Carolyn Resnick Horsemanship Blog: Horse Training from the ground up

Hello. Well today at last I am delighted to be able to tell you about the brand new Waterhole Rituals ‘In a Box’ Program for Winter 2009/10.

Now, I know some of you have been waiting for the full Insider Circle Program to start up again and therefore may be disappointed to hear that I won’t be running it again this year. The reason for this is that with the full Insider Circle Program, you get a huge volume of input from me and with my vacation coming up in November and also because I want to finish my new book, I wouldn’t be able to devote the time to the Program that you deserve. So for that reason and because I want to make a few changes based on the feedback from the last class, I thought it better to run just the ‘In a Box’ Program this time round so that people don’t miss out.

Having said that, this is a significantly enhanced ‘In a Box’ Program, as we have made some pretty serious additions to what was already a great package. Don’t take my word for it though, this is what a few of the last… Read more

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I am back from my presentation to a group of equestrian women that gather each year with their horses to celebrate and promote community activities on horseback. Julia Felton from the UK, a working student for the past four months, went with me as my coordinator and personal assistant. This year the group had 51 riders. It was their 15th Annual Ride on Catalina Island. They call their organization the Las Caballeras ride.

I gave one of my presentations at the Escondido Ranch, which is the original Wrigley Ranch, and I got to meet Alison Wrigley-Rusack. Not only did I have the opportunity to meet Alison but I got to use her prize black Arabian Gelding, Zanadu, for my presentation of the Waterhole Rituals™. Alison had purchased Zanadu to be her special horse after falling in love with the stallion in the movie the Black Stallion. Zanadu had led most of his life as a stallion and was recently gelded. Even gelded Zanadu was every bit as animated and beautiful as the stallion in the movie.

We also got a private tour of the Wrigley museum that held at least 15 Bohlin saddles, matching bridles and breast collars belonging to… Read more

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I remember years ago, a lady came to take lessons with me. She had traveled all the way from Florida to learn the Art of Horsemanship. She had all the right clothes and a great deal of enthusiasm. However, on her first day she became disappointed with all the details she would have to learn to stay safe around horses. And on top of that, she also found out that she would have to learn how to manage a horse’s behavior.

The next day she found even more disturbing because instead of something to do in her lesson, I told her to enjoy the moment and relax while keeping the horse way from her as she was sitting in a chair reading a book.

Initially she said that all she wanted was for the horse to relax, however she discovered that it took a lot of leadership, concentration, attentiveness, focus and management in order to be around a horse. These were the same things that she did at work all day and exactly what she was trying to avoid. She wanted a horse so she could forget about the details and just fall into a blissful state of… Read more

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Hello. My great passion with horses is dressage. This may surprise some of you but as always, it’s about approach and application.

There is little difference between a classical dressage rider and a competitive rider in the hands of a master, but the methods of training are very different. The two methods are different from the standpoint of how to develop lightness and self-carriage.

At this time in history the classical school of dressage is very strong and is suffering little conflict in their theories and methods of training. However, the competitive world is suffering greatly. There are a lot of horses that are being rushed through the process because of the desire to compete. They are ridden with new methods of training to shortcut the old methods through the rider’s talent to take a horse falsely to the FEI levels.

Currently there is an upsurge in the classical methods helping the competitive world. I have had a lot of personal success using these classical principles and theories with riders and horses. I would like to suggest a book by Sylvia Loch, The Classical Rider. It points out that dressage riders in the top levels of competition,… Read more

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The other day I was telling you about how I started to use music to train my horses and so I wanted to tell you a little more about my experiences.

When I trained to music, I found that the horses responded more quickly to my spontaneous direction. We became united as a team beyond anything I had experienced before. It caused me to be more careful not to ask anything of the horse that would cause the loss of rhythm or negatively impact the horse’s ability to perform. Music made me a more tactful rider. My spontaneous cues caused the horses to focus on performing at a moment’s notice, which created a brilliance in their steps. It was a miraculous discovery. After that, I developed a training program in four stages.

In the beginning, when I first started a horse to music, I chose classical or any music without a beat so the horse could focus on even cadence and develop an evenness and smoothness of the gait. This way, he could easily attach to the flow of the music. After the horse responded naturally to what he was listening to, the next step was to pick music with… Read more

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Julia and I worked with Stoli today. First, we kept him company to start our daily work. He is now feeling a bond with both of us and even enjoying our company.

We are working on body releasing techniques to get him to release any bad memories that could get in the way of his willingness from trust issues in the past. Body work helps a horse to feel safe enough to be intimate with you and this is important. If a horse will not allow you to be intimate with him it is not a good idea in general to think about riding because it sets an attitude of not being fluid and fluidity is very important in dressage. Since Stoli is 21 years old he needs all the fluidity he can get. We discovered Stoli is an amazingly agile horse and loves doing carrot stretches and this one in particular as you can see below:

Stoli doing his agile excercise – he offered this to us completely umprompted

He is a great lesson horse for Julia because he is very locked in some areas and is responding very slowly, which is giving her plenty of… Read more

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The definition of a spiritual connection is that when the mind, bond and soul is entirely shared in the moment with your horse in a bonded connection in harmony and unity. Please do not use the Waterhole Rituals until you understand how to apply them and their purpose.

There are seven heartfelt strings of connection.
1. Bond
2. Trust
3. Respect
4. Willingness
5. Focus
6. Magnetic Connection
7. Desire and energy necessary for dancing.

For example in the last step if your horse is really too relaxed and not paying attention, then work him fast with you at a moments notice following your lead. Alternatively, if working fast would make him nervous because he is too hyper then his energy needs to be aligned.

When you go to your horse with my program you first must be in the moment and wait until you are completely balanced with no thought of the past or future outside of the territory you are sharing with your horse. You open your awareness to everything in the moment and the changing conditions that occur like a lead horse would. To get in a state of mind… Read more

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