==== ==== Want a Recap of the 2012 Road To The Horse? Here 's Day 1 http://www.naturalhorsemanshipinfo.com/ ==== ==== In 2010, I was fortunate enough to attend the Road To The Horse. The competitors that year were Craig Cameron, Richard Winters and Ken McNabb. My friends and I had a great time and took in all we could during the 3 day event. Craig Cameron won that year, but I was very impressed with Richard Winters too. Ken had a pretty challenging colt and I felt the first day he wore him out too much. But, by the second day he had made good progress also. This year, Richard Winters is one of the announcers, and is doing a great job. Rick Lamb is the emcee again this year and is also very engaging. Day 1 of the 2012 Road To The Horse has just ended and I would like to summarize some of my observations. Today, the 3 teams chose their horses and then one horseman from each team worked with their colts in round pens for about 2 hours. The most interesting thing I saw, was that both members of each team chose their own colts. But, as they worked with them, it became evident that each team had two horses that were very similar. Team Australia's colts had no forward movement under saddle, Team Canada had two colts that were very pushy with their heads and shoulders and very sensitive and skittish, and Team USA had two pretty gentle colts that seemed more curious than fearful. First, the Australians, Guy McLean and Dan James. Guy McLean was in the first half. He chose a beautiful bay colt, that seemed quite a handful once he was saddled. He bucked and carried on as Guy moved him around and he had a little mishap. He hadn't tightened the cinch enough and as the horse ran and bucked the saddle pad worked its way loose and then the saddle was able to slide under the colt's belly. We've probably all experienced this at least once in our horse careers, but Guy really felt awful about letting happen on such a large stage. Unfortunately, he had let the colt loose to get the feel of the saddle on his own, so then it was quite a chore to get him caught and the saddle taken off. I think the crowd was thinking Guy was going to have to be quite a bronc rider. But, as soon as he was mounted, the very bucky colt wouldn't move forward no matter how much commotion Guy created to move him. So rather than fight it, Guy just moved on and worked on things that would be easier to do when the colt wasn't moving. He stood on his back and cracked Australian stock whips on either side. No movement. He pulled a tarp on him and waved it toward his hind end. No movement. He eventually got a few forward steps, but it was very savvy of him to take advantage of the horse's non-movement rather than push and push and end up in a wreck or regressing the progress he had already made with him. I thought he did an excellent job with his colt. Dan James went in the second half and had chosen a pretty little gray colt that he said reminded him of his first pony. At first it seemed like the colt was going to be pretty easy. He was very flexible laterally and seemed pretty soft. Dan drove him with long lines and worked him in a
surcingle before saddling him. He was moving great and seemed calm and confident when Dan cracked his Aussie whip. The saddle didn't seem to bother him and Dan was mounted fairly quickly. But then the phenomenon of no forward movement happened to him as well. His colt wouldn't move forward with Dan in the saddle. Dan tried using a stick and plastic to urge him forward. But, the colt immediately started kicking at the flag and simply refused to move ahead. Before it turned into too big of a fight, Dan got off and went back to moving him forward on the ground, but the colt had discovered he could kick at that flag while Dan was on the ground too. It took Dan quite a bit of time to get the colt not to kick at him and the flag. What at first seemed like good lateral flexion, turned out to be a defensive move on the colt's part. A lot of the flexing we were seeing was to the opposite side that Dan was asking for. Eventually, he mounted back up and got a little forward motion from the colt. I thought it was very interesting that both of the Australian horsemen had the same issue with their colts. Next, the Canadians, Jonathan Field and Glenn Stewart. They both picked sorrel colts that had a little racing blood in them. Just as the Australians, these colts were very similar to each other. Glenn was in the first half and his horse had a lot of go. It took him a long time to get him caught and haltered and the horse was very pushy. Glenn worked and worked to get the horse moving from pressure. The colt just kept pushing into him with his head and neck and many times would run into Glenn with his shoulder. The colt just would not give to pressure on the halter and would again and again pull away and rear the opposite way than Glenn was pulling. He finally made some progress but the horse never seemed to want to be with him. Jonathan went in the second half, and not only did his horse look just like Glenn's, he acted like him too. This colt absolutely did not want to be caught and ran around the round pen way too much and worked up quite a lather. When Jonathan finally caught him, he had worked long and hard to be able to touch his head and eventually his face and lips. For his first break, he went ahead and took off the halter and let the colt relax. When he came back in, he had a terrible time getting the colt roped again. Finally, he caught him a put the halter back on and worked again at desensitizing his head and face. Every time he would ask the colt to circle him, he would push at Jonathan with his head. If he tried to pull the colt he would pull away. There was a big change toward the end of the session when the horse started following the feel of the halter and leading quite easily. Jonathan put out some logs to let the colt get familiar with stepping over them and he was very leery about that. He eventually was walking over the logs pretty well. So, Jonathan put out a platform to walk over. The colt again was very fearful, but Jonathan didn't push him and he got a little more comfortable with the new items in the pen. It will be interesting to see how both of the Canadian colts do on the obstacle course with all of the scary things. I remember in 2010, I was amazed at what those colts actually accepted by the end of the second day. Finally, the American team, Craig Cameron and Pat Parelli. Both are veterans of RTTH. As mentioned, Craig won in 2010 and Pat was a participant last year. He competed against Clinton Anderson and Chris Cox. Chris won last year making him the only horseman to have won three times. He bought his colt from last year and named him Tres, for Three. Craig started with his colt in the first half. He chose a solid sorrel colt that seemed pretty level headed and easy to work with. The colt seemed pretty gentle and Craig didn't run into any real issues during his round pen time. The colt seemed a little on the lazy side, the total opposite of Glenn's horse. Craig had him saddled and loping around the pen by the end of the session. He
had a hard time keeping him going, he seemed to have more whoa than go. Craig said he was happy with the progress they made today. Pat picked a pretty bay colt with 3 white socks and a unique star and snip on his face. What struck me most about this colt was his kind eye. In my humble opinion, this was nicest looking of the colts. As with Craig's colt, this one seemed to be pretty gentle and nothing upset him too much. His issue was the same... more whoa than go. And, Pat worked quite a while on getting him to give to pressure on the halter and to lead easily. Pat put the bareback pad on him first and tried to get him used to pressure on his back by leaning and jumping up on him. He was a little unsure about this and Pat decided to saddle him right away. Pat was able to mount with much trouble, but had to give a lot of lateral direction to get the colt moving to the side first and then forward. The colt was a little sticky, in that he didn't have much forward motion. He did give a couple of little bucks, but nothing too major. Pat's colt was also very curious about the different items placed in the pen. He had no worries about stepping over poles and onto the tarps. Totally different than Jonathan's colt. All in all, I think all of the horseman had good first sessions, but I still think it was interesting that there was so much diversity in the colts that all came from the same herd and environment. I'm excited to see what Saturday will bring. I am ready to be wowed, how about you? Naturally, Susan
==== ==== Want a Recap of the 2012 Road To The Horse? Here 's Day 1 http://www.naturalhorsemanshipinfo.com/ ==== ====