Adventures With Horsemanship: HORSEMANSHIP WEEKEND: Saturday

A HORSEMANSHIP WEEKEND – Saturday: It was a beautiful day at IT Ranch in Lodi, California. The Golden State Horsemanship Club (Nor-Cal Chapter) had its June session. Nice turn out of folks with a variety of experience levels and great enthusiasm!

We started off in the round pen and worked on refining our skills, speaking softer and getting better results. Lots of good work by everyone! Then we moved over to the arena and began working on Backing up (two different approaches), Groundwork Schooling Circles (this is actually four exercises in one maneuver which is WAY cool), Circle Driving, Lateral Flexion, Vertical Flexion and Desensitizing. Lots of WINS and refinements by speaking softly but clearly.

A short lunch break with great conversation and laughter (as always) then we tacked up and got to RIDING!

We started off with a warm up of One Rein Stops and Follow the Fence. Once everyone felt they had their horses thinking we moved into Yielding the Hindquarters at the Standstill, Backing with quiet hands and steady pressure, Forward/Backward/Forward transitions, Schooling Circles (like Ground Schooling being four exercises in one maneuver), Shoulder In/ Shoulder Out and a variety of patterns and free riding. Once the exercises were all done we all got to work on those things that needed attention or refinement. Denise Vietz (GSHC Member and owner/trainer of California Natural Horsemanship) was on hand to help horses get better at a variety of skills.

It was well past 4:00pm when we all decided to call it a day. Dusty, sweaty, tired and HUGE smiles was the end result. The horses all improved and so did the people. We will call that a WIN for the day!

Flame’s Experience: Annie was my demo horse for the day. Ronan got to sit this one out as he is healing up from a pulled muscle. She did really well in the round pen and we were very proud of how she worked on the ground in the group setting. Under saddle she was a bit amped at first as it was anew group of horses and a new place but she really came down quickly after a few “rollbacks” along the fence and some serpentines. She demonstrated the most of the exercises for the group and walked around calmly as I spoke with everyone. Denise helped were with a few wthing she though could be refined and when we all felt good we called it. It was long day of Annie but she did really well. Very proud of her!

We tried to get pictures but mostly they were of other folks and their horses. Sigh.

Annie: Round Pen