Clinics and lessons

Coming soon!!!

Bluehorse Mastery.

Comprehensive tailormade hands on practical courses.

For those students who seriously want to improve their horse knowledge .

Liz williams a bluehorse student gives her interpretation of her first  BH Mastery lesson

Lesson One
Safety, Security, Success
31 March 2010
Background
This is the first lesson of Bluehorse Mastery (BHM). It starts from the very basics with a new horse and a new rider.
Abbey (the horse) is a 6 year old16.2hh Traekhner X mare with little experience beyond hunting and very basic flat work. She is sharp, sensitive and is looking for approval. She wants to be bossy and (almost) knows her place in the herd. She is very well bred and is capable of producing some really beautiful work if we establish a relationship with her that precisely communicates what is expected of her. She has been allowed to be a dominant mare in a small professional yard of event riders and hunters. She now needs to live in a new family as a well-mannered, respected high performance horse that will develop great dressage, working hunter, show-jumping & riding out for fun skills.

Liz (the owner) is 46, 5’7” and looking for a project to take her away from her business life that also reflects her life-long interest in horses. Like Abbey, she is bossy, has established her place in the human herd and is looking for new things to do. She has been riding since her early childhood, has played polocrosse competitively, show-jumped and evented. She wants to enjoy a special project that teaches her about horses and life. She wants to really strengthen her riding but, above all, develop her feel and sensitivity with horses from the ground up. She wants to complement her British Horse Society learning that enables her to teach children.

 

Day One: Leaving home & getting to Bluehorse
The trip from Dorset to Cornwall was instructive. Abbey knew something was up; she was ready for the trailer but all kinds of accommodations had to be made to meet her former needs (watch out for the plastic, park up against the wall, take three feeds, don’t forget the hoof supplement, she’s never backed out of the horse trailer, hasn’t gone more than an hour in the trailer).
We drove from Dorset to Cornwall in the driving rain in heavy traffic. Abbey was perfect – very settled, ate her hay and got off the trailer (a bit hot!) but otherwise fine and with no reason for fussing. After arriving in the Bluehorse yard, she was uptight and worried about the change of routine but generally well.
And so begins the first of the BHMs lessons – from the ground up. There are three main results from Lesson One.

Learning by leading around
• Learning by leading around is really important.
• It’s very strange to start from leading around. Who would have thought you needed to start from there BUT with Abbey and Liz this was really important. If you can’t lead, control, move, stop, start, you can’t give a young horse confidence that you know what you’re doing and you can’t give a new owner confidence you can manage a feisty in-season mare who has clear ideas about who is boss.
• Where are your feet? Who is in control? What does that mean?
• If you can manage your feet, you won’t get trodden on, walked over, shouldered out of the way. At 62kg versus 720kg this is an important equation.
• If you control who moves first you’ll remain in control & determine who does what when for how long.
• It means that the pecking order is right. Horse moves when human says. Horse stops when human says. Horse goes when human says. Really simple…not!
Learning by listening to the stick
• Moving away
• Move off my feet, out of my way, into your own space.
• Being the human means being forceful if you need to be. Expect rearing, bucking, shying, spooking and then calm when you establish the right order.
• The scratch test
• The stick isn’t there to punish. It’s there for reward. Abbey responds to the stick by understanding that Liz will make it “nice” for her to stand still and play sweetly.
• She will also use the stick as an extension of her arms to establish distance and dominance.
• Reinforcing
• The stick is a useful to reinforce a message that hasn’t got through by a pointed finger, a shaking lead rein and then really forceful waving to move back, over, away.
Learning by breathing
• Relaxing
• For horses and humans this allows thinking time.
• Switching off
• Doesn’t mean not concentrating. It means waiting for the next instruction until it’s really time to switch off, yawn, lick, chew.
• Minute movements
• A breath, a muscle, an expression that leads to movement or stillness and calm.
Results
• Safety – a horse that will listen to you on the ground will also listen when you’re in the saddle. If you can control a 700kg+ moveable unpredictable energy force, you’ll stay safe.
• Security – if you can get safety, you can do anything with your horse from leading, loading, showing, crisis mangement.
• Success – if you have safety and security, you’ll have success. On the ground with those around you and with you as a rider.

 

Please contact us for clinic information but take a look at our calendar.We also do specialised training for those wanting to bring their horse for a working holiday .Please contact us for more details .

  Bluehorse prides itself on being non-judgemental, inspirational, safe and friendly.

We like to work in the moment with horses.  Horses don’t have a programme or an agenda.

At Bluehorse we are passionate about horses and are dedicated to good horsemanship.  We believe that both are essential for the development of a harmonious relationship between horse and rider.

We hold regular clinics and lessons that are tailored to suit the needs of horse and rider, so whatever discipline you choose to follow we can help you to develop good horsemanship – on the ground and in the saddle.

The approaches we use draw on the very best methods from both natural and classical disciplines.  We use the best of older and new teaching and coaching techniques to develop flexibility and adaptability for the horse and rider.

Having a solid foundation on which to advance your training is vital. This understanding will give you and your horse the confidence in each other to help avoid negative behaviours occurring as you then specialize in your chosen discipline.

The better the preparation and foundation the better the outcome. Laying a foundation for performance is the best preparation for success for both horse and rider

We can also help with general dressage queries. Students who have worked with us have commented on improvements after a few lessons at Bluehorse.  They have remarked on the development in their horses performance and increased success at dressage competitions.