Jim Groesbeck Horsemanship

This will be our first clinic of the year. This is a joint venture clinic with Jim Groesbeck ! I will post curriculum for the clinic this week!

I don't know who said this, but I like it.

This is a student of mine. Terre and her 22 year old gelding Journey. A year ago Terre was too frightened to lope. She knew she was missing something. But her desire and determination was stronger than her fear. Now every time I look around she is cantering like she’s whistling a tune. She has done the homework diligently and with commitment. All I did was keep encouraging her to try. Now she is working on perfecting the transitions. Reaching beyond what she thought was po...ssible a year ago. I encourage people to lope/canter their horse. Yes there is a lot of good work to be done at the walk and in the trot. But you will be missing the full range of motion a horse has to offer if you leave out the canter. It’s like riding only 2/3 of the horse. Great job Terre! Best student ever! See more

A photo from last year. I really like the position here.

Two different horses. One is a cowhorse, the other a dressage horse. Can you tell which one is which?

A horseman told me. Don't take the bit to the horse. Take the horse to the bit.

Jim Groesbeck on Whiskey today, working 3 yo warmblood filly "Nemo" before her first ride.

Some moments in starting a young filly under saddle.

Some thoughts on the use of legs and hands. I don't use my legs anymore than I do when I walk! The thing for me is, I want the horse's legs to be my legs, his body my body. ... If I'm standing on the ground, and I want to step to the right, for instance, I just step over there. I don't struggle with myself or kick myself or run into myself. That would be weird. I want the same thing when I'm on the horse. But I can't cross my legs over, because there is a horse between them, so the horse goes with me. He is between my legs. He has to, or he runs into me, runs into my legs. So I need him to move with me. I use my rein to start the process, because I taught him to follow his nose, and connect the rein to the front feet. But my legs aren't pushing him, but they are as active as I am walking. I am more than a passenger, and the horse is not my wheel chair. I would like the horse to learns my legs establish the tunnel, or lane, or the rectangle I need him to stay in. So when I move he moves and stays underneath me, and his withers never leave my hips. My reins establish direction, and also a lane for him to stay between. There are really poor ways to use your reins. And there are really poor ways to use your legs. Not using legs, because some people use them poorly, is not a good reason to not use your legs. Why do we wear spurs if we don't intend to use them? At times, I might use my legs the way I would use a quirt. I just want to bring the life up. We don't want the horse dragging on the rein, and we don't want him pushing our legs out of the way.

For the spade bit enthusiast

So here is an observation about flexions. In the sense of manipulating the horse head and jaw, and the upper part of the neck. I have practiced this for a while. As simply as teaching a horse to yield to pressure, and give with his head and neck laterally, as a response to either the halter, or hackamore, or snaffle bit. It has some very obvious, to me, practical applications. Yet it becomes more obvious to me lately, of deeper things going on. I use a personal analogy th...at really shed some light on this. I remember as a kid getting his first hair cut. The barber wants me to tip my head, so he can get to one side of my neck or the other. I remember, (still work on this to this day) that my first impulse was to resist, and hold my neck tight against someone else moving my head. In order to let that happen, I have let someone take over for a little bit. To let my muscles go, and surrender a bit to let this person move my head around as he needs to. We aren't used to that. We want to be able to control our own actions. So we brace at the suggestion. It takes an enormous amount of letting go, turning loose, in order to let this other person take over for a bit. So there is a trust thing there to. I really don't think it's any different for the horse, maybe even more so, since he can't rationalize anything the way we can. He just does what nature designed him to do. Protect himself to feel safe. For a horse to relax his muscles, and allow us to move his body for him, that is a huge mental turning loose. It affects everything we do with the horse. That's kind of where we want them mentally. We don't take anything away by force. The effect on their entire body is amazing. It goes back to that barber saying to me, it's okay Jimmy, just give me your head a little. And then I feel so much better. See more

Pride and ego get in people's way, it gets in the horse's way. ~ Ray HuntPride and ego get in people's way, it gets in the horse's way. ~ Ray Hunt

I’ve read a lot on scientific research on animal training, horse behavior science and neuroscience. There is very valid research in what is chemically taking place and so on. Understanding what the difference is in the parasympathetic system and the sympathetic, for instance. What dopamine is, and cortisol, and endorphins and adrenaline, etc. etc. Understanding these things that might help us take a better path toward horse training. But all of it said and done, I still thin...k Ray Hunt’s explanations resonate with me more than all the scientific jargon put together. Maybe because it’s closer to the spirit of it. It’s closer to the feel. Or I just like the simple. You make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy. You fix it up and let him find it. You do what it takes to do the job, no more and no less. It’s the preparation to the position, for the transition. If you got everything right, the transition will take care of itself. So what’s happened before what you want to have happened is what you need to be aware. It’s what happened just before what you didn’t want to have happen happen, that we need to be aware of. So those things that we don’t want we need to see if we can kind of trade them off for something more worthwhile. But you got to start early, or it won’t work. Then those things you want to have happen all you got to do is wait and encourage it and let it happen. So it’s realizing in there ahead of time what’s taking place. Taken from Colt Starting dvd. And of course my favorite: You control the life in his body down through his legs and feet, through his mind. I’ve spent a lifetime wanting to figure these things out that were so important to him. I keep getting closer, but there is never a there I can reach. It keeps expanding. I’m grateful that there are these recorded resources of Ray to revisit.

Steve Morrill, of Blue Fountain Farm, took these photos capturing the critical moments of the canter stride. I thought it would be interesting to show. In photo one, the horse has just departed on the right lead. His left hind is pushing off, the first beat of the stride, while the right hind and left fore diagonal pair has left the ground, and will land as the second stride. You can see the right leading leg will pass the diagonal pair and land as the third beat. In the sec...ond photo, the right leading leg has just landed, and the hinds are advancing to start the sequence all over again. This would be the moment you would ask for the change of lead. You would feel for the landing of that leading leg, and as you asked for the change, the hind legs would swap places in mid air, and the right hind leg would then land first, starting the sequence for the left lead. I hope soon to be able to capture those moments during the lead change. I think it would be very helpful to see it. See more

This is very interesting. I have been suspicious of the mantra by many dressage trainers that stretching the neck down stretches the nuchal ligament and thus raises the back. Yet this is repeated often as truth. As the article says, the nuchal ligament does not stretch very much at all. Ligaments function to attach bone to bone. If you stretch a ligament, that's a bad thing. Like spraining your ankle. I am not saying that there is no value in lowering the neck or letting the horse stretch down. But I do not believe it does what they say it is does the way they say it does. https://www.facebook.com/scienceofmotion/videos/10201503676815969/

Colt breaking contests. The road to hell? It’s been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This may well apply to the evolution of the colt breaking contest. What started with Ray Hunt’s demonstrations of his horsemanship, with nothing but a coil of a lariat and a young horse, has turned into a spectator sport. Colt breaking celebrities proving to the box-office take driven audience how much they could subject a horse to in the shortest amount of time. Lay...Continue reading

Jim spending some training time today with PRE Bella. This mare is something to watch...She's smart, she's quick, and I think she's going to be more than a little cowy. I hear a lot of discussion about "soft feel"... what it is and what it isn't. Here's a photo of what it is.