january-february 2013***************************************************************************The Ranch Sorter - 23
look downhill at the cow. It takes a pretty small horse to look uphill at a cow. I want my horse looking downhill. One of the things I see in timed events way too often is horses with their heads up too high because people get to pulling and jerking. So, by teaching my horse to soften to that pressure when I do pick up on that rein, his first reaction is to drive his nose down and look towards that cow in the eye. That’s one of the things I really want to see in this exercise; it’s for my horse’s
first response to the bit to be to drop his nose, round up through his neck and soften that face, bringing that face to vertical and looking downhill at that cow. That needs to be the first thing he thinks of every time you pick up that rein. If your horse is lifting his head and pushing his jawbone on that rein then I want you to use both legs and drive him forward. Don’t try to pull your horse to softness. You cannot pull a horse to softness. You must ride him to softness. You must drive his hind quarters up into the bit. Imagine asking this horse’s hind quarters to step up through the bridle. That’s what you’re doing. When his hind end reaches up under himself and bumps into his belly, it picks
his belly up, that rounds his back up and as his back rounds up, it naturally makes it easy for him to drop his nose down. That’s the whole process of what you are trying to do. If you just pull harder and harder and harder on those reins to try to get him soft you’re going to elevate his head, he’s going to poke his nose out, he’s going to gape at his mouth and he’s going to start fighting. If you drive, he is driving his own body up into that bit and the horse isn’t stupid, just like you would not bang your head on the wall forever, the horse isn’t going to keep running into that bit. He is going to soften and get off from it. So keep that in mind as you work with this horse. You want to drive and not pull. One of the visual pictures I like to think about is if I took my car and I parked
it by a brick wall and I attached a couple of ropes to the brick wall and I pulled on the brick wall, what would happen to the front of my car….absolutely nothing. If I back my car up 150 yards, get in it and step on it and I hit that brick wall going 30 mph what’s going to happen to the front end of my car? It’s going to crumple. That’s what you’re trying to do to your horse, you’re trying to crumple that front
Powderhorn Ranch D O U G L A S , W Y O M I N G
Photos by Dirt Road Photography
On November 17, 2012 we hosted our first Diamond McNabb RSNC event at the Powderhorn Ranch southwest of Douglas, Wyo. What an amazing event this was! We had 366 teams in 11 hours of competition. We ran 554 individual sort runs, paid out lots of money and generally just had a really good time. Ken McNabb hosted horsemanship clinics the day before for both beginner and advanced sorters, during which time we covered such topics as control in the gate, reading cattle, shaving seconds off your run.
I have to say once again, I was amazed and impressed by the members of RSNC. Their willingness to help each other, their dedication to family involvement, and the overall good sportsmanship that was displayed at every level was very impressive. Our facility showed virtually no evidence that we had ever hosted an event there because all of our guests just seemed naturally to care as much about our facility as we did. I have always been an RSNC enthusiast but after hosting our first event I am even more of an RSNC enthusiast, as it helped me to realize that somewhere out there in the world there are hundreds of thousands of people who care about their neighbor and are willing to display the character traits that have made America the most incredible nation on earth.
On behalf of all of us here at Ken McNabb Horsemanship, we wish you a Happy New Year and May God Bless the Trails You Ride.
end basically. Only you want him to do it in a manner that develops self-carriage. So once he gets that nose down there nice and soft, I want you to release it.
Drop that rein, you don’t have to drop it all the way, but give him a couple of inches of slack. Slide your hands forward and let him have a release. As soon as his nose comes out of that frame, I want you to push with your legs and let him run into that bit and bring his nose right back down where it belongs and then release him. In this way you are teaching him to carry himself. You do it at a walk, trot and lope and in no time at all your horse has a really
nice low-headed self-carriage look to him and he’s looking downhill for the cow. That’s what I want to see. Transitions are really difficult, so you want to work your transitions. That’s the second exercise. I want you to speed up and slow down frequently and what happens is, as you go from a walk to a trot, you’ll notice your horse wanting to push his nose out. That’s because he wants to jump his front end out of the way and not push off with his hind end. So again, sit deep, drive that hind end forward and stop that nose from poking out and ask it to soften. I like to do the same thing from a trot back to a walk. Relax, sit down, slow down and ask that horse to come down and any time he pushes on that bit, I want you to bump with your legs until the horse gets really good and soft going forward in his transitions. Then I want you to start asking him to stop and stay soft on the bit. When you get your horse to where you can walk him forward and bump him
up to a trot without him lifting his nose and when you can trot him and go back down to a walk without him lifting his nose, when you can take him to a trot and bring him to a stop without him lifting his nose, then we are ready to start working on hard stops and rollbacks.
That’s coming next and until then May God Bless the Trails You Ride.
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