Estes Park Clinic Report

from  Marlene Moss

I just came back from attending a week long clinic named the Horse

Gathering in Estes Park Colorado.  A quick summary just in case some of you

don't want to read this whole thing or because it's off topic:  This was

the best money I have ever spent.  It was well worth the vacation time and

every penny.  If you didn't go this year, you really missed out on

something special.  If you don't go next year, I'm sure you'll be missing

out on something even better.

The presenters included:  Mark Rashid, Harry Whitney, Jessica Jahiel, Dave

Genadek (saddlefit), Dave Siemans (chiro), Susan Crawford (cranio-sacral),

Vic Thomas (adult learning), Linda Bertani (marketing), Dave Abbas

(computers), Todd Williams (dental), Chris Ryan (legal issues), Stuart

Greenberg (farrier) and Deb Bennett.

There were 8 demo horses to help the presenters show different problems and

approaches.  My mare, Venesza was one of them.  For those of you that

haven't heard about her - she is a very high energy horse that exhausts me

to hold back and will rush through obstacles with her eyes closed

(figuratively).  It took us 20 minutes to get her into the stall when we

arrived.

The first day began at the conference room at the hotel.  First up after

introductions was Vic Thomas.  He really set the tone for the entire

conference - that the whole purpose was to keep everyone in the best

possible learning mode.  He introduced the term "learning hook", which

means anything that distracts you from the goal of learning something new.

Almost all of the other presenters used terms and concepts he used

throughout the week, which really helped us retain information better.

Next Dr. Deb Bennett gave a presentation on biomechanics.  She had brought

Woody along with her to demonstrate how most horses lean. Then Harry and

Mark talked for a little while about their approaches - similarities and

differences.  Jessica Jahiel then spoke about her teaching approach.

I then went back to the barn for a quick ride, trying to figure out what I

was going to do the next day for my riding session with Mark.  The previous

week I had attended a 2 day clinic with Venesza and Mark - the goal being

to learn to back over a log.  We spent 2 hours fighting just to go forward

over the log.  I was really upset with myself at how much I had to crank on

the reins and that I had no ability to keep her from avoiding things.  So I

thought we'd work on lateral stuff, turn on forehand, haunches, maybe even

get to sidepass. In the practice arena, I found a pole and was quite

pleased that the work from the previous weekend seemed to help - only one

refusal.

The next morning, Tuesday, we started with Harry Whitney doing a colt

starting session.  The subject was a 2.5 yr old palomino.  I got the

impression the horse had been rescued, but didn't hear any details, so not

sure.  The owner definitely lived for her horse and had been reluctant to

even come and risk letting someone else hurt her horse.  He had been

saddled, but didn't like anyone or thing over his head or back.  They

started out just by seeing how the horse reacted and got him to fairly

calmly accept saddling.  But you could see that he still wasn't happy with

life.

Next I went to a session with Dr. Dave Siemans, chiropractor.  I didn't

have my horse for this session, but I already knew Dave.  He worked on

Venesza earlier in the year when we went through a major saddle fit and

sore back problem.  Dave had brought a horse carcass so we could really see

what he was working on.  Dave is very calm and relaxed, which really helps

the horse as he does the adjustments.

Then there was a session with Jessica working with a lady that I got to be

good friends with and her very lovely thoroughbred.  They worked on

increasing the speed of the walk with the horse - he's an ex-racehorse and

walks fast on the trail, but very slow in the arena.  Jessica ended up

working more on the seat of the rider.  She looked really nice, but was a

little stiff and kept her reins too loose.  Jessica felt it was more

important to work on those areas first before they'd have success with the

stride of the horse.

Then I went to the farrier session.  I love Stuart Greenberg!  I have never

seen a farrier work so nicely with a horse.  I didn't have Venesza in that

session, but I talked to him the night before since we'd had to do an

emergency de-shoing prior to driving to Estes.  I had planned on removing

shoes anyhow, but still wasn't comfortable with paring the frogs and didn't

have the best tools for dealing with bars and soles.  Stuart walked up to

the mare and petted her before even asking to touch a foot.  He let her

pick her foot up to the level she wanted, rather than yanking it up and

then set it down nicely.  Venesza likes to tuck her hind foot up and

forward before letting someone bring it farther back - and he figured that

out right away. Stuart had lots of feet and bone samples and just did an

awesome job of explaining hoof mechanism.  He is also a great believer in

keeping horses barefoot - as long as it works for the horse and his

specific job and environment.

Next was my session with Mark.  That morning I had hopped on Venesza

bareback while she was grazing in a ditch.  So I thought an additional

thing to work on would be to soften my cues and really improve my

communication with her.  I went into the round pen bareback with halter and

lead rope and explained what I wanted to do.  Mark wasn't real sure this

would be a good thing - main point was that tack doesn't matter, we could

do this just as well with tack.  I explained that it would be a mental

thing for me - if I thought I didn't have a bit to haul back on, I would

have to figure out something else.

Mark asked me to show how I would do a turn on the haunches, so I did my

best from my image of how it's done (never really had a good lesson there)

and what do you know, it didn't work.  So Mark had me back up and just work

on turning.  In just a few minutes we were turning almost just by thinking

about the turn.  I didn't have to use reins and just a teeny amount of leg,

sometimes.  It was really soft and amazing.  Then we did the same thing for

the back.  I started to back and he asked me on a scale of 1-10, how much

pressure was I using.  We had already softened things a lot, so honestly, I

was only using about a 3 on my scale that covered me trying to control her

on the trail - but still a  LOT.  Soon, I was using about a 0.5 for a

lovely calm back.  At one point, we were just starting to back and Mark

said look over there, and wow, there went a turn on the haunches!  Turn on

the forehand was almost as easy, but I do need to keep working on not

letting her walk off.

Later than night we had a round table discussion which turned all teary as

Mark asked us how we deal with saying goodbye (both loss and selling). That

was pretty tough as I had just lost my cat the day I drove to Estes. But

people had some very poignant stories.  Someone asked Dr. Deb and Stuart if

they knew anything about Hiltrud Strasser and they didn't really comment

there, but both did say that barefoot was better in the right

circumstances. Dr. Deb did stress that all these "Natural" approaches

(shoeing, trimming, training, whatever) make no logical sense because

virtually no one's horse is in a natural situation.

Wednesday started with Mark working with the lady and the thoroughbred,

when they continued where Jessica had left off on increasing stride length.

It was really nice to see both horse and rider respond to Mark's

suggestions and become really comfortable with each other.  Progress really

started to be made when the rider started be more sensitive in feeling when

her horse was asking "can I slow down now?"  Then she was able to say, no,

please stay at that speed.

Then I took Venesza to a biomechanics session with Deb Bennett.  I don't

think we discussed biomechanics.  But she did provide an excellent example

of a learning hook.

After Dr. Deb's session, I had another session with Vic Thomas in adult

learning.  He has been a teacher at a police academy and really has

excellent communication skills.  It was really neat how he was able to link

learning in lecture situations to learning in horse clinics.  I have been

applying the things he talked about with the people I work with and it has

already made a huge difference.

The next session was Legal issues with Chris Ryan.  He talked about

contracts for selling, buying, training.  And what you need to think about

if you have a business involving horses.  He is a member of a very large

riding club in California and has also worked with insurance companies for

their events.

Later was another colt breaking session with the palomino.  Harry decided

to back off and just see where this horse's mind was.  He worked both on

foot and from the back of his horse, using a flag.  All the time stressing

that he doesn't want us running off and using flags.  He's doing what works

for him in a specific situation and he know how to use the flag safely.  He

got to the point where he was able to saddle the horse again, and a little

more calmly.  However, right after most everyone left for the end of the

day, the horse just lost it, it was too much for him and he ran bucking

around. I had come back through a little later riding my horse and caught a

little bit of that.  Harry addressed that in that 3rd session with this horse.

That night there was a banquet at the hotel and it was a lot of fun. Lots

of stories and Jeff Abbas (also a DJ and chef) was the MC.  He made of some

spoofs on possible alternative lives the presenters could have lived - very

funny.  Mark was prodded to tell a very funny story about his son roping

pigs.  Then Mark and a band called the Elktones performed while others got

to show off some very fancy footwork.

Thursday started with Harry working with the palomino again.  He told

people what had happened the night before and said they were really going

to start from the beginning with this horse.  Again he worked from foot and

horseback, just trying to get the horse comfortable with moving around,

especially with someone over his head level.  Eventually Harry was able to

sit on the fence and get the horse to move from one side to the other of

him, calmly and accepting.

After that was a marketing session with Linda Bertani.  She was one of the

people that help organize the whole thing and is also married to Vic

Thomas. She is an excellent communicator.  She talked a lot about promoting

clinics and how to get your business out there.  Really good ideas like

writing something up for local publications and signing with your name and

business. Donate to 4-H your products or your time was a really good

one.  It was a really fun session.

Next I had a riding session with Jessica.  The night before she had

complimented me and Venesza on our session with Mark and loaned me a spirit

bridle (bitless) to try.  It worked very well, no transition time and I was

able to keep everything soft and easy like in Mark's session.  We had even

opened a gate with me mounted the night before.  We worked on the same

things I'd done with Mark, with a focus more on my seat and hands.  I

didn't ride around a whole lot, Jessica did a lot of talking and she is

just great to listen to.

Then I had a computer session with Jeff Abbas.  It started with people just

talking about what computers to use, what software and ISPs to use. Then we

talked about those of us having businesses where we wanted a web site

presence.  This was great info for me since I'm going to start selling some

tack.

Later I had a session with Venesza and Susan Crawford on cranio-sacral

issues.  We actually started the session with the palomino from Harry's

session because they'd tried to work with him earlier but a nasty rainstorm

really bothered him.  Susan thinks of things in terms of energy and

blockages and releases.  She thought that the horse had probably been

separa ted from his mother early and had also probably had a pretty bad

accident as there seemed to be major issues on one shoulder and in the neck

and head. The horse went from being fairly intolerant to actually coming

right up to Susan and almost asking for work in specific areas.  Venesza

didn't have any major problems (things we already knew about as she gets a

monthly chiro visit).  Susan showed me a technique of rocking, both at the

hips and shoulders that helps the horse loosen up.

Then Mark started working a 4 yr old Walker mare.  She hadn't had much done

with her (so no real problems) but she wasn't used to ropes.  He taught her

to longe on a line and worked toward ground driving.  It was really amazing

watching this mare think.  She was quite confused when she could hear

Mark's voice right next to her, but even louder out of the

loudspeaker.  But she is very smart and figure things out and progressed

quite smoothly.  I think this is a place where most people might make

mistakes (myself for sure) and move too fast.  She learned so quickly it

would be tempting to just keep going and ride her right away.  But Mark makes the right decisions to go slowly and really make sure the horse is comfortable before progressing.  I will always try to keep this session in mind when I work with the young

guys or the horses that I'm trying to help through something new.

They decided to hold another impromptu question and answer session.  We

were all in tears again as the owner of the palomino talked about what she

was getting from the clinic and her hopes for the horse.  Someone asked the

panel how they are able to translate their desire to helping horses to

communicating to people.  Dr. Deb explained that she doesn't care about her

communication abilities and that she knows when we're upset, but that it's

so much more important that we all know that we're wrong so that the horse

can be saved.  Mark followed that up with a really awesome story of how he

wrecked the old man's sulky cart and that the old man turned it into a

learning session (how to repair tack, wheels, carts, tend to horse wounds)

and never once yelled at him.  Mark said that always thinks of that

experience when trying to help people learn to think about and for their

horses.

Friday came too quick.  It started with another session with the palomino.

This time Harry started with the horse and quickly got him back to where he

was from the previous day, dealing with someone sitting on the fence. Then

the owner came in and worked with him and was able to do the same things,

even though she didn't get to use the flag.  I know everyone at the clinic

will want to know how things work out with this horse, but they will have a

long slow road ahead.  I think Harry and Mark had a great impact on the

owner and have helped her decide to best path to help this horse with his

problems.

Then Mark worked with the Walker again and finished up the ground driving

work.  She is off to an excellent start and her owner is really pleased.  I

talked to him a bit since our horses were stabled near each other.  He also

had a walker mule there.  He knows quite a bit about finishing horses, but

had never started one from ground zero.  (I think he's done more than he

thinks because those session wouldn't have been so clear and obvious to see

the mare thinking if he hadn't laid some decent ground work.)

Next was a dental session with Todd Williams.  He seems like a really great

guy and showed us some things to help us determine when we need to get a

dentist out or when our vet is not doing correct dental work.  One of the

things he mentioned was a horse that doesn't chew on both side of it's

mouth.  The demo horse was the thoroughbred from Mark and Jessica's

sessions and he had this problem.  The horse was also blind in one eye

(Uveitis sp?) and that ordeal might have even contributed to the

problem.  But what you could see was that the front teeth did not line up

and the muscles in the forehead were not evenly developed.  The owner was a

little upset, not realizing that these problems had existed, but also happy

to find out that they might be able to fix the issue, which would probably

translate to even better success riding.

Later was a saddle fit session with Dave Genedek.  We had quite a delay as

there was an incredible rain storm.  We started outside a little barn but

soon had to squish in - including my horse.  She wasn't real happy, but

dealt pretty well as long as she could see out the door.  I had already

gone to one of Dave's clinics, so I knew what he would say about my

saddles. Dave is a really good clinician, able to demonstrate things

clearly and even though he makes wonderful saddles, he doesn't push them on

you.  Rather he tries to help each person fix their saddle.  I had 2 with

me.  First was my endurance saddle, a Di Pietra Synergist.  Dave does not

like the ralide tree, nor the in-skirt rigging system.  The stirrups could

be a little further back toward the deepest part of the seat.  And he would

prefer that the girth rigging be moved back a little and angled a little

differently to keep the back of the saddle from wiggling all over.  This

would also help with the girth problems I've had with the neoprene

girth.  I did find out that Dave is working on a trail type saddle, with

Valerie Kanavy.  They are having problems with the tree supplier, so I

don't know what it will look like or when it will be out, but I'm standing

in line for one.  I don't know how many of you have sat in one of Dave's

saddles.  But even though I hate the bulk of a western saddle, the saddle

just puts you in the right spot, completely level.  It feels great.  My

other saddle was a dressage saddle and the girth rigging was also too far

forward and stirrups as well. His solution for this type of saddle is what

he calls a bra, that covers the cantle and hooks into the girth.  It's a

pretty low use saddle for me, so I probably won't do this.

Finally was a final roundtable discussion and each presenter talked about

what the clinic had meant to them.  Although we were all tired and our

brains were full, I don't think anyone really wanted to leave.

Final notes about our experience.  I mentioned that it took 20 minutes to

get Venesza into her stall the first day.  Each time later that day was

better and better, but after the session with Mark, she just walked in,

with nothing other than a look, asking "again?"  Another issue in our past

is trailer loading.  When I first got this mare, I didn't have a trailer

and she was delivered to me.  I eventually got a stock type trailer and

started trailer loading 101.  Eventually we found what worked - lunge her

into the trailer and let her turn around and travel loose.  Then about 2

months ago we got a new slant load trailer.  She walked right in and then

panicked and ran out.  We had to remove the rear tack and open both doors

and finally my husband got so he could load her.  At the previous Mark

Rashid clinic, I had to load by myself.  It took a while and I had to open

both doors (hubby was down to one) but it was the first successful loading

for me.  At the end of this week, we packed up and hubby decided to go get

some dinner before we drove off.  It started raining and I thought I'd try

to load her.  I opened both door and she just calmly walked right in, one

foot after the other.

Even with my husbands success, she always leapt in.  Two days later we went

on a ride and she did the same thing with only one door open.  I had never

seen her so calm about a trailer before - it was almost magical.

Even with my husbands success, she always leapt in.  Two days later we went

on a ride and she did the same thing with only one door open.  I had never

seen her so calm about a trailer before - it was almost magical.

One other thing - they need to put a warning label on clinics like

this.  If you get so that everything you do with your horse is soft with

just teeny amounts of asking - you might have problems driving

afterwards!  I couldn't convince myself to really push on the gas pedal or

brakes for most of the 3 hour drive home.  Oh yeah and the empathy you

start feeling for other animals with issues will get you in trouble

too.  The day after I got back, we went to a cat adoption place to replace

the one we'd lost and against the advice of my mom and husband, I was

determined to get the cat they couldn't adopt because every time someone

opened her cage she'd attack and bite them. Thank god no claws!  She'd been

abused by some little kids.  But now she is ruling our house (and 3 other

cats and a dog) with no fear.  She still plays a little rough, but my

husband can now see why I wanted her.

I made some great friends during this week.  I have several e-mail

addresses to keep in touch and even have riding plans with one person that

lives close by.  I met lots of people who are into keeping their horses

barefoot, several CTR people from all over the country, a lady who's

daughter just did Tevis and someone who may be moving into my area one

day.  Everyone was friendly and kind all shared in the wonderful learning

environment that was created by all the incredible presenters.

I know I forgot lots of stuff, so please feel free to ask me any questions.

And find a way to go this next year.  I'll be there, but I won't bring my

horse - I want to make sure others get to enjoy the transformation possible

with their horse too.