Posts Tagged ‘bitless bridle
Rope Riding
I’m hugely addicted to the website Etsy.com, I used it a ton when I was planning my wedding last year – its a great resource for any and all handmade things. Much like Ebay, Etsy is meant as an outlet for artists to sell their handmade items to the world. They even have a section where you can request handmade things and other artists can bid for the chance to create your dream item. As I hit my usual website searches tonight (craigs list for a 3 horse bumperpull trailer, ebay for playfood for Minnow’s act, and Etsy for Chincoteague Pony items) I came across some pretty neat handmade tack on Etsy. Someone has listed an handmade Indial Bosal that is soooo similar to the bitless bridle I am currently using at 1/4 of the cost ($16.00). I bet it works just as well too! Just had to share it with everyone! Enjoy!
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Confidence Building
My sister and her wanna be race horse, Jet
On Sunday morning I took Boomer out for his second trail ride with the clicker. I had mostly talked about Blitz and how my mom and I were trying to teach him to control his emotions on our first ride with the clicker, well Boomer also came along for this training session where he learned to stand quietly after racing up a big hill, as well as how to walk home quietly. This time I went for a ride with my sister and her speed racer pony, Jet (you can only imagine how she got her name). Jet gives off a constant adrenaline that I think all the other horses can sense – she walks with urgency all the time and she only knows one speed and its FAST! Now this is perfectly fine for my sister, infact she can’t stand going slow – so they make the perfect pair, but for the rest of us we usually dread trail rides with Jet. Not only can our horses not keep up with her, but the adrenaline she puts off catches most horses off guard and prompts them into bucking and rearing fits when we begin moving with any sort of speed. Its like they feed off of her energy and they don’t know how to handle it – so most of them “explode”.
Boomer in his bitless bridle
Anyway, the point is that now that I have begun riding with the clicker, Boomer did not “explode” once, infact he remembered each and every spot that we had stopped (and waited) the day before and began halting on his own. (I of course made him move onto a new spot of my choosing so he learned that it wasn’t about a specific spot, it was about listening to me). I can’t say I’m surprised at how quickly he caught on – I know he’s smart – but later he did actually surprise me at how much confidence the clicker training had given him in just one short ride.
Now if you read my earlier post you probably saw that on my trail ride I had lost my camera in the woods and had to go back for it – well this time it was the cell phone (From now on I am riding with a trail bag). After about 20 minutes of my sister and I riding up and down the same hills I couldn’t find it. So my sister decided to head back to the barn to get her phone so we could call it. I was a little nervous about having her leave me and my young Boomer alone in a wide open field, but it made more sense for only one of us to go back while the other kept looking. So as Jet rode off in the distance I was amazed at how Boomer just stood and waited for me to tell him to walk away from the direction of home. (If I had done this with him a few months ago I would of most certainly had to get off of him and it would of been highly probable that he would break free of my grasp and run home). It seemed the clicker training was helping him to build confidence – we proceeded to ride up and down the hills alone until my sister returned and we were able to find my phone. I was very proud of how Boomer handled himself in this situation, most horses wouldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes on their own. I’m going to continue to work with him using clicker training, and I’m sure we are going to be able to accomplish amazing things together.
Flying Lead Changes Made Simple
Watch these two videos about clicker training a horse to do a flying lead change. I find sometimes when wanting to clicker train a horse to do something specific while being ridden its hard to envision the steps it might take to get there. But with the help of the internet (and trusty youtube) I’ve found lots of great clicker training videos that can give inspiration – I find its very helpful to watch someone else first. Also I didn’t notice until watching the second video that the rider is actually using a bitless bridle on her horse. Very cool – breaks the stereotype that you can’t get a horse round without a bit!
A Natural Connection
I came across an interesting video of a horse training process called “natural connection” which has been developed by Uri Peleg. His website doesn’t go into much detail about how he achieves this connection with his horses, but its very interesting none-the-less. He briefly touches on the benefit of riding his horse bridless, and the harmfulness of using a bit.
I thoroughly enjoy riding all of my ponies bridless when possible, but I don’t think it would be possible for me to compete with them without some sort of bridle (I currently use a bitless bridle). My boys would definitely need a lot more intense training to achieve this – but it would be amazing. I do have a goal in mind of having my current project pony, Boomer, competing in mounted games with barely any rein pressure while executing tight turns and spins at top speeds. He’s got the foundation right now, but we still have a long way to go. Its very difficult to train him more precisely without a riding ring currently, but when we make our big move to Iron Horse Farm I hope to have a much more suitable place for his training. Anyway, watch Uri’s video and I hope it inspires you to create a much better partnership with your horse.
Boomer in Training
Chesapeake Boomerang 4/13/09
I decided to post a video I took today while I was working with Chesapeake Boomerang or Boomer. I wish I had a video from when I first brought him home, because the difference in him is amazing. Boomer is a 2003 registered Chincoteague Pony (which makes him 6 years old currently), I still consider him to be very young and inexperienced. When I got him last year he was broke to ride, but he still needed (and still does) a lot more improvement. Unfortunately where I keep him right now there is no ring, and the only area that is remotely useable is a semi-flat open field, that also floods. So when I first started riding him in this area, lets just say our rides together were far from calm. I was dealing with bucks and rearing and I would have never been able to ride him alone.
But from this video (sorry for the far-away shot, it was difficult to film by myself) you can see that I have a much different horse. It was a little swampy so we had some sticky spots – and this is mostly why I am only trotting him. But incase its too far away to tell – I am working on getting Boomer to stop with his hind end under him, I then proceed to ask him to back up and spin on his haunches. It might be hard to tell but I am actually barely using rein pressure, I’m instead over exaggerating my seat and leg movements, hence why I throw my legs forward for the halt and why I lean way back when asking him to back up. Eventually when Boomer’s responses to these signals are much quicker I will not over-exaggerate them as much.
Boomer in his bitless bridle 4/13/09
After watching this video you may be asking yourself, I thought she used reward-based training methods to teach her horses, so where are the treats? And my response to that is that I don’t use it for everything, or all the time for that matter, simply because I don’t need to (again a common misconception among people is that you always need treats when riding if you use reward based methods). When I first got Boomer one of the first things I did with him was teach him to target a ball, shake hands, stand on a pedestal and give me a kiss. For these “tricks” I used clicker training (with treats) to train him. Once I had a language going with Boomer (I ask you something, you figure out what it is, you get rewarded) we had a solid way to communicate. So when I took to riding Boomer, and for example wanted to teach him to back up, all I did was sit way far back and give light taps on the rein. As I waited patiently (sometimes for a very long time) for even a step, Boomer was constantly thinking about what he had learned with me before (I ask you something, you figure out what it is, you get rewarded), so when that first step came Boomer got a great big pat and good boy. (All my ponies learn that good boy/girl means job well done – since all my treats are accompanied by this in the beginning). He didn’t need a treat right then, the “good boy” was reward enough for him. The promise of something good when he figures it out is all he needs, I truly believe horses thrive off of our approval and they simply just want to please us. Its in their nature to be “part of the herd” so to speak.
