Recently I audited the clinic of one of my favorite instructors, Jim Wofford. Jim teaches with humor and clarity, both of which are really helpful to students. Jim’s system has been developed from his early lessons from Fort Riley instructors, countless hours on horseback in a variety of activities, time spent on the Olympic team, and an extraordinary amount of competitive experience.
He’s the rider’s instructor and the instructor’s instructor. You can’t help but learn new teaching technique when you listen to his lessons. He’s inspiring, encouraging and realistic. Listening to him, you could knew he’d been to the top but you also knew that he understood the place each of his students was in.
He started the day with a lecture that lasted about an hour. The lecture outlined his theory for the lessons he’d planned for the day. Jim teaches that the rider should always have a vertical stirrup leather. This is different than a leather that is perpendicular to the ground because that only works for the rider when the ground is level. A vertical leather means that the rider always has support in the leg and foot, the foot, he says, is the rider’s ground. Jim had a white board and a marker and showed us this theory in detail.
Jim also believes that we can’t micro manage every foot fall f the horse. He says that the horse needs to be allowed to make mistakes in order to learn how to handle problems when they arise. He told us that Jack Le Goff said that a rider can know too much for the horse. In other words, the rider that knows too much is in danger of doing too much for the horse and not allowing it to make mistakes.
I want to be clear….Jim does not teach “natural horsemanship”. But for me, he’s living proof that “natural horsemanship” is natural to someone who is a horseman through and through. He teaches that training is not about what the rider knows, but it’s about what the horse perceives, understands or thinks it can do. I’d say that’s about as close to seeing things from the horse’s point of view as you can get. And “from the horse’s point of view” is a major principal in “natural horsemanship”.
Thank you for your blog. I’ve really enjoyed reading it. This video was very interesting and I’d love to hear more about your take on two moments (2:12-2:15 and 6:18-6:23). I am wondering if you see any opportunities for these moments of exuberance/unbalance to have been avoided. I am curious about this because, as a middle-aged rider with a young-ish and athletic horse, I am finding myself less and less interested in riding moments like those. And more and more interested in getting nerdy about riding in a slightly less “exciting” way.
I enjoyed watching those two parts of the video on .25 speed and asking myself if there were ways the rider might ahve been able to better prepare and support the horse. But I wasn’t sure what the answer was. If you happen to have time to look back at the video, I’d love to hear your take. Do you see opportunities in those moments? *Could the riders have helped the horses feel more in balance? Could the riders have better prepared the horse with unmounted work over the little hill and the drop? Or do moments like this fall firmly in the “some stiuff is just plain unavoidable” category?
Hi Willa,
You pose an interesting question. When I slow this film and look at both horses the common denominator I see is their tails flipping before their explosions. Tails are a great sign to indicate discomfort, tension, or resistance. There are several reasons you might see this. One could be just feeling good, which I suspect might be the case with the first horse. He’s headed on the downside and feels a little extra freedom in his hind legs. Looking at his first time over the mound he indicates he’s feeling pretty good with a swish of the tail as he ascends the mound. When he returns, it’s more pronounced. Other reasons a horse flips his tail could be discomfort in the horses hind legs or his back. Both of these riders were good about not slamming into their horses backs, although the practice of leaning back on the decent is tougher on a horse’s back end. Another reason for this kind of explosion is the horse anticipates trouble after the fence. Anticipating having it’s mouth hit makes a sensitive horse panic. For instance, in the case of a hot horse who lands and moves off fast. If the rider is even a little bit fearful and grabs the horse’s mouth to slow him, the horse learns to anticipate this pain with displeasure. My guess is the second horse may have this in his experience. He is afraid of having his mouth grabbed in correction. But did you notice how the horse attempted to invert at the crest of the mound before jumping down? This tells me this horse has not had the muscular development he needs on the flat and isn’t happy with the way he’s required to carry himself. He doubly shows his resistance after the jump when she tries to put him back in a “frame” and he exaggerates his resistance with a huge invert. It seems to me this horse is trying to avoid the hand and has probably argued about it before. She may have shown better tact by letting him move forward (the way the first rider rode her horse forward) and easing him back into balance, rather than force him to submit right away. I get the impression this horse would love to gallop on but is never allowed to.The horse is not confident in his rider.
All that said, I understand where you are with your riding. There comes a time we’d like to have more assurance our ride won’t have those explosions. I get this. I am well past middle-aged. But there are no guarantees with horses, as you know. They are wonderful animals to submit and cooperate with all the things we ask them to do. But they are animals and they have their own ways of expressing opinions and must be allowed to be horses. If you want a ride with a little more guarantee than the riders in the video had, the key is to make sure you are not over mounted. This can be difficult for those of us who love forward horses. With as lovely as your horse sounds, since he’s young and athletic, you may need to reconsider whether he is the horse for you. If he is, you may need to put up with moments like this until he is more mature, or perhaps adjust what you do with him or who would ride him in situations where he may play around. Certainly though, be certain (and I’m sure you are) that he is comfortable in his joints, back, tack etc. Thank you for reading The Riding Instructor and for making your comment. I wish you the greatest success with your horse. Barbara