Silversand Horsemanship Clinic Report, August 2009

[glenatron]

This will be the fourth year we've ridden at Silversand horsemanship clinics with Steve Halfpenny and over that time I think sleepsy_mouse and I have both made a whole lot of progress. This time around Small pony was too ill to travel ( his summer has been a catalogue of disasters ) and so in the end only Zorro and I were riding on the clinic and sleepsy_mouse was spectating and making the epic commute home to look after Small Pony morning and night.


Friday
We began the clinic as usual by discussion what we each wanted to achieve with our horses over the next four days. We had seven riders in the group and it the goals included: Relaxation, softness, accuracy, forwards, trust, balance, "with me."

Steve talked through some of the things that might come with that. He talked about horsemanship being who you become much more than something you do. Throughout the weekend he periodically came out with lines like "your horse did really well there didn't you?" It took him at least fifteen years to get his previous horse to the place where he had everything exactly the way he wants it, with his young stallion he managed to get a lot of things to a similar place within a relatively short time because that is the person he learned to be with Foxy.

He also talked about how horses train us, how we can learn not to push the horse's buttons because we're anxious of the consequences and end up settling for a lot less than we could do.

The three things that we need to focus on to achieve all the things we are looking for are feel, timing and balance. Easy to talk about, hard to achieve...

The weekend started with an exercise using a long string or rope as a rein. One person stood with their hands out in front of them and the rope hooked over their hands, a second person stood behind them using the rope as they would the rein, asking the person to move forward, stop, back-up and change direction. This clearly shows how small the changes in the rein that can be felt are. A horse should be able to respond to the same degree of pressure. It's a useful exercise and well worth exploring if you have enough cord or rope to do it and a helpful partner to work with.

We split into two groups for the clinic, a beginners group in the morning and one for more experienced riders who would be riding after lunch. The morning group consisted of Janet and her little Connemara pony Finn, Becky and Jake ( who may be familliar from previous clinics ), Kerry ( who had a different horse at the May clinic ) with Raz and the reliably awesome team of Hester and Pog.

The starting point was just moving off and starting on working on a circle- Steve is very insistent on the importance of never pulling on your horse. That includes putting a hand out in front of them to lead them out onto the circle, which is a pattern a lot of us have. Instead of that Steve teaches us to move the horse's shoulders away from us using the angles described by the clock-face approach, so that wherever we are stood relative to the horse when we set off we want to turn the shoulder back and away from us so that if we had a clock-face with the horse's head in the centre and their hindquarters at 12 O'clock we would ask the shoulders to move back towards 11 O'Clock if we wanted them to turn to their right, 1 O'Clock if we wanted them to turn to their left. Obviously, in this model, the clock face moves with the horse so as they change orientation the direction of pressure needs to change to match that angle.



Finn learning to move his shoulders away from Steve.

This direction of movement also means that the horse needs to take their balance back and away so not only are they constantly being reminded of your personal space, they are also sitting back a little before they set off. Getting control of the horse's balance is critically important for everything else.

To help some of the horses to get the idea of going forward into a feel and disengaging Steve had them working on half circles from the fence around the handler asking the disengage as the horse approaches the fence, which will encourage them to come around and stop cleanly.


Steve shows Becky where she needs to be to help Jake work forward into a feel.

Pog was doing his very grumpy Pog impression ( he is one of lifes grumps ) and Steve did a bit of work with him to ask him for a little more to do. "If he's got time to get annoyed with you he's got too much time" - Pog just needed to have his job changed quickly and often to keep him on his toes and keep him involved.
Steve suggested that Hester needed to get more effective more quickly- his way of working is to offer the horse the cue he would like them to respond to and then to make a big high-energy fuss so the horse moves off pretty rapidly. He doesn't really mind where the horse goes, but they need to respond strongly. Then he gives them some thinking time and offers the lighter cue again. The horse understands this very quickly and soon tunes in to his body language very closely. For years watching Steve do this seemed a bit like magic how quickly the horse became that light, but now I'm starting to understand it a little better and I can see how the approach works and even apply it myself. That's a pretty big step for me.

They moved on to backing around a circle- starting with a regular backup and then developing it by asking the horse's head away from the handler as the outside front foot comes up so they turn around the outside of the circle. Raz was finding it hard to back up, really jammed up. Steve guessed - accurately - that someone had tried to start him and made a bad job of it "they don't get like this without human intervention."


Little Raz at the end of the session, being licky.

In the afternoon we took our ponies into the arena and went through some of the same work that the morning group had done- building up the circles and direction changes, moving on to working forward into a feel, disengaging, backing up and turning back around on the hindquarters to continue. Once all the horses were reasonably settled ( took a little while with Lottie ) and it had started raining we saddled up and hopped on.


Zorro and I working on the circle.



Good cob moment.



Lottie did not like the flag.



Steve and Lottie have a bit of a conversation with regard to bags on sticks.



"Oh, it's that kind of bag-on-a-stick. You should have said!"



Zorro and I heading over to fetch a saddle.



Bacchanal does nothing to dispel his "big dumb warmblood" image.

We worked on setting things up so that a change of balance from the human would change the balance of the horse - any horse can pick up these more subtle cues but most people don't expect them to so it's not something they typically offer.

The first task Steve gave us was to work on small flexed serpentines around the edge of the arena, asking the horses to bend to the inside and then changing the flexion aiming for clean small half circles around the edge of the arena. Softness from pole to withers was the aim here.


Camilla and I working on our serpentines.



I won't lie, I basically included this because it's my favourite picture of me on a horse ever.

Next up we moved on to feeling the feet, going for ten steps forward then ten back, nine steps forward than nine back and so on. Zorro and I managed the count of steps but we needed to be a bit softer. Zorro was getting a bit confused by me asking constantly for back-up so I needed to get things more giving so he knew that he was giving me the thing I wanted. Releasing as he started a backward movement made everything lighter.


Steve helps me understand what I need to be doing with the rein in backup.

We worked on feeling for an instant change in the horse, that the downward transitions should always be soft and then this can be developed in the upward transitions.

The next exercise was taking the same forward->indirect rein->back up/rebalance->direct-rein->forward feel we have used before. Zorro was finding it hard to follow the direct rein by bringing only his front feet around rather than walking with his find feet. We worked on some other ways of picking up his shoulder, backing up asking for the outside foot to move outside so asking for left we might ask straight back on the right rein and out on the left rein as we backed up, getting in time with the feet.

Working further just asking with a direct rein, with nothing to correct on the outside- the horse should be able to follow that withou needing the outside rein to stop the shoulder dropping through and have that up-and-back lifting feeling. I used the flag to help get him around and just waited for him to stop dropping forward through that shoulder.


Using the flag with the direct rein.

After a bit of building that up and working on the disengage into the fence->direct rein circles along the fence ( we did alright in walk and trot ultimately ) we changed back to the initial exercise involving working on serpentines with Zorro and I needing to make sure we didn't lose forward which meant I needed to ask wider and better in time with his feet. What we got there was one of the most amazing feelings of lightness from him. One of those moments where I actually found that Zorro was working more lightly than I had really understood he could. It was a brilliant conclusion to the day...


Camilla and Bacchanal.
Saturday
We began the day talking about the goals we had set out on Friday morning and how we can get closer to those. I noticed that everything we were asking from for the horse- accuracy, relaxation, forwardness, trust, balance and so on - are all things that we have to offer the horse as well.

The only way we'll get better at what we are doing is through practice and in order to make sure we're practicing the best way we can we need to really work on the old triumvirate of Observe, Remember and Compare. Our horses will let us know how we're getting on, we just need to observe the feedback we are getting, remember it for future reference and then compare it with the results we get next time. Part of what marked Tom Dorrance out as a brilliant horseman was his extraordinary memory.

Steve talked about working the horse on the circle and how they need to be straight on the circle the whole time. If the horse is turning their head out ( and consequently weighting the inside shoulder ) it is easy to think that what you need to do is to ask for the head, but this is very likely to bring the shoulder in towards you rather than changing flexion, to do that you need to push on the shoulder and just hold the head a little.

If the head is on the outside and the hindquarters are turned in even a little then the horse is only a decision away from kicking you. They need to be straight on the circle for the good of the horse and the safety of the human.

Steve talked about what happens when he works with any horse- he may start with an exercise in mind, but when he gets to work with them sometimes there is something else they need first. He won't quit until the horse is relaxed in the things he is asking it to do.

He also talked a little about being effective and moving the horse- if he intends for a horse to move, the horse will move. It always happens and he never doubts that it will happen, it's just not part of his belief system that it could. When he needs to be effective, for example when a horse has ignored his more subtle cues, he will really make sure that it is effective but he doesn't really mind what the horse does when it moves, the first thing is that it just needs to move in a pretty big way. He doesn't aim to scare them but he'd rather the horse was a little afraid of him than it was ignoring him. Once the horse is responding to his cues he can work on adding finesse to them.

We were riding in the morning and we started out by working on building up circles on four tracks, where the horse's front legs describe a much smaller circle than their hind legs. This is tricky because you need to keep the circle going by moving the shoulders but make sure that the hindfeet don't drop too far back so the horse is just working on a slightly overflexed circle or push too far forward and turn the horse in to face you. Although it's easiest to get this position by using something to push on the hindquarters a little ( I've got a lot better at this stuff since I started using a flag ) the aim is to get it from the indirect rein, asking for the hindfeet from the halter rather than just chasing the horse into the right position.


A circle on four tracks for Zorro. I appear to be in the midst of some kung-fu dance routine also.



Steve works on the same shape with Bacchanal.

In the saddle we started again with short serpentines, working to keep the horse slightly overflexed into the bend and to make sure that the change in flexion was smooth as possible. I was finding a slight tension as we changed from the left to the right rein until I realised that I needed to be careful to change my weight at the same time ( I ride to the outside of the bend ) which immediately made the whole thing much smoother.

We moved on to riding the same forward-and-back pattern from the day before, which all of us managed with more softness and precision this time around. Zorro and I were starting to get to the point where I could arrest one foot in the air and change directions from forward to backwards, which is a pretty good feeling.

We also worked on going around on the circle, turning with the indirect then direct rein and going back the other way. I found that although my indirect rein was pretty good, the direct rein needed a bit of work to make sure that only the front feet were moving and that we were starting with the front foot I was asking for.

Steve did some work with Lottie on getting her stopping quickly- when Kerin was asking her to halt she was stopping but she was taking a fair few strides to do it, kind of petering out. Steve worked on getting Lottie's back-up better because a problem with stopping is a problem with backing up as well and on just making it clear to her that when he asked her to prepare to stop she was going to stop. She spent a while trying to throw her head in the air and run through the bit while Steve just made it more uncomfortable to do that and easier to back off the bridle.

Zorro obviously didn't like the look of this work - he was stopping from trot so sharply I nearly went straight off between his ears a couple of times. Really really sharp.

The afternoon group started out working on some circles on the ground, which involved little Raz pony having to learn a lot about being brave with a flag, and then moving onto circles with the same direction changes we worked on from the ground.


Raz can't tolerate the flag in his left eye...


... still a bit anxious about it ...


... nope, got to run!


"Oh wait, it's not going to kill me? Why didn't you say?"



Pog on a circle.

In the saddle they began with the same serpentines that we did- Steve currently uses these as his standard warm-up because they're really useful for building up lateral softness in the horse.

Kerry was being very careful with Raz because he hadn't had a lot of riding done on him and she was anxious about worrying him. Steve got her to work on touching him all over as she rode, behind the saddle, rubbing his neck and generally making a fuss of him. After a few protests ("I can't do that!") she got on with it and they did absolutely fine. I think at this point Steve banned the phrase "I can't" suggesting they could be replaced by something more like "I am currently having difficulty with..."



Pog in progress



Jake and Becky trot by.



Finn and Janet appear to both be sleeping on the job...



Clearly they woke up at some point.



Pog is his usual happy-go-lucky self.

They moved on to riding circles then stopping and making a half turn on the forequarters followed by a half turn on the hindquarters to be moving back the other way. It was interesting seeing this from the spectator's point of view how much trouble everyone was having in connecting one cue to one foot- in most cases the indirect rein to control the hind feet was quite effective but then asking with the direct rein for the front feet was a much harder result to get. Little Finn was particularly entertaining with this as he had worked out that he needed to do something with his front feet but spent quite a while offering a half turn on the forequarter followed by another half turn on the forequarter where he moved his front feet a bit on the spot. Cheeky, but very adorable.


Steve talks to Janet and Finn



Why do I have so many pictures of Jake trotting? I'm not sure, but he's notoriously not terribly forwardgoing so I guess I'm pleased to see it when it happens...

Steve suggested everyone tried doing a full circle along the fence, asking the hindquarters to disengage in towards it until they were facing back the other way and then to bring the front end of the horse through that gap. He used the flag to help them get more spring from that turn and a better feel of what to aim for in the direct rein.


Raz turning away.



Jake was really sitting back and springing around, most impressive.

They then moved on to doing the same thing for themselves, trying to keep the same feel in the horse.


Finn getting ready to turn.



Hester was using the flag to help Pog turn, which went pretty well until she trotted across the school and spooked Raz. Kerry kept things in order though and got him stopped and calmed him down just fine. I like the way that Pog is noticeably softening in his demeanour even just through these pictures.
Sunday Morning
We talked about working with a soft feel and what that means. It's not a head position, it's a softness that goes right through the horse from the back to the front. If you're riding a soft horse you can turn the head any way and still be in control of the feet- in the UK a lot of riders worry about their horses being "rubber necked" but you should have different cues for head position and the whereabouts of the feet regardless so it should be easy to control both or either as necessary.

Steve also talked about responses- where little Raz tends to get stuck when he is anxious it's important not to pull on him, just to wait for the feet. If you're asking for something and the horse is getting concerned about the cue you are using then they are trying to find a way out, so you just need to wait for them to find something in roughly the right direction in order to release. You only need to do enough that the horse is looking for a way to release the pressure you are putting on. You might think of it as the horse looking for ways to train you to not put pressure on them.

Working through resistance can be hard and result in teaching your horse not to listen by asking them for something they aren't ready to offer.If possible, rather than trying to work through it you might choose to find something that they can do and build up- so with the serpentines rather than forcing a horse into tight serpentines when they can't do it, you may be better starting with loose serpentines and building up.

Steve talked about a situation where he had been doing a demo with a horse that wasn't prepared to leave the gateway to the arena, so he started riding it and just keeping the horse moving- at first the horse would only allow tight right circles right by the arena gate so Steve would ask to see if they could go left but if the horse couldn't they'd just go back where they were and he'd maybe put a little more pressure on approaching the gate and less moving away. After a while they built up bigger and bigger circles, still on the one rein with the horse heading back for the gate, but the more it found that the gate was more work and the rest of the arena was easier the more it was ready to move further round the arena. After about fifteen minutes they were riding around most of the arena and starting to be able to go in different directions because Steve had built up the horse's confidence by never asking for more than it could offer. Of course the horse's owner felt that he had "let the horse win" for the first fifteen minutes and so couldn't see any merit in the strategy even though it was effective in getting the result they wanted without upsetting the horse.

Our aim in the work we are doing is for total relaxation on the part of the horse- when they drop a shouler in that shows a lack of relaxation.

The morning session began with groundwork where the handlers were driving the horse from level with their rump. The challenge is to contain the horse with their energy rather than their hands so the horse starts and stops with them rather than either trying to leave or getting left behind. It's a good exercise for learning to push rather than pulling on the horse, which is something Steve emphasises strongly in his work.

With Raz they did some work on getting control of the front feet using the direct rein. Steve ended up roping his front foot to help him understand what he was being asked for and to ask him to offer that front foot. It took a little work ( and Raz spent a while numbling at the rope trying to work out what it was all about ) but fairly quickly he started to get the idea.


Steve uses the leg rope to reinforce what he is asking on the lead. Don't try this at home, kids.


"What is this thing on my leg?"

In the saddle they did some work on getting a soft backup- where the horse is yeilding but there is no compression in the neck, it stays relaxed with none of the wrinkles you see on a horse that is backing up without relaxing to it's task.

They worked on circling with extra flexion- Pog was tending to drop his shoudler in and Steve did some work on this using his lariat to push a bit and ask Pog to pick his shoulder up and out.


Steve rides Pog


Pog thinking about dropping in his shoulder.


Steve using the fact that Pog isn't terribly keen on the lariat to lift his shoulders out a little.



Kerry and Raz talk with Steve.



Jake, Steve and Pog.

The next exercise was to approach the fence in shoulder-in and then as you arrive to change direction but not bend so you are then going along the fence in hindquarters-in. This is a very tricky maneuvre as it depends on changing from using the rein to position the horse's head to asking them to engage from the leg.

It was interesting watching Janet and Finn working on this- she was tending to use a lot of hand and leg cues, which is how most people in Britain are taught to ride, and now finding that she needed to use fewer cues more accurately to get the response we were looking for was very difficult- she was squeezing with her legs quite unconsciously. Shifting that muscle memory is going to be a tough change for her to make.


Janet and Finn.



Bacchanal warming up for the afternoon session...



... he's a big horse and I love the way Camilla is quite unconcerned by his nonsense.



Springing into action again.

In the afternoon we did more work on hinquarters-in, starting by doing some groundwork with the rope on the far side of the horse's shoulder and then over their back, so that we could ask for flexion and then ask them to move in that direction from where we were standing in order to get the feel of that hindquarters-engaged movement from the ground. It was a pretty tough ask for most of us - Zorro mostly thought my ask for flexion was an ask for him to go round in circles but we got a few steps in the right direction after a while.


Steve demonstrates the rope-over-the-wither approach.

From the saddle we continued that work, doing the shoulder-in to the fence with a change of direction to set up the movement in the right position and working on moving along the fence then asking the hindquarters away from the fence so we are working on three tracks and allowing them back when the horse has offered them.

I was getting fairly stuck here, so we did a bit of work on just making sure we had control of the feet and trying to build up a bit more response to my leg from Zorro's hindquarters. I can use the rein to move the hindquarters pretty easily- if I apply my left indirect rein it will move the right hindfoot out, simple as that - but that is a softening and disengaging bend, for the work we're building up to now we need an engaging bend, to empower the hindquarters rather than disempowering them, which you need to be able to do initially for safety and practicality and which is how the indirect rein works.

The basic exercise we did was just to ask for outside flexion and then without straightening out to ask the hind foot to step the same way the body is flexed. So if we ask the head to the right I'm asking the left hindfoot to step right. I managed to get to a point where I got a few steps but it was clear this is something that will need a lot more work.

In some respects it is easier to build this up in motion because the feet are already moving and easier to influence, but I needed to get the connection between my leg and that foot a little clearer in Zorro's head and an idea in my body of how it would feel for him to be yeilding to that.

Interestingly the time I felt closest to getting it, while working on a circle, was when I stopped thinking about what I was doing with the rein and with my legs and just tried to create the feel in my body that I would have if I was stepping across on a diagonal when just moving around.


Steve rides Lottie


Looks like she's starting to understand the three-tracks idea here.
Monday
We started by talking more about relaxation, both mental, physical and emotional as the goal as far as the horse is concerned. Without that nothing is going to work as well as we need it to- if we do gymnasticising exercises while the horse is tense or braced it's not going to work the muscles we aim to work. Sometimes it's easy to get a movement by scaring the horse a little, using a flag or a lunge whip to chase them into a particular shape or movement but that doesn't have the same benefits as helping them find it while staying relaxed.



Our group was riding first and we began much where we left off, starting with the tricky lead-rope on the outside groundwork and then moving up into the saddle for more of the three-track inside-bend work. Zorro and I weren't doing a great job here so we went back to checking how much control I had over his feet and sure enough, my direct rein wasn't direct enough. The way it is supposed to work is this- I pick up the left rein and ask across a little, I get the left foot. The way it was working was I pick up the left rein, I get the right foot, then maybe the left foot, probably also the hind feet. Meanwhile we start wandering out through the right shoulder. So we went back to working on that, which was mostly just taking my hand a little wide and leading him back and around so that he was just following a feel and keeping doing that until we got the direct rein step I asked for in the first place. That step has a real feeling of "backwards" to it, almost like the horse is sucking back as they might when they have seen something spooky. It took quite a few circles before I suddenly got this and gave back the rein.



It's easy if you're a dressage horse by breeding.


Hindquarters-in down the fence.


Lottie and Kerin in a hurry to get places.

It took a while to get this working better- clearly I've not been nearly clear enough about how that should feel previously - but after a while we were getting that direct rein feel with only a few steps. It's something that the horse can only consistently offer when they are reasonably well balanced ( most horses find the indirect rein pretty easy because their weight is carried on the shoulders, whereas the direct rein needs them to sit back a little ) and by this point we're kind of expecting them to balance themselves up as soon as we get ready to do anything, which Zorro is - mostly - pretty good for.

We also did some work where Steve helped us to get the feel of the direct rein using the flag to help add a bit of a push to Zorro's turns, so he walked towards us and I asked Zorro across in front of him with him using the flag to add life, then I turned us back in as we got towards half way round and we went back the other way. It's a good exercise for getting brisk turns.


Turning quick.

Working on independant control of the hindfeet, using the same exercise as before, I managed to get a few really clear steps, especially when Steve helped out by backing up my leg. I have probably spent a lot of time desensitising Zorro to my leg over the years- not on purpose, just because I'm kind of lame - and although we're doing better with forward now, giving him the idea that my leg might also mean this is going to be tricky, especially as I need my hands to ask for and maintain flexion so I can't do the other things I would often use to back up my leg.

We moved on to playing some games, first following a feel between riders ( or in my case between Steve and I as we only had the three of us in the arena ) which was pretty interesting- it's one of those exercises that puts your mind on the task in question so you stop worrying about what your horse is actually doing and just get on with the job in hand. Before you know it your horse is doing a lot of stuff that you've been asking for previously because you're not thinking too hard about it.


Following a feel between riders.


Steve has us going forward a little more.

The final game we played was based on cutting, so we had one horse playing the herd, who just stayed at the centre, one horse playing the cow, who just wanted to get to the herd and the third horse trying to stop the cow from getting back to the herd. This was a lot of fun ( you could play something similar with two horses just marking out a circle on the ground as your target ) and really showed up some of the things we needed to work on. Zorro and I were cow against Kerin and Lottie and Lottie showed a very competitive side although her initial plan of just beating the crap out of Zorro wasn't considered entirely fair play. Zorro and I had the edge when it came to smart turns and feinting left then going right, but unfortunately the self-same lack of engagement that caused our problems with the haunches-in meant that having finished our turn we had a second or so between me putting on my leg and us actually going anywhere, which was plenty of time for Lottie to meander round and get into position. That made us the only cow who didn't make it back to the herd.

We did have the most balanced and controlled circle of canter that I've ever sat on with Zorro though, which was awesome, and the whole game was a lot of fun.


I try to keep Camilla and Bacchanal from getting to Lottie...


Looks like they're too speedy for me.



We try to get Lottie and Kerin going fast enough we can duck back behind them...


Lottie planning her "kill the opposition" strategy - I find Zorro's face in this one absolutely hilarious.


We've got the moves, but we don't got the accelleration.



Lunchtime Joe Interlude.

In the afternoon they started doing some cutting style games on the ground, working on changes of direction and getting the horse to follow the human with their shoulders so if the human goes right the horse is all set to get there ahead of them. It's another exercise that is fun, works well at liberty and helps the horse to lighten their shoulders and build up that direct rein.


Steve and Finn working on quick direction changes.
In the saddle they warmed up by with the standard serpentine pattern we worked on across the clinic, building up that flexion and working on getting everything smooth, relaxed and without resistance.

Steve worked with Kerry on her mounting up technique- Raz is a very special pony who they got as a companion and was sold as unrideable. He is actually not a bad riding horse but very green and Kerry was tending to be very careful around him, particularly getting on and risking stealing a ride, so Steve went through the process of making sure the horse is ready to accept a rider as an alternative to "get on carefully and hope!"


Steve leaning across Raz's back- if pony starts to leave he can just slide off if necessary, but he can still work through any problems with changing eyes, make sure that he can touch him on the other side and so on.


Kerry works through the same thing.



Pog looking very mellow.



I think Raz looks very proud of himself here.



Backlit and on four tracks. Best of both worlds.



Pog shows he can soften his neck and offer some nice flexion.



Everyone ended up working towards hindquarters-in and building up engagement. All the horses in this group had more relaxation about them by this point than they did on day one and I think everyone had made some pretty significant progress over the whole weekend. Certainly Zorro and I have changed a lot even from where we were at the start and I can see a lot more space opening up in front of us from here once I start to get these maneuvres right. We have until May, so I'm sure we'll be able to make some useful changes in that time with the direction we've got from this.