Monday, February 02, 2009
TLC Training/Teaching Manual available now!
If you have enjoyed my articles for the last few years, I have put my training ideas and techniques in a 100 page book, if you are interested in purchasing one let me know. It covers everything from choosing the right horse for you, rider's basics, horse's basics, starting on the barrel pattern, exercises to improve your competition, tune ups, conditioning and much more, 12 chapters total.
Table of Contents
*Book Cover
*Table of Contents
*Dedication & Acknowledgements
*Introduction - Profile of Tina Spangler
*What TLC offers
Chapters:
1. Choosing the right horse for you
2. Rider's basics
3. Horse's basics/foundation
4. Training a horse for the barrel pattern
5. TLC special exercises to improve your competition runs
6. Tuning & conditioning a finished barrel horse
7. Common problems and TLC solutions
8. Medical, dental, nutrition, hoof, fitness, & holistic care
9. Tack, saddle & equipment
10. Hauling & Setting Goals
11. Mental Game & Final positive words for thought
*** The Secret Chapter ***
12. Glossary of Terms, Links to sites & Sponsors to Thank
Rider's Basics
All of the below should be mastered from a standstill, then a walk, then a trot, and so on, but do not speed up until you master at current speed.
Rider's Basics may be the MOST important part of succeeding at barrel racing. I know most of you have seen horses being ridden "bridleless" on the Internet or at clinics. That was not accomplished overnight and was not accomplished with the old way of kick to go and pull to whoa. It took hours, months, years and complete understanding of how to cue a horse to get the results you want at all speeds, from other parts of your "being" then your hands!
If you don't know how to communicate with your horse efficiently at slow speeds then fast speeds will only be your enemy and things will quickly fall apart!
Let's start with the 5 ways to cue a horse while riding them and the 5 body parts you can control from in the saddle.
5 Cues-eyes, mouth, body, legs, hands
5 Body Parts-head, neck, shoulder, rib cage, hind end
There are times when you will use all 5 cues and there are times when you may only use 1 cue or a few cues. When and how much you use depends on your horse and the situation. When to use cues will be covered more in future chapters.
Eyes
Where you look, is where you go! Your horse should mirror you always if it has a solid foundation, if not then you should strive for that. Try walking in a 10 foot circle on your horse and then look to the outside ear or neck of your horse and see what happens. You will drift to a bigger circle most of the time. Try looking down the inside of the horse's neck and your circle should become smaller. Try looking where you should be looking, directly between the ears a few feet ahead of yourself, your horse should maintain a perfect balanced circle. Between the ears is where you should look and ride to at the ground not the fence or sky. When you drive a truck you look at pavement between the lines and for pot holes, same thing when you drive your horse! Never look at a barrel always look where you want to go to your SPOT beside & around the barrel. Eyes also serve as your energy, are you being specific or vague about where you want to go? Are you behind your horse, or always 1 step ahead? You should be specific and at least a quarter turn or at least 10 feet ahead of your horse at all times, looking between the ears not off to the sides.
Mouth
I enjoy talking to my horses. I say "good", when I am pleased, "easy" when I want them to settle going down the alley, "whoa" for stop, "hey" for rate, "here" for turn, "smooch, cluck or kiss" for more go, and they know my deep "QUIT" voices when they are doing something they shouldn't be. One more excellent benefit of your mouth is "BREATHING". You should learn to breath in and out deeply before your run, and as you go down the alley. Breathing out deeply will relax your body and clear your mind to ride on reflex and smoother. You should breath deep & slowly when grooming and training as well, it will help your horse relax and enjoy time with you more.
Body
There are basically THREE body positions you have to cue your horse. One, sit NEUTRAL, shoulders, hips & heels are straight and even with each other. You would use this body position most of the time when you are happy with the speed you are going or for slow work. Two, the SITTING position, that is when you tuck your tail bone under you and push your hind end down and back in the saddle, this cue is for rate, whoa & collection. The more whoa, rate or collection you need you may bring your shoulders back and behind your hips as well. I like to teach students to over-exaggerate when training and refine as you go faster. To teach a horse to rate or whoa from body cues you will use the SITTING position as deep as necessary until you get the desired effect from it. Three, is the GO position, this is when you want your horse to hussle out of a turn or run home. Your shoulders get slightly in front of your hips, you roll forward on your inner thighs and all of your energy says go. Things you don't want to happen when you use the three body positions is leaning left or right in the saddle or letting your legs go forward or backward to help you balance. You should use your legs independent of your seat, same as with your hands, and you should NEVER lean sideways in the saddle, you may use more weight on one hip or one stirrup if it helps your horse become more supple or maintain your pocket better around the barrel or in a circle.
Legs
There are 3 leg positions for moving your horse around, and they should move away from your leg pressure. I start with squeezing with my calve, squeeze with my heel, then kick, it's kind of like asking nicely, then just ask, then tell my horse to move off my leg.
SPURS- I only think people that know exactly how to use their legs and can do so independent of their balance at all speeds should wear spurs. You should use spurs properly, just like your leg, first squeeze with calve pressure, then inside heel, then roll your spur up your horse's side, DON'T kick with spurs on, that is abusive behavior. There is no room for bad tempers or a lack of patience when training horses.
If you use your leg by the front cinch that controls the shoulder. Leg by the back cinch controls the hip or hind end and leg in the middle between those two points would be for the rib cage to soften or to side pass. Scissor Legs would be used to control hip and shoulder. I use one leg most of the time depending on the horse I am on.
Position one:
I use leg by the front cinch to control the shoulder & move it out of my way and maintain a supple circle. If I am two tracking, leg laterals or counter arcing , I would use more leg pressure, as I want a bigger movement than just softness in a circle.
Position two:
I would use my outside leg by the back cinch, if I wanted to keep my horses hind end or hip under them and to the inside of my circle, so left circles right leg by back cinch.
Position three:
Sometimes I use two legs and that I call, SCISSOR LEGS. Scissor legs are inside leg by front cinch and outside leg by back cinch. Therefore, in a right circle that would be right leg by front cinch, inside of the circle and left leg by back cinch, on the outside of the circle. One thing that always stays consistent for my way of training is with every leg cue, there is a rein cue in rhythm with it. Remember to always ask with the lightest cue first.
One more thing that is always part of my training and that is using give and take pressure. Horses want pressure taken away, when pressure is removed that is when a horse learns they got the correct answer. As horse advances they will learn to carry themselves correctly and less cues from you will be needed.
Hands - There are 6 main hand positions I use
Don't start these cues without having from a standstill face control. You should be able to laterally left/right and vertically up/down flex your horse before trying below at a walk or faster.
Hands should always be light and always be used with give and take pressure. Never pull on your horse, or they will just pull back! If you can imagine a square directly in front of your saddle horn, that is where your NEUTRAL hand position should always be. Depending on the type of horse you are on, or what you are trying to accomplish, will decide your hand position.
A couple of things to remember before I explain hand position is; you want a direct line from your horse's corner of mouth, to your hand & elbows. You don't want to cross over the withers/mane to cue your horse as it pinches the horse's mouth, bunches up the shoulder and may cause them to fall on the front end more. The saying says, high hands-high head, same is true of low hands-low head & shoulder. You don't want your reins above your waist line cueing your horse nor below the horse's withers either, or you may get undesired effects! You always want the same leg to cue with your hand as well, such as left hand/left leg front cinch. Before using hand cues, you should ask with body or voice for whoa or rate, then ask with pinky & ring finger, as lighter pressure, before your whole hand.
REIN LENGTH: For training, I like split reins and will slide my hands up or down reins for desired effect. For competition on a "go/free runner" horse I like my reins to just barely touch my saddle horn when I pull back on them at a standstill with chinstrap engaged. For a "ratey/whoa" horse I would want them slightly longer so I don't get in their face to much in the turns. Competition reins on some horses are hard to do slow work as at a walk the reins will feel too short and make you lean forward as in comparison to when they lope and the head rises and body collects.
Position one: "NEUTRAL"
Holding both reins are two to four inches front of saddle horn, thumb on top, pinky on bottom, hands are even with one another. This position will be used when happy with speed you are going in a straight line.
Position two: "GO"
The hand position will start like NEUTRAL, but as you roll forward in your body position your hands will go forward up the neck/mane towards the ears. The effect gives slack in rein and energy that says GO!
Position three: "WHOA"
The hand position will come back as you sit in the saddle for rate or whoa, your hands will follow until slack is tight in rein, and you see saw or use give and take pressure in front of the saddle horn. If you end up behind the saddle horn, your reins are too long and need be adjusted by shortening or walking your hands down the reins.
Position four: "LATERAL FLEX from NEUTRAL position"
This hand position will be used for shaping your horse in a turn or for two tracking and getting the horses nose left or right. To what degree depends on what you are doing. From the neutral position, you will lift one hand about 1 or 2 inches higher than the other to "get" nose and use same leg to "get" shoulder control. Use a bump and release feel, so lift 1 or 2 inches, then back to neutral again. If you don't like to lift you can also use just pinky and ring finger pressure, where you roll your pinky and ring finger in & up, like twisting your wrist to put pinky and thumb sideways evenly. This would be used for a fluid horse just added to bend or flex to them.
Position five: "LATERAL FLEX FORWARD"
This hand position is used for the horse that has too much WHOA or RATE and doesn't maintain forward fluid motion. You would put your hand in the GO position and then use the LATERAL FLEX cue with it. It will shape the horse nose in, but not slow the horse down as with "lateral flex from neutral" or "lateral flex from vertical collection"
Position six: "LATERAL FLEX WITH VERTICAL COLLECTION"
This position will be used for the strung out horse or free runner that needs collection or rate work. It can also be used for the horse that needs to two track better on pole bending for instance. This cue will start in the NEUTRAL position, but then as you walk you will bring one hand, say your left hand, back and up, to achieve lateral flexion with vertical collection. The opposite hand is important too, it's your BALANCE rein and will need CONTACT as well, more than any other hand position. This horse first needs vertical collection then lateral flexion. Try it and you will see a huge difference in your horse's collection and body position.
Remember to always use same leg with hand cue. If your horse thinks leg means to speed up, you will need to spend the time to de-sensitize your horse that leg means move over not speed up and pole bending is a great exercise for that. You can also do leg laterals as you trail ride by bushes, rocks and trees as well.
BALANCE:
You need to balance on your horse from below your belly button, independent of your hands or legs. Balance comes from the core of your stomach strength. If you have strong stomach muscles it will be easier for you to maintain balance with speed. Balance should come from your SEAT,(stomach muscles, inner thighs, bottom) not your knees, lower legs or hands. You should be able to balance at all speeds from a walk, to a trot, lope and a full gallop.
Your seat should not be slapping the saddle or have air between you and the saddle unless posting. To work on your balance you can ride without stirrups in the saddle or with a bareback pad, the more you sit back and tilt your tail bone under you in the beginning the easier you will find your balance. Safety should be considered first and foremost, but if you don't have great balance on a horse at all speeds, you should NOT be running fast and turning three times. I have seen riders buy horses that are too fast for them and the horse quits working and develops bad habits due to rider's poor riding skills. It's important if you lack balance with speed you work on that before you compete at barrel racing.
If you want to get better balance consider exercises like; pilates(like yoga), a combination of strength and flexibility training.
$25.00 paperback book is available now. You can email and let me know you are sending a check for a book, I will send you a confirmation and mail the book as soon as I get your check.
