by: Dale Dodd

A key element in a good cutting run is the stop. Many people, students and trainers alike, struggle with the mechanics of the stop.

One of the first things I do when a started or even a finished cutting horse comes in for training is evaluate his stop. I do this for my own safety, and to see what part of “Whoa” he doesn’t understand!

I will check the horse down vertically with tarp straps to see if he understands the first of three key elements I need him to understand to properly execute a stop: 1) Will he soften at the poll, while still engaging his hind quarters. And, can I collect his poll and keep impulsion at the same time?
continue reading "Mechanics of the Stop"

by: Jay O’ Jay

Since creation one prey animal has survived – the horse! That’s pretty amazing when you consider that some of the predators that wanted to eat them included very large dinosaurs, mountain lions, wolves, and grizzly bears.

Through evolution the horse has “learned” how to adapt and adjust to an ever-changing environment. In fact, learning is the most effective protection a horse has in a potentially dangerous and unpredictable world. Obviously, horses have very “trainable” minds, but I’m always amazed by how many things we can actually teach them to do.

Understanding what is important to a horse and the motivations that drive equine learning behaviours, in my opinion, is the foundation of horsemanship.
continue reading "Nature’s Rhythm"

By: Sandra Fenstad-Sanche

Collection is a term loosely used, abused, and misused by many. Sitting in the bleachers at a horse show, standing in the hitching ring, or watching your neighbour’s child take a lesson, you hear time and again, that word, “collection.”

“Sally looks beautiful today. Look at her horse, it’s collected.” With pinned ears and wringing tail, young Sally’s horse goes obediently around the lesson arena while being pulled, prodded, and poked.

Her horse, hanging heavily in the bridle, it continues around the ring with all its weight on its forehand, while poor Sally struggles with all her might to hang onto her horse’s mouth. Because a horse travels with its head perpendicular to the ground, does not mean that collection is truly present.
continue reading "Collection"

by: Wendy Weichel

The process for teaching your horse to finish their turn-around can be broken down into four steps.

If you followed the steps to start to teach a turn-around, which I provided in my previous article (October 2005), these next four steps should come easily and you should be well on your way to a fluent and fast turn-around.

Once your horse is turning consistently from your inside rein, it is time to introduce the first step in helping your horse finish his turn-around, which is to have him learn to move off of outside rein and leg pressure.

Start by walking your horse in a small circle approximately 10 ft. in diameter in the same direction as your intended turn-around. As you walk the circle keep the horses shoulders, rib cage, and hips in a straight line rather than allowing their body to arch around the circle.
continue reading "Finishing The Turn-Around"

By: Doug Mills
You often hear terms like leadership, trust, and confidence. When it gets right down to it, all I want is for my horse to willingly obey a command, to go where I want, as fast as I want, and be soft in his mind, mouth, and body.

It doesn’t matter what breed of horse you have or what discipline you ride, what we all want to achieve with our horses requires leadership.

To achieve and maintain leadership we need to start from the beginning. Catching your horse is his first impression of you. Does he see you as his leader? If so, he will come to you with his head down or stand quietly while you walk up to him.
continue reading "Horsemanship and Leadership"

by Roxanne Sapergia

Young horses are just like children and putting the right start on a two-year-old horse is just as important as finding the right school for your child.

What a colt learns in the first 30 to 60 days will stick with them throughout their lives. So to help make sure your colt has a good start, we sought out the expert advice of Jesse Thomson of 7P Ranch Horses in High River, Alberta.
continue reading "Colt Starting with Jesse Thomson"

by Marcia King

Neck reining to a western horse is like a steering wheel to a car: without it, you have no control over the direction where you and your vehicle go.

It’s one of the first fundamentals a western horse learns, and without a good neck-reining response a “finished” horse won’t finish well in reining, working cow horse, western pleasure or most other western competitions.

Fortunately, training a horse to neck rein is a very simple process – or so says Clark Bradley, and Bradley should know. He’s brought along hundreds of horses in his long career as a trainer, and he’s taken more than a few of those horses to the top, claiming championships in the NRHA Futurity class and in the AQHA Congress Versatility, Western Pleasure Futurity, Junior Reining, Senior Reining, and Team Roping classes.
continue reading "Neck Reining Made Simple with Clark Bradley"