Taking liberties

[glenatron]

Over the last few years I have tended to feel that working at liberty and the whole "bareback and halter" riding thing is a bit pretentious, a bit circus and not a whole lot to do with real, practical horsemanship. My views on that haven't really changed but when you only have a few minutes it can be pretty handy to just chuck a halter on your

Comments

[dancing_crow]

hover pony!! that is an awesome shot

[glenatron]

Pure luck as well- normally I get these kinds of things by having the camera on whatever the digital version of motor drive is, but I didn't have time so it just happened. :D

[blitzen_]

great photo. i love how the smallest things are cause for great discussion. we're not 'allowed' to set the horses free in the arena cos it digs up the surface, which is really POO. any 'liberty' work needs to really be done in the RY or when the property owner is conveniently away.

[glenatron]

Also he is flat out silly some days. That's pretty awesome too.

[joycemocha]

Spring fever! Mocha is Miss Airhead right now, though Cowhorse Brain returns if I insist

[glenatron]

Do you driving type work as well? One thing that I find quite interesting to work on is effectively long lining without the lines, but otherwise using the same approach to get changes of direction but doing it in a way that keeps pushing along rather than the slightly easier option of hooking the horse onto you and having them come to you.

Zorro and I can do it alright for a while but then it tends to go off the rails a little...

[joycemocha]

I do use long lines as well. Haven't tried them as a liberty technique as often I'm either conditioning her during an injury (G likes long line work as he says you can do just about anything with long lines that you can under saddle), or schooling (better for jumping work for her, especially when introducing something new. She likes to investigate new types of jumps with an extremely low head...a bit nervous-making to ride. But it also allows her to find her rhythm without the distraction of a rider).

It's also excellent for desensitizing horses to ropes and things around their legs. G likes to use it with green horses for that reason as well as teaching steering without a rider. Always good to get the horse accustomed to an inadvertent rope under the tail.

With Mocha, I'll often ground drive her in a sidepull. It's interesting to see how quickly she reads my body language to know that we're turning. More obvious than a lunge.

[glenatron]

What I find really interesting is the way you can get the same changes of direction at liberty as you get with lines by doing much the same thing - you sort of push on the hip and if changing direction combine that with a change of eye.

[serennig]

Brilliant shot!!