On this Young Horse Start clinic I have been teaching everyone to understand that they don’t need to drive their horses; and how to produce energy without a disconnection. Now, 2 days in, we’ve working on getting a good understanding of feel; the horses feeling comfortable moving past and around us; as well as them finding comfort in their owners, and more confidence in being near and guided by their owners. Two have now been backed (ridden) at a walk. We’ve gone over long reining, understanding the different sides of the brain, and how to build confidence and balance. And worked through the rain!

The Clydesdale is getting more accurate in feel as he was a bit too focused and bendy. He needed to become more confident and accurate with being guided away and on the turns. He coped well being ridden yesterday. We worked on riding, steering and finding a back up under saddle.

Lucky is here for 8 days intensive work, so both of his owners can learn and understand more about him and help him in the future. We’ve brought him back to bare basics and worked on the quality of connection that he has with Jackie. He’s also had some ground work tasks of guidance with purpose. Under saddle we’ve been finding all the areas that he is not comfortable in and teaching him to understand them without tension.

The Haflinger seemed very stiff on one side but through encouraging her to search through her right eye, we started to build nice bend and flow. She is very quiet but I can see that she is still worried about things around her, she just deals with it in quite a passive way. So it’s been important to build up her confidence and understanding of each stage.

Banjo is our QH x ASH palomino gelding. We’ve spent the last 2 days getting him to lead forward with less brace as he was a little bit stuck in the lead. Being the most un-handled horse, Jackie had to work hard on positioning, understanding pressure and managing the rope. But she made some great progress and yesterday he went really well casting around her with some close guidance, looking soft and comfortable.