Turn on the Forehand: Is this Normally and Easy Thing to Teach?
So far, this is the only horse I’ve seen in Denmark. It’s only day two though, so I’m not discouraged. I’m in contact with a Scandinavian reining committee member (I think) who said she would do a little checking around for me. Keep your fingers crossed.
About the statue, I’m not entirely sure what the naked guy is doing by the horse’s hooves, but I suspect he threw himself down there to be trampled to death after spending two maddening weeks trying to get his horse to turn on the forehand.
Les Vogt suggests beginning this training on the fence. I don’t think I read his instructions thoroughly before attempting this training. Actually, I’m sure I didn’t. I put the horse’s nose to the fence and then applied pressure behind the girth. The results I got were a lot of backing and side passing. I can get a few steps on his good side, but nothing but confusion on his bad side.
Here is what I failed to absorb from Les Vogt’s workbook:
1) He says to start by walking along the fence, find a place to stop and then use the leg closest to the fence. This, to me, means that I shouldn’t have started with the horses nose to the fence, but instead with his body alongside the fence.
2) He says to be sure your horse has a soft pole, and if it doesn’t, go back to working on that. I didn’t even pay attention to whether Leo was resisting or not.
I’m glad to have this time off to really READ the instructions in the workbook. I get so excited about teaching Leo that I fly through the reading instead of taking my time and really absorbing it. It reminds me of the carpenters idiom, “measure twice, cut once.” I’ll change it a little, “read twice, don’t mess up your horse once.”
One of the problems that I’m having is that this horse was trained to side pass with his nose to the fence. Leo is the type of horse that anticipates commands. So if I point him with his nose to the fence, he begins to side pass whether I ask him to or not. I think having his body alongside the fence will help with this. I’m going to also try putting him on the fence a lot and ask him to do nothing but stand. Mix it up a lot like I do with his other exercises.
I did a search online for some more articles on teaching the turn on the forehand. The most common theme that I found was that it’s important to quit after your horse makes one step farther then the last time and move on to something else. This is in line with Les’s saying, “just rub a little on every day.”
About.com offers a turn on the forehand how-to. The difference in these instructions is that there is no mention of a brace rein and they recommend turning the horse’s nose to the “inside of the circle.” I’m not sure which side that is.
I’ve found a few articles like this one, Training for Trail Part II, that suggest attempting to teach the horse from the ground first if you’re having problems. There is no mention of starting on the fence.
Hope you’re having a good time in Denmark. Glad you had something to do on the plane, it’s a long haul. I visited my sister twice, 1st time she was stationed in Wales, second time in England & I think the plane ride was about 8 hours. For some people thats probably not bad, but for my first time on a plane, it sucked! The trips made up for it though.
Ah yes the turn on the forehand. I can see where Les is going with his way. Actually that exercise is the precursor for the way I teach to sidepass. Walking along the fence, turn their nose into the fence to stop them & at the same time reach back with your outside leg & push the hindquarters over so their perpendicular to the fence with their nose on it. (For sidepassing from this point you’d move you leg back to the middle & continue pushing so they keep walking [sidepassing] perpendicular to the fence)
The way I teach is the way I think you were a little confused on. You don’t have to be next to the fence. I pull their nose around to my toe (lets say you pull their head around to your right toe) then you take your right leg & move it back toward their hindquarter & press so they crossover with the hind legs, you keep their head pulled around throughout all this, this keeps their front end locked up. If they do start to do a circle instead of a pivot that means you don’t have their head pulled around far enough. Of course you’d only ask for one step at first then progress to two & so on. You may need a crop or something to help if they’re ignoring your leg too. After they’re good at this you can slowly not pull their head around as far & eventually not at all. It just helps in the beginning, because generally whichever way their head is turned, their hindquarter will go the other way.
12 Nov 2007 at 9:24 am
Your trip overseas sounds fantastic! I sold some horse stuff on Ebay once to a reiner from Norway and we chatted via e-mail on how excited (some) of her countrymen were to have reiners.
I can’t determine from your blog what part of the country you are from. My thought was that if there are reiners in Norway there are surely reining trainers in your part of the USA. Leo’s lessons would progress much faster if you were to actually go and ride a trained reiner. You would know what you are trying to accomplish and what it feels like when performed correctly. Are there any clinics in your area? Another set of eyes might give you a jumpstart in your program!
Good Luck
13 Nov 2007 at 12:52 pm
Amanda,
Ooooh! You point their nose to the fence! drrrr! I’m going to try both of your suggestions. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate all of your help. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Cathy,
I’ve been on some pretty well trained roping horses. My buddy has one that has a stop that will launch me over a fence and is an awesome spinner. I would like to ride that horse again, now that I know more about how to ask a horse for a turn around. Really the only time I’m around a lot of quarter horses is during the summer when we go to Ellensburg (Leo’s owner ropes there). Thats it.
I live in Washington State. I hear that Les Vogt comes up here to Yakima in the summers, so I’m hoping to go to one of his. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for other clinics as well. Thanks for the comment!
13 Nov 2007 at 2:06 pm
A couple of comments to digest when you’re on your vacation. It may help with the “turn on the forehand” not to think of it that way. Think of moving the hips while keeping the shoulders still. What you don’t want the horse to start thinking is that if you use your leg to move his hips, it’s okay to move his shoulders too. So if you try to move the hips by bending the horse until he has to, you’re actually letting him lead with the shoulder. This will cause you infinite pain - believe me - when you get ready to change leads, because to do that correctly, you need to hold the shoulders to one side while you push the hips Othe other way, for the change. So you are much better off, although it is a lot harder - to teach the horse to move his hips from a fairly straight position. Eventually you will want him to be able to move his hips toward his nose. So although bending him to the right in order to push his hip to the left makes life easy at this stage. It will make life complicated later on. You’ll have to tell Leo that you’re changing the rules now and what was okay before is not okay now - they just have a problem with that as we all do!
The other thing is - do you ride out of the arena? You shouldn’t. Especially when you’re having issues there. Is there even another gate you could go out of - rather than the one he sounds like he seems to be leaning toward? If you have to go out that way, make sure you dismount somewhere else and walk him out. Also you might try doing most of your strenuous work near the gate and let him catch his air and relax at the other end of the arena. I have the option of feeding my guys in the far end of the arena if they start to think there are boogey men behind the trees - usually just a moose or a bear - LOL!
Make sure you watch the videos where Les demonstrates using the fence for Exercises 3 and 4, and pay particular attention to the bend of the horse - it’s really critical - but it’s opposite of the way that most folks do it - unless they’re folks that have taught a lot of horses to do lead changes! Then you start to realize that if you don’t get just hips, when you ask for hips, you’ve got a problem.
If you go to LesVogt.com and or video.google.com and watch the show on bosals -at the end there is a little segment from a clinic where Les helps folks do lead changes at a walk. And a lot of them get in trouble because they’re letting the shoulders “leak out.” Might help you to visualize what you are after. lb
18 Nov 2007 at 1:51 pm
Actually their shoulders don’t move at all, you want them to not move, but I can see what you mean for the lead change. Their head will actually be turned to the left, not right, when you ask for the left change. But to me MJ is in, lets say Kindergarten with hindquarter movement, she’s just at the beginning. Right now we just want to get the hindquarters moved so pulling his head around will naturally get his hindquarter to move the opposite way. Now when thats all good, let say in 3rd grade she’ll not pull his head around as far, about 1/2 way & ask for a hindquarter disengagement, then when thats all well & good, by 6th grade she’s not turning his head at all, he will willingly move his hindquarter over both ways easily. Then by high school he’s ready to start moving his hindquarters over while walking - trotting & eventually cantering. All while keeping the head straight or even better, turned slightly in the same direction the hindquarters are moved toward. Then comes the lead change. She could do it keeping his head straight & if it works, great - she gets to skip a couple grades
But some horses can have a hard time “getting it” at first.
I’m not saying doing it along the fence won’t work, I do that exercise a lot, actually, but I was just giving another option & she can use what works best for her.
20 Nov 2007 at 9:26 am
Grr, I meant to hit a return after “Then comes the lead change.” I didn’t mean “She could do it keeping his head straight…” for the lead change, I meant it for initial hindquarter movement. Just to clarify!!
20 Nov 2007 at 9:32 am