Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Great Teachers

One of my goals on the horsemanship journey was to find a great riding coach that could help improve my technical riding ability. Last summer one of my former students/now friend, invited me to watch her lesson with Ruth Ratcliffe, at Moose Hill Ranch in Bragg Creek.

My friend Dar bought Echo as a 2 year old - Echo is a big, beautiful black mare who, as a youngster, was quite strong willed. There were times when Dar doubted that she was the right person for Echo. Seeing their harmonious riding partnership was truly magical and Dar attributed much of her success with Echo to her riding coach Ruth.

Just last week I started taking lessons with Ruth and have already acquired a better understanding of western riding after only two lessons. I've been fortunate to have many wonderful horse and human teachers along my journey and Ruth will be right up there for me. Ruth Ratcliffe is a truly gifted coach; compassionate, funny, knowledgeable and very accomplished. It came as no surprise to learn that Ruth has also been awarded Coach of Year.

I've never been delusional about my riding ability - while adequate I'm not a great rider. However, now that I am doing more rehabilitation work with horses that I want to re-home, I want to be able to bring them to another level under saddle. Not to mention I would like to bring my own personal horses, Dexter and Nevar to another level.

Leopold has also been a great teacher for me. Riding Leopold has been rewarding but his fidgety, nervous behavior in the barn was frustratingly irritating. I tried hard to stick to more traditional training methods with Leopold knowing it would likely be more in line with his future when he finds his perfect person. However, after one extremely annoying evening in the barn with him, I heard Linda Tellington-Jones in my head saying he doesn't know how to be any other way - so show him another way to be. Even trying to do TTouch on Leopold was irritating because the bugger simply wouldn't stand still so the other day I reverted to clicker training. The change in our interaction was profound. Instead of dreading another barn session with Leopold, I now happily anticipate playing with him and thinking of new things to teach him. When I read articles or hear folks saying that clicker training is a bad thing, I can only think they don't understand the power of operant conditioning and they haven't seen it done well, if at all. Just like any training method or tool, used badly, it can get ugly. Leopold is now standing quietly in the barn with his head relaxed and giving me each foot nicely without falling out of position. This may not seem like a big deal to some folks, but I do my own trimming and when a horse doesn't stand still and balanced, it makes the job so much harder.

Leopold's bravery is beginning to emerge now that he is relaxed and thinking rather than being fidgety and reactive. Anyone who has handled many horses knows that training a relaxed, curious horse is much more effective than training a tense, worried horse; as well as being much safer for the rider/handler.

Ruth is teaching me to be a more effective rider and Leopold is teaching me to trust what I know to help him be a calm, happy horse.

Tovie and Leopold

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