Tack Room Tales 15 - Does a School Horse take his job seriously?
Does a school horse take his job seriously?I often wondered if school horses switch off and do their job automatically or that they feel involved in the teaching process. We had one experience that gave us the answer. Let me tell you the story about Ben.One night I was teaching a class of ad...
Tack Room Tales 14- To make music you need to know the instrument
There are two instruments here, the horse and the rider. But more about the rider later.When you look at the horse superficially it seems such an easy instrument to play. The front end bites, the back end kicks and the middle is jolly uncomfortable. They were the words of Winston Churchill. You ...
Tack Room Tale 13 - Difficult students
Difficult studentsIn the course of time you meet all sorts of people. Some are nice, others not so nice and some are downright difficult. Difficult students can make your life miserable, if you don’t deal with them straight away. It is important that your students listen to you, as often t...
Tack Room Tales 12 - Close the gate after the horse has bolted or...?
Tack room Tales – Memoirs of a Riding InstructorClose the gate after the horse has bolted or...This is a story when I failed six candidate riding instructors on their lungeing all at once a number of years ago. No, no, really I am normally not that nasty!As you may know I am also a...
Tack Room Tales 11 - Holiday Camps
Tack room Tales - Memoires of a Riding Instructor Holiday CampsEvery holiday we ran holiday camps in our centre. Great excitement for everybody to sleep at the centre, get up early, help feed the horses and muck out.One night during a holiday camp I was woken up by noises in the stable at ...
Tack Room Tales 10 - The Deaf and Blind rider in our RDA Program
The Deaf and Blind rider in our RDA (Riding for DisAbled) programThis deaf and blind rider was actually quite large and also mentally affected. You can imagine he was under stimulated, because he could not read, listen or even watch television and had a comprehension problem. I was assigned as a...
Tack Room Tales 09 - A Gift Horse...
Tack room Tales – Memoirs of a Riding InstructorThe Gift HorseYou know the saying “You never look a gift horse in the mouth”. You might find out how old it is.When you start a riding centre you always look for horses that are already trained and are known to be quiet. T...
Tack Room Tales 08 - Group lessons
Tack Room Tales - Memoires of a Riding InstructorGroup LessonsThere is nobody more in favour of group lessons than me. There are several reasons for this.Firstly economically from an operational viewpoint, you need to make a large investment in facilities to run an equestrian centre. To...
Tack Room Tales 07 - The night the roof blew off and we found out about Mistys peculiar habit
Many years ago I started a riding centre in Sydney. Apart from the house there were no buildings. So, my partners and I set out developing the place. Our property consisted of a 5 acre gently sloping hillside. First we cut an arena out of the hill and made a number of yards.The pride of our new...
Tack Room Tales 04 - Gala Nights
Memoirs of a Riding InstructorOnce a year we organised a performance night, where our students were “The Stars of the Night”. We called them our Gala Nights.You can let your imagination run riot with the acts you perform. And we did!We usually started with a musical ride with...
Dressage 03 - The Magic of the Outside Rein
Now we have control of the horse - legs, seat and hands. The time has come to make use of it. We want to do exercises to supple and strengthen the horse. We will leave the horse long while we do these exercises. As the horse gets stronger, he will, in due course, offer the jaw to us, and go 'on th...
Tack Room Tales 05 - How the doctor spent a fortune
Memoires of a Riding InstructorSooner or later students get ready to have a horse of their own. For the ones that could not afford that we offered a timeshare in our school horses. But more about that in another Tack room Tale.Our doctor friend rode with us with his whole family, so it is no...
Dressage 01 - Forward for the Legs Part 1
A horse has to be 'forward for the legs' of the rider. This means that the horse must react actively and quickly to the leg aid of the rider, by going forward. This is a necessity in dressage, because all achievements originate from a combined energy and all this energy is only created by making the...
Coach - Making the Experience Whole
Horse Riding Made Simple © Bert Hartog Making the Experience Whole ..my Phylosophy as a Coach. I am sure you all have had experiences that everything just fell into place, be it the perfect canter strike-off, the perfect corner, a half-pass in which the horse was dancing. Sometimes this fee...
Dressage 14 - Feeding, keeping your horse healthy and trainable
Feeding Keeping Your Horse Trainable and HealthyThere are many books written about feeding. Most of them are so complicated that you almost need a university degree to be able to understand them.Of course, good feeding is a science but you don't need to be a biochemist to be able to do it ...
Dressage 13 - The Crooked Tail
When you have an experienced and trained eye, you will always be able to see how the horse is performing for the rider, you can see the degree of training in a flash, as well as how this training has been done.The way the horse carries his tail is quite a give-away.You can see with young hor...
Dressage 12 - Bridle Lame part 2
The Art of Training© Bert HartogBridle lame part 2Last month we discussed the possibilities of creating bridle lameness with our hands through the reins. I must say that it can become rather daunting when you get so much information thrown at you. You will exclaim; "Will I ever...
Dressage 11- Bridle Lame part 1
The Art of Training© Bert HartogBridle Lame Part 1A horse is known to be bridle lame when the unevenness in his paces is not caused by an obvious physical problem of the horse but by the way the rider rides the horse. I will try to explain in this article that there are many wa...
Dressage 10- In harmony with the movement of the horse
© Bert HartogA foal is born without a rider on his back. This means that, as a riding horse he will have to learn to carry the weight of the rider. Whether the weight of the rider is accepted with or without a great deal of difficulty depends on the way the horse is ridden.It is not...
Dressage 09- The concept of Rein Contact
© Bert HartogWhen we create impulsion with our legs we need to guide the horse with our reins. You cannot let the horse run away at will, to go where-ever he wishes. We need to tell the horse how fast to move forward and the direction in which we want him to go. The ideal way to...
Dressage 08 - From Long and low to Elevation Part 2
The Art of Training© Bert HartogFrom long and low to elevation.Part 2In these articles we are discussing the top line of the horse created by the long and low outline. A particular important part of the top line is the neck. We remember that the neck plays an important role in t...
Dressage 07 - From Long and Low to Elevation Part 1
The Art of Trainingby Bert HartogFrom Long and Low to Elevation.Part 1To write in few words about the training which will take some years is a little pretentious. But let me try to explain how we build the top line of the horse keeping in mind the theory in the article of the "B...
Dressage 06 -The Theory of the Bow and Bowstring...or The Relation between....
The Theory of the Bow and Bowstring or… The relation between the quarters, the forehand and brilliant paces © Bert Hartog In this article I would like to discuss the relation between the forehand and the hindquarters which is the "body" of the horse. We can d...
Dressage 05 - The Right Aids...that do not confuse
The Art of TrainingThe Right Aids ... that don't confuse the horse© Bert Hartog Let’s give some thoughts on "how to control the horse and improve his performance".To make the horse do something we use aids. The word “aid” tells us how we shoul...
Tack Room Tales 06 - The Authority of the Instructor
Memoires of a Riding InstructorWhen we are teaching it is clear that we, as instructors, must be on top of the pecking order. Students with little experience often do not tell the horse what to do properly. That is left to the instructor.One of the best ways to keep your authority is to have...
Dressage 04 - The Whip as an Aid in Dressage
The Art of TrainingThe whip as an Aid in Dressage© Bert HartogThe whip is used to support aids of the rider and/or make the horse understand a certain movement. Sometimes it is used to chase the flies away... the last use needs no further comment, except of course that the horse m...
Dressage 02 - Forward for the Legs Part 2
Some horses appear to go freely forward as if they are almost dancing, without effort of the rider. Often one sees quite large horses performing brilliantly for quite small lady riders. It can't be brute strength! There must be another way. The answer is the rider must find harmony with the horse; f...
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