This 12 Minutes Fencing Session to Maximize Stopping.mp4

So if I feel my horse is setting up perfectly for me here, which is driving off my outside leg, pushing his hind quarters under himself and lifting his shoulder in range of motion, extending in the direction that I'm going. So I felt he was doing that fairly good, okay? But assuming he is not, I can choose to say, okay, regroup here. Mister, I need you to drive under a little bit more, lift up your inside shoulder, look where you're going. There, okay? There you go. Okay, he's kind of pushing on me a little bit too much. So I'm gonna do like I just explained, is drive that hip around until I feel that when I push the hip, the front doesn't get short or stop walking. I wanna feel the front legs to go straight out in front of him when I put my outside leg. There you go. Okay, so this was a pretty good run down, a little slower than I like, even with this speed, with this horse at this speed, I think he's getting a little tired and it's pretty hot today. But very important factor here, a key element is that it's important to build speed early on, okay? You don't wanna be like, you know, on neutral until the middle and then, oh, all of a sudden, your trainer is saying, hey, you need to go faster. And you know that you have to have a horse that is, you know, going faster to stride before you stop than any other stride before the run down for him to stop his best. So the best thing to do in order to avoid horses charging and to maintain and to be able to work those run downs is to get into speed, not into a burst of speed, but just get your horse driving and pushing into like second gear or third gear, depending on how advanced your horse is, at least by the first cone, okay? So this should be a priority here. Now, I set my horse up at point A perfectly. I felt like my line was pretty good, but in order to finish my run down after the stop, I'm gonna complete it by doing something at point B. So if I have a horse that, let's say, needed to push more from under himself and lift his shoulder so I'm gonna finish my run down by doing this exercise here, which is something that is easy to do, that I like to do, and that is making sure that my horse is really, really driving under himself and walking forward, okay? So this is gonna be my favorite exercise here to do at the end of the stop. If my horse stops a little bit stiff or a little bit nervous, then I may have just instead relaxed myself and just taken him into a slow turn here and being able to take his shoulder and make him look inside until he relaxes and keeps going on his own, okay? This means, hey, relax your neck, free up your shoulders and free up your front feet in the stop, and at the same time, if he was pulling me to the left, it's a good way to make him think about going to the right. Now I'm gonna go the opposite leap down. I'm gonna set him up. I don't like how he anticipated the lope, but then he regrouped, that's okay. I'm still gonna exercise him for the benefit of doing this perfectly, and he's very touchy to my right leg. He's been that way for the last few weeks, and in the first go around of the derby, it cost me because he was sucking back on it a little bit, and then I used it a little bit harder, and then he got upset about it. So if you notice that sometimes his first reaction to my outside leg is to get a little bit like he got shocked, and then he moves, okay? So he knows what to do. It's just sort of I surprise him every time, but I'm like, hey, after six months, it shouldn't be a surprise anymore, but I think he's more on a ticklish side, so it's more when something sharp is coming to your rib, you always be tense up and react that way to it. So I try to ride, when I'm gonna work this horse off my spurs a lot and really work his belly, I'm gonna use a spur row that is a lot softer, the softest spur row that I have in the barn in order to really buy peace as much as I can and be able to work as thoroughly what I want to work as opposed to using a sharp spur that's just gonna make him more nervous or mad, but then when I feel that he's really ready to show and he's a little bit tired and I don't need to be messing with my spurs too much, then I'm gonna move to something a little bit sharper or a longer route. Okay, so it was short just before the middle somewhere there that I hit the gear that I wanted to really hit and maintain through the run down all the way to the end. I felt he maintained it well, so I was happy with that run as a starting point, but I would like for him to hit that gear a little bit sooner and as we build speed, we're gonna be getting another gear or two here, so it's gonna be important to be able to hit that gear that I wanted to maintain here a little bit sooner. Okay, so I'm gonna get him off my outside leg a little bit, but I'm gonna use two hands and put my hands in a position where I'm not upsetting him, I'm not pulling against him, I'm just, you know, he's got a very easy way out of this, he just needs to move off my leg, okay? So I'm not gonna make this too technical, but I'm gonna remind him that he needs to move off my leg. So again, very basic exercise, something I teach my horses, you know, in the first six months of training, so this should be a very simple thing for him to do, but still, it does make him a little nervous, he gets a little bit chewy on the bridle, so I try to not put too much pressure into it, but definitely want him to do it as good as he can. There, I put my leg, I felt him a little bit tense and ready, but he did not anticipate me, waited for me, so I like that. Okay, this time I needed to be a little bit more firm with my legs, I asked him with a clock or two to get me that gear at the beginning and it didn't come, so then I went and got it, and I felt I did get it, and I felt he maintained it pretty well until the end. So now it's time to increase a little bit the pace and make him a little bit more reactive to the leg and the clock, and wake him up a little bit. This is something that makes, you know, can make a horse a little bit nervous, this is why you have to do this as much as possible until they are very comfortable in doing this exercise here, and him, it does make him a little bit nervous, but at the same time, I used to try to avoid it and try to avoid it, but then I figured out that if I just get through it earlier on in the session, I feel like that extra adrenaline that may be built up or that anxiety that may be built up somehow just like, got it out of the system, and I feel he's more cooperative and more responsive afterwards, so. I'm not too shy with my legs anymore, but again, I don't wanna give him a reason to be afraid of it or nervous about it, I know that he doesn't like it, I don't know anyone who would really like to be pushed around with a spur like that, but we have to do what we have to do in order to set our horse up to do it in the best position possible and to do something in the easiest possible way, and so he's learning to figure out that I'm not doing this to just upset him, that I'm doing this to help him, and I think this is what the biggest, the greatest feeling in a trainer is when your horse actually starts to understand that what you're doing is to help him, and then they appreciate it, and then they give you a lot of effort in exchange, and then this is the start of good relationships and success in the showpen. So, super, super nice run down there, very willing, built by himself, I didn't have to kick him or use my spur, I just used my voice and rode him down there, so I decided to stop him a little bit shorter this time and see what he would do. Twisted his body a little bit, so this is why I turned him to the right. Again, this is a very simple exercise that I do for my spins or for various things after the stop. Remember, the goal here is that when you have to hold them until they give you a perfect flexion, really move their inside leg and lift their shoulder, and when you release, they keep going by themselves. The cue here is opening the leg inside, towing out, and this is what's telling the horse he needs to keep going. So, this is just to sort of finish my stop by doing something opposite of what he did in the stop, which was sort of turn himself to the left. If you follow me, you know that I like to use the voice as extra pressure before using anything else, such as increasing the leg pressure or hand pressure, I like to, you know, clock until they execute something, and I feel that's pretty effective. Very, very satisfied on how he built the stop here. He built and lifted his shoulder, and he raised his head a little bit, but he didn't stretch out. He just elevated and preparing himself for the stop. So, this is definitely what I expect and what I'm looking for and what I'm after. So, I love everything about this run down and stop, except for one thing that I found that for sure, yes, the ground is a lot more sticky here than it was at the horse show, and that kind of caused him to kind of get pumped out of the ground a little bit. So, I felt he did a pretty good effort getting into the turn, into the stop, I'm sorry, but I felt that not quite enough because he didn't hold the ground. So now, this is gonna be the, when I have my horse building good and thinking about running and getting to the end, I need to sometimes check the brakes, okay? So, this is some things that I'm gonna do now until it's perfect. I'm gonna let him go, get some speed, draw him in the ground, good. He responded good to my hand. Sometimes the horses, when they don't expect it or they don't think about it, you're gonna pull without saying, whoa, like that, and you will really bust their bubble and surprise them. But that is the point, okay? Because you want them to build, but you want them to be ready at every stripe. So, if they are stretching out and they are bursting and they're not thinking, then they're not gonna respond good to that. So, this is why that if that didn't work good, I would have just backed up and remind my horse, hey, when I'm pulling here, you need to just sit on your hocks and lift your shoulders. There you go, just like that. And then low palm down and do it again, okay? So, I'm gonna do it again, better there, better reaction. So, if you've noticed when I low top is some horses, especially him and horses are smart. So, if you are gonna go one handed and you're gonna go down and stop, and then you're gonna say, okay, now this time I'm gonna pull him in the ground and go like this before you low pop, they're gonna feel you going two handed and know you'll be ready for it. And they may not do anything wrong then, or it may not allow you to really address the problem. So, what I did there is I walked off one handed, but when I went two handed, nothing's changed. He didn't feel it and didn't know, okay? So, this was, but at the same time, I was where I wanted to be two handed to be effective in my signal here. So, I'm very happy with that. This time I didn't clock, I did not ask him to low pop. I only put my outside leg on him and he should have just got himself ready, but not low pop until I clock. This is why it's important to always use your leg before your hand when you're setting your horse up for something. This time the stop doesn't matter so much. The rundown needed a little bit fixing. He anticipated the draw or he anticipated the stop. So, this is a totally normal occurrence, but this is one of those times where I needed to remind him, no, we're going all the way to the end unless I make a signal that indicates so, and I did not. He was just anticipating me. So, this is totally normal and after working your stop or after working your stop cue or your draw into the ground, it's important to run him to the end a few more times and make sure that he's thinking of going all the way to the end because again, this is the number one factor. But when you are running your horse down to the end here, very important to realize that my correction here was the increase of use of my leg in the rundown telling him, hey, keep going, okay? So, when I get here, he needs to assimilate that in order for that to have been an effective correction the next rundown going down. But if I correct this stop that wasn't perfect, which is normal because I was kicking him here, then he forgets about my correction there, then he gets worried about this correction here and then I ruin it all. It was better to leave him alone here, let him assimilate that I said, hey, get down there so that there's only one thing to process and the next rundown, I'm pretty confident that he's gonna think about going down to the end. I'm pretty confident that he's gonna also stop pretty good because I just checked my brakes a couple of times and I might check them before going. It's always good. I'm gonna walk or trot as if I was going, as if I was going, stop. I find we cannot be much more ready to rundown and stop than we are now. So, statistically speaking, this should be a good one. We'll take it. I hope that you enjoyed this session and I hope it was enlightening and will help you in succeeding with your horse. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. You can visit my YouTube channel. I have tons of sneak peek videos that explains various exercises, tools and drills that I use on a daily basis. And if you wanna know a little bit more on developing a comfort zone with your horse, visit my subscription program. I work very hard every week to post at least 30 minutes to an hour of content for you to add to the repertoire. And whether it's foundation work or basic, intermediate or advanced work, I try to be as diversified as I can be so that I can have as much content for everyone. And I appreciate your support. Thank you for following and we'll see you in the next one.