* Success is Duplicatable

- Choose someone you consider to be a success at what you want  to be a success at, and duplicate exactly what they do.  Choose VERY carefully.  You can do anything you want to do if  you want it bad enough and are willing to make the commitment.

* Success is in the Details

- A million minor and often unseen details is the only thing  that separates mediocre from magnificent.

* Perfect practice makes perfect.

    - Practice DOESN'T make perfect

    - Every ride counts! 

* YOU MUST BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR PRESENTATION!

You have the greatest burden of responsibility to learn—not your horse.  Horses learn much faster than humans. Not only must you learn it...but you must learn how to teach it to your horse in a manner that he can understand.  The presentation of your hands, legs, seat, weight, emotions must remain consistent day after day…ride after ride.

* You must maintain a fluid frame.

- Ride with rhythm in your body at all times. A rigid rider promotes a rigid horse. A rider in rhythm with his horse is  poetry in motion. Your lower back, legs and hands must maintain rhythm and "feel."

* Forget about "riding" your horse and learn to "dance" with your horse.

- Take responsibility for Leading the Dance by learning to  control your own body and move in rhythm with your horse,  using his natural cadence to your advantage…making minor  modifications to his cadence as you go… building frame  and grace.

* Read A. General In the NRHA Handbook!  Memorize it!

If you expect your horse to be "willingly dictated to"…you'd better be riding him… communicating with him and "dictating" to him every stride… just like a good leader does when dancing. He dances and leads by maintaining a firm but fluid frame and thus dictates the direction and speed of the dance throughout the entire song. The dance leader (you) dictates and the partner (your horse) follows in fluid obedience. Never leave your horse guessing where you're going next. Mentally ride out front, but communicate in the moment.  In other words…Plan your ride and ride your plan .

* It's all about Body Alignment and Rhythm, Timing and Feel…yours and your horse's.

* Soft mouths aren't "born."  They are developed by properly pulling on your horse's chin!   Don't be afraid of resistance!  Dig it up!  Expose it! And deal with it appropriately!  Get it out of there!  If you leave it there IT WILL rear its ugly head at the most inopportune time. Good hands are well timed, firm, rhythmic, deliberate hands. Good hands are communicative.  Good hands are ready to release the horse when it's in the correct position and give praise and a reassuring touch. Good hands show the horse where his head and neck and body should be…and good hands leave his face alone when he's correct.  Good hands never hang on a horse's face as this promotes anger and frustration within your horse and creates an out-of- balance frame for your horse to work in.

* "Balance" your horse on the bit with your hands wide like a Tight Rope Walker on a high line holds his balance bar. Create a definite "middle" for your horse… "a point of reference" from which to balance and learn from. As your horse progresses through our program your goal is that your horse will end up as "Light" on your bit and your rein as the tight rope walker handling his balance bar. As you close the distance between your hands and go one handed, your horse is to remain in the "middle" on a drape rein. This will come naturally if you've been consistent in your presentation and diligent in your corrections. Riding with your hands wide should also help to keep you in the center of your saddle, sitting on your sitting bones and centered on your horse's back. It should also keep you "weak."  It's not about strength.  It's about balance and rhythm, timing and feel…finesse.

*  Demonstrate good leadership skills for your horse to follow.  Stay calm.  Stay focused.  Stay on task.  Be consistent.  Be fair. Be patient. Praise him for things done right. Teach him to be a thinker.  Teach him to respond appropriately; rather than react.  Preserve your horse's self esteem.  Help him be confident in his job. You must be consistent in your ecpectations.  You can't expect a World Champion work ethic from your horse one day and a third class work ethic the next and expect your horse to understand which day is which.  You can certainly have short, less intense rides, rewarding your horse for good behaviour…but if you want world class preformace you need to have a world class work ethic.  In other words…make every ride count.

*The very essence of my program and the strong foundation on which it is built is "FRAME."  You must have horizontal frame to make the rest of it work.

* Visualize a boxer's body position when taking a punch to the belly.  His shoulders are rolled forward and his abdominal muscles are tight. Your horse must be taught to move in that same type of frame with his back lifted, his belly tight and his hocks engaged. Use your hands & legs in a manner to "make" your horse tighten his abdomen and lift his back and engage his hocks. Take a hold of his chin with your hands and drive his body to his face with your legs. Then as your horse becomes a more "finished product," you will "remind" your horse to keep his belly tight and his back lifted by bumping in rhythm with your legs.

* Horizontal Collection comes from Lateral Flexion.
(This is the Million Dollar secret!)
Get it and commit it!

Dance Step # 1:  Flex the neck, soften the chin and disengage the hip. Walking the circle, using only the inside rein, bring his nose to your toe while reaching your inside leg back toward the back of his rib cage and bump the hip all the way around the front end maintaining cadence in the hind legs, with the inside hind crossing in front of the outside hind, which maintains the forward motion as you go and flowing gracefully back to the circle when finished.

Dance Step # 2: Spiral Up.  Move the horse off the circle, laterally, through shoulder control.

Walking the horse around the circle, with his chin soft and his  body balanced and in frame and matching the circumference of the circle your on, using your hands as a team, present the communication to " move out" Or "stay in the middle…but the middle is changing". Slightly step into your outside stirrup. Your inside leg will be your enforcer. Present the calf of your inside leg and rhythmically bump right behind your horse's shoulder, just behind your cinch until he moves off the circle, latterly, through his shoulder and ribs. If necessary, turn your toe out and connect with your heel and spur as aggressively as is necessary to make the communication clear.

Dance step #3: Turn the head and neck to the inside of the circle, while keeping the body on the circle.

Walking the horse around the circle, keeping your hands wide; as if the handle bars of a bike but with "feel" in your fingers, turn in your waistline to the inside of the circle; while continuing to gently bump with both legs, but a bit more inside leg than outside, which keeps the horse from following his nose to the inside of the circle…keep the horse's body balanced and on the circle. In this exercise your hands are "speaking" to his head and neck…and your legs and seat control his body and the placement of his feet on the circle.

Dance Step #4:  Reverse Arc.

Walking the circle, maintaining rhythm in every stride… hands wide, feeling and supporting both sides of your horse's face…turn in your waist line to the outside of the circle, which turns the horse's head and neck to the outside of the circle. Take your inside leg off and get your outside leg busy bumping the horse just behind his shoulder at the cinch.  Send the horse's shoulder around the circle with his head slightly turned to the outside. Over time, using a progressive "building block" mind set, continue to spiral the size of the circle down, smaller and smaller, causing the front feet to reach further and the back feet to move in a smaller circle, putting the foot work in place for the turn around. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS IS A SHOULDER CONTROL EXCERCISE.  DO NOT TEACH YOUR HORSE TO TURN AROUND WITH HIS HEAD TO THE OUTSIDE.  When the hind feet get to the point where they are stationary, the head and neck need to be back to center.

Dance Step #5:  Introduction of the neck rein.

Lay the neck rein against the neck, with no contact on his mouth.

Give him an opportunity—a moment—to respond. Pull the nose and then push the neck rein and bump with the outside leg.

Now you can combine Dance Steps 4 & 5 to practice your turnaround.  There are many variations of this exercise.

The spiral down and trot out drill;  What I call "3b" helps get those front feet moving… Most of the turnaround comes from gaining shoulder control and building muscle memory into the feet and legs.  You must understand Form to Function.

Dance Step #6:  The "C" arc…(  )

Supple the horse's loin.  Teach him to wrap his rib cage around your leg and hinge in his loin…NOT AT HIS WITHERS! Use the fence as visual aid to start. Very important for lead changes and departures.

Dance Step #7:  Whoa.

Teach horse to Whoa from a walk off "the word" and your body position.  DO NOT PULL!   Prepare to stop, putting your body in position, and saying " the word" at the same time.  Pull ONLY if your horse does not honor you request…then pull firmly on his face while bumping him in his belly, repeating the word as you back up. Back up after every "Whoa."  Don't "practice" half-hearted stops. School your stops when you're stopping and practice dribble down stops off your body language when you're not.

Homework:

• Soften chin!
• Soften ribs and entire body through lateral flexion—work toward Horizontal Collection.
• Circle Drill - Keep horse's feet on the circle while taking his head to the inside of the circle and then to the outside of the circle. HANDS WIDE! SEAT CENTERED!
• Teach horse to "bridle" with your legs.
• Break hips free at the loin—left and right.