#HORSE TRAINING
Let’s Discuss: A Trainer’s Responsibility
“[H]ow long should a trainer wait before deciding that their approaches just aren’t working? At what point does the horse’s training venture out of the ‘just needs a bit more time’ box and into the ‘now we’re wasting everyone’s time and the client’s money’ box?”
The Importance of a Trainer Who Can Adapt to Your Needs
“You must be formless, shapeless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” – Bruce Lee
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Want a Good Bend? Get Straight First
You have to create straight before you can fix any form of lean or crookedness… (more…)
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Match Making (The Ramen Redux)
When someone decides they want to be a horse trainer, rarely do they also say they want to be a match maker. But the truth of the matter is, that’s often what horse training and selling is all about. (more…)
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Four Rides A Week
“For a horse in full work, I like the number four. This gives you enough time in the saddle to accomplish goals and work towards training without forgetting to let them be a horse and have fun.”
Training in the Right Way: The Actual Purpose of Lateral Work
Lateral work is perhaps one of the most useful groups of exercises in the development of the horse as these exercises are fundamental to developing both suppleness and eventually collection.
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Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: A ‘Good’ Race Record, Part IV — The Warhorse
Today we’re talking about the warhorses — those incredible athletes that have made more than 50 starts. (more…)
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: A ‘Good’ Race Record, Part III
This week focuses on the horses that ran 15 – 30 races. Read on to learn more about what to look for and which questions to ask.
Training in the Right Way: Where Language Fails Us in Training
Language is a funny thing, being simultaneously necessary and unavoidably imperfect…
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Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Point and Patient
“The technique of point them at it and be patient makes braver horses because it both sets the expectation — over or through — and gives them time to slow down, process and be smart about it.” (more…)
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Turning Well
“For the green Thoroughbred, turning this way allows them to forgo speed and antics. It allows them to be ridden forward in front of your leg and complete the circles, squares, figure-eights, whatever is asked without changing their pace.” (more…)
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Let It Go (The Inside Rein)
“A primary consequence of the inside rein is that it tips a horse onto their forelimbs and off of the hind. A knock-on set of results are that it speeds a horse up and becomes harder for the horse to come over their back, create a powerful push from behind and correct… frame.” (more…)
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Why Change & Chaos Are ‘Easy’
“I am proud of them for their quiet strolls around the facility, their eager walk (but willingness to stay at a walk) as we carouse through the woods. But I’m not surprised. They are Thoroughbreds, after all.” (more…)
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Bring on the Backup Plans
Horses will teach you many things … but these past two months, the learning has been this: you’ll always need a backup plan (or like 47 of them). (more…)
Training in the Right Way: Using the Dressage Arena To Maximize Your Training
Have you ever considered why the standard dressage arena is the very specific size and shape that it is? Spoiler alert: It does serve a purpose.
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Training in the Right Way: Knowing When It’s Time To Stop
When training, how do you know when it’s too little, or too much, or enough? It’s important to differentiate between doing too much and doing too little, as well as considering how each end of the spectrum can appear in — and affect the — training.
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Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: How To Stop Gripping the Go Button
“Balance means the ability to flow with what the horse tosses at you and the capacity to retain that quiet control through transitions or comical behavior. Ultimately, a balanced rider can be a soft rider.”
Training in the Right Way: The Process vs The End Goal
This week’s article discusses the significant difference between the end goal and the process of getting there. Although they obviously are inextricably linked, it’s important to understand that they often look very different.
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Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Confirm the Ask
“The more practiced the language of ask and confirm, the more ‘normal paced’ things can go and the better the trust and overall communication gets.” (more…)
The Idea of Order: Weekly Disaster Wheel
I guess some horses spin this daily…
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Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: The Try and Its Anxiety
“99.99% of the Thoroughbreds I have swung a leg over respond with utter enthusiasm and a golden-retriever-like sense of ‘sweet!’ and ‘did I get it right?'” (more…)
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: The Shopping Cart Feel
“The cart idea not only keeps people from pulling, riding backwards or balancing off the bit, but also it actually helps improve equitation and sets up riders to be subtle.”
Thoroughbred Logic, Presented by Kentucky Performance Products: Crafting a “Thoroughbred-Forward” Team
“[W]hen the owner, trainer, and barn staff are Thoroughbred-forward, that’s fantastic. But it is even better if the team that surrounds the horse … [is] willing to pitch in to the process.” (more…)
