The way I school cross country with new horses is pretty simple. I usually ride someone who is very comfortable out on trails and over fences. Today I took Tao the haflinger because he is my steadiest mount with his thinking draft horse brain. To introduce him and the other horses to these new fences we first walk alongside them, at least once each direction, so the horse can get a good look at the fence out of each eyeball. Once the horses are comfortable doing that, I'll take my horse over the smallest jump at the walk, so the other horses can see it's no big deal. I find horses learn a great deal by watching each other. Then I go back and I take Tao over the jump again at the walk, this time with the first student horse just behind me. This gives the student's horse confidence by being able to do the obstacle with a little herd that includes my confident mount. If there is any kind of terrain change we make sure to do it going uphill the first time. I repeat the pair routine with each of the horses in the group, until each horse is confident enough to do that small jump at the walk by himself.
If there is a terrain change, the next step in this slow progression is to do the jump at the walk going downhill. We sometimes had to repeat the pairs process, but mostly the horses (and riders) were starting to get the idea.
The four of us (well, eight if you count the horses) made our way through the entire cross country field in this manner. By the time we reached the far end of the field, all the horses were pretty comfortable looking at, then going over weird looking small jumps. We then made our way back to the parking lot while riding the trail on the other side of the road, with a quick stop at the lake, then back to the trailer.
No comments:
Post a Comment