Pilot Riding,Inc.

08/14/2019

https://youtu.be/V6zmla8dlBY

"Utah" is a super sweet gelding that has potential to do multiple disciplines depending on what one wants to focus on. He has the bloodlines and a past for r...

08/14/2019

https://youtu.be/MZWZfmMsTFs

"Corazon" is a fun little project horse for somebody looking for something they can just hop on and play with. She has been ridden all over outside as well a...

01/06/2015

Today I was "graduating" a horse to rail work. This is after building up to this higher level activity. I say this because the key to having a good rail horse that is supple, responsive, and properly positioned is to have good body alignment or straightness. "Straightness" is a misleading term…..cuz technically speaking straight is not straight as we visualize…..not "stick straight". Straightness is aligned. So technically you can be curved going around a tight corner like a barrel and still be considered "straight" as long as you have an even bend from nose to tail….not having a sharper bend in the hip or in the neck than anyplace else in the body. You can tell this on horses that struggle to have a real circle instead of one that is odd shaped. Or a pivot that struggles not to step out at the 3/4 point. Alignment of the ribcage gives the horse the ability to be supple in his body for easier collectibility.
For example, the horse I was working on happened to have some bad show pen experiences due to a lack of balancing the two sides of the horse's body out as far as muscling and suppleness. She's terribly overdeveloped on her left shoulder from compensating for a neck injury on the right side. Which made her a leftie and due to the overdeveloped left shoulder, she's had to use her right hip to offset the balance. So, when we go to the left, her left shoulder likes to come off the rail and her right hip likes to attach to the rail. Making for difficulties on the long straight away. Issues like head elevation, speeding up, coming off the rail…..just to name a few.
For this particular horse I had to start with a lot of circle work simply developing the short, tight side(right side) to match the overdeveloped, longer left side. Which made for "leany" left direction circles and drifty right direction circles. As they started getting less extreme, I added figure 8's, continuing to develop sustained posture. Trying to eliminate "crappy flopping" of the shoulders as we changed direction. When she crappy flopped her head would brace and elevate and she'd lean and cut my corner.
As the figure 8s got better, I added more straight line work so I did more square shapes to test out her "straightness" or alignment. Straight lines are like the finest toothed comb possible of your alignment which also equals suppleness and collectibility. The better your horse is aligned, the more supple and collected she is…..the more supple and collected your horse is, the better straight line work she can perform.
This is where we are at….huge improvement going down the straight away….I can actually point her down the long side rail and not have her stiffen her ribcage and neckline and make like a bullet. Not only that but wanna derail and go down it crooked. The degree of which she is doing this now is tremendously less. So Im going to keep the rail work as a regular part of the routine now so she learns how to keep a soft posture just as she does off the rail. And add a lot of shallow as well as deep serpentines and pole weaving style exercises to drill her shoulder placement and control as well as her steady drive rather than her shifting constantly. This will create consistency of stride and head while performing at a high level exercise.

12/31/2014

So another sub zero day…..its never a dull moment or day on the farm! Here's proof that for every negative thing that gets thrown at you, if you keep your eyes open you can see how God sets it off for the positive….
Started out taking my little guy to daycare and blew a tire on the way to an appointment….but…..the tire happened to blow right by the corner of Fleet Farm! So I just drove right into the parking lot, called my farm manager Tom W. Kreger and he came and dropped me off at appointment and walked the bad tire right into the store and came out with a new one….by the time I was done so was the car.
Then as Im about to head home I get a phone call from home from the new employee that she is feeling really sick and was avoiding telling me that her appendix is acting up to the point that she's having it removed on thursday but can't keep going on chores….we have no backup……so we scramble for people to help….nobody is answering and then within a short time of Tom and I kicking in help comes to the rescue! My brother Erik Flowers who hasn't pitched p**p in ages ran out and flung it like a pro!!! Thank you Erik! You were a Godsend today, literally! Also, shortly after that, a stranger rolls onto the farm randomly asking if we had any job positions open….bam! Hired! haha! He's coming back tomorrow…thank you Edwin! (Don't know your last name….but you were sent too)…..Not to mention a bunch of ladies from our barn….Cathy Cathilene DeRosier, Kimaree,Matis Cheryle and Laurie Gorecky….You ladies topped the night off!! What teamwork and answers to desperate prayers! So I might not have gotten a full day of riding in, but I had "help" everywhere I turned preventing it from being a really bad day!
One of the rides I had today was kind of a lesson, ride and update all in one….was explaining at one point how I see training….kind of an "active" definition….to me, training isn't so much about teaching or trying to get the horse to "get it"….horses aren't dumb….I've found 90% of them "get" a concept, if taught clearly and correctly according to the horse's ability at that point in time, in ONE session! Believe it or not, its not the CONCEPTS that are difficult for a horse to "learn"…..its whether the concept was delivered in a clear and simple way, and according to how "even" the horse is in its lateral balance (i.e. left side and right side strengths, not stronger or "heavier" on one shoulder than the other) and how free he motions through his spine from tail to nose or hock to the point of the front toe).
Lets step outside the box of conventional thinking……imagine you have a SMART horse instead of a DUMB horse….now…imagine that the difficulties you're having with your horse's "training" isn't because he doesn't "get it", rather, something is preventing it from happening. For example, a horse that struggles and struggles to put his head down, perhaps worse one way than the other….you've even used draw reins and other mechanical devices to pull the head down (which isn't the purpose of draw reins if you don't want a mechanical look…they are meant to prevent inversions….not pull heads down…don't want them hollowing their backs with noses in the air as you are balancing and strengthening them to be ABLE to hang their head in a relaxed manner) and only ended up creating a bowed up mess….newsflash……its not the head! …..You've heard that popular song by Meghan Trainor /Trainer…. "Because you know its all about that bass that bass, no treble…" or…"Because you know its all about that butt , that butt, not the head….." (I know that's kinda butchered, but you get the jist……only way to make it not about the head is to engage the butt and body…..can't take away something without filling the "void" with something else….
Two of the main reasons a horse won't put or keep its head down is …
1.) Lack of hind end drive (just because the horse is traveling in gear doesn't mean that it is using the engine in the back….it can easily be using the engine in the front…horses are like those little hybrid cars that have two sources of power…battery or gas….butt or shoulders….and its the rider's job to develop the feel of when a horse has left his transmission behind in the dirt)
2.) Lateral shoulder/ribcage balance (if a horse has one "arm" stronger than the other they will be "leaning" which places more weight on one side of the body than the other and the head is what offsets that imbalance or one "leg" stronger than the other so the backend isn't pushing forward equally causing a lack of support so the head and neck again come into play..)
You develop your feel as a rider and you will be able to distinguish what it is specifically that you need to "fix" that "head problem"…..there's so much more I can say about discerning which shoulder needs to be fixed and yada yada…..but that's another day….what my main thought for the day was…..just to give the horses more mental credit and apply more mental effort on the rider's side. This eliminates so much frustration in both horse and rider….enough of these bit chomping, tail swishing, over bridled, butt dragging, front end oil rigs going around….not to mention the ones that point blank have "flat tires"….are lame. You can ride a horse to soundness or to lameness….balance and relaxation while focusing more on developing a horse's muscle strength and equalness as well as muscle memory will reflect in the horse's muscle health and suppleness which is the horse's concussion absorbers….you tighten muscles up and don't work them into balance left to right, you take away the elasticity of these ligaments and tissues as one side carries more load than the other and you will see more joint soreness and behavioral agitation as the frame (skeletal system) takes a beating it wasn't meant to take.
One last point…..if "training" was so much about teaching a horse to "get it"…..then how can a person that has been struggling and struggling for months on a certain issue or a few issues have a knowledgable rider/trainer hop on and "change" the horse in a matter of 15 mins to a half hour? hmmmmm……..its about posture/alignment and being able to discern what the REAL issue is that creates the symptomatic issues such as the HEADSET, SPEED, and COLLECTIONABILITY.
Well, thats just a little thought for the day…hehe…think outside the box, give a horse more mental credit, and learn to discern!

12/30/2014

Today certainly was a plunge in temps. Makes me extremely appreciative of a heated indoor. Ive officially left the world of TOUGH and given into HEAT as my winter outdoor riding is a memory of the past….kudos to those that still have the determination to ride despite the cold.
Had a relaxing Christmas and hoping everyone else did as well….
Today while working with the horses, I had a couple long - time - coming breakthroughs on a couple of the horses. Been working hard on lateral shoulder balance with the one as she is a very strong leftie. The overdevelopment and muscle memory has been very strong and taken a lot of patience to work out. The right side still wants to let the left work harder but its starting to balance and stretch into itself which is giving her better back and ribcage alignment. As she's slowly creating new muscle memory and developing her weaker side muscles she's finally tracking almost equally with both hind legs. With such an uneven development from left to right she had a right hind drag that is now nearly imperceivable. yay! With the hind legs driving more evenly now, my focus has changed to the sacrum/lumbar area and getting this area more supple and able to flex her oblique and abdominal muscles. While working on all this Ive also been doing exercises to loosen and relax her over zealous and tight poll. Since the lumbar flexions and poll softness
relate to each other in functionality, this is very important to have her driving through her spine as well as hold contact in my hands rather than break at the poll…The current goal is to continue helping her achieve throughness so it eliminates the toe stubbing action in the lope and opens the poll so she reaches farther with her front leg.
Another fun breakthrough was on a horse that had a very definite hitch in his jog. Initially it looked like string halt type action but with stretching exercises and balancing of the shoulders as well as slowly stretching the top line , he is coming out of it. Used to be that he couldn't put his neck down comfortably/consistently or flat….looked more araby….what would happen is the top line band that runs from behind the ears, over the mane, through the withers and spine, over the glutes, and attaches behind the hocks was strung so tight that when he'd go to stretch his neckline down and round it pulled this tighter than a rubber band and immediately his head would bee bop right back up. Felt like i was riding a bobble head horse and at the same time that his head dropped for the two or three strides his hind leg caught and hitched hard. But if his head was higher, he was "sound". Go figure! Quite the choice……hollow and sound or round and lame???!! Ha! So Ive taken it slowly and we're finally to the point where he's hovering just a little above level and has a very soft draggy motion in the same leg that used to catch like a halt…..have a little ways to go yet, but its nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Well, hoping for warmer weather tomorrow but sounds like we're gonna be lucky to get out of the negatives!
Stay warm!

11/27/2014

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

11/24/2014

Novak Equine Center Fun Day

11/02/2014

Notherfederalprogram,"Billy", is a pretty 15-2 bay gelding sired by The Federal Reserve by The Invester and out of a producing daughter of Scars Te. He was s...

05/11/2014

Happy Mother's Day!

04/20/2014

Happy Easter!

02/23/2014

Went out today and worked a little more with my own horses and had a lesson. I found that a little Investor/Goodbar bred 2 yr old I picked up is going to be better than initially appeared. Simply by getting his feet done so they were balanced (which is going to be a process but just one trimming already made a difference) and working some accupressure on his withers which were super sore and getting his teeth floated cuz they were sharp, I knocked what appeared to be quite a bit of knee off his movement! More than I guesstimated! I like it when I under guess on something like that! hehe!

Turns out this little guy has quite the pendulum front leg and toe point. A little freaky front leg that makes his average hock look deeper. Now for a little more tweaking and he could end up being quite the buy….

In my lesson we worked on a rider's stiff,high and tight left shoulder and hand that never seemed to completely let go of the inside rein. That tightness kept the horse always just a little shorter strided than she was capable and then dropping on her outside shoulder which made her have to use her head for support so it was a little higher. Once I got the rider to relax in her left shoulder and truly release the rein the horse centered her shoulders and rocked back and dropped her head. As I explained to the rider, using her inside rein as she was in conjunction with her outside rein wasn't the issue….she could use it as often as she wanted but what was the issue is her not releasing in between. The length of time she was holding on was interfering with the horse's ability to respond to her cue. A horse responds on the softening, not on the actual tugging….so the tug or contact is the cue, the softening or releasing is when the horse can respond.

Another thing we worked on was addressing the horse with "tone". Her cue to slow the horse down was executed with the intensity of "expect it yesterday or in one stride"…..I told her to change the "tone" of that cue and think of waiting for half a circle for it to happen….some horses, such as this one has already previously become smart to cues being intense or stronger than necessary and anticipate the "grab" and have learned how to give a false slowdown….I call it a "hiccup" response…where the horse slows down physically to your contact/cue but as soon as you release it rushes off again….I taught her to wait patiently while the horse
first: receives the cue
second: interprets the cue
third: adjusts and responds to the cue

remember that there is quite a process that happens….when a horse is moving forward w speed, his balance is all pushed up into his chest and he's feeling like jack and jill running down the hill….when you give them the half halt cue to readjust the weight from the front end to the back end so they can regain control of their speed, they need to move a lot of muscle and bone to get the response you're looking for …..so be patient….at the same time, being patient isn't being ineffective or so "quiet" they can't hear…..it means once you know the horse feels your pressure and knows you're asking to readjust, don't keep taking up more pressure …..the goal is not to shrink the neck….its to shrink the body and let the neck hang out un"squished"….he needs to be able to breathe ….

Anyhow, lots of things to recall and add to my library of notes for future reference….