BARB APPLE CLINIC
by Susan Dillard
Day 1
This day started around noon and ran until about 7:30PM. There were 9 horses and riders in the class, with various disciplines represented. (One girl even rode bareback, hue to upconing knee surgery.)
I was very impressed with Barb. She was very friendly and made everyone feel at ease. She was very clear with her instructions and made sure that everyone knew exactly what she meant. If anyone came away from this clinic not understanding something, it was their own fault. She was always encouraging people to ask questions (both riders and auditors) and to let her know if they didn't understand something. When having the riders do something, if they had a problem she would work with them until they got it and she made sure that they did. No pressure, just constant supervision and instruction when needed and encouragement when they did it right! She wouldn't let you just sluff it off and say "yeah, I see how it's done", she made you do it so she knew that you saw it. But again I want to stress that it was all done without any undue pressure or fear. (Gee, does that sound familiar!). I wouldn't hesitate to participate in one of Barb's clinics, in fact, I hope to do so one day. She is a great "teacher"!
Now, on to the clinic:
One note beforehand, this was not a beginning clinic, horses were supposed to have basics in place before the clinic. This was more to refine the horse.
It started with riders having their horses in hand with lead ropes. She stressed the importance of knowing exactly where your horse's feet are. The goal is to have your horse's feet in your hands.
She first started with a pivot on the hindquarters. She had the riders start with one step at a time, keeping the horse balanced and going slow. Gradually upping the number of steps as proficiency increased. Next was the pivot on the forehand. Same format as above.
One point she made regarding driving a horse was to keep more distance between you and the horse. She said this was something she was taught years ago and she has seen the distance bertween person and horse decrease and along with the decrease in distance has come an increase in problems. She said some horses feel threatened when we are in too close. Sort of like the prey/predator thing. Once you get them moving comfortably from a distance, then you can come in closer. If your horse's ears flatten and they get "the look" (my interjection) try backing off a little in your driving game and see what happens.
Next exercise was to match strides with your horse. First at a walk, have horse walk next to you with you at his shoulder so you can see the feet, and try to match each other's stride. It was really neat to see her trying to slow down to match her horse and her horse slowing down to meet Barb's until they both came to a complete standstill, with the last few steps really slow. Then she would have them do it backing, and finally at a trot. When trotting she had you put your hand on the horse's withers while trotting along beside. If the horse resists the hand, wait a minute and then try again after he is going comfortably.
Someone asked a question about their horse not wanting to lower it's head. Barb said to ask for the head to lower with the hand on the poll, then slide your hand back down along the top of the neck. If the head comes back up, "lower the ceiling" by sliding your hand back to the poll. Head goes down, hand goes back down neck.. Head comes up, hand comes back, just keep repeating until the head stays down. Then bring the head back up.
She talked about having the horse go forward, backward and standing still just with signals from your seat. To get the horse to go backward picture sitting on a barstool and lifting the front legs of the stool off the floor with your seat. If this doesn't make sense she said, roll forward on your crotch and squeeze from the knees up.
To stop the horse, sit down, (quit riding).
To go forward, rock back and squeeze with calves.
An important realization for me was something she said about the horse being disrespectfull. if the horse is disrespectfull to you, you can be disrespectful to the horse. I think this has been a big problem I've had wth Breeze, my 2 year old Morab. I've done a lot with her, and I saw things at the clinic today that she had down pat. But in my desire to not ruin her trust in me, I have let her maybe not get away with things, but haven't met her disresect in the same measure that she's shown to me. In other word's if you rated behaviors on a scale of 1 to 10 and she showed me a 5 in opposition to what I was asking, I might only meet it with a 3. I should (if I understood correctly) meet a 5 with a 5.
Back to the clinic. She stressed the importance of having control of the feet again, in fact this was the main theme of the clinic I thought. She had all sorts of exercises to accomplish this. After people could move the front end and the hind end separately, then she had them connect both ends and sidepass down the rail.
Another thing she stressed was setting it up and waiting. If you have it all set up right and wait, eventually the horse will figure it out and that is when you release. I saw this happen with numerous people.
After this we had an hour break for something to eat and a chance to stretch.
I will try to finish this in the next day or so. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll try to answer them as best I can. Unfortunately, I was only able to attend the first day, so I hope the other list member to be, will finish with day 2.
