Schooling in western style?

[Ms Kitty]

Okay, here is my situation, sorry if it is a bit long.

I am currently considering to buy myself a Polo pony, who is recovering from stress fracture on his pastern and will require slow transit back into full work if/when the fracture heals. (I have no plans of buying him if this does not happen!) What I am trying to come up here is a plan just in case I do buy him, to see how much work I'd be getting into!

He has a history of being a bit hot headed, rearing and bucking, which is mainly the combination of energetic very sensitive TB horse/not enough exercise/inexperinced owner. This would not be a problem for me otherwise, I am experienced rider and have dealt with this sort of stuff before, but as he is a Polo pony, he is taught to be neck rained only and this is were I enter a new territory.

I can do neck raining when doing Polo, no probs. But I would like to do proper schooling with him, get him to use his back (as he is in serious need of proper back muscles), get his hinds under and stretch his back. Build up muscles he would not otherwise build as his main use would still be Polo. I am just looking for extra things to do with him in order to strengthen him and school those nasty habits out of him.

So what I am looking now, is any advice/exercises I could go on doing with him once his leg is sound again. I would also be interested in any books you could recommend. I know how to school a regular riding horse, but I am interested in the western discipline here, and as my experience with it is just goofing around with my old horse who happened to understand neck raining, so I would appreciate any sort of advice!

Thank you,

Nina x

[cvb]

Nina

I'm not sure the *exercises* I would use for rehabilitation and/or remedial schooling would necessarily be miles apart english vs western, its just that you ride them in one style or t'other ?

i.e. I might still do serpentines etc, and still be looking for bend, softness, submission - but from a single handed neck rein rather than two handed snaffle ?

and depending on the horse I might actually revert to 2 handed snaffle anyway ? Most horses are ridden two-handed before they learn to neck rein.

(but my background is more english than western....)

[Ms Kitty]

Well, I was going to do all the stuff you mentioned anyway (as it is part of Polo training as well) but I am mainly looking for anything extra, since as I said, I am experienced in all the regular riding exercises in schooling a horse. And this is a case of a horse that has never been ridden two-handedly and as he is very temperamental, I don't think I want to start introducing him to the two-handed if not needed, as he is mainly used for Polo where neck raining is essential.

And when riding one handedly, you can't have the similar affect on the bit as you would with two hands, i.e. play with the bit they are biting into it etc. So this is the area where I need help!

But thanks for your input anyway! :)

Nina x

Edit: Just to let you know, he is ridden with a really soft snaffle when playing Polo as his mouth is sensitive.

[cvb]

Well, I was going to do all the stuff you mentioned anyway (as it is part of Polo training as well) but I am mainly looking for anything extra, since as I said, I am experienced in all the regular riding exercises in schooling a horse. And this is a case of a horse that has never been ridden two-handedly and as he is very temperamental, I don't think I want to start introducing him to the two-handed if not needed, as he is mainly used for Polo where neck raining is essential.

And when riding one handedly, you can't have the similar affect on the bit as you would with two hands, i.e. play with the bit they are biting into it etc. So this is the area where I need help!
But thanks for your input anyway! :)

Nina x

Edit: Just to let you know, he is ridden with a really soft snaffle when playing Polo as his mouth is sensitive.

I don't 100% agree with you on that

a) I would not "fiddle" with the bit when riding two handed (whether english or western) anyway. You don't need a massive movement in the bit to "ask".

and

b) you CAN ask for lateral and vertical flexion with one handed riding. You are just influencing what happens in the mouth in a slightly different way

(In the same way I can ask for lateral or vertical flexion when *bitless* but I have to adjust my "ask")

I guess what you want more on is HOW to ask for that softness riding one handed ? And your challenge is that rather than having the basics already in place *before* you go one-handed, your horse is one-handed without having that foundation work....

[Jessey]

There is a huge difference between riding a well schooled western neck reining horse and a polo neck reining horse (I have ridden both). In polo you are still using a direct contact where in western you use an indirect one which is where you simply rely on the weight of the reins to communicate your request.
I western we start almost all horses 2 handed and then translate that once they are well schooled to neck reining. We also focus alot of our cues on very slight weight changes, training your horses to do this could be a problem, because being used mostly for polo he is trained to ignoor many weight transfers (when reaching and swinging for the ball).
However it is not impossible to train a polo pony to do basic western, but normally I have seen them retrained back to 2 handed work to do this.
It might be worth you getting in touch with West End Farm in Burgess Hill, they run western clinics and lessons but also have a polo team on site so would be able to give you sound advise on merging the two activitys :D would be worth taking your pony over for a lesson if you could, John and Jackie are nice people :)

J x

[cvb]

p.s. jessey said it better than me. Please excuse me if I am not communicating as well as I normally (I hope) do. I have a lot on my mind right now (non-horsey)

[Ms Kitty]

You don't need a massive movement in the bit to "ask".

Nope, not talking about massive movement here. :) Massive movement would just cause the horse to start swinging it's head around, which you can see a lot with inexperienced riders who try to get the horse in an outline by "sawing" the bit in the mouth and not riding them so that the outline comes from getting the hinds under, and then riding forwards, getting the horse to relax etc.

I am talking about barely existing movement to get the horse to relax it's mouth and therefore listening to the bit more, movement that is not constant, only when I feel the horse starting to tense the corners of it's mouth. And not all the horses need this, but I have found it works nicely on some (especially when re-training bolters). And I have no idea how to do that with neck raining, if needs be.

So basically I was asking how the influencing the bit works when neck raining, i.e. want to ride dressage type training with him but neck raining.. ;) I tried it on couple of the Polo ponies on the yard and just found really confusing how to use my hands, especially since the ponies are used to running around full speed with no outline whatsoever (reason why many of them don't have proper back muscles), they get cranky when trying to do anything two-handedly, their position is completely wrong from the start, and just riding them with weight and legs didn't do anything to make a difference. This is also causing some of them not to last very long without physical problems. I want to try and avoid this, especially since he has already had an injury.

So yup, definitely lacking the foundations here! :p

As Polo style of riding is quite close to the western, as far as I know, at least a lot closer than to English style, I was just looking if any of the western experts here would have any suggestions. If not, I'll see if I'll end buying him and try my best to cope with what I have. :)

Nina x

[Ms Kitty]

Jessey, we do use weight but I assume it is not in the same way as western as we do tend to stand up on the stirrups when playing, but weight is very important especially when doing quick turnings.

Why I thought about western in the first place is because of his mouth. He is a bit "too soft mouthed" for Polo, and hence has caused few problems with his owner. Therefore thought maybe there is something in western that might help me with that.

Thanks for your tips, will also contact the West End Farm and see what they say! :)

Nina x

Edit: Lol, sorry for my typos, neck "raining" indeed.. :p

[Ms Kitty]

Oh Jessey, by any chance do have a link to their website if they have one or contact details? Tried googling them but didn't come up with anything I could use.. :(

Nina x

[cvb]

Nina

I just had a thought, whether you could "reverse engineer" from 2 handed to one by just reversing the process that tends to be used to *start* neck reining ?

So if you start two handed, then you tend to (as I understand it) use a bridged rein so that, for example, when you ask for a turn right, the right rein is still asking with a direct rein but the left rein lays against the neck and creates pressure

And its really the turns and bends that are the challenge here, as anything else is a straight and equal rein isn't it ?

Oh - you were asking about the "ask" with one hand. Well I think it is just a question of creating the same feel in the bit for the horse, but with one hand. e.g. you might lift the hand to lift the bit in the horse's mouth and ask them to soften ? Or close the hand in the same way (given its a polo pony with contact rather than a western horse on looped reins)..and so on ?

[Ms Kitty]

Yup, was "trying" to ask that, but I don't think I was doing a good job at it.. :p One of those days, you know!

I tried riding one of the Polo ponies with using the inside rein English style (helping her to lift her head up a bit and get hinds underneath her as she was so heavily on the forehand she was stumbling on everything) but at the same time using the outside rein to give directions with neck reining. Well, it worked, kinda, but I don't think neither me or the pony were really comfortable with it, and this was a really nice and easy pony to ride, don't know how it would work with this horse I am interested in, as he seems to have problems with being too temperamental.

Also, I don't want to change his reining too much, as my main interest is still Polo and don't want to do anything to hamper that.. :) But have to say, I would be semi tempted to re-train him to the English style, just for the hell of it.. But don't know really, as we are talking about a good Polo pony that is relatively pricey as well.

I guess we'll see, if I ever buy him, as he needs to heal first! :) Thanks for your advice though! I think I will contact the people Jessey mentioned as well, she PMed their contact details.

Nina x