Question- Which Horse Training Online Videos Would You Like to See?

I hope you’re having a great summer. Summer seems to have finally arrived here in the northwest. It’s nice to spend more time outdoors with our horses. By this time you should have gotten two emails at least from me and have seen two Free Videos from Mark Shaffer. I got some feedback that one of the videos was hard to hear. I’m sorry about that. Live video feeds can sometimes be that way. I’ll try to make sure the future videos are a bit louder. I also got some feedback from one person that they could not see the videos at all. If you have any issue then be sure to download the current version of Adobe Flash and that should take care of the problem. Now I have a question for you. I am busy working with Professional Horse Trainers to bring you more online video horse training in workshop format. I’d like to provide what you want so please let me know which type of training you would most like to see from the following list. Western Pleasure Western Riding Horsemanship Showmanship Lunge Line Trail Hunter Under Saddle Please just send me an email at railandpatternhorse@gmail.com and tell me your top 2 or 3 types of online horse training you’d like to see. Or you can go to my blog post and give me some feedback as well. This is the link to my blog post : HorseTrain

Western Gaits

A western horse has three well-defined gaits or way of going. The American Quarter Horse Association Rule Book defines these three gaits as follows:

1. The Walk

The horses walk is a natural, flat-footed, four-beat gait. The horse must move straight and true at the walk. The walk must be alert, with a stride of reasonable length in keeping with the size of the horse.

2. The Jog

The jog is a smooth, ground-covering two-beat diagonal gait. The horse works from one pair of diagonals to the other pair. The jog should be square, balanced and with straight, forward movement of the feet. Horses walking with their back feet and trotting in the front are not considered performing the required gait.

When asked in a performance class to extend the jog, your horse should move out with the same smooth way of going but with a slight increase in speed.

3. The Lope

The lope is an easy, rhythmical three-beat gait. Horses moving to the left should lope on the left lead. Horses moving to the right should lope on the right lead. Horses traveling at a four-beat
gait are not considered to be performing at a proper lope. The horse should lope with a natural stride and appear relaxed and smooth. It should be ridden at a speed that is a natural way of going.

The horses head should be carried at an angle which is natural and suitable to the horse’s conformation at all gaits.

It doesn’t matter if you are riding in a western pleasure class or a western riding class these same rules will apply to your horses’ movement. It might take you some time if you’re a beginning rider but eventually you’ll be able to count the beats at each gait as you ride your horse.

Practice by watching your horse on the lunge line and counting the beats as he goes around at each gait. You’ll find after a while you’ll automatically see and know if your horse is attempting to be lazy and not move at a true gait.

Horse Lover or Horse Crazy…Which are You?

While I call myself a horse lover I have to admit I’m a bit horse crazy as well. I love seeing horses grazing in the pasture, in the barn with their head hung over the stall waiting for you to feed or pet them and in the show pen all spruced up to look their best.

Really it doesn’t matter I just love horses. I bet if you have stopped by this site you are much the same as I. Through the years of owning, breeding and showing horses I’ve learned a lot but one of the reasons I stay so interested is that you can never learn all there is to learn about horses or how to work with your horse.

This site is designed to bring you tips and strategies that will help you enjoy your horse more and get more out of the horse – human relationship.

Specifically we’ll blog about specific disciplines. Head over to the about page to get a better idea of the disciplines we’ll Blog about.

Look for advice from expert guest bloggers, article writers, tele-seminars, audios and videos from Horse Trainers and Experts in their specific disciplines.