Buckaroo Texan Blog

 I took my 2 year old filly, Bubbles to the Buck Brannaman Clinic in March.   I rode her in the Foundation Class.   This class is for young horses, green horses, horses with problems needing a restart with the snaffle bit and green riders.   This class never ceases to amaze me on the holes my horsemanship has.  It all starts with the fundamentals.  You can never get these too good.  Revisiting this class from time to time can really help you improve on all those advanced manuvers you have been working on.   You will always find an area in foundation, that needs some polish.

 The first day involved working on flexions from the ground.  Correctly bending the horse with his neck and head even or slightly higher than the withers, depending on the natural conformation of each horse.   With Bubbles, I needed to lift slightly as I asked for a bend to get her to bring her head around with a proper bend in her neck but keeping her head vertical and her ears horizontal.    Without the proper bend, the horse is stuck in the shoulders and out of balance.   Without really feeling of your horse, you are either building a brace just by bending and or setting your horse up to be out of balance before you even take a step.    Flexions also include asking the horse to slightly lift its neck and then roll over into a soft feel off the bit.   The neck should be slightly raised above the withers and the face of the horse vertical.   This is what you are looking for and may take some work and patience to get it.   Once you understand this, you can get the horse working in balance just at a standstill.  You ask the horse for these flexions, you cannot force a horse to do them and get the balance and softness you are looking for.  You give the horse time to figure this out on their own by holding not pulling until they make a gesture in the right direction and you build from there.   You have a really good feel going on between you and your horse when you both find this together.

Over the next three days we added more riding each day, more ground exercises that built on the use of the flexions and flexions in the saddle. With the proper flexions in mind, we progressed to asking the hind end to step over and then the front, backing straight and backing circles.  With out the proper flexions the horse would be out of balance and have trouble moving its feet.  Really feeling the horse try to understand what you were asking is a great feeling and makes the manuvers easy.  After all, we were getting the horses to make moves they do all the time, without a rider.

 Bubble got to really chopping her bit one of the days and I asked Buck about this.   She was processing the information I was asking of her.   I just ignored it, as suggested, it would go away as she felt more comfortable and more confident.  Buck also reminded me to be sure and feel of her and be very aware when she was chopping the bit during a time I was asking for a maneuver and to be sure and not release until her mouth got quite so she would know without a doubt that was what I was asking for.   Releasing while her mouth was real busy could very easy give her the idea to chop her bit every time I asked anything of her.   The chopping was gone by the end of the clinic. 

Photo by: Kathleen Morris