HORSE TRAINING
Horses don’t need us to help them be horses. What they need from us is an awareness that training and riding is an intra species endeavor. It is my task, as an instructor to creatively translate body languages between horse and rider.
We are not training the horse to do anything he wouldn’t normally do. What we are training is the obedience to do the normal things immediately off of our light aids. This is a progressive series of consecutive steps, starting with basic halt, go, back up and turn.
From there we find rhythm with the horse continuing the movements on his own, eventually regulating the speed and tempo. Straightness is a requirement of rhythm because a crooked horse thrusts more on one side than the other and will lose rhythm and be uncomfortable.
The contact with the reins takes the horse and rider, naturally into impulsion, engagement, thoroughness and collection. Contact is a light elastic rein with the seat and weight being the primary source of connection and communication.
I teach the classical techniques of work-in-hand and long lining to develop a quality of connection that carries through the horse and rider experience.
My ideas have developed by following trainers who made sense to me.
Mary Wanless and Sylvia Loch were early influences. Mark Russell was a person with superior horse training intelligence. Andrew McLean has influenced me to think of the horse as living on open ground. I have used his Equitation Science Training Scale in the above paragraphs to give clarity to the art and science of horse and rider training.
Please contact me to discuss your needs at pageogden@me.com
Individual Training Ride $75.
$25 travel fee will be added to the cost of your training ride.
