3-D Clinic 3 Recap: Training Under Saddle

Our team would like to congratulate the participants on their outstanding and engaged participation in the third of our 3-D mini series, Training Under Saddle. Following is a recap of the content of the Training Under Saddle clinic.

We focused on the following skills:

• establishing warm up and reward rituals with the horse as part of the training process
• lunging in small circles
• riding small circles using only one rein - teaching the horse to follow its nose
• stopping exercises
• control of the horse’s body parts
• turns on forehand and haunch
• half passes
• roll backs
• counter flex
• counter canter
• canter departures
• consistency in all gaits
• pattern work
• diagonal reverse
• circles
• timing for up and down transitions

Here are a few examples of the “ah ha!” moments from this clinic:

• “I need to let it get ugly to reach another level.” – Barbie Miller
• “All this time I thought the box was around the saddle horn. Today I realized that it (the box) is in front of the pommel. Duh! Putting my hands in the real box…what a difference!” – Marcie King
• “Raising the reins to lower the head. My horse is so smart!”
• “When the horse knows what to do, they are the best teacher – IF YOU LISTEN!” – Carolyn
• “If the horse ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” – Carolyn
• “The roll-back cue is like the square turn. And I have an awesome horse!!! Do I owe a brag buck?”
• “In the 8 years that Hunter and I have been together we had never connected. The 2 clinics we have been to here did more for us as a team than the 8 years before.” – Sue Wyatt