This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
50/ AUGUST 2011 THE RIDER Applied Heeding - Backing By Ron Meredith


President, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre


WAVERLY, WV—Teach- ing a green horse to back provides a good example of how to combine and prac- tice the training concepts used in heeding. Horse and handler must pay close attention to one another. The handler creates corri- dors of horse-logical pres- sures that shape the horse’s feel of direction and speed. To do this, the handler uses his or her body position


relative to the horse’s pri- mary and secondary lines of influence, along with the arena fences or walls and corners. The handler gradu- ally refines these pressures, adds new ones, and eventu- ally builds a sequence of pressures that create a feel in the horse of what the handler is showing him. Once the horse under- stands what he is being shown, the handler starts asking him for it more often, confirming through repetition that the horse has figured out the right answer to the question posed by the sequence of pressures. After enough repetitions, the horse advances to the stage where the handler can tell him what to do and expect a correct response each time.


Teaching a horse to back using heeding is not anything like teaching him to back using sharp or loud pressures like a poke in the


chest or a pull on a loud bit. Many people are able to use these pressures to get a horse to back in one direction, but they cannot use them to modify the number of backing steps the horse takes or their speed. Heeding allows the handler to modify the sequence of pressures used to ask the horse to back so that the horse backs one step at a time, with each step in the direction and at the speed that the handler requests. The handler can do this because the horse has learned to pay com- plete attention him or her and waits after each request to move a foot for the next request and the next and the next and so on.


arena wall to help us form a corridor or pressures. We walk along next to him on his secondary line at a spot by his shoulder or about the girth, depending on where that particular horse perceives the pressure. At first we follow what he does, walking and stopping when he walks and stops. As he starts paying more attention to what we’re doing, we gradually start leading the dance, showing the horse that we want him to start and stop when we do.


So let’s see how all this works in backing. We’ve talked about how we introduce our green horse to the arena then how we start working him at the end of a lead rope using the


RICHVALE SADDLERY 7195 Hwy 9, Schomberg, ON L0G 1T0 905-939-1076


Leaders in Saddlery Solutions


• Total Saddlery Solutions including Saddle Fittings, Repairs and Alterations, Custom Saddles


• Tack Repairs and Alterations, • Boot Repairs • Custom Leather Work, Custom Coolers • Custom and Ready-made Chaps


www.richvalesaddlery.com


So we walk and stop and walk and stop. We give our total attention to the horse and we want the horse giving us his total attention. As some point, the horse figures out that paying attention to what we’re doing and doing the same thing is the game. At that point, he’s starting and stopping at the same time when we do. Now we encourage him to stop more quickly by hooking our fingers around the front of his shoulder. We take hold as that shoulder moves forward and stop the movement of our feet. When the horse stops, we immediately release that finger pressure. The horse may not stop the first time you try this but over a series of repetitions, he’ll pick up on the fact that if he stops as soon as he feels the shoulder pressure, the pressure goes away.


If we think of the horse’s movements in a logical sequence, a gallop- ing horse slows to a canter, a cantering horse slows to a trot, a trotting horse slows to a walk, and a walking horse slows to a stop. The next logical thing in this sequence is that a stopped horse “slows” to backing up. So once the horse is confirmed in his stopping as a response to the pres- sure of our fingers holding


his shoulder, we can hold that pressure just a little longer rather than releasing it the instant he stops. A backing horse picks up his feet in diago- nal pairs, just as a trotting horse does. As we hold that shoulder a little longer, the horse looks for a way out of that pressure. At first we soften the pressure if he makes any move to pick up the forefoot on that side or the hind foot on the oppo- site side. As the horse takes that tentative step back, the handler must also pick up a foot (it doesn’t matter which one) and move it back at the same time. Gradually we hold the pressure a little longer and move our feet back until, through repetition, the horse understands that if the pressure doesn’t go away when he stops, he can make it go away by mov- ing his shoulder (therefore, that diagonal pair) back a step. What we’re showing the horse is how to correct- ly answer the question posed by the change in the pressure. We’re not trying to “cue” him to back up. You want to develop a feel in the horse that if you restrict that shoulder and you move back, he should move back, too. Gradually, the horse will begin to associate your backward step with moving back and the hand pressure will no longer be neces- sary. He’ll be paying atten- tion to the direction you move, the speed you’re moving, and how many steps back you take.


The handler asks for these backing steps one at a time. You are stopping the horse, then restarting him, stopping, restarting, stop- ping, restarting, etc. As the number of strides increas- es, your hand will be puls- ing at the horse’s shoulder, asking for the backing step then softening as soon as


you get it. Both handler and horse must pay close attention to one another. The handler does not pull on the lead rope. The horse should not raise his head or get “bunched up” in any way


It goes without saying that you have to practice these backing pressures from both sides of the horse until the horse under- stands them equally well on both sides. It’s not the amount of pressure that’s important, it’s the timing of the pressure, the release of the pressure, and the han- dler’s step back. Good tim- ing creates a light horse. If you ask twenty times and the horse isn’t getting it, you haven’t got the timing right. Don’t add more pres- sure. Just keep practicing until you get the timing right.


Eventually the han- dler can begin to refine things even more by vary- ing the interval between steps or varying the speed at which the horse takes the steps. As the horse’s train- ing progresses and his “heeding” of the handler advances, they can move away from the wall and the handler will be able to modify, step by step, the direction in which the horse backs by changing his or her relationship to the horse’s primary and secondary lines of influ- ence.


Some people like to turn and face backwards when they ask the horse to back up. That’s OK. It just changes the hand they’ll use to put pressure on the


shoulder. Some people pre- fer to use the handle of a whip to put pressure on the shoulder and that’s OK, too. Just be sure that you use a steady pressure that can be clearly released when the horse gives the right answer. Don’t poke or jab with the whip then wait for the horse to answer. That’s a cue, not a pres- sure.


As you work on tim- ing, your horse will get lighter and rounder. He’ll be paying attention to fig- ure out if you want one step, two, three or whatev- er. He’ll be paying atten- tion to what direction you want him to take those steps. He’ll be paying attention to how fast you want the steps, whether they should come one right after the other, whether he should stop and wait between steps, or whatever else you want in the little dance the two of you are doing. Learning to ask your horse to back using a vocabulary of pressures that can be modified as the situation demands beats a “cue” to back every time. _____________


Instructor and trainer Ron Meredith has refined his “horse logical” methods for communicating with equines over 30 years as president of Meredith Manor International Eques- trian Centre (Route 1, Box 66, Waverly, WV 26184; 1-304-679-3128; http://www.meredith- manor.com), an ACCET accredited equestrian edu- cational institution.


Young Horse


Continued from page 44. Central Qualifiers


Summer Classic, ON, June 15-19 CornerStone Horse Show, ON, June 22-26 Summerfest Show, ON, July 14-17 National Open, Ottawa, ON, August 10-14 National Tournament, Ottawa, ON, August 17-21 Final Regional Qualifier – Autumn Classic, September 15-18, Palgrave, ON


(This competition will count for double points) National Final


(5, 6, and 7/ 8 year old classes only)


Canadian Show Jumping Tournament, Palgrave, ON, September 21-25


The Jump Canada Young Horse Series features age categories for Four, Five, Six and Seven and Eight-Year- Olds, and is divided into three regions – Eastern, Cen- tral, and Western. The final competition in each of the three regions will count for double points to qualify for the National Finals, to be held at the Canadian Show Jumping Tournament from September 21-25 in Pal- grave, ON.


The purpose of the Jump Canada Young Horse Series is to encourage the development of young show jumping talent and to give Canadian breeders additional incentives to breed superior show jumping prospects. Competing on a level playing field, the horses are divid- ed according to age and jump at a level suited to their development. This careful development allows the hors- es to gain valuable experience and advance to the higher levels of show jumping competition with confidence. The Jump Canada Young Horse Series also gives prospective buyers for the hunter and jumper markets an opportunity to view a large group of prospects in a com- petition setting.


The Jump Canada Young Horse Series is now administered directly through Jump Canada and the Equine Canada offices. To register on-line, please visit: http://www.equiman.com/JumpCanadaYoungHors- eSeries/


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68