😳 She's like riding a Stick of Dynamite 💥

[Music] all right so uh I'm here with Kelsey and she brought a seven-year-old mayor that she recently bought I guess you bought her last fall yeah um but you're having a little bit of trouble with her could you just tell us a little bit about why you're why you're here what you want to help with yeah so she I didn't know a lot of history on her when I bought her so um I was told she was broke to ride and that they Trail Ro her so I got her home and got on her and she felt like a stick of loaded Dynamite so I got back off took it back down to Basics did some groundw work um had her checked out by the vet took her to the chiropractor made sure there was nothing physical uh wrong find anything nothing I mean she did get adjusted but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary got back on her after a few days off from the Cairo and she felt better but she still just gets just so nervous she just tenses up like really just I don't like she feels like she's going to blow so she hasn't bucked yall for anything she hasn't bucked because you were wise to how she was feeling I wasn't going to push through that when I could tell she was literally just she didn't know what to do and I wasn't going to ask her to do something she didn't know what I was asking so got back off did a bunch of line driving she did okay with that but she also got herself nervous doing that so I said kick her out for the winter try again in the spring I've been on her about maybe 10 times this year um and we're making progress but it's very very slow and she still just has like a trigger and you're saying like if you go to the right with her so to the left she's pretty good and then as soon as you turn to the right she grabs her butt and then she just freaks out and then she freezes and just shakes oh W so I really don't know what that trigger is since I don't know her H sounds good um well I'm going to have you um we're inside today it's really windy outside you feel the walls in you're shaking but it would mess up the mic stuff so we're going to just be inside um but I'm going to have you just uh show me some of the groundw work you're doing if she feels safe enough to get on we'll do that if we find some major holes on the ground we might stay there for a minute sure um we'll just go from there sounds good so over the last couple weeks how much time would you say you spend on the ground before you step on her oh probably about 15 20 minutes uh mostly just lunging and just kind of getting a feel where where her head's at yep she's also in heat right now so we got a perfect storm with the wind and all the things and she doesn't buck when you saddle her she did the first few times when I got her last fall she hasn't since then okay so back when you're lunging her is it mostly trotting or do you caner her a lot I do most of the time I just free lunge in the round pen okay and then I just do this before I get on just to feel how she is okay good girl with a sensitive she is I think it's a huge win that she doesn't want to Buck with a saddle yeah no I agree and so when I when I did some ground workor and line driving with her she's one of the few that I feel like it actually made her worse yeah and I I guess just cuz she's so sensitive but she and it must be whatever the girl did with her I think she just didn't she didn't find good spots to release so this mayor doesn't know like what to look for yeah and we're getting there really really slowly but that's what I want your help with because with Colts are so easy they just tell you what they know and don't know yeah and she's like very confused so so yeah and this is like 25 times better than the first time I asked her to bend to the right the first time I even asked her to bend her head to the right I thought that I was going to get run over y because she was so stiff in her ribs and she just wanted to like just get away from it yeah but she's gotten a lot better does this feel average better than average below average she's distracted she's a little so she's not as focused on me but other than that it feels pretty similar okay I think just the wind and the stuff rattling and a new place I like that when you stepped on she didn't change she actually maybe even settled a little bit like it seems more familiar to her than the ground workor yep um so that's that's really a plus I've spent a lot of time just reinforcing I mean it took me probably five rides to get her to walk around the outside of the round pen without freaking out yeah so I did a lot of this anytime she would do a quarter lap quiet we would stop and stand so she's got a safe space at least now y exactly so that's what I was after interesting they take her around to the right right off the bat well I when I started when I started colts for the raining trainer he always told me do their worst side first then their best side then come back to the worst side so you work it twice okay and that's never left me I think that's a true statement other than I don't know if if I just got on them I think I might go to the left first and then in the middle of the ride spend a little more time going to the right sure so you you haven't cantered her much i' I have not cantered her like at all okay nope I haven't because she grabs her butt so bad and I don't want her to end up running through a fence or something yeah for sure cuz when she runs she runs scared um all right well let's I'm going to have you step off there and we're going to go back do some more ground work and then um there's only one thing I'm really going to add to your riding um but that's yeah you're you're you're just very much on the right track it's getting better you know um but there's just a few few little things that we can add to it okay so I'm just going to put her in a rope halter hey if you guys are enjoying this video and you would like to see more uh detailed training videos and be able to ask me specific questions about your horse consider joining my patreon page it's only $10 a month you're going to have access to all the videos we do a fun monthly challenge that has a giveaway for the winner um at the end and I think you guys will really enjoy it so we'll leave a link in the description below let's get back to the video um so a couple things I'm going to add to your groundwork I want to have a a little bit I want to slow your movements down a little bit unless you're deliberately trying to expose her to more energy which is a different sorry I'm going to we're going to I'll show you that with her in a minute the other thing I want you to do is I want you to add in more bending more rib cage movement more hind corded yields and I'll show you a few different exercises to do that so the circle was very nice um she wasn't like taking a counter Bend or anything but we're going to ask her to do this um um on the ground and we're going to exaggerate this position a little bit of her yielding her head and neck and bending the ribs and I'm going to to tap her with the stick right here because I also want her to get a little bit exposed to some of that pressure there because horses aren't bothered because of the pressure they get they get um anxiety or anxious when they don't understand the pressure and so it's about building that connection with her so you see she's like oh do I stop do I do this and you can see her getting kind of Herky jerky with it as soon as I ask her to to bend more and the bend is asking her to put her body in a more vulnerable position position and that's why they don't want to do it so every horse um especially a sensitive one they don't they they come out with a counterbend and to whatever degree somebody's horse doesn't counterbend somebody's taken the time to teach them to walk with a bend and so first we're going to focus on getting a little more Bend in her head and neck while she's moving forward and you see there's starting to be some connection there starting to understand that's what I'm asking for and then to take it to a little further degree I'm going to ask ask her hind quarters to take a partial disengagement step where this left hind is stepping over in front of the right hind and all I'm doing is you've gotten this to be like a five or a six out of 10 we're going to try to get it to like a seven or an eight out of 10 it doesn't have to be perfect and I show this a lot in the videos and so I think everybody thinks I sit here and do this all day long every day with every horse I don't you do this just enough to what you need to and it's a recovery strategy that we're going to use riding that if she gets tight we want her to feel really comfortable and be able to go back to it so in the first five ride five sessions of doing it yeah it ends up being you know four or five minutes of it um but it's not hours it's not you know forever and it's not months of doing this right um what it what it it can be as you call her to a new place or you haven't wrote her in a little while she had the weekend off it's a windy day you do this and you test it and if she can give it to you right away it's not just a matter of do they know this exercise or not it's are they in a mental space that they can give it to you and so it's a test like can you give me that oh it's there great we can move on it's not like oh I got to drill this for hours and hours you know um but I think because people see me do it so regularly with so many horses they think I just do this obsessively and we don't so it's it's like the groundwork is just I want you to get a little bit more specific about what you're doing with her so it's way less about moving her feet and way more about a mental connection okay getting her to go you got to you should be able to ask yourself what does she need to do to win this game and be able to answer that question is it head down now is it Bend more is it releasing on the halter and today I want her to bend her ribs more but it's probably not achievable to think she's going to hold that position on her own but what is achievable today is to get more lateral Bend through the head and neck um which is again it's about putting her body in a more vulnerable position and her being trusting us and being okay in that position and like you can see there she's already like starting to take it but then when she goes to leave she that's where she gets straight so I'll kind of call her out on that a little bit now she's doing that partial disengagement a little more on her own but when she gets ready to run off she wants to be really straight yes and so bending is the opposite of that and so we want her to get in this position but what see how I keep giving even though I'm really close to her I keep putting slack there cuz I'm looking for her to hold that position it's even there she's letting me take it without uh stopping like she did in the beginning there we go so it's just a little bit more specific there's a little bit more when she wins when she gives me that position then I'll turn it loose the next thing I would add to this is side passing um side passing is another good activity to do um that has the hind quarters doing a disengagement step looks like you've already been doing this yeah good now you see where her head is at yes so that's so when I say we're not just side passing like this is the part that is for you to learn is it's not just side passing alone isn't good enough for this horse it's side passing until she does something like head down so I'm going to side pass her back and forth here and I'm going to give her room to lower her head if she doesn't lower her head I'm going to get closer and closer and ask her to lower her head to finish it but the goal would to just side pass her and have her choose to lower head that's how she wins the game so if she wants us to quit side passing just lower your head that's all you got to do so you can see she got a little claustrophobic there even to the point where she was ready to run through me mhm also see how disorganized her feet are yes they they're organized so that's actually the first step so if I release her right there when the feet synchronize the the left Hind and right front and the left front right hind that will lend itself to building in the relaxation so I call that releasing towards the goal I'm saying this to you but I'm also saying it for for the video sake um if if I only waited to release her when the head goes down I might be going around here for five laps before she thinks about it but if I noticed that her feet weren't synchronized they were disunited disorganized and then they got organized that means that she was more present in that side pass at the end than she was at the beginning right and so I'm getting closer to my goal of her finding relaxation in that position but I also want you to observe how slow I move around her for this part of the session for building in these relaxation moments because you're going to give her a little more opportunity to get relaxed if you slow down just a hair um with with how you're asking for it so I'm just putting little felds on the halter now I'm going to get a little closer to her and just kind of finish right there with the head down so this is another kind of pro tip with training my goal is for her to do it while she's in motion without having to do that but as long long as I finish in that spot she's going to start to see the pattern and start to get there on her own but if I start there if I start by pulling her head down asking her to lower it when she's sassing I'm not giving her the opportunity to make a decision does that make sense yes oh there we go nice beautiful also see how how soft her feet her footsteps got she went from making these like loud kind of pounding steps where there's just like some tension and and muscle into it to like just soft softness there and that's what you're just going to kind of try to keep peppering into her actually I'll quitter on that one that was good so this this little game that I'm about to do with are um I call it energy versus intention and what we also want to teach her is to get more in tune with your intention and less concerned about energy okay so energy is in this case is going to be me with the flag my intention is for her to walk and trot super calm even though the flag is going to be very noisy um this you could liken this to it's windy or another horse gets bothered or there's something else that has high energy that could bother your that could influence how your hor is we're teaching them to stay in tune with us and not be get distracted by the other things going on so we're teaching her to follow Our intention not the energy and you know it's like a lot of people are told if you're calm the horse will be calm and we'd love for that to be true but if they are like that it's because somebody took the time to train them to stay in tune with the rider so she's reading the flag and not my energy and so I like it's clear as day like this is a big hole for her cuz you were just using the flag but you were pretty polite with it right and so this is a great like a bright red flag of like oh she's not in tune with the human's intention I'm still calm I'm still talking normally right even though she's having a little freak out yeah and for those of you that that are at home this is a learned skill that you know it's very easy it's more natural for a human's instincts to get all fired up when a horse gets acting like that and we have to train ourselves to separate how what Our intention is from what the horse is doing so that we can still be calm even with they're not calm and so the flag is still being consistent but I'm waiting for her to come to a walk and start to go oh just cuz that flag is being really noisy doesn't mean I have to run off and this is also really good news because if we can't find any holes to fix on the ground we're not making her safer to ride if she just aced everything I'm giving her we're not moving the needle under saddle yeah but if we can find some of these holes and work through them on the ground she's going to be safer to ride after we're done so I'm still just trying to talk her into a walk so I'm just nudging the halter here and there I'm trying to be as consistent as possible with the flag and then I'll take it away so if I asked you the question what did she have to do to win that game what was the answer reduce speed reduce Speed come to walk get in harmony with my intention my intention was at a walk I was like I was giving her the keep walking feel don't stop but keep walking and that's the you know if if you're riding that's the feel the energy you have if you're riding at a walk she's trotting but your energy is saying no we're we're at a walking speed right now so you're interfering with the saddle a little bit through your seat because you're you're leading the dance you're saying we're at a walking pace in ttention right now even though this is being really loud so this is what I meant by like I want you to slow down and those those teach moments of teaching yields but you have to speed up in these moments so the flag is noisier so it doesn't mean I just go super slow and try to be sneaky around my horses all the time it just means that I'm very intentional about the my movements around them when I'm teaching a subtle yield so that that's what they focus on instead of how fast I'm being versus now I want her to focus on how fast I'm being and learn that she doesn't need to react to it so that's the balance it's confidence versus yields so same thing here we'll just talk her into a walk so I just kind of shorten up the Rope as we go putting a little feel on it I I don't want to make her walk I want her to choose to find a walk and progress today will be her finding it quicker and if she were to completely stop I'd probably let her wear it a little bit and just be at a standstill because that's a better choice than running off right you know so I'm not going to get after like no keep walking you know like rush her off there there she found it and I just completely turn everything off she's like whoa I thought I had to get real ready right there like nope you didn't and so she doesn't know to read your intention and that's that's a hole that you're running into under saddle then yeah huge and and I think that's why she goes from freaking out to dead still yeah she doesn't have an in between there's not a space that she can go yeah and it's it's kudos to her that she thinks of stopping as an option instead of only running off right um and now see all that time there she finally just now let down from that exercise and so when a horse licks and choose they're they're switching nervous systems it's a big deal um and so she just got more comfortable and settled and again this is another reason why you want to give them that soak time if you feel like they're still processing that if she was to like look over at the other horse like what's going on you can then carry on right away but when you feel like she's still soaking on whatever you just did very important for especially this horse give her that time to process then you could also play with while she's walking and trotting of just moving the flag up like it's like okay you're thinking I'm lunging her now and then just switch to I'm going to relax my intention and I'm gonna flip this up on you can you read me instead of reading the flag and you just kind of mess with them like that um I'm not going to get into all that today but that would be another step that I would add to this and you can do it with a stick and string of like while she's on a circle uh just throw that over because again a lot of people when they're thinking about building confidence they do it at a standstill only but it's like she's pretty good at the standstill you got to be able to do it in motion right it's when it when you add motion to whatever you're asking is where she trips exactly so now I'm want to get my next favorite tool out the old larat rope if she was like really inclined to Buck with the saddle and you had to do a lot of preparation with that I probably would do the flank rope but the reason I wouldn't do the flank rope with her is because she's not wanting to Buck there so there's no reason to focus on that yeah um I would just test it like this is in just what happens if you feel something somewhere else on you this is more about the sensitivity factor of her and just making sure that she knows hey not everything is a yield sometimes you just need to wear it yeah and and be okay with that and so what I'm doing here is putting a little feel on the rope and I want her to stop with it and wear it not yield to it right there then I'll turn it loose and so it's just teaching her hey not everything is move run away from pressure because a horse that's this sensitive and I like that you were talking about your I don't remember how you said it but something to the fact that you use your legs on her to make sure you're not being like sneaky there and that's going to be really important for a horse like this cuz what a horse like with her sensitivity they can become reactive instead of responsive very so yeah you get get it instead of doing a yield it so the key strategy for you besides doing some extra things like with the ler rope is if you put your leg on or you put a rain on or do something to ask her to yield if it feels reactive or BRAC keep going until it smooth evens out yeah and then and release on that feel that it has not just the fact that she moved over yep and again that's all getting to her mind versus just using uh position I keep pointing this out because so many people focus on the horse's body position it's like okay they they're they were trotting they were walking they were side they were doing the the yield that's not enough it's got to be where her mind is at while she's doing that thing yeah that's going to be true for everything you do with her okay I mean it's kind of true for riding any horse but especially a sensitive one to make sure it's always a response and not a reaction right so that was very good is she good with her feet she is that's good so this is kind of a taming test um and one the other one is the energy versus intention one but a lot of horses that aren't that tame um can get really like you could have a horse that's being shown third fourth level D but it's ready to Buck the rider off at any moment because it's actually not tame it's got a lot of training but not not tame yet tame means they're gentle and they're not going to their parimal instincts if they get bothered by something and so steady pressure is one one of my favorite ways to um build uh some tameness into a horse and so for her we're just kind of testing it here and some horse just surprised me like I'm not expecting a big reaction from her but and she's not having trouble with her feet she's accepting the saddle yeah but it's still worth like trying it so I'm going to get her trotting and then I'm going to put a feel on it and it's like oh something's got a hold of you but this also like to me reinforces what I've been saying of she wants to try and get along right um it's like there no reaction to that and it also it um reinforces what you were saying of she probably had a bad experience riding and and it put in a spot there um so she passes with fly colors the other thing we want to do is ask her slowly into the caner and try to build up her connection to it so what QE would you like the caner to be I kiss for low perfect perfect so I'm going to pick my hand up and I'm going to give her a little smooch so that tells us she doesn't really understand that means can her yet so now I'm going to tap her and then I'm going to reset and this instead of so if I were to just pressure her pressure her pressure her she'd can her but she wouldn't connect it to the smooch does that make sense yes so if I just reset there and I go again and then I give her some time in between those and then I'll reset again and she doesn't have to stop she just has to like slow down again and when you kiss try to do it kind of softly don't make it like you can have a lot of energy into a kiss but you see how this is more about a conversation right and then Retreat so it's about the the the conversation of it and getting her mentally there with you not just cantering cuz a horse like this if you went down the road of just trying to move her feet tire out before you get somewhere forget about it yeah you better pack a lunch you're going to be out there for a while this is really nice still going to reset her there even because I had to tap her give her time then spank so I notice there's a delay between when I kiss and when I spank it's that's giving her time to make a good decision so I'm going to be happy with that because she so she countered counter lead little react Ive but she tried yeah so we're going to we're going to encourage the try it was closer to the goal than not caning and so if she can get really sure about that voice cue when you then when you're riding and you just softly what you don't want to do is go bank cuz you could teach her to jump into the lope now and then you get on her and you Smooch and it's like you're on a rocket you know that's what she does in the round pen yeah so she already had that when I got her yep and so it probably be more constructive to do it on a rope and a shorter line cuz they have to collect themselves more to caner even on this size rope which is longer than the one you had I believe um I think this one's my the ropes that I usually train on is like 14t okay once she knows how to do the departure I would switch her to a longer rope and let her but I'd still have her on a rope cuz that that simulates a little more riding that we're going to control where they go a little bit in the round pen that can work out just fine but it can be a little bit too much room for them to do what they want got it um so I think it's a little more constructive doing it with the Rope on okay so I'll have you worker on the right left side first and then you'll do the left side the right side so you're just using your rain exactly how I was using the the halter and Lead rope okay and using the stick to create Bend through the ribs okay where' it go thank you and I would switch from the I would use the flag as exposure I wouldn't use the flag to can her or to tap her with it I would switch to a stick and string okay if possible there you go there you go go ahead and stop there do you feel that those few steps there oh yeah and again you the goal would be to do this at a get her going at a trot with it but definitely take the walk you know for now says play with that bend and success is 100% measured by how much she can hold it there on her own so the reason we're going to put a lot of effort into this relax rain exercise is this I want this to become your recovery strategy if you Trot her and she gets BRAC you're going to go back to this okay so it's not that you're going to camp out on this for a really long time one one time during the ride it's that you're going to come in and out of it very frequently throughout your ride anytime her head elevates and she gets BRAC you're going to bend her back down to this good but see how just really hard for her to find that bend there yeah that's cuz she's going to be seeing you more out of her eye when you do this and it's just very challenging for her and so this is definitely a spot that we got to get through the good news is you can do it at a walk right and so you're not really even going to try to do this at a trot until until she's like very good at a at a walk where she can have her head really bent around and on loose reins she's just holding that position feel sof her feet are moving right now yeah if she's BRAC because you just trotted and changed directions or something or cantered and she's a little up right there that Hine cord yield isn't going to feel soft it'll feel like it'll it'll look like the commotion I had when I first side passed her and you're going to wait on it until it gets smooth and rhythmic and soft so what I would do really frequently is when you first get on at a walk you're going to Pepper in these things check on them see what kind of where she's at with it and then what I would do the most training on is approaching or retreating out of the Trot and coming down to these exercises okay but right now the first few rides are going to be the most tricky ones because she doesn't necessarily find relaxation doing relax rain yet right but as you practice it more and more it'll feel good to her and even the fact that the Trot is a little bit BRAC to her when you come back down to the this at a walk it should start to feel better to her and she'll get better at it so first thing that happens is you breathe out and you sit and this is also going to start developing your stop too but see how she got all BRAC there now you go back till you get the softness at the walk again and what I'm going to have you do here is do the relax rain until it feels like an improvement and then I want you to do a hind quar yield before you Trot off because that's a very much a power down body position for them good and then let her stand there super so yeah you're just going to have to approach and retreat with this quite a bit I'd Bend her down yep a hold her there yep and kind of pull and release on that yeah there you go so you feel it starting to come on this side a little bit now see that one was bracie her the hind quarter release yep so just hold that a little longer and bring your leg on just a little slower there okay keep going there cuz she she's in a BRAC mindset yeah she brings it back yep cuz she softens and then she takes it back yep and now just softly let her out of that yeah there perfect very good very good I love that you can read that and feel feel that difference cuz that's that's all the difference if she's still BRAC with it it doesn't count for anything it's like there's no improvement really but if you can wait on it until she drops her head like that and it's good with it it she's very much in a different frame of mind then right um and she's gonna be coming in and out of it a lot but this will ultimately be a faster it'll feel slower in the beginning but it'll save you time on the back end it'll build yeah good girl yeah that's it you got some work to do there but I I think you're you were already on the right track adding in these couple of extra things um I think will'll move the needle more and faster in the long run awesome um but yeah you're doing a good job those are great tools thank you so tell me what are your what are your takeaways from this session uh I really love the the how Softly She went into the caner on the long line and that is going to build so much confidence in her and me when I ask her to Lo because of the way that she reacts even at the Trot so the lope was going to be just Amplified that same thing so that's going to be huge um helping work through that and then what was the key what was the key uh element of that that made that softer departure was it was the fact that you asked softly and then reinforced it but you didn't force her you let her choose it then you reset and you go back to the first queue and I I just point want to point that out because so it's so easy to just most people just keep pressing it's like I just got done telling them to reset and then they're like pushing more more more so it's like just set it up smooch softly wait one 1,00 2 1,000 3 1,000 okay now spank and whatever happens after the spank we're going to reset back to the Trot yes um because it's about that cue and her understanding that cue going into it it's huge for me you're training how you want them to respond to you which is not something I even realized I wasn't doing until just now I'm training how I I'm just asking for immediate obedience rather than them to respond to me yeah connecting to the idea connecting yeah that's a good word so that is huge training um overall is mental emotional and physical so the emotional stuff that we did with her was the exposure to the flag cantering those were some emotional things the mental parts were all those little things where we and emotional is also releasing her in those softer positions mental was her connecting to the idea that we had and us doing less first and letting giving her a chance to have the correct response physical part of it is getting them to use their bodies well with framing them up and asking them for good biomechanic positions as we ride uh for stopping for steering for you know know like her not dropping her shoulder in the turn that's all the physical side of it and so all three have equal importance but a lot of people focus on the physical the most right especially Performance Horse uh people people trainers in general and uh but we can develop all three and then we have a really solid horse really nice horse and in my opinion the mental emotional just comes a step before the physical I'm not saying it's more important because if your horse isn't sound because how you're riding them that's not going to do anything for you um but it's important for the horse how they feel about it um and their understanding and being confident and relaxed which is what you were after in this session that's why it comes first so it's not which one's more important it's just which order do we develop them in right [Music]

Channel: Ryan Rose

Views: 139,986

Keywords: horse, horse training, reactive, reactive horse, horse trainer, Ryan, rose, Ryan rose, rose horsemanship, Ryan rose horsemanship, horsemanship, cowboy, western, groundwork, horseman, Bucking, Scared horse

Id: qC7JTlZZ7I4

Length: 36min 15sec (2175 seconds)

Published: Fri May 10 2024