It has been sometime since my last website post. Since the end of June, I have been to the U.K. for 5 weeks during August and into September. The courses varied from horsemanship to Cow Working. The weather was overall quite agreeable with a little rain etc at the beginning of the tour and then towards the end of the tour. It is always good to catch up with those in the U.K. and I have been going over there now for over 20 years. A big thank you to all that attended courses in the U.K. this year and to Tina at Total Horsemanship for all her efforts and the efforts of others in putting this schedule together for 2025. The image below was a trailer loading session in Cumbria. Regardless of what you may or may not do with horses, at some point you are going to have to travel them.
My return back to Australia has not been for rest. On arriving home it was straight back into cattle work and then attending bull sales in the coming week.
What’s Coming Up: Before going to the U.K. we had a home course as well. There is another planned in November on the 22nd & 23rd. There are also courses coming up in Brisbane on November 8th & 9th and I am back in Western Australia from October 16th to the 20th inclusive.
Below I have added a couple of horsemanship articles for everyone’s reading. One is an interview with Mike Bridges by Eclectic Horseman and the other is an article on Equitation. Enjoy!
The above image was from the Cow Working Course in the U.K.
Recently I had time on my return from overseas to listen to an interview with Mike Bridges. I have known Mike for over 30 years now and regard him as a personal friend. He has helped me with my horsemanship and encouraged me to read more to validate existing beliefs and to establish new. I am extremely grateful to all that have played a role in my horsemanship.
For those that are interested in listening to Mike being interviewed by Eclectic Horseman, the link is below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_HTs8CVZrg
The above image was one taken a long time ago, both horses were Mikes.
Equitation is a title that will either excite you or bore you. I recall Buck, speaking briefly about a conversation he had with Ray a long time ago now. I hope that I am not misquoting here, but Ray mentioned to do the exercises, that he spoke of in his classes, in order to do them well you would have to ride well.
I have now been teaching classes for over 30 years now and have been lucky enough to do this all over the world. As a result you see a lot of riders and a lot of horses. I am also more of the belief now that many times you are not teaching, more trying to cause awareness, that hopefully results in a positive change for both horse and rider.
Creating more awareness in a riders posture and in their riding can result in positive changes for the horse. It is easy to have good posture when the horse is in balance but when the horse is out of balance the rider tends to follow the posture of the horse.
In a recent course in the U.K I noticed the rider, riding with too much inside rein and as a result the horse was falling out of balance. When correcting the overuse of the inside rein and with transitions the horse went from being nervous and anxious to being able to have a lovely canter. Again I am reminded of keeping your horse in balance between your legs and hands or in your rectangle if that analogy is easier to understand.
Another incident I encountered in the U.K. was of a rider riding with their shoulders behind their hips and grinding with their seat or riding their saddle and not their horse. They commented that their horse was heavy in the hand. When you observed their riding position you could see they were pushing their horse into their hand with their riding posture.
When speaking of equitation, the timing of the conversation is as important. If you put too much emphases on posture then riders tend to become very stiff and do not follow the movement of the horse and are maybe more sitting than riding. As your sense of feel develops and your feel for balance develops then maybe your posture and overall equitation improves as well.
The above is not in anyway meant to condemn anyone, we are all guilty of the above and far worse I suspect. If we can be more observant, remember and compare and work on ourselves I am sure that our horses will improve.
The above images are of horses at different stages of development, from only having a couple of rides on them to others that are a little further along in their development. Riding well, is far harder than most will give credit for. Riding is more than the art of not falling off, to ride well takes a lifetime of dedication.
