in today's video I'm going to be riding my horse bareback and bridle less what
I'm doing is I'm riding my horse with just a halter and a lead rope and
instead of having two reins that I can steer with I can go like this and turn
my horse just like if we were starting a colt that's what we do so I just flip it
over her head now I'm gonna not steer her at all and just go around the arena
let her go wherever she wants I don't care how fast we go she just needs to be
going somewhere this is exactly what we did during my lesson tonight and went
extremely well with the three riders the purpose of this is to focus on legs and
just getting a horse to go forward not worrying about where they're going but
just focusing on the forward motion the problem that I see a lot is I have
riders who want to pull on both reins or over-over use their reins so they're
always steering the horse and not just letting the horse go forward and they
forget to use their legs for forward motion so my horses get really
frustrated they want to pull the reins out of the riders hands and it's just
overall not fun for the horses so this is really really a helpful wing for me
to make sure that when horses are having a good time and it also makes it so the
riders understand how to use their reins better and make sure that they're using
their legs to get the horse to go forward okay so I'm gonna demonstrate
with this horse she's more than likely gonna kind of circle around in the
center and stuff because we don't do this very often and I really need to so
that's what we're gonna do she's gonna want to go to the gate
make sure she gets out of there now when she went to the gate I didn't make a big
deal out of it all I did was get my legs to hustle her feet and get her out of
there
not causing her to do this gate at all she's just so she just gets good at
going somewhere she wants to just kind of circle around and you know I probably
might Comanche her a lot with my rings
now here I'm not asking my horse to canter she could trot if she wanted to
she could walk if she wanted to I just want her to go forward and basically the
way she's circling here I'm not asking her to do that I'm merely a passenger
I'm letting her go anywhere she wants to go but this is an exercise what she's
doing right now is she's kind of doing like figure eights through the arena and
that's an exercise that we frequently do during lessons so it's kind of funny to
watch her just kind of go right into doing that exercise so it just tells me
that I need to get out and ride her straight a lot more and kind of mix it
up I typically ride with my students when I'm teaching and this is the horse
that I usually am riding and it's just funny to really see that in her to know
that she's just got all the patterns memorized
are you going to post this tomorrow or today Jim post it you should be with
that being said I'd really like to know if this is a video that you find
interesting so if you do please be sure to give me a comment below or just
simply like the video and then I know if it's something that I should do again in
the future what I'm about to do now I completely did not plan on until that
very moment and that's just kind of how it works with horses sometimes something
feels like it's going really well and so you want to take it a step further so
what I did here is I just pulled her halter completely off strictly out of
curiosity
but just to show you that I'm not anyone in her at all
as you can see she's still doing figure eights over the polls because she
genuinely just thinks that's what she's supposed to be doing
this is just proof watching this that the horse is always looking for peace
and so she's thinking well if I just do what we usually doing here it'll be nice
and peaceful and that's what you're looking for so that's what I'll do and
it just kind of makes me smile to think about how smart these animals are and
how willing they are to just try now if I had started this ride with a high
expectation of where we were going to go and all these things and expected her to
be perfect or as good as she is when she's got a bridle on I would set her up
for failure and I would discourage her from trying the fact that I'm just a
passenger and going with her you know she's free to do as she pleases and now
at this point I am asking her for a canter so she's going this bead that I'm
looking for but she's still able to go wherever she wants
now at this point I think that Nocona really figured out that oh we just need
to go somewhere because her gate has freed up and she's now just going around
the outside of the arena and she just seems to be a lot more opened up and
willing to move
we'll see you
now I am gonna start steering her with my leg to see if I can get her to travel
left around the arena
so now I am trying to interfere in a little see if I get it
now as you can see a Nocona reverts back to doing the figure 8 exercise because
she's a little confused as to what I'm asking of her so she goes back to doing
something that she thinks is correct
Nocona now clearly understands what I was looking for as you can see her gait
has really opened up a little bit too so she's nice and forward and happily going
around with her ears up and not trying to turn into figure eights anymore
so I didn't plan on doing any of that besides just riding her around and
letting her go she's gonna go I didn't plan on taking my halter off but once I
got going I'm like you know just not having this in my hands will keep me
from wanting to interfere at all because I have a tendency to micromanage my
reins get rid of them who was a good thing I'm a little out of breath
so is Nakata Nocona and i are both a little out of breath right now but um so
that was super fun though and I think that I needed stuff like that more often
just a fork focus on the forward and um you know the fact that it was really
hard to get her to go to the left really tells me that I need to work on that
when I do have my reins and making sure that I'm not over steering her and I am
directing her with my legs and making sure that she's going where I want her
to go so that was a totally fun impromptu ride and like I said I have
never ridden her without something on her head before you know even just a
halter and I'm really pleased with how good she did once she realized that she
could just go forward that's super cool super duper cool get her to go do a
little turn around again a good example that it's all it's all way
that direction that I get her to go there with my life
and as soon as the leg comes off that's when we stop and I can't I don't I'm
sure I'm gonna back up no I will not get it back up I'm not my backup is not good
enough we don't have that so I need to make sure my backup is a lot better
same with stopping to my stopping is not very good I can come down through the
gates really well but going from you know go to stop it just kind of like we
kind of like fall through it so I can work on then so by doing stuff like this
that's how I get better because I find where our weaknesses are well I hope you
enjoyed today's video if you did please be sure to give it a like share it with
your friends and leave me a comment below let me know if you've ever ridden
your horse without a saddle or bridle and thanks so much for watching I'll see
you Morrow my