News from the round pen…

June 20, 2009 by Smokie.

Hello Friends,

I hope your summer is goin well and you are enjoying this warm weather and getting out to ride! Things have been busy out here in the equine world with clinics, training and trying to get a little time on my own horses too But I wanted to give you a little update on whats coming up and also pass on a letter I recieved yesterday from a young lady who attended part of my trailer loading seminar that I did in May..

First the news…

This last spring a friend of mine suggested I make up some t shirts and put some of the logos or sayings that I stress as part of my teachings on getting a good horse,training etc.. Sooooo.. I did! The first of which will be on the site in the next few weeks.. This one is for the gals out there and I and hope you like it.. It has the saying that I whole heartidly stress when looking to buy a horse.

“You Cant Ride Pretty! ” And that is all you get for now, so stay tuned

I will be selling these seperately and perhaps using them as a free gift with the purchase of my 2 DVD Horse Buying Guide. The intial order will be small so dont wait to get your name in the hat if you want one!

And there will be a couple of more down the road if the interest is there so let me know what ya think and your ideas..

Now here is the letter I recieved on e mail and my response…

Hi Smokie,

You commented on my blog today, and I wanted to get back to you. It surprised me that you did, but I respect you for taking the time to hear my opinion. And I had no idea you had taught at the University of Montana! I would love to hear more about the classes. I tried to contact the University to find out what kind of philosophy they use and just more about it in general, but they haven’t got back to me.

And about the trailer-loading clinic, what disappointed me most was how if you could get the horse in the trailer, you considered him good-to-go. In my opinion, to get a horse good at trailer-loading, he needs to be confident in the trailer. For some horses, this means lots of going in and out, in and out; for others it might mean waiting until they get curious about the trailer; or it might even mean hiding treats inside. There’s lots of strategies available to use. But I didn’t see you cause any one of those horses to be confident. You just put them in, and said “next”. So, I didn’t feel that you fixed the horses’ problems at that clinic.

Also, I understand your philosophy of no BS, but it wasn’t fair to tell people to get their horses into the trailer however they could - that’s where I think you’re telling them what they want to hear. I know most people are just concerned about riding and don’t have any professional goals, but I think that the horses got the short end of the stick that time. You’re not putting their needs first. For example, I remember you played with one horse (Palomino?) that was very hyped-up, and a lady there said she was very unpredictable and was a rescue horse. You got her into the trailer, and then you were done with her (which I also didn’t like as I stated above). She still wasn’t very confident with the trailer, and telling the lady to get her in any way she could is only going to make the problem worse in the long run. Plus, somebody is going to get hurt: forcing a scared 1000lb animal into a place that it doesn’t want to be isn’t what I call safe.

Oh, and what’s a brombie? I’d guess a problem horse, but I really have no idea.

From,
Erica.

Hi Erica,
And thanks for the reply!! You are most right on most of your comments… But! Had you been there for the first part you would understand more about what happened when you did get there.. I do advocate a lot of reps to get a horse good about being in the trailer and getting in. Not just once in and out and call it good. But at this clinic it was designed as just a demo not to work with horses that are bad about getting in! All the horses that were used have been loaded many times with the exception of the palamino which I did take more time with cuz she needed it. And you are right there are a lot different ways to load horses but the key is to make them want to be in the trailer and think its their idea to do it! Doing a full blown trailer loading session might take all day on one horse and I have had some that take more time than that.. So I think your ideas are right but you missed the point of the class! And like I said thats why I dont normally do trailering clinics cuz sometimes you just cant get it done like they do on TV!  And about getting a horse confident in the trailer, you are right there too and the horses that I worked with at the clinic were confident in the trailer or they wouldnt have jumped in as easily as they did! What I mean by anyway you can is exactly what you were saying there are many methods out there to teach horses to load, just like there are many trainers out there and many horses you can learn from as well! You will learn if you work with enough horses and listen to enough trainers that there is no complete system, bag of tricks, special sticks or halters, or one person that will do things the same way or be able to fix every horses problem.. So don’t be so quick to judge a horse, trainer, or method simply because its not the way you do it.. or the way the guy on TV does it!
If you would like to talk more I’ll look forward to seeing you at the round pen clinic..
And I wish you luck in getting into U of M.. You can go to my web page under clinics and trainers and contact my friend Jeff Griffith to find out more about the class, he is one of the horsemanship instructors.. You can also contact my friend Rusty Heble at ***-###-$#$#. He also teaches in the program and he can get you in touch with the right folks to find out more..
Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with or explain more
Have a good one! And a Brombie is a wild horse in Austrailia!
Regards and “Just Ride” Smokie

That’s about it for now folks so get out there and ride! And we’ll see you on the trail!

Smokie

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