No Sandy, its my own invention,since I can't ride BUT I can still train I had to come up with something that would simulate a rider. So what I did was take an old pair of my jeans and tide the ankle part of the jeans off with baling twine really tight and put sand in each leg,then tied off the waist of the jeans. Then took some more twine after I did that and tied the legs to the billets and the waist to the saddle horn.
Its kinda like making a scarecrow out of hay. Now I can lunge my horses and get them used to "legs" just as if I was riding and if one wants to act a fool they can do so without hurting anyone.Its a good way to get a horse use to things flapping around for one thing,you have to get them used to being sacked out to the jeans,then the weight in the legs and to legs in general. Since the legs move around it also simulates how it feels when one loses a stirrup or their seat.
After I get them "green broke" I have a friend who has graciously offered to "fine tune" for me. I've got some in hand exercises I use to teach neck reining from the ground,flexibility and backing that my Grandfather taught me. He always told me that there is "nothing in the saddle that you can't teach from the ground". I've found that to be true,you want collection use cavelletti,you have a horse with a lot of "cow" be the cow if you don't have a cow.Sometimes you have to think of ways to do it but it can be done.
When I get a horse going besides Turk so you can really see and get my gear just right I'll be glad to take pics. Maybe I can get my son in law to do some short videos on You Tube for me showing some of my horses at different training stages but be warned I'm no Pat Parelli or John Lyons or Cherry Hill by no stretch of imagination.
That's really interesting. When I trained Penny, I had no real plan and had never done it before. I got her used to the saddle & bridle, then stood her by the mounting block. I used my hand to jiggle the stirrup to simulate getting on, pressed down on the stirrup to simulate weight in that stirrup, leaned my hands on the saddle, pressing and such, reached across her and patted her other side, etc. Penny stood like a statue through all this, so then, after a few days of doing that, I got on from the mounting block as gently as possible and just sat there. Penny stood like a statue as she'd been taught. So I nudged her with my legs to get her to walk forward. Penny stood like a staue as she'd been taught. Hmm … So I got a friend to lead her while I rode. When I nudged with my legs and asked her to walk, my friend started leading her at a walk. After doing this a few times, Penny connected the legs with walking forward. When I first got on, I didn't know what to expect. Bucking? Shying? But I was amazed that she had to be taught to walk from the nudge of my legs. I guess I got her too used to standing still no matter what I did up there!
Next i walked her around in the ring, practicing stopping and starting and turning. She picked up responses to the reins right away, probably because it felt like what you do to stop and turn with the lead line. It took her longer to walk balanced and especially to turn without tripping over her own feet while I rode. She had to get used to maneuvering with my weight on her.
Then we went on the trail with others on more experienced horses leading the way. We basically followed the leader, but she did know by then the rein controls. Little by little, she got more experienced on the trails, though she spooked at everything new she saw, like posted signs on every tree. She spooked when a thin branch scraped against my helmet till she got used to that sound from above. She spooked the first time I rode her when I had a cold and coughed a lot while riding. She spooked at the stop sign at the end of the road. Maybe I did it wrong, because she's always been a spooky horse, less so now that she's older. Still she spooks in place or even rarely jumps aside at things.
I often think that if it hadn't been Penny, who has a gentle nature, I'd have been killed because I didn't really know what I was doing till I found an instructor to help me train Penny and who knew what I should do, taught me to do it, and then I did it during the week till the next lesson.
