This last winter/spring has been quite educational for me and my filly Briosa (she turned four April 29). In March, I hauled her down to Salome, Arizona to ride for a week with Harry Whitney. What a trooper that little mare was with the trailering. She traveled like a pro – no sweat, no fuss, no worry... just very tired by the time we reached Harry’s ranch. We made some major breakthroughs during our week with Harry – getting her focus, directing her thoughts, following the feel of the rein, balancing her body for correct movement by helping her move from her hind quarters. I was so thrilled after my return that I worked on what I had learned in anticipation of Ross Jacobs’ and Michele Jedlicka’s upcoming visit in April.
Ross and Michele’s Good Horsemanship clinic April 27–29 was a resounding success. We had a great turnout, with enough horses and participants to keep us going for four very full days of learning, exploring, trying new ideas and getting our horses to learn softness and feel.
Through this clinic (and the four additional days I spent with them here and at Shea’s) I was able to continue advancing Briosa’s learning and my own learning by starting to fine tune the feel of the rein, directing her thought to keep her present with me, focusing on cadence and helping her to not rush, balancing my seat to help her learn my feel, picking up the rein and getting
a soft response through the hind quarters, forehand, and lateral movements. We also worked on moving forward at different gaits including walk, trot, gait and canter.
Following Ross’s clinic, Shea Stewart came by our ranch for a couple days of private training for me with Briosa, Milagra and our new mustang Gracy. I’m finding that as I learn new methods and concepts, I have even more refinement that I can explore. It’s never ending, which makes this horsemanship and training ever so much fun! Each horse presents differently; they are
such individuals. Yet, if we are consistent in how we handle and ride them, they can all come around as willing partners and operate consistently for us. Shea and I continued where I left off with Ross and Michele. She showed me a critical element of how I can help Briosa get balanced to help her stop pacing and get into gait. She showed me how moving off her hindquarters for forward, sideways, and back movements can help Briosa get balanced to help her move more smoothly into gait. In helping her learn to engage her hindquarters, she started to feel for that gait. Now I have lots of work to do with her and all of my horses to continue exploring that feel and finding that which works for each horse as an individual.
Shea also helped me to get started on Gracy, our little Pryor Mountain strawberry roan mustang mare who is no more than five years old and about 14 hands tall. She’s lived here about a month now. She was foaled at a sanctuary after her mom was captured. At a very young age, she was accidentally bred along with some of her filly herdmates. So, along with Gracy, we have her filly, Isabella, who is a red (or bay) roan and is almost as tall as her mom, though still shaped like a baby. Niki Nickerson, our boarder who also owns Mikey and Prima – two very cute Peruvian Paso horses – adopted Gracy and Isabella at a sanctuary in northeast California when Isabella was about three months old. She did a great job gentling Gracy and giving Isabella a solid start in life. While Ross and Michele were here, we worked with Gracy on picking up her feet and starting leading. She had never been trimmed, but with her very strong mustang feet
has somewhat maintained them in a reasonable state. I was very pleased that when Roger Budden came to trim, we were able to get Gracy’s feet trimmed. She is such a wonderful quiet-minded animal and will be loads of fun to work with. I’ve been working with leading her around the pasture, but that’s about it up to this point. Shea helped me get over my initial trepidation on how to get her started with line work. I was real creepy around her as to not cause a wreck. Shea, being a matter of fact kind of gal, just handled her like any other horse who doesn’t know anything about how to be with people. Gracy is now ready for me to help her get used to all the things that we like to have our horses feel good about – flags, blankets, tarps, ropes, saddles, and of course moving correctly in a circle, leading, backing and all that other fun stuff that will help when she is ridden.
Well, as summer is already upon us, I hope to see everyone here at the ranch playing with their horses, having a great time, continuing their education, riding the trails and bringing picnic lunches so we can share our thoughts and insights under our cool canopy of trees.
