Training a horse can be a frustrating experience for rider and animal alike. From dealing with a horse that won’t listen to rectifying erratic behavior, this guide covers hundreds of common training challenges and offers proven solutions to your most pressing issues. Stressing effective communication, realistic goals, and the importance of an enjoyable atmosphere, Jessica Jahiel helps you get the most out of your training sessions by pinpointing what’s causing the problem and providing strategies to help both rider and horse stay engaged and focused.
A practical guide to using reward-based training techniques to create a true partnership with your horse. This leads to lifelong connection, effective problem-solving and joyful performance.
A revised edition of the inspiring bestseller, now in paperback with new good rider profiles! This book is exactly what you need to become a better rider. It's a smart, honest, on-target kick-in-the-pants, guaranteed to rev your engines as you see how a few changes in your life, a few smart choices and strategic moves, can transform you from a run-of-the-mill rider into a good one. How does Denny Emerson know what makes a good rider? For one thing, he is one—he is the only rider in the world to have won both a gold medal in international eventing and a Tevis Cup buckle in endurance. Plus, he's been around great riders, and taught those on their way to becoming great, for over 40 years. How will what Denny knows help you become a good rider? He's boiled the whole thing down into seven broad "Areas of Choice" that determine whether you are a "gonnabe" or whether you'll be stuck in the "wannabe" category for decades. Examine how your choice of riding sport may or may not be the best for who you are and where you live. Find out how those frustrating hurdles known as "life circumstances" don't necessarily hold you back like you think they do. Learn how to build a strong support team by winning people to your cause and choosing the right teachers and mentors. Analyze your physical self (your body, how it is formed and how you care for it) and your intellectual self (your "horse smarts" and how you are adding to them or not) and apply the results to your "gonna-be-good" equation. Take a good hard look at your partner—your horse—and think critically about his ability to help you attain your riding goals. Discover the nine key character traits of successful riders and how you can learn to call each one of them your own. Along the way you'll read the stories of 23 of the world's top riders from different disciplines and sports—including dressage, reining, driving, show jumping, endurance, hunter/jumper, and eventing—and how they "got good" despite the same kinds of challenges and setbacks you face in your own day-to-day riding. You'll get an inside look at their path to success, as well as their very best tips for how to "make it" in the horse industry.
Understanding your horse’s behavior is an essential aspect of creating a mutual bond of trust, respect, and friendship. In a handy question-and-answer format, Dr. Jessica Jahiel explains the language and logic of how horses learn and communicate, enabling you to interpret and properly respond to your animal’s quirky ways. From fear of the vet to unstoppable kicking, this guide provides proven techniques for helping your horse break bad habits, along with creative ideas for fostering a healthy relationship filled with love and affection.
World Champion trainer and rider Sandy Collier provides this indispensable guide of progressive training exercises for the reining horse. Whether green broke, or "push-button," every horse will perform more willingly, cleanly, and quickly with work on what she calls the "Seven Essentials"—the foundational basics every riding horse needs. Like no other book out there, Collier breaks down the maneuvers required in a reining pattern and the tricks and techniques for introducing them, perfecting them, and showing them off in competition. You'll learn about: • Collection and steering—condensing your horse's frame and getting his feet to follow his nose • Lead departures, circles, and spins—preparing for the lope, "hunting the circle," and driving into the spin • Stops, back-ups, and rollbacks—perfecting the slide, moving backward with cadence, and swinging around 180 degrees over the hocks • Lead changes—getting it right and preventing anticipation
A simple system for figuring out and fixing what’s wrong with a horse’s performance. Former international event rider Eric Smiley has brought along his own top-level horses for decades. Now he taps his immense knowledge to help riders whose horses may not have had "the right start." Every horse comes with his own “baggage”—behavior or training issues, minor or significant, that may be difficult to pinpoint or resolve. In these pages, Smiley addresses the most common problems he has seen over the years in dressage, eventing, and show jumping, including: Problems with head and neck position. Connection issues. Failure to follow the rules of forward, straight, and regular. Difficulty with collection. Lack of consistency. Smiley teaches readers how to identify what isn’t working by looking at how things should work. Then he walks us through dismantling and reassembling the issues, providing an easy-to-follow system for determining what's potentially wrong with a horse and choosing sensible exercises for fixing it. He introduces a troubleshooting five-point system: Ask yourself, “What is the problem?” Ask, “How, when, and why did it arise?” Ask, “Why does it need solving?” Formulate a plan. Analyze the results in the context of “now” and what they may mean for the future. Layers and shifts of understanding in horses combined with the physical and psychological challenges of riding can often make solving problems that arise seem complicated, and sometimes it is difficult to know where to even begin. Smiley’s system helps readers find that “start point” and map out a sensible plan for future training. He shows how to determine when something may have become an issue for your horse or your performance, ways to try and avoid it happening in the first place, and of course, offers highly practical solutions to employ when you find you do have a problem. Smiley’s goal is to “always leave people and horses with a positive journey to go on, with the prospect of ‘better to come.’” With its usefulness, cross-disciplinary approach, and optimism, The Sport Horse Problem Solver is all you need to achieve success in partnership with your horse, wherever you are in your journey together.
Ten Golden rules is based on modern principles of learning, physiology and behavioural theory. The rules are the foundation for training horses gently and tactfully and applies to handling horses on the ground as well as under saddle. Bruce uses clear explanations and generous use of anecdotes bout his own horses to make this an easily understood book for trainers at all levels.
From the best way to break in a pair of stiff new boots to mastering a difficult jumping routine, Jessica Jahiel addresses hundreds of common problems facing amateur horse-riders. Offering helpful tips and plenty of encouragement, this comprehensive guide covers a wide range of riding concerns that include both physical (painful joints) and psychological (fear of accidents) issues. Jahiel’s informal yet informative approach will not only help you overcome nagging riding obstacles, but inspire you to enjoy your riding experience to its fullest.
