21st June 2010

I am unbelievably happy to be here.  Our cabin was surrounded by the horses this morning (they are free to roam the land) and the sight of contented, grazing horses against the back drop of the mountains is breathtaking.  The Ranch is situated in the Bitterroot Mountains and at 7,000 feet the scenery is always spectacular.  Bitterroot is owned by Mel and Byard Fox and it was a great reunion last night as I haven’t been to Bitterroot for fifteen years.  Mel is a wonderful woman and I am so thrilled to be able to spend another week with her and her beautiful horses. Little has changed here and Bitterroot remains a truly magical place.  Linda is also here and as this was where my TTEAM journey began sixteen years ago with Linda, Mel, Barbara and Carol Lang (who will be visiting us later in the week) it feels as though I have come back home.

We have a big clinic with eleven horses to start and several five year old horses that were started last year to bring on under saddle.  Aside from being haltered for feet trimming and worming the horses born at Bitterroot have had very little handling and we also have a few Arabians from Canada in the group of four year olds.  The Canadian horses have also had little handling but were roped when they were caught to be sold so they are naturally wary of human interaction. The day started with the horses being brought into the corral and Linda Tellington Jones and her sister Robyn showing the group how to catch the horses quietly and with minimal stress and without driving the horses around the enclosure.  One of the Canadian chestnut mares called Glimmer was particularly worried so she was quietly ushered into a smaller catch pen with her friend Taj Mahali who was also pretty fearful so that Linda could use two wands to initiate contact with both horses. Glimmer and Taj Mahali were allowed to move slowly around the pen and this quiet approach enabled Linda to halter both horses in a very short space of time using a light catch rope that was placed around their necks and made into a simple light halter that could then be removed once the head collars were on the horses.  The Canadian horses are so worried by human contact that their manes and coats are plastered in mud as they cannot be groomed. The first session was simply about catching the horses quietly, and attaching a light lead line to the side of the head collar and encouraging them to walk forward. Heavy ropes or lines with big clips can significantly affect the balance of the horse and can trigger bracing in the poll and neck particularly if the rope is attached to the central ring.  It is far easier to teach a youngster to lead if the clip is attached to the side ring as the chin is not  drawn forward if the handler pulls on the line by mistake.  The Bitterroot horses have no unpleasant association with humans and were already more advanced in their handling than the Canadian horses by the end of the morning but Glimmer and Taj Mahali did very well during the short session as did the participants on the clinic.

The afternoon was spent with the five year old horses in another part of the Ranch going back over some of the leading exercises that they learnt last year and it is fascinating to see how solid those early foundation steps are as the horses remember everything from the previous summer even though they were turned away for the winter and spring.  New studies have shown that horses that are trained once a week for seven weeks learn more and retain more information than horses that are trained every day for seven consecutive days and although the horses here at Bitterroot are worked for short sessions every day on the clinic, their ongoing training allows for plenty of breaks and time out resulting in happy, contented youngsters who progress well and enjoy each training session as they continue to mature and develop.

This entry was posted on 16. July 2010 at 20:20 and is filed under Sarah Fisher. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.