Why would you want your horse to do this?!

eeek and why would you do it on a horse that cant step over normal poles!

well they are amercian I suppose
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I see what you're saying, but I think you're missing a point. Some of these "cowboy" trainers put a huge amount of training into their horses to prepare them for when things go wrong. To be honest their training is much more thorough than most of the training we do here in the UK. There would have been a huge amount of preparation before that horse walked through that gate. If the gate had fallen off nothing would have gone wrong, the horse would have stood still and waited for it to be sorted out. (As pointed out, his legs are protected by the boots). If that horse got his legs caught up while being ridden out due to an accident, he wouldn't panic, he'd remember his training and how he didn't need to be afraid of things around his legs and stay calm.
I sometimes think we are too quick to condemn other horsemen because we do things a bit differently and don't understand where they are coming from. In his world John Lyons is a top-class trainer, no harm is going to come to his horses while he's recording a promtional video.
 
^^ recently read this as an argument for teaching a horse to hobble, so that they don't panic if their legs do get tangled up.

even so it still makes me go eeek at the potential for disaster!
 
I have to agree with Woeisme. I doubt he just rode his horse over that gate, he probably spent ages preparing the exercise and making sure the horse could cope with it. I don't know what the exercise is useful for specifically (maybe there is some kind of test in Western riding relating to this) but even as a general de-sensitising trick it looks very useful. I have seen more than one horse completely panic at the slightest hint that something might be tangled around its leg, so it's a good thing for horses to get used to.
 
that training would be usefull for some of what we do. mine are leaning not to stand on anything & to test the ground before applying pressure, is a shame some others dont teach this skill to their horses in our hobby, a good friend a few years back was stood on square in the chest by a rather substantual beast when he was a corpse (rider shouldnt have taken the horse there but that is besides the point) any skills that encourag the horse to be awere of his own size/space & mobility is a good thing surely?
 
That looks ace! I think that would be a useful thing to teach your horse too tbh. Luckily most of ours don't tend to panic that much, but can see it would be useful.

Thats how our companion horse knackered his legs, pulling back on a gate he was tied to, then running off with gate attached and getting tangled up in it
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(he is totally sound now)

(we didn't own him then btw!
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a good friend a few years back was stood on square in the chest by a rather substantual beast when he was a corpse

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What??? Say that again, I don't quite understand it.
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I think hobbling is a great thing, if you teach it correctly the horse won't come to any harm. I don't use hobbling, but I teach all of my horses to be used to ropes and other things around their legs, and to yield to the feel of a rope around their legs. They also yeild to pressure if they feel a pull on their halters. So, if their lead rope trails on the ground and they stand on it, they just stand still, or stop then back up.
When people say to me "Oh, my horse would go mental if he had that round his legs" I think "How can you bear to hack him out?".
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Woeisme, we do recreations of battle's so being a corpse is quite common (abet odd for everyone else
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sadly some of the groups with horses we have to work with really need brain transplants (the only brain in many cases is in the steed)

luckily for mate he is a rather large & weighcarrying lad & only suffered 1 broken rib & lots of bruising (it could have been much worse)

i am a horrid mummy to my 2 & my boy is pretty good with things being under him now (i randomly toss brushes, ropes ect there now) the girlie is now starting her education on this.
 
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eeek and why would you do it on a horse that cant step over normal poles!

well they are amercian I suppose
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Sorry, but
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, as Woeisme says, many American horses (seeing as they were mentioned) are trained so differently and to a completely different level that it is unfair to judge against the average British riding horse (Le Trec horses for one example, are most likely to have more 'obstacle' training)

I have to admit that I did cringe at the gate thing, but actually only about the buckets holding the gate up.
 
I asked him to get a bit closer to a gate the other day so that I could open it and as I was nudging him forwards towards it, he thought I was asking him to jump the 3' hunt rail next to it and started lifting his leg up to try and get it over it. I think he has missed his calling in life.
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sorry enfys, I should have added a
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and a
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it was only made in jest......
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can we be friends again?

It was more an observation that things are done differently and trained differently over there yonder.

but I did laugh that they horse kicked a lot of the poles (I dont have sound if that was explained) so that it obviously isnt that aware of where it's feet are.

oofa and SC, I think frank would develop an over under technique for the triple bars
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I don't think you can say the horse isn't aware of where it's feet are after seeing it go through that gate.
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Maybe, like one of mine, it just didn't see the poles as important enough to bother stepping over nicely.
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God at first glance i thought stupid people why would you do that, the sheer horror the sceen would be if it went wrong! Then after reading the explanation from woeisme i retracted my thoughts.

I think its a good idea to teach a horse to be calm in those situations, you never know when you will get stuck out hacking and have no where to go but over a gate.

(Just to add i wont be teaching my horse any of those tricks anytime soon, i really dont think he'd appreciate it)
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Hitting poles like that is a no no in a trail class and you would be disqualified if your horse had boots on!!! this is what you want www.aqha.com/showing/shows/worldshow/09winningrun/srtrail.html

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True.

Presumably those clips were chosen specifically to illustrate the use of boots during training?

A friend of mine used to compete in trail classes and her horse was supremely aware of every footstep he took, quite an education to watch a good trail horse performing, even better to ride the same one out in the bush and not worry about him falling over every twig in his way
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