I stress the importance of being a confident rider at all three gaits – walk, trot and lope – because if you’re only comfortable at the walk and trot and never lope your horse, you’re
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Category: Clinton Anderson
Why is Your Horse Afraid of the Trailer?
When I was a kid, getting my horse on the trailer always turned into a huge tug-of-war. I’d ask her to step onto the trailer, and she’d fight the halter, rear and back up. My
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What If Your Arena Isn’t Big Enough
In a perfect world, we all have a facility that meets our requirements to train our horses year-round. Reality is far from perfect, though. I’ve been there myself, some of the situations and conditions I’ve
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What if You Don’t Have a Roundpen
In a perfect world, we all have a facility that meets our requirements to train our horses year-round. Reality is far from perfect, though. I’ve been there myself, some of the situations and conditions I’ve
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Use Voice Commands With Caution
I don’t encourage people to use a lot of voice commands, especially in the Fundamentals level of the Downunder Horsemanship Method. It’s far more important to develop an awareness of your body language and learn
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The Rule of Three When Saddling Your Horse
Properly tightening the cinch on your saddle ensures your horse’s wellbeing is taken into consideration, you’re not putting yourself in a dangerous situation and you’re not causing behavioral problems in your horse. While there’s no
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Teaching a Foal to Lead Properly
Question: I am training my 9-month-old filly to lead. She backs up and falls over repeatedly until she won’t get up. How do I break this behavior? – Johnboy4033 Clinton’s Answer: Since you don’t provide much detail
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Rollbacks on the Fence Issue
Question: When we’re doing rollbacks on the fence, my horse, Austin, a 4-year-old Appendix Quarter Horse, will stick his head over the fence rather than tucking it in and stopping. The fence is 5-feet high and
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Performance Horse Training Session Breakdown
All of my training sessions with my performance horses are about 30 to 40 minutes in length and follow a general outline: Warm-up Training Friendly time Training Friendly time and cool-down When I say, “friendly
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Forward Motion is Established on the Ground
Although it may seem odd, your horse’s responsiveness when you ask him to move forward under saddle (his gas pedal) is established on the ground, beginning with the roundpen exercises. At Fundamentals Clinics, we begin
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Horse is Cinchy When Not Worked Consistently
Question: We have a 5-year-old gelding that has been recently gelded. He has been through the Fundamentals groundwork and he did really well. If you ride him for consecutive days, he does not saddle up cinchy.
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Help for a Horse That Drags Her Feet
Question: I have an 8-year-old Quarter Horse mare that barely moves. She is cutting bred and is very athletic, but she drags her hind feet and if I’m not constantly pushing her on, she walks and
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Don’t Create a Cinchy-Horse Problem
If thought isn’t given to how you do the cinch up, you can teach a horse to be “cinchy.” A “cinchy” or “cold-backed” horse has a tendency to overreact and possibly buck when pressure is
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The Spinning Collection Drill
The spin is something that’s difficult to teach horses because it’s very much like a seesaw. Every day, depending on the way the wind is blowing, a seesaw is tilted one way or the other.
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The Benefits of Training Your Horse Outside of the Arena
No matter which category a horse falls into — hot-blooded or cold-blooded — riding him outside the confines of an arena and taking him down the trail is one of the best things you can
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