Episode 49: Q&A: Changing Horse’s Habits, Sell or Keep, Hobble Training and Riding Bareback

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SWS049.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Speaker2:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. In this episode, I'm going to answer some questions that have come in on my website. I hope you enjoy.

Speaker3:
Hi Stacy, I'm Sophie from France. I'm trying to help a girl with her horse. She has no control on the saddle and falls off him regularly. He took the habit to make her roll back to make her fall. So I began groundwork with him. And no surprise, when I launched him, He made a rollback and showed me his bed. It's like the Pavlov reflex. Is it possible to completely delete a habit, or will it always be there in a corner of their mind? Thank you for what you do. Always helpful. Each one of your podcast is relevant. Thank you a lot.

Speaker2:
Thanks for the question, Sophie. It does sound like you have quite a project ahead of you. Is it possible to completely delete a habit? You might remember that I did a podcast where I discussed adding layers to a horse's training. In a way, this also applies here, but I'm going to go ahead and answer this from a couple other angles. The first angle I'd like to approach it from is what is in their nature. And what I mean by that is not all horses have as much of a tendency to lean towards certain behaviors. For example, let's use something like bucking. So if we look at a habit or an issue like bucking, not all horses are going to exhibit that as a go to. So some horses might be more likely to squirt forward, run forward. Other horses might be more likely to roll back. Different horses are going to have different ways that they exhibit different things. So if a horse tends to buck when they play out in the pasture and tends to buck in a number of other places, you could say, geez, this horse has a little bit more of a natural tendency to use this as a go to. An example I like to use often is a horse that will rear when you see it playing. It is a little bit easier to teach that horse to rear when you're doing groundwork and liberty work, because they kind of already have a habit of liking to do that. Now, does that mean that a horse that rears when it's playing is more likely to rear under saddle? I have not found that to be true because we can change that with the training.

Speaker2:
But if I were going to be looking for a horse that I wanted to teach to rear, I like to look at horses that are already using that as something they play with out in the pasture. So can you hear what I'm saying about it being in their nature? Now, if we go back to the bucking example and we say that, you know, if a horse bucks when it gets saddled, is that because it was in their nature or were they scared? So this kind of comes down to my second approach on this, which is why are they doing this? A lot of horses will exhibit undesirable behavior out of fear. And that could be bucking, for example, or your example of rolling back. So if they don't understand something, they may be using these undesirable things as an escape route. Something they kind of explored fell into. It just kind of happened in their body, and now they're using it as a go to because they don't have any other idea of what to do. And if a horse is doing something like this out of fear, I think that that actually leaves you more room for correcting it or adding layers over the top of it, because a lot of times what that means is they don't truly understand the lesson. And also when horses are acting out of fear, it's not an enjoyable situation for them.

Speaker2:
So if they're acting out of fear, that is not a pleasant place to live. So a lot of times when they learn that there's a different way of being, I think that they are way more likely to change because when they learn there is a way to be in life that does not involve fear. They become more brave and they become more just. They just live a life without fear is so much more enjoyable to them that if this habit is coming from fear, then you have a really great opportunity that it will probably be very fixable or changeable because the horse won't be enjoying it. Now you can also look at it like is this grandma's rules? But keep in mind, if this is grandma's rules, that would typically mean that the horse would behave one way with one person. That would mean that a trainer has trained this horse fully at some time, and the horse fully understands and is not afraid, and the horse is now playing games or whatever you want to call it. But the horse is applying grandma's rules and has figured out that this person will behave this way under this set of circumstances, and so I won't call it Grandma's Rules until we can see that the horse has a solid set of rules that are functioning, high functioning on on one set over here. And then when you change riders, then the horse goes, oh, you know, this rider responds, when I do a certain set of things.

Speaker2:
Let me make this a little bit more relatable. And if you look at a horse like Willow, who is naturally a less confident horse, she still maintains a mistrust of plastic bags or tarps. Now, if you see her out in life and you see her at the horse shows with me, you're not going to necessarily see that. But I can still feel it. And if I took a tarp out and laid it down, she wouldn't hesitate to go over it. Well, maybe on a certain day she would hesitate to go over it. She would go over it. But if you watch her body language. She's not fully good with that. And what that means is that there is a little bit of a level of her holding her breath, or her still being a little bit fearful. Now, you don't see it much with me because I don't react to it. But if I were to hand Willow over to somebody and they took her for a couple of years, does Willow have more of a chance of coming, quote unquote, untrained? Because if somebody saw her kind of tighten up and raise her head up an inch or two and her eyes get really big, if that triggers something in the human, then what's going to happen is Willow is then going to read the human as having a reaction, and then Willow is going to have a reaction to the human having a reaction to her thought about the Tarp.

Speaker2:
So this is how things spiral. So certain horses like Willow being naturally, Actually, you know, distrusting of plastic. And she's been exposed to it thousands and thousands of times, and she does a really good job of keeping it together. But it is in her nature to be a little bit more like that. So. Is it ever going to be completely gone? I think she's going to just slowly keep in mind that she's been back in my hands for four years now. Slowly, she may someday come to accept it fully without a little bit of holding her breath. But right now she's at a very, very high functioning level where most people wouldn't even notice that she had an issue. But she's much more cautious feeling when I'm around tarps. But again, she's also probably still reading some confidence off for me. If she was in a situation that was different, it could be different. Now are you going to label this grandma's rules, or are you going to label this that it's in her nature? Are you going to label this, that she's quote unquote pulling one over on someone, or that this is her natural tendency that's coming back out and pay attention to what you decide to label it, because it will change the way that you behave with the horse. If a person believes that the horse is messing with them and that it needs to be corrected, you may miss the opportunity to build that horse's confidence.

Speaker2:
Because if the horse is truly operating out of fear, which to this day Willow still is, she's just a less trusting horse by nature. If they are reacting out of fear and you decide to punish or punish them in a correcting kind of way, that's kind of a punishing kind of a way, then that's going to make them even more fearful, because now they're fearful of being punished for being fearful. So these are how these spirals kind of happen. So I always give the horses the benefit of the doubt, but that doesn't mean that I hold back on. On training them to a very high level. But it also means I recognize who they are at their core, and the way they are at their core doesn't change. But there are a lot of horses that are very able to be trained to the point where you don't see that behavior anymore. Like Willow is doing. But whether it fully goes away, that depends on the individual and the situation. Is it more likely to come back up if they if it is as natural in their nature as it is with Willow to be kind of that mistrusting, it's more likely to come up like that if it's just flat and never been trained, which could be very possible with this horse, then you might be able to train this horse and never see it again. It really gets down to that root cause. Thanks for your question. And now for the next question.

Speaker4:
I adopted an off the track thoroughbred mare who's very buddy, sour and needy when she's this way. Her emotions are so high I can't get her to respond to me. And this is. This is on the ground. I'm afraid this will translate to the saddle. And I plan to trail ride her. But she's so fearful and buddy sour. I just don't know how to overcome this. Um, I have been doing groundwork with her. Um, and at times she can be very good. I have another mare, and I do not put them together in the pasture or the lot. Uh, part of me says to send her back that she's too much for me to handle. Uh, the other part of me says, uh, she'll get over this with training help. I appreciate your help. Thanks.

Speaker2:
There's a lot going on inside of this question. Basically, it's going to boil down to do I keep the horse or do I send it back? And when I look at a question like this, it's very personal because there are so many individual, unique pieces to each person's situation that it really does come down to being a personal decision. Let me help you out with some of the things that I see. For example, if you're in a situation where you can only own two horses, which it sounds like you have two horses right now, I'm just going to say maybe you're in a situation where you only have the space or time for two horses, and the question becomes, is this horse the best fit for what you want? Where it gets a little bit complicated is you've got to get really clear with what you want. Why did you pick this horse in the first place? You are now saying that you see signs that she's buddy, sour, needy, fearful And that when her emotions get really high, you can't get her to respond to you. So a lot of this you're correct in labeling like an emotional reaction that she's having, and you're seeing it show up in her physical being. She's saying that it's it's fairly high level or that she is not educated because when her emotions get high, you can't get her to respond to you. So that could be a lack of understanding on her part. A lack of training could be that she's just going to require somebody who's going to be very clear.

Speaker2:
So maybe it's a lack of training on your side. And what I need to ask you is, does this look like a fun project for you? And not that fun has to be the answer to everything. But the danger in this is that when you ask the question, do you send her back because she's too much for me to handle? If you have the thought that she's too much for you to handle that's going to color your relationship with her. For me, when I'm working with a horse, I always say when I used to train horses professionally and we would have, you know, anywhere between 15 to 20 outside horses in for training. Whatever horse I was working with, I knew I needed to find a way to love working with that horse, and sometimes that was liking the learning process I was going through, even if I didn't know how the long term outcome. Like, is this horse going to end up being a great show horse? I don't know, but I'm really interested to work with a horse that thinks this uniquely. Or in your case, it might be, wow, this horse has really high emotions. Wouldn't this be an interesting puzzle to solve? Now, the dangerous part that I mentioned before is that you've got these kind of two things going on where you're like, is she too much for me to handle? Is one option you put out there. Or the other option was, Will she get over this with training? Let me say there's a lot more options than that.

Speaker2:
She may get a lot of training and slightly improve, but never get over it. She may become really great at groundwork, but still never be a horse that you're fully comfortable riding. So there's a lot of different options out there, and I would encourage you to write down as many different options as you can think of. And one thing that's always interesting to me when I do that exercise, if I say how many different options can I see with this horse? And let's just say that I pull out a piece of paper and I write down the first ten options I can come up with. One thing that's really interesting to do is to look at that list that you set a timer and you go, I'm going to give myself five minutes to come up with ten options that ten things that could happen here, ten ways this could play out. It's always kind of interesting because if I read that list and nine out of ten are negative, it's kind of pointing me in the direction that I'm thinking in where if I write it down and, you know, nine out of ten of them are positive, even if they're not necessarily your end goal of trail riding, then that will kind of tell me a little bit about my outlook on that. Now, I would encourage you to come up with ten positive outcomes. It's kind of fun if you actually do the first time, you just kind of let your brain go wherever you want and notice whether or not your brain goes to like, she could, you know, get loose and run away down the road.

Speaker2:
And, you know, if it goes towards a really negative thing or whether you say she might be the best Liberty horse on the ground that I've ever had, but I might not ride her, you know, so it's interesting to see where your brain will go. And then at some point try to come up with ten positive ones. But if you come up with ten positive ones and you still don't really believe them. If you still really, at your core believe she's too much for you to handle, then you need to admit that because there is a piece of her that is telling you about her nature. Again, we can do a ton to modify their nature, especially if she's lacking training. If she's lacking training, and you are now going to be the first human that's ever given her the opportunity to learn some of this, she could change a lot. But if you don't get excited about being the person that puts in hundreds of hours without knowing for sure what the outcome is, you should know that up front. And I don't think there's anything wrong with admitting whether or not that sounds fun to you, because if it doesn't sound fun to you, you won't have fun doing it. And if you don't have some level of satisfaction or enjoyment or fun, if there's not something enjoyable about the process for you. Odds are, it won't turn out really well because she's going to pick up on the fact that you're not really enjoying that.

Speaker2:
So when you're thinking about it, do a lot in the zone of the writer's mind where you're going to write some of this stuff out on paper, and don't let there be any shame if, if, if turning her back in to where you got her and looking for a horse that's a solid citizen already able to go down the trail. Don't feel shame for that. If that's the choice that you make, because whatever's going on in your mind will be reflected in your body. And if you have fear of injury when you are eventually riding her, then it's going to show up. And just like my earlier example with Willow and having her issues there, it would very quickly with a insecure rider, Willow would probably more quickly spiral into a problem horse because she's naturally insecure herself. And you can just admit that that's a possibility. I don't actually know that about you. So you have to make those decisions. What you think would work in best in your situation. Again, right now she's telling you a little bit about her mind, and that could be because there's a lack of training there, or that could also be pointing a I would argue there is some of it pointing towards her nature, because some are more naturally brave than others. And then, you know, you're seeing a lot about her body and the way that she uses it and some of her go to things, and all of those will improve with training.

Speaker2:
The biggest question I think you need to answer is whether or not your plan to trail ride is how how high a priority is that? Because if that is a very high priority to you and the idea of spending, you know, let's just say a year or two of messing with this horse and playing with this horse and enjoying the process. If that doesn't sound like an enjoyable process to you, play with the time frame that you would enjoy it for. And if that's already expired because of what you already know, or if you're like, hey, I could give it a year and I could be open to the idea that she might not become a horse for me, but I'm going to spend this next year improving her so she'll be a better horse for somebody else. Or if you go back and you discuss with the group that you got her from that you're not quite sure if it's a good fit, you know, involve some professionals around you, get some other opinions. But really do listen to your gut on this, because I think a lot of times people don't make some of those choices because they're afraid of how other people will judge them. But keep in mind, that horse is going to be feeding off from whatever emotion you bring to the table, and you really need to be confident to help a horse like this. Thanks for your question. Here's a question from Claire.

Speaker5:
Hello. Stacy, this is Claire Dupree from France, and I have a question regarding Hubbell training. I'm going to have a new colt coming this fall. And I really would like to Hubbell train him and also Hubbell train my five year old. So, um, I think that's a very good skill to have, but I also think it can be a train wreck if you don't do it properly. So if you had any pointers on how you go about it, that would be fantastic. Thanks a lot. Bye bye.

Speaker2:
I agree with you that hobbling can be a really good skill for a horse to have, and that it can be a train wreck. So for people who are listening that haven't considered hobbling or maybe have a negative idea of hobbling, let me just talk for a minute about why it could be a good idea. So years ago, I learned to hobble train horses, and my first experience with it actually wasn't a very good experience because the person I was learning from was like, and you just put the hobbles on. And I don't suggest that because the horses fight a lot with the hobbles, because it's a scary thing to have happen. So then as my training progressed, it became much more logical to think, okay, what if you teach the horse to give to pressure on the legs? And so in the process of thinking about teaching things like teaching the horse to bow. If you've ever seen my bowing DVD, I do use a rope to hold the leg up at one stage. But before I do that, I teach the horse how to give to the rope pressure, so I'll put the rope around their leg and pull their leg forward with the rope. And when they set their leg down, I'll release and you can actually teach them to lead from each one of their legs, yes, even their hind legs. And you can teach them to lead forward and backwards and sideways. You can literally teach them to lead from each leg the same way that you would from their halter.

Speaker2:
And that's kind of a mind trip, and it's kind of a fun little project, and it can be done quickly. I had a young girl come to one of my clinics and she had a little pony, and it was sort of like, who's more determined, The Little Pony or the Little girl? And she wanted to learn about bowing and teaching the horse to lay down and some different tricks like that. And I said, okay, here's your assignment. I want you to teach this pony to lead from each one of its legs. And I'm going to go work with your sister. And sure enough, she very quickly, in that morning session while I'm working with her sister, she's over there working with the pony. And before the end of that day, she had that pony leading around off from all four legs, because she wanted to know how to move on to the next thing. So I think if you teach the horse to give to pressure, like leading from each leg with like a lead rope. Then when you go to the hobble training, it's actually pretty much already done for you. And so the horses that I've used that method with, they understand it and they go to move and they feel the one leg and they, they feel the pressure on the rope and they put it back down because it's kind of tied to the other leg.

Speaker2:
And again, the reason why this could be a good idea is because if the horse ever gets tangled up in something, they are going to give to that pressure instead of fighting against it. And the strongest example I have to give personally is that I had taught a bunch of my horses to hobble, and one of them was popcorn, and I taught him the theory, and I taught him to hobble, and he would stand hobbled. We'll discuss that in a minute. And he understood it. And I was out doing a video shoot and we were out in the woods and they wanted me to go out behind some trees and then come riding around the corner. And so I was out. I thought I was out around the trees far enough and they said, no, we can still see you. Can you just back up a few more feet so that you're out of the camera angle, so you'll come riding into the camera angle? I said sure, and I asked him to back up and we backed up a step or two, and then he stopped backing up. He refused to back up, but he gave his chin an unusual way, like all the way to his chest. And I don't ask my horses to do that. So I thought that was really odd that he stopped moving his feet, but he kind of, like, still gave his chin even more excessively than I asked for.

Speaker2:
And I was like, well, that's weird. And of course I asked him again because surely there must be something wrong with my shoes. And so again, he refused to move his feet, but he gave his chin excessively, and I was like, that is so weird. Then it dawned on me to look down, and I looked down and he had actually backed up. You know, it was there were leaves on the ground and he had backed up, and there was an old wire fence that had fallen down almost underneath the leaves, and he had backed up and his legs were pressed up against the back of that. That wire was along the back of his legs, but instead of panicking, he had stopped and wouldn't move. He didn't fight the pressure. He just wouldn't move anymore. And that's because he understood the hobble training. And I have had other people report that horses that have been hobble trained when they got tangled up in stuff, whether that was, you know, they found old wire when they were out in the field or anything like that. They don't struggle with it. And then along that same lines, when I was starting to train my minis to drive, I actually hobble trained my miniature horses because it made sense to me that if the harness ever broke or got tangled up around their legs, I wanted them to know the answer wasn't to continue fighting. Plus, it made them really easy to hook up to the cart because I could hobble them out in the arena and I could harness them and go get the cart and hook them up completely by myself.

Speaker2:
So there are a lot of reasons that hobble training can be a really helpful thing for the horse to understand. Now again, it can be a disaster if they're not prepared correctly. So preparation preparation preparation. Now some of the cons are actually that it could be like lack of preparation. So the horse panics. And this is a totally negative experience. But beyond that let's go back to popcorn. Just because you hobble them FYI does not mean they have to actually stay there. It just means they have to travel differently. Now popcorn totally understood everything and he realized that he couldn't walk. He couldn't move his feet. So it took him about a day or two. And keep in mind, I was hobbling him in my indoor arena in the winter with all the doors shut, so it wasn't like there was a big drive to go anywhere and I was riding other horses around him. But he stood there and after a little while, he's a very creative horse. He apparently was kind of bored so you could watch him. I'm riding around him on other horses, and there were a group of us riding and he kind of explored, you know, hey, I could take these little steps like this. And so he would kind of creep around, and then you could see him stop and think about it.

Speaker2:
And there were a bunch of things in the corner, like tarps and balls and all these other obstacle things that I pull out to use. And you could see him looking at it, and then he just started hopping like a bunny over to the corner. And, you know, sometimes when I'm watching my horses, if there's no danger involved, they're really kind of fascinating to watch. So he hops like a bunny rabbit with his front two feet all the way over to the corner of the arena, and he starts rolling the ball around and messing with the tarp with his nose. And it was like, okay, well, apparently hobble training with you is, um, sort of working, like, you understand the theory, but you've also worked past the theory. And then later on, just because I like to keep messing with them, I was like, well, they do sell these three legged hobbles. So you hobble the two front legs together, and then you take this other one and you go, like diagonally across. And so you hobble to a back leg, too. And so if you look it up online, you'll see they're not they're not really tight, but it's supposed to help deter this. And so I bought a set like that. And then same thing. Indoor arena very boring well-trained horse were in there. I have him hobbled. He goes to hobble.

Speaker2:
And he realized that hopping doesn't work because you can't hop because you have to. Like when the hopping is like spreading your feet apart. The front and back, feet apart was kind of that rabbit bunny hop. So he figured out that guess what? If you have a diagonal pair of legs moving, answer this question for me. Which gait? Walk. Trot? Lope? Which gait has a diagonal pair of legs? So popcorn did the math and realized that he might not be able to hop like a bunny, but he could pick up the left lead. So okay, this is a really smart horse. And he just went over to the corner again just to get the toys. So okay really you really need these this much. So just keep in mind that hobble training has benefits. But the horses can actually still get around. And I asked a rancher once that ranched out on 17,000 acres. I said, okay, this is what I've experienced with this particular creative horse. What happens when you guys are actually using hobbling out here in very, very large places? What do you do? And he said, oh yeah, there's some horses that are like that. Most horses, the majority are going to kind of take these little steps and they'll go around and they'll graze and they'll still be reasonably located. But then you've got some, like the one you just described that will just kind of figure out how to go, and they'll just kind of go wherever they want.

Speaker2:
And he told me that they actually will drive a stake into the ground and then basically tie the hobbles to the stake. And I was like, wow, I had no idea. And for my use, it's not what I'm using it for, so I've never had to experiment with it. But from what he said, it's pretty much very similar to you. Teach them to give to pressure on a halter. So basically you tie them to something and they stay. And it's the same kind of an idea that you could actually tie the hobbles to something like that, and they would learn to stay. I don't have any experience with that, because, again, my hobble training was more for being able to teach the horses the theory of giving their feet in pressure situation. And I did use it when I was like, I might hobble a horse like popcorn, leave him in the arena in a spot, go get another horse. But really, most of the time now I just do it with ground tying so I'm more likely to teach the horse. Whoa. Have him stand there and their ground tied in the middle of my arena. And I if I want to say pony a young colt off from them, I will say, whoa! Ground. Tie them there. Go get the other horse. Bring the other horse back. Horse A is still standing, their ground tied. And I'll climb on with the horse I'm about to pony.

Speaker2:
So I kind of, for the most part, solve my own issue by just teaching them the even stronger thing, which is the mental aspect of staying put. But I understand there's lots of different reasons for using hobbles, but my tips for you would be make sure the horse really understands giving to pressure from each leg. So just take something like a like a long lunge line and teach that horse to lead. So if you're tied, if you if you wrap that around their left front foot, for example, you should be able to pull that forward to like say 12:00. You should be able to pull that sideways over to like, you know, 11, ten, nine, you should be able to get the horse to back up if you pull back towards like 6:00. So every time you move that horse's foot around, you're going to hold pressure until that horse sets that foot down out at 9:00 and on and on like that. So those would be my tips. But again, really consider why you want to do it. Consider the nature of the horse that you're about to do this with. Think back to how they've responded to other things. Make educated guesses and try to do prevent, prevent, prevent, prevent so that when you do, put them in the hobbles for the first time, it's a great experience for them. Thanks again for your question. And the final question for today comes from Claire.

Speaker6:
Hi Stacy. My name is Claire. I'm 12 years old and I live in Dripping Springs, Texas. I also ride bareback a lot and I love it. Um, I was wondering if you had any tips on balancing or just bareback riding in general? Thank you.

Speaker2:
I was blessed to grow up riding bareback, so one part of me has kind of always known bareback, although I will admit that I had lots and lots of times that I slid down my pony's neck from being bareback on her back and we would be trotting or even cantering up through the field, and she would stop quickly to eat grass, and I would slide quickly down her neck and land in front of her face. So I grew up riding bareback, but I also have lots and lots of memories of that move that she would pull. She would basically stop to eat grass, and I would end up sliding down her neck and sitting in the grass in front of her face. In more recent years, back when I was teaching myself to do bridleless and then bareback and bridleless, I began experimenting with riding bareback, and that would have been back in like 2004, after I had done the routine with the mare named Cancan Lina. And you can find that on YouTube, where I was riding to the Johnny Cash song Ghost Riders in the Sky. And after that year, when I showed her in 2003 and did that in 2004, I started playing around with the idea of riding her bareback, and that for me, even though I had grown up riding bareback, I went back to what I'm going to recommend to anybody who is starting out, and that is start small and start with a short amount of time and build up.

Speaker2:
So what I did was I would ride her like normal, and then I would cool her down by pulling the saddle off and getting on and riding around bareback. And my husband can remember when I would do little baby slides. I'm talking like she would slide 12 to 24in and I would be like, wow, did you see that? You know, and when I would ask her to spin, I wouldn't let her spin her full speed. I would just ask her to really gently spin and and she would turn just kind of, you know, a quarter of the speed that she could spin. And I was like, did you see that? You know. So celebrate the little things, even if you're used to doing bigger things in the saddle, because it is different for both you and the horse. Now, growing up, having ridden a lot of bareback, I do know this that when you're first learning it is easier on a less sensitive horse. So for years we had a little haflinger pony that my kids would ride, and she taught a lot of people how to ride bareback, and she was not trained off from very many legs. For example, she didn't side pass, she didn't know how to move her hips. So she was very much more basic, you know, left, right. Basically your legs were like, go. And if you stopped using your legs, you know, they were part of stop. But she didn't have a lot of the fancy cues that a lot of my reining horses do.

Speaker2:
And it made her easy because there was no confusion on her part. When you start riding a horse, for example, the first time that I got on willow bareback. All the times that I've had a horse that's gone a long time with the saddle. Before you go bareback, you can tell that it's a little bit different for the horse because they just get this different look in their face. They kind of raise their head up. There's some questions. It feels slightly different because you don't have the bulk of the saddle and the pad and all the different things in between you, and I'm not saying that that's better or worse, but I'm saying it's different. And then if you take a more sensitive or well trained horse, they might ask a lot more questions about moving away from your leg or side passing, or almost feeling like there's a lot of cues being touched. But the one thing I really like about that is that they will often very quickly realize that this is actually not a set of cues, and they'll learn how to understand that your legs are just being used. In this case, kind of as you're balancing, you might you should be balancing for more on your knees and above and not really clamping with your lower leg. But I'm here to say that when you take a turn and you feel like you're losing your balance, you're probably going to close your legs in a different way.

Speaker2:
So having a horse that's a little less sensitive is a little bit easier. I have started a lot of horses now, like Willow and different horses that are pretty sensitive, but I've got a pretty good sense of balance and I don't tend to clamp with those legs. So I would say start small. This is going to sound a little bit yucky, but they're way easier to stay on if you've been riding them with a saddle and you pull the saddle off and that sweaty spot is there because you'll stick a little bit to that slightly wet spot. And so that's a great way to start. Slightly wet horses like from sweat are a little bit sticky and easy to stay on. Really wet horses from being hosed off or swimming are very slippery. So don't take the idea of if a little if a little bit of wet helps, then a lot will will surely help more. No, they turn into like slick seals, so a little bit of that sticky sweat can help you feel like you have a little bit more of your seat. That's a little bit more grippy, I think. And again, start small. Short amount of time, small expectations, familiar area. So whether that's your arena or your round pen or something, and if you do anything in the saddle to stretch your comfort zone. So for example, if you in the saddle get more confident at trotting over poles or reversing directions in a figure eight or different things that would challenge your balance when the horse steered, then you're going to be a little bit more prepared for how to do that, especially if you drop your stirrups, because when you drop your stirrups, which I will still do to this day, I'll be riding around.

Speaker2:
And if I feel like I'm overusing one stirrup, that might be the inside stirrup, it might be the outside stirrup. It depends on what I'm doing. If I feel like I'm overusing it, and I have corrected myself just in my mind a couple of times, the next thing I do, if I find myself doing it a third time, is I take that foot out of that stirrup, and that instantly changes the way that I'm riding, because I have to use my seat more effectively. And essentially, at the end of the day, that's what bareback riding is doing, is it's making you find your true balance without using the reins or without using the stirrups when you're sitting on that horse. So have fun, but keep it safe. Thanks again for your question. In the next season of the podcast, I'm going to be discussing equipment. So if you have any questions about equipment, go ahead and call in and leave your message or send me an email. Thanks for joining me and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Speaker1:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall. Com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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