Category: Dino’s Training

Baby Dino Learning Half Pass

Baby Dino is growing up and beginning to learn some big boy dressage movements! Dino is still 3 (4 next month!), and spent most of the year riding-wise just goofing around hacking in a relaxed frame. But, his young age hasn’t stopped us from working on some upper level movements. We just do them in-hand!

The half-pass builds on the very basic lateral movements that baby Dino began learning in-hand as a 2 year old. Dino knows how to perform haunches-in and shoulder-in from my touch. This was then used to build the side pass. When Dino had these movements down, the half pass, was the next logical progression.

Half pass is a forward and sideways movement where the horse is bent in the direction of travel and around your inside leg. Although this sounds similar to the side pass, it is a much more difficult gymnastic for the horse to perform. It is a great exercise to teach in-hand as there is no weight of the rider to influence the horse’s balance. The horse is free to figure it out himself.

Dino picked this up fairly easily at the walk and is progressing to the trot.  He still has his 3 year old moments, but he really does try. You can see his concentration in the pictures below. Gotta Love the Dino!!

Baby Dino learning half pass
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Oops! Never forget the basic rule of liberty jump training….

There is a right way to liberty jump train and a wrong way. You would think after 30+ years of training, that I wouldn’t miss the #1 fundamental rule in liberty training.

I took Kelsey and pony off site for some jump training, but pony was a little too spooky for her. So lacking all necessary lunging equipment, I decided on an impromptu liberty jump training session. Pony is pretty new to liberty jump training, but he really loves it. I thought it would be the perfect way to get his extra energy out, and it definitely was!

I found 3 out of 4 of the basic “issues”, but judging by the video, finding the unknown last “issue” was the key!

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Rain and mud can only mean one thing….

That’s right. It is time for trick training!  

Pony is the perfect size and personality for training tricks. He is like a giant, mellow puppy dog with hooves. He loves the training too. Not much energy expended. Lots of treats. Yeah, that is the perfect formula for pony!

It took only 20 minutes spread over 2 days to teach pony to stand on his hind legs and shape it into something that looks a little hi-ho silver-ish. I think he likes to try and look fierce. It is the exact opposite of his personality. 

I won’t put this move on Dino for a few years. I need to be relatively certain I can put the trick on stimulus control quickly.  Let’s just say Dino might not be there yet, but he is only 3 and still super playful. Dino got to work on his more practical “tricks” like haunches in and side pass. 

Don’t waste those muddy days on hand walking. Trick training is much more fun for the horse and the human!



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Dino’s Soccer Adventures

There is more than 1 soccer star in the family! Dino has learned to dribble and pass the soccer ball. He knows the goal is to get the ball back to me, but like any soccer star, Dino likes to hog the ball. Sometimes he will dribble for a bit before he passes the ball.

Dino is also only 3 years old in this video and can still lose focus. My favorite clip is when Dino gets distracted and looks away, then looks back at me. Suddenly he remembers we are playing soccer and runs to the ball. Typical 3 year old….Too cute!

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On the Road to Passage

Dino has graduated from Spanish Trot at Liberty to attempting Spanish Trot under saddle, and he is even trying a few passage steps! If you are wondering how a horse with 5 months under saddle can begin thinking about passage, remember, I started this training a year ago. Until now, all of the Spanish Walk/Trot/Passage training was performed without a rider. It took months of slow work to get the first few steps under saddle. Even now, it will take much longer to shape this into Dino’s final passage. He still needs to learn to take even steps, collect and shift more weight to the hind end, but you can already see that his passage will have power and impulsion. The collection and sitting will come slowly as Dino gets stronger. For now, Dino does mostly long and low work to develop his back muscles. We usually only school at most 4 steps in a row of Spanish trot/passage. I just threw a few more in for the video, but clearly he isn’t ready for more than a few steps.

The benefits of teaching passage through the Spanish trot is that:

  1. You can use clicker training the entire time
  2. It is less stressful/easier for the horse to understand than some of the other pressure/release techniques
  3. When completed, you will have a horse that can passage easily and will LOVE doing it
  4. You can start the passage much earlier in the training and take your time
  5. Your horse will also be able to passage at liberty (which is a pretty cool thing)

The downside of clicker training a passage:

  1. It still takes a long time to train (plan on a year from starting the Spanish walk to the first Passage steps under saddle)

The video below shows Dino just starting to think about passage. I wanted get this video to show some intermediary steps on the road to passage, so you can see what it looks like….warts and all!

 

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