This Week on Horse Master

Greetings!

I am home from our quick vacation to the Oregon coast. It was beautiful and relaxing, if not warm and sunny. We took a little side trip to Astoria, the Columbia River Maritime Museum and Cape Disappointment. These waters are known as “the Graveyard of the Pacific.” Having done some boating there in the treacherous northwest waters with my dad and brother, it was fun to show Rich where we had been and to watch the ships, tugs and fishing boats.

I cannot believe summer is virtually over and my travel schedule begins again already! It’s my fault for planning a vacay right before a long business trip but I have to do the two-day shuffle to get ready to leave again. Unpack, laundry, repack, etc. This time, we are headed to Martha’s Vineyard to film five new episodes of the TV show. These shows will air in January and February.

This week on Horse Master is one of my favorite episodes that we have filmed so far. It’s about an Arab trail/endurance horse that we thought had some training issues. In fact, we thought the episode would be about bucking at the canter—and that he did. But it became clear right away as I watched the horse try to canter around the arena that we were dealing with a physical issue. In fact, a very poorly fitted saddle.

The horse was rushing at all gaits, crow hopping and breaking gait at the canter and throwing his head high and travelling in a very inverted frame. She had owned the horse and ridden him in this saddle with these problems for four years. For that reason, I didn’t expect an immediate cure on this horse. I figured even if we got him in a comfortable saddle, we would see some improvement but his memories and habitual behavior would persist.

I put my Circle Y Flex2 Reiner on him, because I thought the flex tree would be just what the doctor ordered for his discomfort. We were all amazed at the transformation when I got on him—he relaxed and rounded his frame beautifully and almost immediately transformed into a different horse. Even the owner was able to ask him to round his frame and slow down and he did. They’ll have a long way to go to get together but the instant change in the horse was remarkable. Much better than I would’ve hoped for.

It was interesting to watch the horse for the next couple days and see him yawn and stretch as we rode him—it was a definite release of tension for him. Ever notice how a dog yawns when you scold him? I think we probably show our release of tension that way too sometimes. It would be awesome if we could make that big a change in a horse with each episode, but usually it’s not that dramatic.

Here’s hoping the episodes we film next week will be even better!

Julie