First hack post fall and post Mark Rashid clinic

Jane&Ziggy

Jane&Sid these days!
Apr 30, 2010
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My RI offered me a hacking lesson today and I bit her arm off because I just about felt ready to get back on after my fall and it's nice to have your RI with you even if you don't feel shaky.

We tacked up and got on and rode up the lane, and I blethered about the Mark Rashid clinic, and we rode up the lane, and I blethered. After about half a mile my RI (who likes MR and was very interested) said, "I want to make an observation about your riding. Your contact is much firmer than usual, and your body is very strong. Your position is excellent. See how Ziggy is responding with obedience. You should talk about Mark Rshid all the time you are hacking."

It felt as if a worm has turned. Ziggy can be my pet pony in the field, but when I am handling him and riding him he is my riding horse and needs to behave like it. I think he didn't know what had happened - he seemed puzzled! But he was obedient. When he rushed, I stopped him. When he rushed again, I made him rein back. He stopped rushing. We went past the place where he spooked and I fell last week and he was anxious, but I remembered, "He has to behave as if it's ok even if it isn't ok," and he behaved as if it was OK!

My Ri sighed and rolled her eyes because she has always told me just the same things about firmness, rigour and consistency. I said that watching MR doing it, and watching the reaction of the owners who felt about their horses the way that I do, was salutary and felt like a real turning point.

Ziggy behaved himself all the way round. I need to do this all the time!
 
That sounds AMAZING!!! Isn't it lovely when a penny drops with a great big boing and suddenly it's all so much clearer. My boing moment was "thyme doesn't understand what I want!" Before that every piece of unwanted behaviour was deliberate awkwardness or disobedience.
 
I am so glad Jane. That you took it away and used it and it turned out well - for Ziggy as well as for you. Our RI too used to say that Mark added nothing to what she taught. But I dont think it works with an RI telling you to be firm or consistent - or rigourous. Those are all quite hard negative words.
It takes watching a demo - to get the positive message that it is what the horse needs - Then after watching we do our very best - for the horse we love.
 
Well I would talk about Mark all the time then. ;)

Funnily enough I "think" mine knows I am reading this 28days book. Usually I have to ditch the schooling whip. She got told " I give you the benefit of the doubt, please do likewise" :)
As in I will carry it doesnt mean I will use.
 
I must get to a MR clinic one of these days! I agree, I think you learn more by watching and seeing the proof than by being told, or by reading etc.

Interesting that you seem to have subconsciously absorbed some of his teaching. I bet your RI was well impressed!
 
About the idea of letting the horse load himself: I really like the sound of that having been squashed by a horse who rushed forward into me as we were going in. But I can't see how it works? If you are leading the horse towards the trailer what do you do with the rope when he horse walks past you and in? And how does the horse know he's meant to go in?
 
You usually place the lead rope over the withers and they keep walking forward until the breast bar, my old Clydie X I used to expect him to self load, I'd hold the rope just under his chin with the slack up and over his neck/withers and walk so far up the ramp and then send him on whilst I waited at the top of the ramp to do up the breech bar.
 
MR stood by the ramp with lots of slack in the rope and with his body language invited the horse in. It walked up the ramp and turned its head towards him to keep the lead rope slack (which is why it ended up head pointing forwards). If he had stood on the other side of the ramp it would have ended up head backwards.
 
Sorry still don't get it!!
@Ruskii if you let go the rope what happens if the horse backs out. It's fine for a well trained horse who can already load but we are talking about horses who struggle loading.
@Jane&Ziggy do you mean the horse turned around fully in the trailer? Most trailers aren't wide enough for that. Plus I wouldn't want a horse travelling backwards in a trailer designed to be traveled in forwards.
 
Ah, there's the difference, I personally wouldn't load a horse that way if it was a difficult loader as like you say, they can run back and get away ! My own boy was a fab loader, my cob I couldn't do this with as I wouldn't trust him and I would only self load in an area that is secure so if horse does get away then you still have a certain amount of control. My current yard doesn't do this, we load up on the main yard in the farm and it's straight out on a busy road with no gates anywhere :eek: it's either that or load in your field.

And I currently only load and travel in double trailers that the horse faces one way in and doesn't have enough room to turn around, however I have a few times where I have removed the partition and put the single bar in there and travelled my horse that way, I have to say he always turned around and travelled backwards, or herringbone at least, there was plenty of room for him to do that in the double trailer and he was travelling loose as livestock do. Round where I am it's a very common site to see the NF ponies just put in a livestock trailer and travelling like that, a lot of the commoners horses even travel like that all tacked up before one of the drifts !
 
Sorry just realised I have got my threads confused and these questions should have been on the clinic write up thread.
Back to the post clinic hack - glad it was so good and hope your confidence is fine after your fall.
 
I think you need to watch to understand.
Mark's distance of safety when working with a horse in the arena is the length or his own outstretched arm. And that gives plenty of room to stand at the front corner of the ramp and allow the horse to load itself. The horse loaded itself because it was allowed to think out the problem for itself and because it had found hay inside the van.
You have to remember the past history of a horse - when it may not have been led into a van - Where lots of horses are loaded onto a big lorry, they are expected to follow another horse into the lorry space.

However this is the moment perhaps to repeat what Mark repeatedly said. There are no rules in horsemanship. If something works for you that is fine. Dont discard anything. He doesnt have a method. It makes no sense for the more experienced owners on NR to respond to Jane and my second hand reports on what we saw Rashid do with one particular horse and rider and assume that is the whole picture and then become concerned or defensive about their own horsemanship.

If someone here is concerned about the safety of their own way of loading it makes sense to look into alternatives - but the whole leading situation is more subtle and complicated than our reports can convey.

Many of the things we in the UK assume about horses are cultural -Trainers from the American West have a different background. My BHS training taught me that for safety's sake I must lead the horse into its box, turn the horse so that I remained on the outside, and then when we faced the door, shut it.
So we do most of the time lead our UK horses from in front and they follow. However there are many situations where we lead walking at the shoulder of the horse, again for safety. e.g. as we lead along a road. The boundary imposed by the person leading does not have to be the distance at which a horse follows behind. We can invite a horse to walk closer to us. There are situations where we want the horse level with us but well out to the side. Or where we want to circle the horse round us - And one can send the horse forward without having to be on its back.
We can invite the horse to go ahead past us. That is why I added the caveat that tho Rashid and Michael Peace and other trainers regularly start work on a horse by seeing if it will lead well, and , if it does not, teaching it to lead - which takes no time at all, there is far more to leading a horse than just the first lesson. That is why you will find many NH instructional DVDs devote a whole disk to ground work and leading, and even a further disk to loading. I know because I own at least three discs on loading!

But that doesnt mean I can do it - I would tho like to mention something.
That one NH method of teaching a horse to load involves leading it through narrow spaces and round and round, approach and retreat till it is willing to load into a box.
Although on paper this is not a method Mark Rashid would advocate, it could be suggested that circling the horse endlessless has the same cumulative affect as Mark asking the horse to approach and then retreat from the ramp. In both cases the horse has the opportunity to think about the box and loading into it. The big difference is that the other NH way allows us to lead the horse away from the box before it has shown any progress towards loading. Mark allowed respite and took off the pressure only when the horse had relaxed or shown some behavioural improvement - even if it was still yards from the ramp, there had to be incremental improvement.

Here again Please note : what Mark repeatedly said. There are no rules in horsemanship. If something works for you that is fine. Dont discard anything. He doesnt have a method. It makes no sense for the more experienced owners on NR to respond to Jane and my second hand reports on what we saw Rashid do with one particular horse and its rider and assume that is the whole picture and then become concerned or defensive about their own horsemanship.
 
I'm not becoming defensive I just can't picture what mark did and I don't like walking into a box with a horse following so an alternative is highly desirable for me. I still can't picture what he did with the rope!
 
I have removed this post. This thread shows it was wiser of me not to post any Mark Rashid write ups.
 
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That's a shame. I have very much enjoyed and benefited from reading them.

ETA not sure what has been deleted as previous post is still there. Please let it stay!! :)
 
@KP nut I wuite understand why you can't see it and it's no problem to ask. It's hard to imagine. MR is a tall guy, over 6 foot, so if you imagine him standing by the door of the box beside the ramp with a horse on a long lead rope, you can see that he could make an "in you go" gesture with the arm next to the opening without being on the ramp himself. The horse walked in and MR turned to allow him to explore.

I could draw it for you...
 
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