when 'freestyle' is taken a bit too literally!

[Theocat]

Amandap - My horse was too engaged in this stuff the other night. We've only ever done very very basic groundwork, nothing fancy, and nothing forced. I took him into the arena for a roll after an evening schooling session the other day, and he just latched on to me - moved when I did, stopped when I did .... I hadn't even asked for his attention and I couldn't get rid of the ******.

No food or beatings involved just one focused, happy horse. And one frustrated owner who just wanted her neddy to have a good old roll without a rug on!

 

[Theocat]

What training, he's just following a handful of feed around, there's no training, I could go out and do that with one of my cows tomorrow.

Have to agree with this. There also doesn't seem to be any other reinforcement, so I'm not sure how this horse is going to learn when food isn't available!

The headshaking in this video doesn't indicate unhappy to me, it indicates a horse that's getting a bit above itself and about to start throwing its weight around and demanding food, because it hasn't been taught that the food is a reward and has its own boundaries.

 

[Irishdan]

Thats what I think. Reminds me of that "competition" which was on Horse & Country TV a few weeks ago where 3 men had to back their "wild" horse in only about 4 hours total... sure it can be done but I think you have to break the horses spirit to do it! In fact I think it was the adult version of this kid one. The horses all looked way to young to have done all this stuff anyway.

No, that would have been Road To The Horse. In the Mustang Challange they have 90 days to turn totally unhandled horses into ridden horses. The DVD I watched followed a group of the trainers from picking their mustangs to their training methods and onto the competition where they have to do a variety of set tests. Some of the horses/trainers were amazing (some not so much) but the bond they all had with their horses were amazing. The horses are all sold at the end and a good lot of the trainers bought them. Its worth watching. Its certainly changed my opinion of groundwork

 

[amandap]

That's great Theocat.

I see that type of head shaking as annoyance/frustration in that context. However, we all read horses differently. I'm sure it feels different when you are the one doing it.

 

[Theocat]

Frustration / annoyance - I think we're both saying sort of the same thing. I'm sorry, I think I said "not unhappy" because it was a lack of something from the handler creating a void in which the horse could get frustrated (and start trying it on), rather than something active that was causing unhappiness - I've reread what I put and I don't think I expressed it very well (or perhaps properly understood what you were getting at!)

For the record, I don't think headshaking is desirable, Mine certainly doesn't do it, and it certainly wouldn't feel good if he did. However, nor does he appear dead, or forced - just attentive.