wanabe
18th May 2007, 12:15 AM
I booked a one day one-on-one training session here:
http://www.dankeenhorsemanship.com/
It's about 100 miles west of here in rolling prairie cattle land. Dan is all about horses! He trains, is a farrier, rodeos, and herds and ropes cattle sometimes (more for fun and to train his horses) on the ranch next door. On top of that he does 3-day clinics where riding school students come out and spend the night on his father's ranch down the road and receive instruction from him. (Sounds like lots of fun for the girls.) Anyway, I booked a 9AM-4PM session with him, which, with the drive each way made for an exhausting, but fun day.
I got there a little early and watched him do some training. He's impressive and the results he gets are too. I wound up riding 3 horses -- a very tall TB, a smaller one, and a quarter horse. Now here was the fly in the ointment. For my first gallop I wanted a very settled horse and the 3 I road were actually "students" of his. The youngest was 4 and the oldest 7.
We started slowly, in a round pen. And my riding seemed awful to me. I don't like to take the curves in an arena too fast and this was all curves and these horses seemed not to be familiar with the Western lope -- they trotted faster than my RS lesson horses and their canters were fast too. Plus I hate cantering around in tight circles like that. We spent quite a bit of time doing this and to get me to relax he had me tie knots while riding and with no reins! One of the horses I rode in the round pen was so sensitive compared to RS horses. I just gave him a little tap in the side behind the girth and he was into canter, every time.
We then moved on to some jumps -- I jumped higher today (55 gallon drum on its side) and more jumps in a sequence (6 I think) than I ever had.
At this point I was having doubts about galloping. But, after lunch we trailered the horses over to his father's ranch. The 4 YO I was on was very timid about everything -- the cattle, the 2 donkeys, the trees, the pond we rode them thru. I also was having trouble controlling his speed in both trot and canter but I did finally, get a nice trot. His canter, well, we went fast and I was thinking "god the gallop is going to be worse than this"! I switched to the 7 YO -- the QH -- at this point and tried him out. He was even faster! He wasn't afraid of cattle and trees, tho, and so I took him on a long trot around this particular field -- probably about 2 miles, without having to force him to go where I wanted.
At this point Dan asked me if I had accomplished what I wanted and I said "no, I haven't galloped". Turns out (and I've encountered this before) that many Texans consider an extended canter to be galloping. I told him I wanted to do what they did in the Kentucky Derby and he said "oh, we call that racin'. Is that what you want to do? We can do that.". He then proceeded to demonstrate "racin"-- and yes it was galloping.
We rode back to the trailer for a break and strategy session and we agreed I'd be better off galloping the 4 YO. So back to the field and bam away we went side-by-side so Dan could make sure the horse sped up. Now, I should point out that Dan SITS the gallop and so that's what I did. It wasn't bad at all. Sort of smooth and then a bump and then smooth and then another bump. Not really hard to sit at all. Unfortunately, because of the field and getting up to speed, we were probably in gallop only 250 yards. I looked at my watch and it was 4PM (sort of surprizing, that) and so I called it a day.
All in all, a fun day and a good experience.
http://www.dankeenhorsemanship.com/
It's about 100 miles west of here in rolling prairie cattle land. Dan is all about horses! He trains, is a farrier, rodeos, and herds and ropes cattle sometimes (more for fun and to train his horses) on the ranch next door. On top of that he does 3-day clinics where riding school students come out and spend the night on his father's ranch down the road and receive instruction from him. (Sounds like lots of fun for the girls.) Anyway, I booked a 9AM-4PM session with him, which, with the drive each way made for an exhausting, but fun day.
I got there a little early and watched him do some training. He's impressive and the results he gets are too. I wound up riding 3 horses -- a very tall TB, a smaller one, and a quarter horse. Now here was the fly in the ointment. For my first gallop I wanted a very settled horse and the 3 I road were actually "students" of his. The youngest was 4 and the oldest 7.
We started slowly, in a round pen. And my riding seemed awful to me. I don't like to take the curves in an arena too fast and this was all curves and these horses seemed not to be familiar with the Western lope -- they trotted faster than my RS lesson horses and their canters were fast too. Plus I hate cantering around in tight circles like that. We spent quite a bit of time doing this and to get me to relax he had me tie knots while riding and with no reins! One of the horses I rode in the round pen was so sensitive compared to RS horses. I just gave him a little tap in the side behind the girth and he was into canter, every time.
We then moved on to some jumps -- I jumped higher today (55 gallon drum on its side) and more jumps in a sequence (6 I think) than I ever had.
At this point I was having doubts about galloping. But, after lunch we trailered the horses over to his father's ranch. The 4 YO I was on was very timid about everything -- the cattle, the 2 donkeys, the trees, the pond we rode them thru. I also was having trouble controlling his speed in both trot and canter but I did finally, get a nice trot. His canter, well, we went fast and I was thinking "god the gallop is going to be worse than this"! I switched to the 7 YO -- the QH -- at this point and tried him out. He was even faster! He wasn't afraid of cattle and trees, tho, and so I took him on a long trot around this particular field -- probably about 2 miles, without having to force him to go where I wanted.
At this point Dan asked me if I had accomplished what I wanted and I said "no, I haven't galloped". Turns out (and I've encountered this before) that many Texans consider an extended canter to be galloping. I told him I wanted to do what they did in the Kentucky Derby and he said "oh, we call that racin'. Is that what you want to do? We can do that.". He then proceeded to demonstrate "racin"-- and yes it was galloping.
We rode back to the trailer for a break and strategy session and we agreed I'd be better off galloping the 4 YO. So back to the field and bam away we went side-by-side so Dan could make sure the horse sped up. Now, I should point out that Dan SITS the gallop and so that's what I did. It wasn't bad at all. Sort of smooth and then a bump and then smooth and then another bump. Not really hard to sit at all. Unfortunately, because of the field and getting up to speed, we were probably in gallop only 250 yards. I looked at my watch and it was 4PM (sort of surprizing, that) and so I called it a day.
All in all, a fun day and a good experience.