Planting New Horsemanship Skills- Spring Clean Old Habits

My next clinic will be April 25 at Faith, Hope and Love Farms in Little Rock, AR.

To change our habits, we must first change our thinking. Resistance in our horses is not in the body, it is in the mind. What we feel through the body is simply the physical expression of how they are feeling inside. It is not physical resistance, but confusion, defensiveness, anticipation, anxiety, fear, or often even anger. To get a horse to relax, we must have movement of his feet. When he is in motion, anxiety goes down, muscles relax, his body relaxes, and then his mind engages to thinking mode, not flight mode. Consistency means that YOU will ask today the same way for the same things as you asked yesterday and will ask tomorrow. When a horse feels that the human has failed in providing that leadership, reassurance, guidance and protection, the horse’s natural tendency is toward self- preservation and its survival mechanism takes over. And this is where problems begin to develop. Any inconsistency will confuse the horse and result in inconsistent response and performance. Even if a horse was doing a particular technique consistently wrong, the horse will eventually figure it out and give appropriate responses if the release of pressures is coming at the appropriate times. Details:
Saturday, April 25, 2015 9am—3pm
$125 per rider/horse
$20 to audit
Lunch will be provided to riders
Faith, Hope, & Love Farms—Little Rock, Ar
(off Pratt Rd) **covered arena