helps you keep your horse straight when riding a back-up and that’s important.

By the end of this day my colt had kicked up with me a few times while I asked him to move out but in the end was better. If your horse is kicking up it’s not always a bad thing- he’s at least trying- even if that is the wrong answer! Just keep riding, act like it didn’t happen, and go on. Rub him when he gets it right and eventually the kicking up stops. It did for me, by day three.

Day two…coming soon!

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Buck Brannaman, Steamboat Springs, Day One, Part One.

16 Sep posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

My head is still spinning from the 4 days I spent riding with The Master, Buck Brannaman.

Was it the same as riding with him in Texas, even though I took the same class? Hardly.

Was it just as challenging as the Texas Clinic? I’d argue that it was more challenging, because I was on a colt with about 40 rides.

Did he remember me? Yes! And we got to chat about my colt before the clinic started on Friday. He really helped me get The Dino (who most of you will notice looks A LOT like The Gumper- and he should since they’re half brothers!) moving out more freely by what he had me doing throughout the clinic.

Have I grown as horseman? You bet! Do I have more tools before than I did when I arrived? Absolutely! Did I notice different things about his horses this time, than I had last time? Affirmative! What I learned this time, really made a great deal of sense (not that what I’ve learned from him before didn’t make sense), but this, this was different. I guess I should get to it!

The first thing he explained to us on Friday, was how a horse physiologically gets collected, soft, and elevated. And how what happens physiologically, when it’s done correctly v. done incorrectly. As I mentioned after the first clinic- softness in our horse is our horse reaching back for us- and putting slack in the reins- but we got an even more in-depth, better and more correct understanding of it this time, as Buck has learned a new way to teach it.

In correct softness, and collection, such as in classical dressage style (loose rein- think war horses)/bridle horse riding (and I’m aware, that I’ve not yet explained a Bridle Horse), a horse must be elevated in order to correctly shift their weight back to their hindquarters. By elevation, you need the poll of the horse to be higher than his withers, but you still need him to be soft in the face- so he’ll need to be on the vertical as well.

If you were to take any horse, stand him on level ground and measure him, he’ll be his normal height. But sit on him, ask him to elevate and he’ll be an inch and half taller. Same thing is true when you ask your horse to collect up- they do get shorter, as I’ve explained before. He went on to further explain that when you ride your horse with his head vertical and his poll below his withers that you actually close the shoulder blades and do not allow the ribs and back to raise up. But if you raise the poll above the withers, the shoulder blades do open up, thus allowing the ribs and back to come up and properly elevate the horse (photo examples of correctness below).

Buck on his horse, showing us what it should look like (Monday Photos):

One of my attempts while moving out- looks pretty good though I might could elevate him a bit more (Monday Photo):

At the standstill (Sunday Photo):

One of the things I noticed this time about his horses, specifically when he was loping or doing canter pirouettes, is that his horse is exceptionally elevated. His shoulders are up, and his back legs are under him, and he strides out father through the shoulders and front end than a horse that any Joe Blow might ride.

Some of you are probably thinking to yourselves right now- do you want your horse to travel like this all the time? The answer to that question is, No. You do not. You want your horse to move as naturally as possible, until which time you reach for him and then you want him to reach up and back to you- because if you reach for him, chances are you’re going to ask him to do something, such as stop, collect up so he can turn around, or back up etc.

To teach us the proper elevation and flexion he had us begin with a drill at the standstill- and this drill should carry over to everything else we do on our horse- be it a short serpentine, a turn around, or a one-rein stop (all of which we covered in the previous clinic I attended).

In this drill we wanted our horse’s head above his withers. And then we were to picture a string with a rock tied to the end, attached to his foretop (or forelock). The goal was to have the string stay in the middle of his face, when he was asked to bring his head around to the side, and to have him straight up and down enough that the string would hang straight down from his nose. So you wanted him turned and on the vertical- something like this:

In the above photo, it’s clear, that his ears are fairly level- or they would be if they were both up, that his poll is elevated and that he’s on the vertical. That drill is something we (Dino and I) did become competent at doing and I’m just dying for the sun to dry us out so I can get on Gump and Nora and help them get better. We sat and did that on our horses for about 20 minutes the first day, and it was the first thing I did on my colt every day thereafter that I got on him. I would do 20-30 of them both directions each day before we’d start class.

Here’s an example of doing it incorrectly:

You can see that his face isn’t on the vertical, and if we were to have a string with a rock tied to the end of it, attached to his foretop, it’d be hanging down the right side of his face, instead of hanging down the middle of his face. I’m hoping that the incorrect picture will help you further understand my explanation.

One of the benefits to doing it at the standstill first is that it helps your horse to get balanced. You’d see a lot of people in the clinic whose horses couldn’t stand still at first while they did it. But the balance of your horse starts there so if you can get that working for you at the standstill, and you’re consistent, you’ll get more from your horse at other gaits than you would have had you not started here.

Once that was working for us, he had us gathering our horses at the standstill- but first we’d gather them up- not pulling up, but waiting for their poll to rise above their withers;then we’d move our hands back, to gather them at the poll, and put them on the vertical (remember to release when they got soft). The goal is/was to have them eventually where, instead of working our hands on a 90 degree angle- such as up and then back, making an “L”, we could work on a 45 degree angle, so we would be able to go up and back at once, and have the horse elevate his poll and gather up through his face. For those of you riding, that might want to try this, don’t forget to release when your horse gets the elevation. Once he gets that you want him elevated, you can then move your hands back and ask for them to roll in at the poll- and again release when he gives to you. Buck told us that if he had to pick one for us to get while we were at the clinic, that it would be the elevation of the poll, not the breaking at the poll. He said he has found that getting the elevation helps people get the release better when the horse starts to break at the poll.

And I think this is a good time for y’all to soak in what you’ve just read!

Part two, coming soon!

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