Being In Synch With Your Pony

December 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I’ve written about balance many times, but I continue to keep getting a lot of questions about this subject. I am always pleased to assist , so here I go again.

In the context of the rider, balance is derived from the saddle and the rider’s seat. As far as I can see, most folks seem to have issues understanding balance purely because they consider themselves to be too smart for the saddle. They forget the saddle as it exists has evolved over centuries of designing, redesigning, tinkering and refining. Over the centuries, it has been made to evolve to a structure now that permits the rider to neatly mesh with his horse’s motion.

The saddle has its own particular function, so let it satisfy that function. You do yourself a large disfavor, and your horse a far bigger one, by sitting in the saddle in any way apart from how you were meant to. When positioned correctly, you synch your centre of balance with that of the pony neatly, so the horse does not feel additional stress or discomfort.

When you are on the saddle, your shoulders should be upright and back. Your ankle hip and shoulder should be in a straight line. The stirrups are not for bracing yourself, they are for expediting lateral balance; this implies you have just the balls of the feet within the stirrups.

Good riders are never tense or controlling; they achieve perfect balance by staying loosely relaxed. When you get uptight, your state communicates itself to the pony, which also loses its cool. It’s best, of course, that you don’t start this cycle.

Stay relaxed with the head up, eyes forward and mind projecting ahead. Avoid looking at the back of your horse’s head or at his withers. This kind of behaviour makes them very nervous. What you actually should be doing is to radiate stability and confidence by looking miles ahead through your horse’s ears. Just this simple act will help to keep your horse confident and trusting in you. When you’re projecting positivism, you are telling your horse that there’s no need to be afraid of anything in the environment. You have scanned it and done with it, and now you are looking out into the distance ahead.

Be loose and elastic of wrist, elbow and shoulder. You should open yourself to constant learning, and as you learn and maximise feel and contact, you are also learning how to flex with your horse’s neck movement backwards and forwards in synchronicity with the body’s movement.

The horse’s ears should serve as your forward line of sight. By looking out over that angle, you project control and confidence; you are telling the pony there is nothing to be scared of. There is another benefit to looking out over the ears: you can judge where the horse himself is looking. This makes you more alert to whatever your pony might be looking at, and that will tell you what your horse’s possible reaction might be. The pony uses his ears to telegraph his impression of the threat potential of whatever he is looking at. Keep a close watch on your horse’s head movements, follow his line of sight, pick up on whatever he’s looking at and prepare for all contingencies. When you learn how to forecast your horse’s reactions accurately, you get the advantage in warding off any negative response. Although I’m repeating myself, I will emphasise this: your easiest way to handle recalcitrant horses is the standard of your emotions.

By watching out for these signals, you gain the poise and approach that will help you grasp the entire picture quickly.

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How Mental Exercises Boost Your Horse Riding Competitive Edge

December 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Like all life’s endeavours, horse riding performance can be seriously inhibited by fear in the rider’s mind. Over my years of effort to boost my horse riding talents, I have learned the hard way that unless you work out your mind with the same energy you manage to work out your body, you are not going to achieve everything you’d like to.

The rider has a serious mental exercise menu to select from: anchoring, induction of inventive state, psychological rehearsal, using affirmations to eradicate limiting beliefs, perpetual positioning and reframing, just to name a few. There’s an exercise regimen available to almost every single rider. Most riders, though, follow their own mixture of strategies. Here are ten confidence builders for riders.

1. Accept yourself

Realize you are good enough just the way that you are, speaking raw material wise, as there is always scope for improvement in the best of riders. But the essential you have everything wanted to make a great horse rider. And by the way, that goes for your horse, too. He is fine just as he is.

2. Rehearse in the mind

Across the entire world, sportsmen use this technique to condition themselves. They imagine themselves in action, and fine tune every step as they go through the competitive process. They are able to achieve marked improvements in performance this way.

3.Use anchors

Anchors are triggers that create a desired mental condition. While riding, for instance, the simple act of touching your thumb to your index finger while the reins are in your hand might be the anchor that boosts your confidence in the saddle.

4. Maintain a journal

You can gain a lot by maintaining a very regularly updated private journal. When you feel low, you can refer back to your previous glory days to remind yourself that you still have it in you. Frequently, great accomplishments follow spells of depression.

5. Hypnosis

Never undervalue the potency of suggestion. It can work wonders with the sub-conscious. Suggestion is an absolutely essential tool for any person in any field of enterprise.

6. Be thankful

Show some gratitude for all that you have in life, for all of your past achievements and for all the great things that your life has in it. Be grateful for the positives, however big or little they are.

7. Set goals

When you set goals, you are giving yourself something to aim at. You’ve got something tangible to work for, something which will tell you at any point whether you are going the correct way or the wrong one. Don’t be afraid to shoot for the stars. You can land on the moon, and that is something not everyone can boast of.

8. Reframing

By reframing, you settle on what significance an event has for you and how you’ll respond to it on the emotional front. After every competitive event, you can instantly focus on everything that went well, while leaving the errors for later analysis. This is an about turn from our normal tendency to focus on our errors, while ignoring the uplifting fact that we did far more things right than we did wrong. It is an disposition that blinds us up on our own capabilities.

9. Throw off limiting beliefs

Every human being has some very inflexible ideas of himself or herself. We like to think we know ourselves, our capabilities, our limitations. As riders, we have set ideas about riding, horses, trainers, farriers, vets, diets, events, in short , everything connected with riding. We are so set in our ways of thinking we often ignore contrary fact by hiding our heads in the sand. When things go bad, we look for scapegoats: our horses, our gear, the arenas, the weather. We fail to aim the finger at the biggest culprit: we ourselves.

10. Identify your unique style

Your ability to learn and keep, to gain mastery over new talents is directly proportional to your mind’s fitness. The efficiency with which you pursue your ambitions on both the physical and mental fronts is pretty much reliant on the quality of your minds condition.

Get going with your mental conditioning regime today. Getting mentally fit is approached the same as getting physically fit. You work on your mind muscles every day, methodically and with energy. Know yourself, and develop your strong points.

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Horse Riding Adventures: Las Vegas

December 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Like practically everyone, you probably associate Vegas with clockless casinos and never-ending money flow. But do you know that Vegas also offers some wickedly entertaining horse riding programs? If you have ever hankered to get some firsthand experience of what the Wild West was all about, you can’t do much better than go for a horse riding package in Las Vegas. You can make a choice from a range of packages that last from one day to a couple of weeks. You can also get a package customized for you.

It is time to discover that Vegas is a lot more than merely the strip, roulette wheels, cards, dice and keno.

You will find horse riding operations practically all over Las Vegas and its immediate environs. There are tours that suit every single person. You’ll find most of what you are looking for here, from tours over highly scenic landscapes operated by family controlled and managed ranches to stunning Grand Canyon tours right on the border with Nevada. Vegas gives you exposure to terrain and trails that you won’t find elsewhere. You can take part in tours that give you all sorts of accommodation from simple tents to more fancy lodges.

Naturally, all of the tours that have a base in and around Las Vegas give you the opportunity go out to the strip and have a go at thrashing the odds. Excellent SEO service . If you don’t believe strongly in Lady Luck, you can always sit around soaking up the ambience. Vegas is for you, whether you are coming solo, couple or family.

And it does not matter whether you are a complete noobie to the horse riding scene or you have clocked loads of horse riding hours. There are tours which will definitely suit your preferences and your budget. Of course, if you are a newbie, you’ve got to make sure your instructors know that beforehand so that they will put you thru a course fit for newbies.

Horses are impressive animals that may charm you like that. Once you have become used to horses and to riding them, you will possibly find yourself wanting to get a horse for yourself. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t providing you can prepare appropriate accommodation for your horse without causing unwarranted turmoil to the neighbourhood. Of course, you can always put up your horse at a boarding stable.

With a little investigative work online and with travel agents, Vegas veterans and pony folks, you can get info on almost all of the programs that will be available to you. Choose carefully, and welcome to the world of horses. It’s a world that’s not going to let go of you very easily once it has hooked you.

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How To Handle Horse Colic While Waiting On The Vet

December 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Are you fast at spotting colic in your pony? How quick are your reactions?

There are lots of misapprehensions about colic in horses and this can cause unintentional delays in arranging for therapy and care when colic does strike. Horses recover fast and completely if they receive instant treatment. As a pony owner, it befalls you to be completely familiar with all of the indicators of colic and to be ready for it at any time in the slightest. You can play a no-risk, effective game by following the steps detailed below if you suspect colic:

1. Contact your vet at once. Get his advice on what to do and comply.

2. Keep cool and calm. Taking some deep breaths gets you focused. You are not going to be of much help to your stricken horse if you are jumping around like a cat on hot bricks. Just bear in mind that colic can be serious, but unless in a very extreme stage, it’s not a killer.

3. Dispose of all hay and grain in the immediate vicinity of your horse.

4. If you understand how to, monitor and note down your horse’s vital signs once in 5 minutes. While your notes can be of great help to your veterinarian, don’t get upset if you are not able to do it. It is handy though not a life-saving requirement.

5. Leave your pony alone if she seems to be calm. Groom her gently with a curry or massage her if you can do it without causing distress. Beware of kicks and bites because she could be tender. When soothing hurting animals, including human beings, remember the golden rule: if they don’t desire it, don’t do it!

6. Try taking your pony out for a stroll if she appears to be very restless. A walk may keep her mind off her pain and also provide assistance in moving gas or other obstructions. Leave the pace to your pony. Whatever speed she seems to want to set, let her do so. In everything you do, target reduction of stress and increase of comfort for your pony.

7. Don’t constrain your pony in any manner in the slightest, whether with cross ties or otherwise. You will just panic her, leading to injury to either or both of you. Never forget you are coping with a pony in pain.

8. Try your absolute best to stop your pony from rolling on the ground, if she makes an attempt to. She may cause harm to herself, especially by amplifying her colic. Nevertheless do not try to stop her at the risk of injury to yourself or others.

9. Keep your pony safe from injury. Remove all objects that would cut or injure her from her vicinity. Line her stall walls with bales of hay to stop her from injuring herself.

10. You have no choice if you’re alone, but if you can call on the help of others, do so. It’d be a real relief to have somebody hold your pony while you are grooming her or checking for vital signs.

And more than anything else, keep positive.

These are some other tips. There isn’t any verifiable scientific explanation for this, but some horses do appear to feel better when they are listening to soft music. You can try out all of the genres of music that could be classified as soft and see what your horse appears to like best.

Rather like humans, some horses feel better when there’s company around, but some seem to prefer to be left alone. If your pony is of the company-seeking type, let her hobnob a bit with her pasture mates, if there are any.

As far as water is concerned, it’s much better to be safe than to be sorry, and so , unless you have specific contrary instructions from your veterinarian, it’s better to get rid of all water from around your horse.

Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers http://www.horsehorses.net/

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Helping Horses That Go Behind The Bit

December 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I’ve seen a lot of riders blunder and send their horses behind the bit because they failed to create energy from the rear before attempting to create a connection. To put it another way, they were guilty of attempting to ‘hand ride’ with rein aids before actually using any driving aids.

You shouldn’t forget you have to first create energy. You then employ a closed outer hand to contain the energy while keeping the horse’s neck straight with some give and take on the inside rein. If I can use a rough comparison, utilising the hands before creating energy with the legs is identical to picking up a phone that’s not actually ringing.

If the horse is adept at ducking behind the contact, I would suggest that you do the following.

1. Walk your pony with loose rein for between 5 and10 minutes so he will warm up his muscles and get used to having your weight on his back.

2. Then proceed on a large circle as you set up contact with his mouth. DON’T try putting your pony on the bit while on the walk.

3. What you should do instead is to go at once to a rising trot on the large circle (say of roughly 20 meters).

4. Start creating power from the rear by closing up both legs and asking the horse to go further forward toward a ‘lengthening’ over 7 or 8 strides. Slow down. Repeat the process until your pony starts to associate the closing of your legs with going further forward.

5. Once the pony begins to move on eagerly from your legs, start ‘lengthening’ once you have felt him surge forward over a couple of strides, use the reins, make a fist of the outside hand, give and take on the inner rein.

6. You know that you have a correct connection when your horse surges ahead through your closed outer rein.

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Fitting A Horse Saddle

December 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A saddle as you are aware is a contraption that’s mounted on a horse’s back to either enable riders to sit or loads to be placed. Though the word saddle is generally used within the context of horses, it’s really pertinent to arrangements that enable sitting or loading of any pack animal.

To the serious pony coach, pony saddles comprise a critical tool.

Saddles are found in several types around the world, but 2 types dominate: the English type and the Western type. These two types are used most in equestrian circles. Each pony riding culture has its own individual saddle type.

Saddle sizes

The frame the saddle is built around is mostly known as the saddle tree. The tree is normally constructed of wood or even fiber glass over which leather is stretched. This frame is designed in such a way it fits both rider and horse.

You ought to be extremely fussy when trying to find the right saddle. Poorly fitting saddles can seriously injure horses and riders. They can cause bruises and sores on the muscles of the horse’s back. Don’t purchase a saddle unless it comes with a test period and refund when necessary.

Make sure your tack is always clean and oiled to maintain its looks and condition.

Some tips: the fitting of the English saddle

-Lay on the saddle without padding and get the girth tight.

-Get someone to sit in the saddle with his or her feet in the stirrups.

-Try to slide in the fingers of one hand underneath the pommel. You should be able to easily slip in 3 fingers between the withers and the arch under the pommel.

-Check the saddle is not impeding free movement of the shoulder by getting someone to raise the foreleg on one side and move it outward and forward. Continue to check the fit with your fingers between the pommel and the top of the shoulder blade while this is being done. Do it again on the other side.

-Place yourself behind your horse and peer beneath the saddle. You should be able to see light when the horse lowers his head.

-Don’t use saddles of the wrong length. They ought to not extend over the loins.

Some tips: the fitting of the Western saddle

-Have padding of thickness of no less than one inch underneath the saddle.

-Fit the saddle on the back of the horse and tighten the cinch such that your fingers can be comfortably inserted between your horse’s skin and the girth.

-Get someone to sit in the saddle and check to verify if you’re able to fit three of your fingers between the withers and the pommel arch.

-Ensure the saddle is wide enough to sit comfortably on the pony. Try it out with three fingers extended from a flat hand into the space between the top of the withers and the saddle. If your fingers fit loosely, you have got a tree that is too narrow, and if your fingers are constricted, the tree is unduly wide.

Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers www.horsehorses.net

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The Bates Saddle With A CAIR Air Panel

December 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Ever since the year 2000, saddlers and riders have enjoyed the privileges of having a CAIR Air Panel system. A revolution and first of it’s type, Bates Saddles has surpassed itself with this invention that forever changed the art of making pony saddles.

While this saddle revolution is quite popular, certain riders still stick to the traditional saddles with fillings. This steadily gives them the sensation of being satisfied with what’s been familiar to them. If you’re one of them, give yourself a chance to find out more about the advantages Bates Saddles and its CAIR Air Panel system can offer you and your horse. After all, changing for the better is always good, right?

It gives your horses fluidity

CAIR saddles are made of air panels rather than normal fillings. This easily adapts to your pony once if you sit and put weight on it. An adaption like this only means less complicated movement, increase in relaxation and obviously, more impressive performance. Once your horse is more fluid, you will be at more ease and less effort will be exerted for control.

It controls your weight on the pony

A saddle stands as a supporting system. When you use a Bates Saddle optimized with CAIR system, it distributes your weight uniformly on the horse. Once your weight is balanced, the pressure put on the horse’s body will be well-distributed.

It makes room for better movement

Air adapts to just about anything. When it comes to the Bates Saddle, the air panels within move according to the way your pony moves. This continual shift will not interfere with your horse’s movement since both the air and the horse’s motion are in synchronization.

It fits different horses

A good selling point of the CAIR system is that it can be used and fit with different horses. It is made of air meaning it takes its shape on whichever it is fitted to. A saddle with conventional fillings, on the other hand, is supposed to be utilised by only one pony.

It gives longer riding time

When your pony is moving at ease and totally comfortable with the saddle it has on, you should expect longer and more enjoyable rides. Since a CAIR system is reinforcing its movement, your pony won’t easily get tired and suffer with wounds caused by a bad saddle.

A saddle plays a big part when talking about successful riding. If you select the wrong one but insist strongly upon your horse using it, it’ll only be a question of time until your horse grows feeble, seriously sore and sick.

The CAIR Air Panel System has proved itself to be one trustworthy, functional and efficient saddle. For 12 years now, it has made riders, saddlers and horses quite delighted. So the next time you consider investing on a good saddle, think of what’s most advantageous for both you and your horse.

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Western Horse Pleasure Riding

December 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

When one talks about western riding, one thinks about broncos, chaps, Stetsons, lassos, rounding up and branding. That is the glamourized version, there is, however, a significant difference between the western riding style and the English one. The differences cover an entire range of mounted activities, but the big difference is that western riding uses western tack.

The western pleasure class is one of the highly popular elements of western riding. It is designed to help newbies adjust to show and trail riding. It enables them to gain the type of experience that would stand them in an excellent position in shows or on the trail.

When it comes down to competition, the western pleasure class has assorted requirements that depend on the governing body and the horse breed. The requirements also vary depending on the rider’s plans. In standard terms, western pleasure classes are judged fundamentally on a horses’ capacities to guarantee pleasing rides through their responsiveness, their attitude, and their movements. When you compete, you take charge of your horse’s movement. You hold the responsibility of making certain your pony is adequately schooled to provide a significant amount of riding pleasure.

Pleasure classes differ from events like trail, reining and western riding in that the competitor is not the sole ring participant, but is part of a bunch of competitors. The contestant does not get judged on an individual basis

I have 2 tips on western riding for you.

Tip 1 Discipline

A nicely behaved and cleanly turned out pony is extremely important for pleasure riding. You horse should show consistency in obedience, instant responses to cues and a pleasing demeanor. Your horse should not exhibit the common equine tendency of getting influenced by arenas: they get excited by the atmosphere, the crowds and the presence of other horses and they show their excitement.

It is vital, therefore , that you train your horse to be in control of himself at every point. You should have trained him to take in everything in and around the arena with equanimity, by stimulating arena conditions and injuring him to them. When a pony is trained like this, he sheds his bent to react with excitement or fear. Western pleasure rides don’t tax your pony physically, and so, it is absolutely a must that your horse exhibits an unruffled demeanor and a peaceful disposition. This will rely upon how well he’s been desensitized or ‘sacked’.

Tip 2 Horse-rider connection

Probably the most important scoring point in pleasure riding is coordination between rider and horse. Communication must be seamless, without any flaws. The rider has to show that he’s totally in control and that the horse is totally in compliance. This type of coordination can be achieved thru constant practice over a spell of time. While riding the trail, though, the only concern should be the safety and enjoyment of both horse and rider.

Confidence in both rider and pony is imperative. Judges will judge both on the effortlessness with which they’re going thru the routines. They will give you negative marks if your cues and commands are visible to them. This is one of their primary judgment factors: they should not be able to detect your communication with your horse. You can achieve a lot in this regard if you are fully alert to the fact that your energy infects your pony too , and you want to stay positive calm but also ready.

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Equine Degrees At Conners State College

December 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Based in Warner, Oklahoma, Conners State College is a public varsity offering a broad range of two-year associate’s degrees. This includes an associate’s degree in Equine Technology.

The Equine Technology course comprises theory lessons in subjects like anatomy and physiology, nutrition and also management and marketing. Scholars are also given practical exposure with participation in the breaking and starting of young horses. The student is then put through his selected subject for specialization. Scholars can go for either degree: Associate of Science or Associate of Applied Science. Once scholars graduate and finish off with either degree, they have the choice of looking for work as equine manager, breeders or assistant trainers.

Conners State College’s equine program will imbibe scholars with a powerful sense of horsemanship and responsibility. They’re also taught other skills necessary for success in the equine world. They are given masses of opportunities to interact with horse owners during their days in their programs.

Scholars are made to work on their skills in western equitation in the first semester of their freshman year. They then progress to starting colts and breaking them. 3 sessions make up the colt breaking time. A new colt is provided to each student from the beginning of every session; this implies each student gets to start three colts over the 3 sessions. Scholars are taught to improve their capacities as they gain more hands on experience.

Students begin the 1st semester of their sophomore year with a month of work on English equitation. When this period is over, they are put thru 12 weeks of specialization coaching in the field of the specialization they settled on. These specialisation fields include reining, roping and cutting. Scholars are required to start another colt at the start of their 2nd semesters. They’re given glorious chances to have interaction with breeders and trainers who share their specialisation interests during this externship, which goes through 8 weeks. Over this time period, the students get to work and ride with breeders and trainers, and this gives them plenty of practical hands on experience.

Facilities for equine course at Conners State Varsity are among the finest the US can boast of. Students have accessibility to some marvellous facilities including:

3 barns staffed with 50 personnel

A tack room

A feed room

A vet room

An inside arena of 100 x 250 feet

An outdoor arena of 150 x 300 feet

Round pens of 40, 60, and 100 feet.

Students at Conners enjoy great advantages over scholars at other similar establishments because Conners boasts of a couple of the country’s top instructors. These instructors are also awfully experienced at horse show competitions.

Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers http://www.horsehorses.net/

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Training Horses With The Light Touch

November 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Ever envied the riders you see at shows for their abilities to reputedly control their horses with some kind of thought transfer, some bizarre ESP, it would seem these riders have attained some kind of invisible, inexplicable and intangible communication links with their horses. They just choose something in their minds and their horses perform instantly.

These riders use what’s sometimes called the ‘light touch’ and I have news for you: you also can develop this talent. It is not some sort of other worldly talent that you will need to get kidnapped by aliens to attain. It is very much a worldly capability that is the result of tons of patience, hours of practice and bucket loads of mutual trust and harmony between you and your horse.

You start off on achieving this talent by getting into the right attitude. The right mind-set is this: it is simpler for you to think like a horse than for a pony to think like you. I’m unshaken in my conviction that the human brain is among the most amazing creations of God or nature or evolution, whatever you will. And with all due respect, the brains of other species including the horse are just not up to human standards. The human brain is a dynamo that is really capable of multiple lines of sight, multiple viewpoints, 360 degree convolutions. A horse’s brain is linear and omnidirectional. It concentrates on one line of sight, one viewpoint. Asking a pony to adapt to human thought patterns is like plugging a square hole with a round bung. Things are sure to fall through. That leaves you with only 1 option: you adapt to horse thought patterns.

Once you accept that, you have taken your first and most critical step towards the light touch. If you think like a pony, you know that horses are slightly stubborn, moderately moody and somewhat intelligent. Yet, for all that , they are extraordinarily receptive to the right kind of training: training with the light touch. Since horses can also be susceptible to taking advantage, you need to blend the light touch with a firm straightforward approach: the iron fist in an exceedingly soft, very well padded velvet glove.

So what’s the light touch, the light tough involves communication with your horse that is much more than oral and physical exchanges: it’s a sort of bond that permits the invisible transfer of an order and the near simultaneous execution of it.

The light touch means your pony steps forward into the halter and the saddle and all of the other gear; he doesn’t wait for you to force him into it. It means he tightens his torso as you tighten the girth. It suggests he stands rock still as you mount on, and then heads the way you want to go just about without any direction from you. It suggests he responds to the tiniest of near non-existent cues and commands the proper way. It implies he never gives you grounds for reprimanding him for slacking or disobeying, unless of course there are extenuating circumstances like sickness.

That kind of light touch is accomplished when there is perfect understanding between rider and horse, and that kind of perfect understanding comes with hours of training and rewarding. You can attain the light touch when responses to commands just about become natural for your pony.

Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers go here

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