The Cows are Out!

After several hard day’s work at the ranch horse clinic last weekend, we gave the horses a couple days off. Rich is riding in a cutting this weekend here at the Chaffee County Fair, so Tuesday afternoon, I asked Melissa to bring the cows in from the pasture so he could work some cows that evening after work. She scoured the pasture with two different horses, combing the trees where the cows like to hide from the bugs and sun, to no avail. Four of our five heifers were gone.

We found the weak spot in the fence where they had escaped and followed their tracks for a while. I spent three hours on the four wheeler combing the property to the south where the tracks were but gave up right before dark and was chased inside by a scary thunderstorm. Not knowing how long they had been out made it tough to predict where we should look for them and darkness defeated further search; it was even too late to make phone calls.

The next morning I called our brand inspector bright and early, figuring that someone had probably spotted them, turned them into a pen and called the brand inspector. Sure enough, they were in a big center-pivot hay field about a half mile north from us. I met the farmer out on the road and he pointed out the gates and corral set up for gathering cattle, but the cows were nowhere in sight. They were hidden up in the trees, relaxing and chewing cud after enjoying the all-night, all-u-can-eat alfalfa buffet.

I headed back home to get the stock trailer and a horse. I had planned to take Dodger instead of Dually. Dodger, with more than a decade of hunting cows on a huge Texas ranch, is much better at bashing timber and thrashing through the brush hunting for cows. Dually prefers to think of himself as a show horse—leave the bugs and stumps and rocks to his hardier blue-collar cousins—the real ranch horses. But, as luck would have it, Dodger had just been turned out to belly deep pasture for his periodic opportunity to gorge himself and I didn’t want to take the time to wade through the irrigated pasture to catch him. So Dually it was!

Saddled and loaded up in the trailer, we headed for the hay field. I positioned the truck strategically to help me herd the cows in the pen, should I be so lucky as to find them and be able to drive them across the field. As luck would have it, the cows were just wandering out of the trees and into the hay field. Now that they were found, all that remained was to get them into the pen and loaded into the trailer for the quick trip home.

I hopped on Dually and turned toward the four cows, who were several hundred yards away. They took one look at Dually and me and put their heads up and high-tailed it in the other direction—to the farthest end of the narrow 80 acre field. Taking a very wide berth, I rode toward the trees where they headed and finally caught up with them, pressed up against the far fence. But as I went to gather them up and start pushing them back to the pen, I saw that one of the heifers had gone through the fence and was on the other side in another pasture. Great.

With no way to enter that pasture from where I was, the only way I could think to get her back was to drive the other cows away so she would jump it. Conveniently, that worked and before I knew it, I had all four cows headed down the fence line, marching away from me in order. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep them on the fence without ending up back in the trees, where they are much harder to line out, so we headed out across the hay field in a straight line toward the pen.

Dually shined at being a real ranch horse and kept those cows marching perfectly straight. In no time at all, we had all four cows in the pen and with Dually guarding the open gate to keep the cows in, I backed the trailer up to the alley. With Dually’s help, we coaxed, pushed and prodded the cows into the trailer and in less than an hour from saddling, we were headed home, with the escaped convicts in tow.

It’s amazing how cow horses figure out exactly what you are trying to accomplish with the cows and then take responsibility for it. Although I think Dually still prefers fluffed up arena footing over timber bashing, he was proud of himself for a job well done, and so was I. Taking a great ride and working cows was not on my agenda that morning, but I sure am glad I had the excuse to do it. And I am thankful it was a beautiful cool summer morning and not a raging blizzard—that might not have been as much fun.

Enjoy the ride!

Julie

For training tips from Julie, visit the Training Library at http://juliegoodnight.com/q&a.php and check out her online store--full of training tools and DVDs-- at http://juliegoodnight.com/products.html

Weekend Getaway

I have never been so glad to get back in my own bed, after spending three long nights at what Rich and I both agreed was a hotel we would never stay in again, no matter what the price. And sadly, it wasn’t cheap—over $100 a night! I’ve stayed at better hotels at half the price. But in spite of our pitiful accommodations, we had a great weekend of riding, training and socializing with friends at a Versatility Ranch Horse clinic in Granby, Colorado.

Rich and I took our horses, Diggs and Dually, up to Granby Thursday night—it’s a beautiful three hour drive through the middle of the Rockies. We stalled at a private barn across the street from the clinic site so that our horses could have a real stall with a roof over their heads to ward off either rain or sun (we had both) and a soft place to lay down after a long day’s work. They were very comfy there and our friends that hosted us watched over them like they were their own. Horse people are just like that, you know?

There were 15 of us in the clinic (half full) and we split into three groups and rotated through three clinicians—any one of whom would have been great to spend the whole weekend with. Joe Wolter, http://www.joewolter.com/about.php renowned ranch horse clinician; Terry Wegener—an icon in Colorado amongst performance horse trainers; and Merritt Linke, an outstanding ranch roping clinician and the man that coached me through my first steer stop a couple years ago.

We started the first morning with Joe for ranch cutting for half a day. With a small group of five riders, it seemed like a private lesson—especially given that all five of us were already good friends and we knew each other’s horses. We had a blast, learned a lot and our horses progressed. What more could you ask? Dually cut well the first go-around, which was a surprise since he was very fresh on cows—but in the second and third rounds his freshness eeked out. The more he is in front of cows, the more he wants to eat their lunch. On the third round he fell down on me in an over-zealous moment, but both of us were unscathed in the fall and he cut well after the incident. Just to be safe, and remembering the previous back injury that he had from an over-strenuous move, which I nursed for 9 months, I let him rest that afternoon while I audited the intermediate cutters and watched Rich rope.

On Saturday, our group moved on to Terry’s clinic on working ranch horse, which is a combination of several disciplines: reining, boxing (similar to cutting) and working cowhorse—with a single cow in the arena, the rider takes the cow down the long fence (at speed) then turns him once in each direction, then brings the cow off the fence and makes the cow circle in each direction. In some VRH competitions you have to rope and stop the cow, instead of circling; in some competitions you have a choice of roping or circling. Again, we had a blast and learned a lot and Dually smoked a couple cows. It’s the speed work he really loves—and he is built like a speed machine.

Saturday afternoon it was the rider’s choice and Dually and I spent some more time with Terry—got a private lesson in fact, working on refining our reining maneuvers. Terry rode Dually quite a bit and had a blast doing so and it was very fun for me to see my horse being ridden. Dually’s a highly sensitive and forward moving horse, so he’s not a horse you could put anyone on, so I’ve really not seen him under saddle except from on top of his back. So I got some good training, as did my horse, and I came home with a notebook full of new exercises I am going to work on with my horse. I guess that’s why you go to clinics!

On Sunday, there was a full VRH competition, but since there was not an open division, I could not enter. Which is fine, since I really just like to go out and have fun on my horse. Instead, I enjoyed sitting with the judge (Terry Wegener) and hearing his comments and scores for each horse. Rich did well on his horse but had a couple off-pattern mistakes that cost him dearly (that’s where the patience and persistence comes in). With a three hour drive home, we didn’t stick around for the awards but instead made it home in time to soak in the hot tub, order a pizza and watch our favorite line-up on HBO (we love True Blood). A fitting end to a great weekend.

There’s a lot of interest in ranch horse competition these days—all over the country. It’s been very popular in Colorado for some time, but the rest of the country is just now discovering the fun and challenge of VRH. Rich and I are headed to Massachusetts in a couple weeks where we’ll give two VRH clinics (plus a horsemanship clinic). In the VRH clinics, we will go over the four riding classes: ranch cutting, working ranch horse, ranch trail and ranch riding (kinda like a simple dressage test), and review the rules, the class procedures and work on building skills.

One of the greatest things about VRH is that you have so many different things to work on, with the two cow classes being the most challenging and the most difficult to train for. Most people don’t have the capability to work cattle at home, so you have to go somewhere for lessons or go to some cowhorse clinics (either cutting or working cow or both), and put all the components together. Even just going to a reined cowhorse show or a cutting to watch will  help you learn something about the complicated disciplines.

And by the way, for those of you just getting into VRH, you should know that along with the fun and the challenge, comes the need for a great deal of patience. You can’t just get this stuff figured out in a weekend—it takes a long time for a horse and rider to hone all the skills needed for this event, but you’ll certainly have fun along the journey. If you start with a trained and experienced horse, it goes a lot quicker (and can be a lot more fun). If you’re both trying to figure out all this stuff together, it’ll take some time and persistence. But that’s true of all disciplines, isn’t it?

Enjoy the ride,

Julie

For training tips from Julie, visit the Training Library at http://juliegoodnight.com/q&a.php and check out her online store--full of training tools and DVDs-- at http://juliegoodnight.com/products.html

Jumping Right Into It-Teaching a Horse to Jump with Confidence

This week’s episode of Horse Master is about training a horse to jump. Not that you could possibly explain how to train a horse for such a complicated activity in a half-hour TV show, but, as usual, I kept it simple. Just two things to know: low and slow.

Ashley and her OTTB (off-the-track-Thoroughbred) were both ready for this—Ashley has ridden Hunters before and is a pretty good rider, certainly good enough to start a horse over fences and she knows how to ride over jumps. And although I would’ve liked to see her horse working a little better on the flat first-- less inverted, better transitions—her gelding was steady, relaxed, willing and in control. There’s no way in the 30 minute show I can cover everything that needs addressing with the horse and the rider, so I usually try to focus on one subject, which in this case was leaving Ashley with a plan to introduce her horse to jumping over the next six months.

In this episode, we showed a progression from simple trotting poles to poles and low cavaletti to canter poles to “pile o’ poles” combinations. The whole key to training good jumpers is to take it slow and keep it low to build a solid foundation. The quickest way to ruin a horse is to just start jumping him. I hear this all the time.

People say something like, “Oh, we started jumping and he’s doing great—you should see him jump—he loves it!” Well, all horses know how to jump and do it quite well—it’s part of the flight response. Just like all horses know how to do flying lead changes—doesn’t mean they know the cue to do it under saddle. Because jumping is a natural behavior for horses and not too challenging to their athletic prowess and because most horses are obedient and willing, if you point them at a jump and say giddy-up, they’ll go over it.

This initial willingness can devolve into mistrust, fear and bad behavior. They willingly go over more and more jumps until one day they have a bad jump—which all jumpers do on occasion—then, if they’ve been rushed into jumping, their courage is totally shattered. And their trust in you is damaged too because they were doing what you asked and got hurt (or scared); therefore you betrayed him. Then the horse starts running at the jumps or running around them, bucking when he lands or just flat-out refusing to jump. Have you ever seen a horse that discouraged by jumping?

On the other hand, when a solid foundation of ground poles, cavaletti, and very low jumps is built into the horse’s training, over an extended period, he learns that poles will move and fall down, may sometimes get tangled in his legs, or trip him, that jumps look different from different directions, etc., so that when that time comes and he has a bad jump, his confidence is not totally blown. Height comes easily to horses; a solid foundation of control, cadence and balance comes low and slow.

I grew up riding jumping horses and I loved it dearly. The only thing that comes close to the thrill of jumping is doing cow work. Whenever I am around it, like on this week’s episode of Horse Master, I get the bug to do it again. But alas, I have one really nice horse in my barn that I don’t get to ride enough, and he’s definitely not a jumper. But I bet we could do it….

Enjoy the ride!

Julie

For training tips from Julie, visit the Training Library at http://juliegoodnight.com/q&a.php and check out her online store--full of training tools and DVDs-- at http://juliegoodnight.com/products.html

Horse Master Episodes for July and August 2009

Watch Horse Master with Julie Goodnight Episodes on RFD-TV This July and August -- Then Access FREE Online Extras with Youtube, Facebook and More

Horse Buyer and Bit Problems Needed for our September, 2009 Horse Master Shoot in CO--Get Julie's help and advice as you buy your perfect horse

Summer’s an excellent time to review episodes of Horse Master with Julie Goodnight, especially those shot at Camelot Farms in South Carolina’s “low country.” At this location, Goodnight demonstrates exactly what to do for some all-too-common problems, such as keeping attention whil longeing, controlling head tossing and maintaining collection. First, watch what happens when a rebellious young horse thinks he’s in charge of the longe line, yanks it out of his owner’s hands and takes off. Goodnight shows the owner how to calmly assert her authority on the ground and build a productive relationship going forward. Next up, a Quarter Horse mare tosses her head and rides through the bit, and you may be surprised at Goodnight’s smart solution of a milder bit and softer hands. Another mystery you’ll discover is why it’s so difficult to maintain collection when it’s one of the most natural movements a horse can do. Find out Goodnight’s method that focuses on the horse’s innate instincts.

Horse Master’s RFD-TV episodes air every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. EST (with encores airing Thursday and Saturday nights) on Direct TV channel 345, Dish Network channel 231 as well as cable outlets. See the expanded schedule below.

Free online extras:
Find out more about each episode and read FREE articles that accompany and supplement each topic at http://juliegoodnight.com (click on the Horse Master link at the top left). Goodnight’s online Training Library also contains questions answered by a pro and is free to read. If you want even more training tips and advice –and chances to win Goodnight’s DVDs and gear –join her fan club on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2357009854&ref=t and sign up for her free monthly newsletter at http://juliegoodnight.com/emailsignup.php (each newsletter edition contains at least two new training articles). Goodnight also writes about key horse keeping and training topics on her blog http://juliegoodnightontheroad.blogspot.com/and announces all through Twitter at http://twitter.com/juliegoodnight. It’s all free to you and will help you form the perfect relationship with your horse.

Schedule of RFD-TV’s Horse Master with Julie Goodnight July & August 2009
July 15, 16, 18
“Private Lesson”: The Horse Master helps an advanced rider learn to collect and ask her horse for more.
July 22, 23, 25
“Jump Into It”: The Horse Master builds confidence in a young jumper.
July 29, 20, August 1
“New Directions”: The Horse Master teaches a Rocky Mountain gaited horse to turn on the haunches.
August 5, 6, 8
“The Great Escape”: The Horse Master helps a horse owner stay in charge while longeing.
August 12, 13, 15
“Rescue and Rehab”: The Horse Master helps a once-starved horse get back in shape.
August 19, 20, 22
“A Bit Too Much”: The Horse Master changes a horse’s bit to stop head tossing, and helps the rider relax.
August 26, 27, 29
“Private Lesson”: The Horse Master helps an advanced rider learn to collect and ask her horse for more.

Be a Cast Member on Horse Master with Julie Goodnight: Bitting issues:
For the September, 2009 shoot to be held in Salida, Colorado, Goodnight will break from the usual form and work specifically with horses with bit issues. She's looking for riders with horses that have control problems under saddle for either a lack of training or poor training or riding. For example, they may toss their heads, root on the reins, throw their heads up or take hold of the bit and run off. Also, Goodnight’s looking for high-level dressage or reining horses that won’t round up into a collected frame and that resist any pressure from the rider's hands or that gape open the mouth. Dale Myler, of Myler Bits®, will be joining Goodnight as guest host. By switching bits and learning to ride with new tack, the training team will help solve aggravating problems.

Horse Shopping?
In addition, Goodnight’s planning a horse-buying series and will help a potential buyer through the selection process. To qualify for this incredible opportunity, you should be an adult intermediate to advanced rider who is looking for a reliable pleasure mount in the $10,000 price range. Perhaps a previous experience made you lose your confidence and realize how valuable a well-trained and bomb-proof horse is. So now you’re looking for a horse that you can take lessons and go to clinics on, possibly learn a new discipline, maybe even do some low-key showing at some point. But primarily you will use this horse to pleasure and trail ride. If you're interested in being our horse buyer, please apply using the application at http://www.horsemaster.juliegoodnight.com/apply.html, and also e-mail Julie Goodnight and tell her why you'd be the perfect horse buyer: horsemaster@juliegoodnight.com

Celebrating Half a Century/ 5-Pound Challenge Update

Well, I am officially 50 years old now and really, I don’t feel a day over 49. Actually, I feel pretty good and although I have never put a lot of stock in numbers, I have to admit, the half a century mark is a little intimidating. How much time do I really have left? Is half my life gone? But then again, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow (though there aren't a lot of buses in Salida). So I guess I’ll just go on with my life as normal, with extra consideration to the fact that this second half of the century could be more important.

Fun and Memories

Most of my family, from near and far, were here over the weekend to help me celebrate my birthday and we enjoyed a splendid four days of playing, cooking, eating, drinking, laughing and talking story. My son and his three cousins were here and it was really nice to see them all together—two girls and two boys—from both ends of the country, ranging in age from 14 to 22. One day we drove up to the top of Monarch Mountain for an exquisite view from the continental divide and the next day we drove over one of the highest mountain passes in CO, Independence Pass (the picture here of the one lane road), and had a marvelous lunch in Aspen while my brother tore up Snowmass Mountain on his downhill bike.

On Sunday, my crew and a few of my oldest friends had a BD party for me and although I am not normally big on celebrating BDs (and they were all well warned of this and a little worried about how much they should/would do), I have to say, it will go down as one of my fondest memories in the first half-century of my life.

With contributions of photos and video from friends all over the country, Heidi was able to put together an incredible slide show of my life, starting with me riding ponies—through the evolution of my career. It came with a beautiful book of all the photos so I can pick it up and look at it anytime I want. Thankfully I can scratch that photo album forever off my to-do list.

After a fabulous shish kabob dinner, we watched a video montage that was so incredibly funny that it left me literally rolling on the floor, grabbing my gut, my face soaking wet with tears of laughter. My neck and abs were sore the next day from all the belly laughs!

Thank you to all the people that contributed photos and videos to the project and thanks especially to Heidi, the glue that tied it all together; to Cheryl and Lucy for their extraordinary acting and commentary in the video; to Steve for finding all those outtakes from the show (I’ll remember that Stevey); and to Brenda, for sneaking around to find all my old photos (and to Horse & Rider who conveniently wrote me a few weeks ago to ask if I had any childhood photos of me on a horse, causing me to dig through boxes of old photos). It was a wonderful and fitting present for a 50^th BD and it left me and my family with the distinct feeling that I am fortunate to have such wonderful people in my life.

Back to the 5-Pound Challenge

Although my friend Cheryl believes in celebrating your “birthday month”. A week of celebrating was plenty for me. As great as it was, I am ready to get back to work and get some riding in too. And I definitely have to get back to my second five pound challenge! I guess I am lucky that I have managed to keep off the first five pounds I lost, but I’ve made little headway on the second five pounds. I have continued to work out daily and have added a few miles to my walk/run but that just keeps me status quo. I need a little boost. Any ideas?

It’s time for an update on everyone else 5# challenge! How are you coming?? Does summer make it harder or easier to lose weight? What about you feather weights that are just trying to get more fit—how’s that coming? Rich is well into winning his second 5# challenge and he may be at the lowest weight since I’ve known him. Dang it. It’s a lot easier to do the challenge with a spouse or partner who is willing to eat well with you! How hard would it be to lose weight if you were surrounded by people that ate all the wrong things?

Enjoy the ride!

Julie

For training tips from Julie, visit the Training Library at http://juliegoodnight.com/q&a.php and check out her online store--full of training tools and DVDs-- at http://juliegoodnight.com/products.html

Home from the Oregon Horse Master Shoot

In the whirlwind of the past three weeks, I have been scrambling from one thing to the next, starting with a clinic in CO, followed by a shoot in OR for Horse Master, then July 4^th weekend with my dad and finally home. I spent a few days scrambling to get caught up after 10 days on the road and get ready for our family reunion, which was four days of eating, drinking and celebrating. I have to say that my five-pound challenge is not going well, but I’m happy that I’ve managed to keep the first five pounds off that I had lost.

The Horse Master shoot was outside Portland, Oregon, at an extraordinary dressage barn called Tanz-Pherde (means dancing horses) http://www.tanz-pferde.com/ . We filmed in or near their new outdoor arena and were surrounded by incredible trees and forest—beautiful back drops in 360 degrees—perfect for a shoot. Plus we had use of the luxurious air-conditioned lounge hanging over the indoor arena to rest and wolf down meals at as we watched gorgeous dressage horses go through their paces. Best of all, the people at Tanz-Pherde were so helpful and generous and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

We filmed six episodes (and several commercials) in three days, our normal shoot schedule. These six episodes will be the last shows to run this year; our next shoot will be in September for the first shows of 2010. Incredibly, all six episodes were great, with the horses showing dramatic behavior changes and the riders understanding what they needed to do to in order to carry on. With six really good episodes “in the can” I think all of the crew would agree that one episode that really stood out was Lux and Clare and the dramatic change made in this horse.

Clare has become an outstanding rider, due to the crazy bucking temper tantrums Lux would throw when he didn’t want to work. Lux is a huge warmblood who hates to move forward and doesn’t mind fighting about it. But, as I’ve said before, the great thing about big lazy horses is that they can only buck so hard before they get lazy and quit. The key to riding horses that buck in a refusal to move forward is to ride them forward through the bucks and only let them stop when they are relaxed in the back and moving freely forward (without any pedaling from the rider). Once they figure out that bucking buys them more work and relaxing gets them less work, they’ll never buck again; at least not with you. Clare was doing an exceptional job of riding Lux through his temper tantrums and it looked as if she knew his every move. She rode well through his bucking and rearing antics, calmly and confidently, keeping her cool and not provoking Lux at all. But, in spite of all this, riding was not really what this horse’s problem was—it was far more fundamental than that.

Lux’s sordid history includes winning championships in the hunter ring as a five year old, when Clare was only ten; although he was already displaying some naughty behavior then, it wasn’t until he broke his hind leg that his behavior spiraled down. With a long recovery period, Lux went totally sound within a year, but he had become very spooky, fractious and aggressive behavior—no resemblance of the former rock star that he was. Thousands of dollars were spent on vets exams, acupuncture, chiropractic, calming supplements, new saddles, therapeutic pads, bits, shoeing and three years later, the trainers were still stumped at what they could do to resolve Lux’s fractiousness. Now a mature 16 year old, Clare sees that her beloved horse is not getting better so she pulls him out of training, thinking it’s time for a break and she turns him out to pasture in a large herd, which Lux immediately takes over as Alpha. Now, a year and a half later, six years after Lux’s injury, Clare is ready to try again to resolve his behavior and she has studied natural horsemanship and is certain that’s the answer. And she was right.

It only took a fifteen minute session in the round pen before Lux was hooked on and following me around the pen like a puppy. Of course, that was after he had jumped out once, bucked, kicked, snorted and tossed his head in defiant gestures. He was very determined to not acknowledge my presence—head up and looking outside the pen, but being fat and out of shape got the better of him and his head started dropping. Soon he was giving me great head bobs in a deliberate gesture of submission. Again, once lazy horses figure out the path of least resistance, they take it.

I showed Clare how to correct his ground manners and develop a larger perimeter of space around her so that the big Lug, uh, Lux isn’t walking all over her. Clare turned out to be an exceptional student and absorbed what happened as I round-penned the horse and made the necessary changes in her handling of Lux. My assistant trainer, T Cody, did a little more ground work with Lux and watched carefully as Clare work him to make sure Lux maintained his subordinate demeanor and respected his boundaries.

The next day Lux was still a changed horse-- respecting Clare’s authority, keeping his focus on her at all times and keeping his head down and relaxed. With a great sense of accomplishment, we wrapped-up Clare’s episode and as I was leaving the round pen to go change into clothes for the next show, I told Clare she should take advantage of the work we’d done in that round pen over last 24 hours and saddle him up and see how he rides. When I came out 10 minutes later, Clare was cantering figure 8s in the round pen, doing beautiful flying lead changes with each turn as her mother shouted with glee into her cell phone, sharing the success with Clare’s dad.

I’ve had one update from Clare, in the past three weeks and she asked an astute question and immediately put the answer to work on Lux with great success. I think Clare will do great things with this horse and I hope she’ll keep my posted on their success. It takes two to maintain this kind of change in a horse—both the horse and the handler/rider need to change their ways. With horses, it always boils down to the human stepping up to the plate and showing some leadership—either you are the boss of them, or they are the boss of you—that’s the way it works in a horse herd. Horses are much happier when there is a competent leader in charge, so that they can relax and not have to think. Have you seen this kind of change in a horse?

Sometimes you just have to break the cycle that you are in and make fundamental changes. Lux’s problem was not one that could be resolved through more training under saddle and changing his tack. It was far more fundamental than that and the answer was authoritative groundwork and establishing rules, boundaries and expectations. Remember these words Clare, “This is your Captain speaking!”

I promise to write more tomorrow.

Julie