A birthday clinic for Rio

Yesterday, Rio turned 3, and I had entered him and Shayla in a Jim Anderson clinic- most of you know Jim from his big win at Road to the Horse last month, where he won the Wild Card challenge on Maverick, the horse he picked last year, the Fan Favourite vote, and the Road to the Horse Competition on Smoky.
Speaking of Smoky, Jim brought him along; we didn't get to see him being ridden, but he was hanging out in the sunshine enjoying some hay while the clinic was on.

Shayla decided the focus for this clinic would be working on Rio's evasive behaviour. Lately, he's been giving us that "I don't wanna and you can't make me" attitude. He is a big powerful horse, and combined with that juvenile attitude, it was making it tough to get through to him. We need a willing partner! Since Shayla is leaving for California today (!!!!! Lucky girl!!!!) I'll be riding Rio for the next 6 months, and I really didn't want to just baby him along, so this clinic gave us some very good tools to work with to teach this boy to keep his mind on work.
Jim started out with ground work- not longeing, because it's not productive to longe a horse that is mentally just leaving, he had to get Rio's mind by controlling his feet and body. So with a shorter line, and a stick, he asked Rio to move his hip, at the same time giving the cue of bending his (Jim's) upper body a bit. This also has the effect of the horse facing up. Step to the hip, bend, ask the horse to move the hip away. Any time Rio decided he was leaving, he had to move his hip over. Sometimes Jim had to get big in his ask, but before too long all he had to do was step and bend, and Rio was giving his hip. Once he got that, Jim asked for a shoulder yield- one step over with the shoulder, and then move the hip. Once Rio was consistent both ways, Jim asked for the sidepass, which is basically a hip and shoulder yield in unison. Down the fenceline they went. It wasn't until Rio understood all this that Jim longed him, and then any time Rio wanted to blow out and evade, he had to move his hip over and face up. This exercise allows the handler to control that big body and teaches the horse to keep his focus on the handler.
Here are a couple of videos that show Jim coaching Shayla on controlling the hip while longeing; you can see that Rio is wanting to get strong and blow out, and how this simple exercise helps to keep him going. When Jim says "move your feet" to Shayla he is telling her to go to the hip for control.

After this, Jim rode Rio, and worked on the next evasion: Rio's penchant for sticking his nose in the air and leaning on the bridle in the lope. Now, it's easy to pick up a nice soft feel on Rio in the walk and trot, as you've seen in some of my photos, but it isn't always there when you ask for it in the lope. It was interesting to see what Jim did for this. When Rio tried this Jim held his nose up there... and held it... and held it.... making it really uncomfortable for Rio, until he could feel Rio soften and want to give. Of course, being a baby, Rio had to try it several times, but he did eventually understand that it was a lot of very uncomfortable work to try that particular evasion!

Up goes the head....

Jim holds ......

and releases.

I'm really happy with what we learned in this clinic, and feel confidant that I can use what I learned to really improve this horse over the summer; and like Jim said, he needs lots of wet saddle blankets!

On other thing I'd like to touch on, is this moving the hip over is something I was taught many years ago in the Walt Vermadahl clinics I attended, only it wasn't taught from the ground; we were taught to do the one rein stop and kick his hip out of gear while riding if the horse got strong in the bridle or if there other issues like fearful ramping up. It's basically the same thing as this ground exercise, but it makes so much more sense to teach this on the ground first, and it makes that one rein stop so much more quickly effective once you are riding.