Working Pleasure: A Photo Tutorial

Laurie Renda has graciously agreed to use photos of her horse to demonstrate my philosophy of developing a horse for working pleasure.  Missy is a four year old Friesian cross mare.  These photos were taken last summer during one of my Carriage Driving Clinics.

Missy is demonstrating a common tendency among Friesians and Morgans: all front action, no back end engagement or motor.  Horses that move this way are not correctly using their bodies.  I hold that flashy knee action without engaged hindquarters is not desirable, nor pretty.  My dear friend and mentor, Bob Riley called this 'cake walking' although, unfortunately I don't know why.  When I see a horse moving this way, it looks like he is dragging himself around with his front end.  Wrong.  Not Pretty.  In this photo, Missy is heavy on her forehand, a result of improper engagement of her hindquarters.

In order to correct this, I asked the whip to use good posture by sitting up straight, lighten her hands by supporting her arms with her shoulders and strengthen her contact.  Strengthened contact is not a steady pull but rather like a firmer handshake.  By lifting the hands slightly, the whip encourages the horse to rock back on the hindquarters and transfer the balance from the forehand to properly engage the hindquarters.

Missy's hindquarters are better engaged here, she is stepping under herself and her top line is more level, but her length of stride is still not balanced and her cadence is off.  [Her inside hind will hit the ground before her outside fore.]

The whip has lost a little contact and Missy appears to be lengthening her front end to catch up with it.

Same corner of the arena as the last photo, contact is more supportive, producing a marked improvement in cadence and stride.  

This is a great photo to show how hard Missy is trying to get it.  You can even see her thinking about the whole process.  She is trying to be engaged, but wants to go back to her habit of hanging on her forehand.  The whip is using a half halt to ask Missy to drop her hindquarters, and a voice command to encourage her to take a longer stride behind to lift her off her forehand.   Cadence is slightly off, but engagement is improved.

This is a wonderful photo showing how far Missy has come from the first photo.  She is rocked back on her hindquarters, light on her forehand and her top line is more level: she doesn't look like she is going perpetually down hill.  This is not a working trot, and I think it might be mid transition to the walk, since we will not even think about the collected trot until we get a consistent working trot.  Missy's flashy knee action is still there, but enhanced by a balanced hock action.  As she gets stronger and better conditioned she will seem to float above the ground, not dig herself into it.

Missy has lost cadence here, but her balanced frame is blossoming.  The whip needs to encourage her to be  more forward with a cheerful voice command and consistent aids from the reins, whip and voice.  If you congratulate the young horse on improvement before you correct on another aspect, they come along very quickly and will work to get the congratulation diligently.

At the end of her lesson, Missy demonstrates better balance, correct frame and lovely cadence...

..and there is a pretty picture.

Once the horse is correct in balance, engagement and cadence consistently, conditioning will produce action that is heightened, elastic, flowing and above all natural.  I think it was Charles de Kunffy who said, and I paraphrase, you know your training curriculum is working if your horse becomes more beautiful each time you work him.

As I discussed in the Reinsmanship Tutorial, the whip needs to be attentive to the horse's way of going to be supportive with the reins, whip and voice aides.  The whip also needs basic skills in determining what is correct way of going and what is not.  Look again at the first photo of Missy and then the last photo.  Time elapsed was less than an hour.

Many thanks to Laurie Renda for her photos of Missy and for allowing me to publicly comment on them.  I look forward to witnessing Missy achieve her potential as a driving horse, which is considerable, as the above photos attest.

If you would like to have your photos evaluated for working pleasure, reinsmanship or to arrange a seminar or clinic to help you understand how to help your horse achieve his potential, please contact me.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation Company.

Reinsmanship: A Photo Tutorial

As an exercise towards enhancing my curriculum for teaching reinsmanship, I decided to post a few photos on what is admirable and what is far less than correct to illustrate my philosophy.  I always try to find a clear way to communicate to each whip on the cause and effect of their own bodies on their horse's ability, so this might be another way of defining it.

These photos were shot on a numbered cones course, by my dear friend and professional photographer, Tobin Bennett.  I think they give a very unique reference for judging my reinsmanship and I thank Tobin for his skill in capturing them.  I am driving The Major General, a Morgan and Caddy That Zigs.

Approaching Start/Finish: Good collection, contact, shoulder to hands angle is open and allowing.  Major is soft and alert.

This course was mostly short and tight, on the side of a hill.  I knew I needed to let Major go long and low as much as I could.  I open the angle of my shoulder to hands, and he opens the angle of his nose.  He seeks contact, so he lengthens his top line and stride to find it.  His cadence is lovely.

I have driven the outside line on the turn through this set of cones very nicely.  We are on the side of a hill turning down fairly sharply.  Notice we are starting the bend without the wheel completely clear of the cone.  It is tight.  The gig is high.  To keep the wheel on the ground, I am leaning.  When the whip drops the shoulder, so doth the horse.  You can see this in the photo: horse mirrors whip.  One saving grace for me as whip: my hands are still fairly level.  In the gig, you must drive the horse and ride the vehicle, or you will end Up. Side. Down.

BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD.  When I first saw this photo, I screamed, "NO!" And almost deleted it from record.  But then I decided to keep it to remind me NEVER to do this again.  This is an epic fail.  I misjudged our speed and the distance for the turn.  See how far under himself Major is with his inside hind leg.  Fail.    My shoulders are telling his body to go straight.  Fail.  My inside hand is bending his head around the shaft. Fail.  My outside hand is not supporting him through the bend.  Fail.  I am bending him front front to back.  Fail.  Cadence is completely lost.  Fail.  What I should have done was check his speed two strides before the cones, raise my hands slightly to rock him back on his hindquarters, support him through the turn with the outside rein, while bringing his shoulder back to his properly supported inside hind leg.  He then would have pivoted through the turn [two strides sooner] at an angle to get straight through the cones on the left.  Only Major's supreme athletic ability got us through this.  I beg his forgiveness.

This is more like it.  We serpentine right to go left.  Notice Major's properly supported right hind leg.  He is rocked back on his hindquarters, bending from behind.  His cadence is still somewhat compromised: look at how uncertain he appears.  My shoulders are somewhat [could be better] open to the direction I want him to bend- right, but I am looking left to judge the change of rein...

..which he does beautifully.  Bless him, he has forgiven me already.  Again, his inside hind leg is near vertical to support his weight through the turn, he is light on his forehand as a result.  If you have been paying attention you will see I have again dropped my weight over the wheel to balance the gig, but my reins are level to balance Major.  Cadence is restored.

Asking him to go long and low to the Finish, but gave the contact away too quickly and lost a little cadence in the process.  He is more than ready to stretch out, though, after a grisly drive...

And we're done.  Asking Major to transition to the walk, I have dropped my center of gravity by my hands are a little too low and I'm applying too much front brake: using too much bit, ergo, throwing him slightly on his forehand [that common front to back problem].  He is trying hard to get his hindquarters under him to transition correctly and if I had lifted my hands to allow him to finish getting underneath himself, he wouldn't be slightly behind the straight pull of my hands on the bit and the transition would have been great.  Instead, what probably happened was as his stopping leg [left hind] hit the ground, he hollowed out his back for relief of the bit and popped his nose up.  If I realized my mistake, I may have lightened my contact to give him the relief he needed as he stepped on his left leg.  I am focused quite intently on his frame, but there is sadly no photo proof of what happened next.

So, there you go, the dynamics of reinsmanship on an obstacle course, where it matters most.  Ultimate communication through the reins is achieved by understanding how to use them to support and balance the horse to allow him to be brilliant, instead of solely as a means to control him.  If you have photos that you would like me to evaluate for you, let me know.  I am also available, in person, for carriage driving lessons, and carriage driving clinics on this very subject.  The best way to improve your horse's performance is by improving your own.

Again thanks to Tobin for these great reference photos and to Major for his greatness.

Please leave a comment or contact me with your questions/suggestions.  I greatly appreciate everyone who stops by to read this blog and Google Analytics tells me how many of you do and approximately where you come from, but I am old fashioned and still like know faces or names.  So, thanks for stopping to read Accidental Sagacity and please don't be anonymous!

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.