Be Your Best Horsemanship

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How to Successfully Transition from Riding Colts to Finished Horses Mar 17, 2020

Show notes

One of the toughest situations I have encountered as a trainer is switching back and forth from riding “finished horses” to riding colts. It is easy to develop the mindset that when we have a “finished horse,” we are finished training. We think that we have a programmed computer that doesn’t need to be reminded of how to perform correctly. But, that’s just not the case. The skills that it took to develop your horse’s potential are the same skills it takes to keep a horse great.

The things that keep our horses fundamentally solid are easy to do, but they are also easy not to do. It is easy to get to a point where we ignore simple fundamental principles. When you ignore them long enough, things will eventually start to fall apart—especially, when adding speed. Speed does not build foundation—it tests it. When we ride finished horses, we compete on them most of the time. Over time, this repeated demand of high performance can cause a horse’s foundation to break. If you get to the point where every time you step in your horse’s pen, you are asking for 100% effort, your horse will begin to associate you with the anxiety of anticipating a high level of performance.There is no way for a horse to give its all every time and stay buttery soft without occasional reinforcement of foundational skills.

It doesn’t matter if your horse is 2 or 22, each time you step on the horse, you are working on developing trust and confidence. The more your horse trusts you, the more receptive they will be to your style of communication. Horsemanship is just presenting things in a way that a horse can understand. You have two choices when selecting your method of communication: You can have them respond through 1) fear and force or 2) patience and understanding. When we train with the fear/force method, we are exchanging short-term gain for long-term pain. When we train with the patience/understanding method, we are exchanging our time for long-term understanding and consistent performance. Your goal as a trainer should always be to help your horse find the release point.

A horse’s ability to transition in speed and transition in direction is what determines their success. Practicing fundamentals at different speeds — walk, trot, canter — is what will help your horse develop the ability to make these transitions smoothly and consistently. When your horse is running as hard as it can, it has to be able to recognize the feel and change in your body position that cues them to adjust their speed and make a move. We want them to rely on our body position rather than the cues from our bridle reins to make these transitions. Our reins should be used to guide the horse in a certain direction, not to slow them down.

At the end of the day, there is something inside of a horse that we can’t measure. We can develop their understanding of the tasks we are asking for, but a horse’s potential is also largely determined by their natural grit and determination. Those horses that go on to accomplish great things have something extra special, but they also have someone who gave them the opportunity to be special. They have someone who stuck with them while they were developing their understanding, even if it wasn’t a smooth process.

Get Out of Your Own Way Mar 10, 2020

Show notes

When someone comes to my facility to pick up their horse after it has been training, I see a common fear: “will I screw it up?”

While your horse is not returned to you as a programmed computer, it is also not going to flip a switch and go right back to where you started. The purpose of having a horse in a training program that develops fundamentals is to get that horse in the habit of using the thinking side of it’s brain.

When a horse switches riders, it goes through a transition period where it has to learn and recognize your unique style of communication. If the horse has a solid foundation, eventually, it will find the right answer.

Foundation is extremely important, especially in performance events that require speed. Speed is a reactive characteristic. When you ask a horse for more speed, you are essentially asking for a reactive response. Horses with a strong foundation will have enough confidence in themselves to switch back and forth from the thinking/reacting sides of their brain to perform correctly.

As with a horse’s foundation, your foundation as a trainer is equally important. The biggest challenge in your training career comes from your own thought process. You have to have strong foundational philosophies before you can make a positive change in your training program. One of the biggest mindset shifts you must make is changing the way you look at failure.

Everyone will go through a phase where they are afraid to mess something up. Once you reach a pinnacle in your performance, you might be afraid to continue pushing boundaries in fear of going backwards or falling off the cliff. But, if you want to continue to perform at that high level, you can’t be afraid to make mistakes. You cannot start each day with the fear of messing up.

The fear of failure has a paralyzing effect on us. If you dwell on it long enough, you will miss the opportunities that are right in front of you. Sometimes, you have to flip the switch in your brain so that you can get out of your own way.

It’s like taking a test in school. You are better off to take a guess and write something down—even if you’re not sure it’s the right answer—than to leave the question blank. If you leave it blank and do nothing, you guarantee that it will be counted wrong. But, if you take your best guess, you give yourself the opportunity to figure out what the right answer is and learn from it. A wrong answer is better than no answer because you have successfully eliminated one way that doesn’t work.

You have to approach training with the mindset that challenges are learning opportunities, not failures. And, trust me, there will be some intense learning moments along the way. But, you are better off to try and fail than to not try at all. Getting the wrong answer is not a failure, it’s an accomplishment. Don’t let the fear of messing up keep you from moving forward. Any bad habit you create is fixable. Always keep moving forward. If you don’t know what to do, the first thing you need to do is do something. Action creates clarity.

Advice for the Young Horse Trainer Mar 03, 2020

Show notes

Horse training is an unpredictable business. There is no telling how many horses you will have in training in a given month. There is no guarantee or stability in your monthly income. But, over the past 30+ years, my wife and I have managed to raise a family one ride at a time.

At some point, you decide what is important to you and follow it with everything you’ve got. There are easier roads to go down to get through this life. But if you are up for a bit of a challenge, have the courage to pursue your passions. You can approach your dreams with faith or fear. Starve your fears and feed your faith. You don’t have to have it all figured out to start, but you have to have the courage to start in order to grow. Have faith that you have the resources you need to succeed. And if you don’t already have the tools, believe that you are capable of learning and finding the answers. Believe in yourself, and always believe that good things are going to happen.

Training horses is a lot like life, and I believe that God put horses on this earth to help me learn more about myself. There is no perfect manual to go by. No two horses will ever be exactly alike as no two people are exactly alike. If your program works really well with one horse and not so well with another horse, don’t give up on yourself. You are only as capable as your mind leads you to believe. Never let the fear of failure steal your fire.

How to Get the Most Value Out of Your Clinic Experience Feb 25, 2020

Show notes

Between high-performing genetics and the advancement of horsemanship knowledge, the horse industry has come a long way over the past five decades. Despite the undeniable growth, there are certain foundational principles that have not changed. One such principle is the learning experience that a trainer must go through in order to help their horse(s) reach their full potential.

One thing to remember about the horsemanship journey is this: Bad experiences are learning experiences.

Those times when you are being challenged and tested are the times when you have a chance to grow. When you look at each experience from a growth perspective, all experiences become good experiences when you have the opportunity to learn something.

One of the biggest changes in the horse industry is how accessible horsemanship knowledge has become. These days, there are tons of free resources, online videos, and outstanding clinics, seminars, and expos that are available to spread the wealth of knowledge.

At my clinics, I always say that your biggest goal at a clinic should be to leave with a new perspective. Sometimes, the slightest change in your mindset toward a particular situation can be the missing piece that bridges the gap between struggle and success.

You may train 10 horses, and 9 out of 10 times, your method of communication with your horse works—but that tenth time, your horse may not respond the way the others did. In situations like this, it is easy to become frustrated. If you want to continue moving the needle forward in your training career, you have two choices: 1) be patient and continue to ask for the response, or 2) change your communication slightly to help your horse understand better.

No two horses are exactly alike. They each have different personalities, tendencies, and abilities. Therefore, each horse is going to require a slightly different pattern of communication from you. Until you open yourself up to new points of view and new ways of solving a problem, you will likely struggle to improve your horse’s performance and understanding. Once you embrace this mindset, your training program will escalate rapidly.

Anytime you are working with a horse, remember to be less concerned with perfection and more concerned with your application and execution of a concept. Progress will come with consistent, correct repetitions.

How to Handle an Overreactive Horse Feb 18, 2020

Show notes

If you spend long enough in the horse training business, you will likely encounter some situations throughout your career that put you at risk. Any time a horse develops a severe reactive response—such as flipping over backwards or bucking excessively—your safety, as well as your horse’s safety, is compromised.

An overreactive horse is not untrainable—training it properly will just take more time and patience. Overreactive horses need some confidence and consistency-building activities to focus on. Those horses need to learn trust and respect.

A horse’s overreactive nature wasn’t made overnight, and the problem won’t be fixed overnight either. The first step is to attempt to understand why the overreactive horse behaves the way it does. What mannerisms does it exhibit? What situation did the horse come from? Why is it behaving this way?

As crazy as it sounds, your horse has been conditioned to rear up. When a horse is put in a high-pressure situation, anxiety builds, resulting in an extreme reactive response. Horses learn by release, and in an overreactive horse, the release the horse is looking for happens when you, the rider, comes off of its back. Instead of finding a release on its own, you want to retrain your horse’s brain to look for the release when you provide it.

As a rider who has been on a horse’s back during one of these extreme reactions, it is incredibly difficult to feel confident and secure about what is going to happen when you get on that horse. That, in turn, creates a lot of anxiety in us. When you have a frustrated horse, and then you add a frustrated rider into the equation, there is no good that will result from that scenario. If we aren’t relaxed, our horses won’t relax. One of the two bodies must constantly be using the thinking side of their brain.

What you are training on any horse—especially overreactive ones—is their minds. You are training the horse to think and look for responses. This is achieved through a simple “ask, release, reward” routine.

When a horse seems like it has “fallen apart” — meaning, with speed, it is not working very good anymore — what has happened is that they have gotten weak in one of their fundamentals. If you can identify the fundamental element that need work, you can almost always remedy the problem by solidifying that horse’s broken foundation.

Often times, we can make more progress as a rider from the ground. The “boring stuff” you see people doing — such as making your horse soft, yielding the hindquarters, etc. — is the stuff that builds trust and respect. Building a foundation takes time.

When you go to a clinic or training, it’s not all about what happens in those two days. It’s about how you use those two days to change your thinking process. When I host a clinic, I am much more concerned with your results 4 weeks, 4 months, 4 years from now as opposed to 4 hours from now. Knowledge is power. But, knowledge is only powerful if you apply it consistently.

Overcoming Insecurity & Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone Feb 11, 2020

Show notes

As human beings, we all have our insecurities. In the horsemanship world, insecurities happen when we get in a streak of bad runs, when we have a bad practice before the rodeo, or when we haven’t developed the confidence we need with a certain horse.

Insecurity not only affects us in every day life, but it adversely affects our horsemanship as well.

When we aren’t able to devote time to our personal horses and sharpening our competitive skills, it affects our mindset and performance. Whether it be our careers or family obligations that get in the way of our normal practice routine, we tend to develop insecurities that let us fall back into bad habits.

Anticipating and micro-managing your horse’s every move is an example of a bad habit caused by insecurity. Your horse is like a chamelion. It will transform based on what you ask it to do. Horses don’t learn from pressure. They learn from release. So, you have to let them have the release. Even if you know the next step may be followed by a mistake, you have to let it happen. Then, you can correct it.

The fastest way to confuse your horse is to correct a problem before it happens. If you anticipate a problem and cue your horse accordingly, your horse won’t know what they are supposed to be doing. Don’t be afraid to trust your horse. It is okay to allow them to make a mistake. Over time, your horse will learn your style of communication and will understand how to avoid making mistakes.

Most of the time, mistakes with our horses are caused by our own mistakes as trainers. If you want to sharpen your own skills (and, in turn, your horse’s performance), you have to be willing to get uncomfortable.

Making these small changes in your performance is not going to be part of your normal routine. It is not going to feel “safe” or comfortable. But, until you let yourself get uncomfortable, the correct actions are never going to feel comfortable.

Maybe, getting out of your comfort zone means dropping your hands a little bit. Maybe, it means relaxing your legs. Or, maybe, it means being more aggressive. Whatever it is, you must be willing to analyze your own performance and recognize what uncomfortable steps you might have to take to get to that next level. In doing this, you might be opening yourself up to frustration and embarrassment—but, that is okay. Anytime you feel like you have failed, embrace that, because it means you’re growing.

Changing Your Standards Feb 04, 2020

Show notes

In our previous episodes, we have talked about activating the thinking side of your horse’s brain. But, today, we are going to talk about activating the thinking side of your brain.

There was a time in my career when someone would make a suggestion, and I would take offense to it. This is when I was a young trainer, and to be honest, I was a little insecure about my abilities. I titled myself as a “horse trainer,” and I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know everything. But, when I finally accepted the fact that I have more to learn, I set myself up to make some essential changes to myself as a horseman. From that point forward, the results I achieved with my horses were always a direct result of the changes I made in myself.

To change your results, you have to change your standards.

Everything you do is a result of your standards. How you treat people, how you behave, how you look, how you shape your body, how you shape your mind, how you take care of your horses… your standards are what yields the results you are getting. Your daily rituals are a product of your standards.

I have a favorite quote from Tony Robbins that reads: “Willpower won’t last. Rituals will.”

Human beings are too emotional to rely on willpower. It’s just our nature. But, when we form a new mindset, new commitments, and new habits, our progress will unfold by leaps and bounds.

If you’re listening to today’s episode, you are already taking a step toward bettering yourself as a horseman. And there’s a chance that if you’re listening, you might feel like you have hit a plateau in your performance or your training career. I am going to challenge to you to take a very realistic audit of your own program.

I hear so many people fall back on the excuse “well, I’m no trainer, but…” Every time you step up on a horse, you are either creating or reinforcing a habit.

I get the question of “which horse should I bring” a lot before my clinics.

When I went to one of my very first clinics, I wanted to bring a green horse and start him at that clinic. I was surprised when the clinician told me to bring my most advanced horse to the clinic instead of my most inexperienced horse. This surprised me because, at the time, I was under the impression that it was my horse that needed the fixing, not myself.

You’ve heard me say it before, and I’ll say it again—my horses have taught me so much more than I will ever teach them. Always remember that the horse you bring to a clinic is just a vehicle for you to learn how to communicate. The more advanced horse you bring, the more you will get out of it.

You’re not done yet. You’ve got a lot of things to learn and things to get better at. Make the commitment today to set a new standard for yourself.

Good Enough Isn't Good Enough Jan 28, 2020

Show notes

“My horse is good enough.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this phrase over the years as a competitor, clinician, and trainer. When we adopt this mindset of being “good enough,” we are limiting our potential to become great.

We need to eliminate the term “good enough” from our horsemanship vocabulary. Instead, ask yourself, “is my horse good, or is my horse great?”

When you strive to get your horse to that “great” level, you automatically elevate yourself as a trainer. We have passed the time when your own athletic ability can make up for a lack of horse power. Everyone’s skill level has increased so dramatically over the years that horse power is now the differentiating factor between good and great competitors.

The people who understand how important it is to simultaneously develop their own abilities as well as their horse’s are the ones who achieve truly great things in their careers.

Advancing Your Horse's Performance Jan 21, 2020

Show notes

When I was younger, I came from a “horse” family, but not necessarily a “rodeo” family. So, when I began practicing roping events, I was always trying to make up for lost time. In the practice pen, there was never really much discussion of horsemanship, but we were always focusing on getting more repetitions with my roping. Over the years, I began to realize that when I was in position, my catch percentage was much higher. That’s when I started to shift my mindset from roping for myself to roping for my horse.

Being a better horsemen starts with understanding where you’re at right now—with your skill level and your horse’s understanding. Then, you must identify where you want to get to and come up with a plan for how to get there.

For example, if you want to have a horse that is great at scoring in the roping events, you have to have a program that helps to develop that. In roping events, we tend to put our horses in a situation that naturally creates some anxiety when we back into the corner. We apply pressure in the mouth, expecting them to stand still, yet going from zero to thirty in a matter of seconds. This pressure is not necessarily what causes a lot of horses to “blow up” in the corner over time. Rather, it is our inconsistency with reinforcing correct fundamentals that causes the blow up.

If you don’t correct your horse’s mistake at the time the mistake occurs, you are reinforcing a bad habit. A mistake essentially transforms into a repetition that continues to create an undesirable outcome. When you’re establishing and creating habits, the foundation and fundamentals of slow work—or putting your hand down and letting your horse get into position—is what makes all the difference.

Many people fall to the assumption that once their horse is “good,” the training stops there. But, this simply isn’t true. The better you get, the more steps it takes to get even better. You can’t do too many correct repetitions. You can’t have your horse “too good.”

The number one thing that separates a good roper from a great roper is a great horse. Ask yourself—are you doing something every day to help your horse get better? If you’re not getting better, you’re going backwards. Sometimes, this requires going back to some of the most basic fundamentals and reinforcing correct habits.

The Power of Repetition Jan 14, 2020

Show notes

Every time you repeat something, you are at the beginning stage of establishing a habit. This is true whether you are an advanced rider or just starting out. Each time you get on your horse, you are presented with the opportunity to identify your good habits and bad habits. Your bad habits are your weaknesses. A weakness is something that has been developed over time, whether we taught it that way or whether we have allowed the same mistake to happen repeatedly.

Although many of us understand the importance of repetitions, I think we tend to underestimate the power that lies behind correct repetitions. Correct repetitions are an essential part of building a foundation for long-term success.

Once we have achieved an end goal with our horses, we have a tendency to quit doing the things that got us there. At the end of the day, your horse is not a programmed computer. Even horses that perform at a very high level a high percentage of the time require repetition of fundamentals to continually improve their performance.

When faced with a goal, we often think of time as our enemy. But when it comes to repetition, time is our ally. One of our biggest downfalls in the performance horse industry is our obsession with short term goals. We’re all focused on short-term satisfaction. But, when we break long-term goals in to short-term repetitions, that is when we achieve power over our performance.

I have a personal goal to do 50 sit-ups and 50 push-ups five days each week. Honestly, I hate taking the time to work out. But, this routine takes me less than five minutes to complete, so I have made a habit of it. While my 50 reps may not seem like much, this adds up to 13,000 sit-ups and 13,000 push-ups each year.

Just think if you apply the same concept to your training—if you can make a habit of dedicating a small amount of time toward performing correct repetitions with your horse, your results a year from now will be astounding.

The power of repetition makes something that appears overwhelming look very achievable.

The moment when it finally starts to click and you begin to see those small repetitions pay off is incredibly rewarding. When you reach that point of success, figure out the thing(s) that got you to that point. Then, make a commitment to keep doing those things, or you won’t stay there for long.

One of my favorite quotes is “win the day.” This is a simple reminder to do the small steps that will propel me toward my end goal. When we break big goals down into manageable repetitions, the road to success becomes a little shorter each day.

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