Come on Free Schooler's - tell us how its done!

My horsey knows how to free- hoolie!!!
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Meh, dont see much point in it myself other than if your attempting a bit of join up or your putting jumps up, you havent really got much control over speed, impultion and you cant correct them so easily other than with your voice, eg-if they strike off on the wrong canter lead then its going to take more effort to bring them back down a gear and ask for another transition, it just seems easier and more benificial to lunge or long-rein-thats my opinion anyway.....
 
Ride as usual, come home, photoshop out rider and tack.

Post pictures on H&H. Wait for the compliments on your horsemanship to roll in.

Easy!
 
Marius and I just love free schooling! I have a lunge whip, not to so much send him forward, as to help with change of rein. I just step in front of his eye-line, and hold the whip in front of me, and he changes the rein. I control his speed and pace by using both verbal commands (as you would lunging) and also my body language. In fact, we have become so attuned to each other that I don't need to use my voice at all, and we can go up from halt through walk and trot to canter and back again without me saying a word. We can also vary the speed within paces.
It's an art, I think, but so satisfying, and also a great bonding thing. I love it.

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Have a look at the Monty Roberts type join up thingy. Or read some books by Klaus Hempfling and Mark Rashid It's not a lot to do with voice commands and all to do with body language, and it means you have to go right back to basics with your horse, unless your horse already knows some verbal cues in which case you can incorperate them into a free schooling session. The basics are sending your horse away from you and inviting him in again to be with you, setting up spacial boundaries and teaching him signals. Reward him with praise when he understands, or even attempts to understand, what you are asking him to do, look for the 'try'. If you do some work with a slack lunge line at first you'll both soon get the hang of it and then you can unclip him and start on the fun stuff.
 
I find it really good to get a stuffy horse motivated and I used it to break in Tarquin. Basically I use Monty Roberts type techniques but also a lunge whip to encourage him to go in the right direction. If you are starting out in a standard 20 x 40 school it is usefull to have a help and stand at either end, this will help you to get the horse to go around the school and not where he wants, funnily enough usually in a circle around you if they've done a lot of lunging or to run and hide at the end of school as far away from you as possible. To loose jump it is best to try and construct a jumping lane and then reduce it down to just guider poles to encourage the horse into the fence rather than around it! Grids are great for teach horses to sort themselves out. We also used to ride horses like this without bridles to get better independant seats and hands while jumping!
 
One of mine loose schools brilliantly, its only something I've started doing in the last 6 motnhs and I think our success is down to his responsiveness (sp) to my voice through lunging and the fact that we have a really good understanding of each other - he will trot on the 't' and canter on the 'c' and so on and i can also control the speed in each pace quite effectively. He happily pops over a 3'3' pole with no need for a 'lane' (he's only 13hh) and the other night i was astounded as there were some trotting poles down the middle of the school and he actually changed his route of his own accord to include those also!!
 
I do it. I prefer it to lunging as you can ask for more.
It is hard to explain what you do as it is a very personal thing. It depends on what you hope to achieve from it?
I do it for giving the horse confidence, having a good look at horse, asking for more, bonding etc.
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I love free schooling. It makes you really work on your body language etc. And when you get it right, it is amazing!
 
Harry is very sensitive and I loose school him using hand gestures, so opening my hand and moving it away from my body makes him speed up, closeing my hand and bringing it into my body makes him slow down. Lowering my head and rounding my back will mak him slow and come in. Works for us
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