 I see how he's getting coiled and ready to move that hind quarters. Good. Sort of bringing myself back towards the center and maybe even as a bonus near that mounting block. That's pretty handy. I'm going to take our time here. He could get a little softer. He's kind of holding his neck tense. He's a little rigid. Good. I wouldn't mind him just sort of relaxing in here a little bit. So many times I'll tell people, you might have a goal. You might come to the barn and we all have goals and your goal might be today you want to jump the ditch, but you go get your horse. Your horse is more tense for whatever reason. Your horse is more tense that day and maybe it takes you longer to get that horse saddled that day. For me all plans are subject to change so if I need to I'll work on this and I'll get this really good so all of our experiences together are nice and calm. Maybe I don't get to the ditch that day but at least I had a good saddling session, mounting session and could we get these horses to where he's calmer when I'm with him in this ring right now than if he were on his own and I walked out. It seems like a little thing but for some people their horse is actually a way more tense when they're around. All right. So I'm going to reach under and bridle him with my arm under so you know there's sort of two approaches to this and I'll work on both. So I might go arm under, notice I tipped his nose to the side and then I'll bring that outside ear first and then the inside ear in second. Okay now I might just ask him to get soft with that. Oh he's a little stuck. He's a little braced and see those feet don't want to come back yet. He's working at it. There we go. When I take the bridle off or put the bridle on I want those reins right up by his ears, right up behind his jowl. Let's take this bridle off and show you this. So I'll still tip his nose to the side when I drop or sort of bring the bit out gently. All right now let's walk. I'm just going to walk away here because he liked that I took that bridle off that headstall off. All right well here is if I take my hand up and I just put a gentle pressure down. Now don't force it and the other thing is I'll think of sort of slightly bending and almost like I swing the head down. And if you're pushing hard that isn't not the idea. You're not doing it at the right time. So he's got to be relaxed but if I just gently sort of bring my hands left to right with just a little downward pressure I mean it's very subtle. There's many ways to get his head down but that's a great way to do it. So now his head's down here. Now I could take my right hand and be up between the ears. So I could take my right hand and I could be up here and I could grab the crown piece and he could take the bit from this position. He could have dropped his head lower but actually this isn't bad at all. Now that's probably not what he did on the track. I'm guessing on the track they reached under his head and lifted up. So that's your other method try to get that forelock out of there. He could, I could just remind him, hey can you get your head down there? Alright, see I took time on it. That's really important. Make our adjustment. So that's looking pretty nice. As I tighten up that girth I'm able to tip, tip his nose to me and I ride with, I ride with multiple, use this headstall on multiple horses here at the barn so it's making him smile a little bit. Let's drop it down here. Now on a gelting you want to watch the canine. It doesn't hit the canine. If you put your finger behind the mouthpiece that's the true gauge of how much it's pulling on the lip. Also if you notice the cheek pieces they should sort of come off the side and sort of snap, come back without snapping quickly. So some people leave a bit a little looser on a mare. You can get by with that on a gelting. You're going to bring it up a little bit. I'm content with where, where this bit is at on him. Alright, in the event that you might want to lunge or do a little round penning with your horse. You can twist the reins up so they're, it's like this and then you can run, throw it latch through and go up. Some people have never learned that. It's just something you can do and then the reins are in a good, are in a good place. Well he was a little balled up with the, he was a little balled up with the girth. So we might work on that just a little bit here. I recommend that a horse that you're not, you know, as sure with, like this, like a horse like this, that you would walk trot canner both directions on the ground before you get on. The canter is a gate that's playful and the canter is a gate that horses are energetic. Their life comes way up. Their emotional thermometer is much higher than say standing in the barn or walking. So the canter is a gate that you might want to check out before you get on your horse. It's more, it gives you a pretty nice read to your horse's emotional levels. So I send him off, sort of think about leading, get a little drive in there, see how little I can do. I really am thinking canter, but I'm thinking about bringing his life up a little at a time. You might see his eyes and his ears open a little bit to redirect here, his eyes, his eyes opened up a lot there to bring him past a little more, a little more energy. I'd like him to find the canner. I realized the stirrup slipping down. He felt it, didn't he? He felt that. Good. I'll take that. It wasn't a long time at the canter, but it was fine. It was the idea. Look at him, he looks like a little colt. He raced until he was eight from what I'm told. That's a long time for at least a horse like this. And you know, it's amazing to me that he still feels the girth and he's sensitive to that still. I'm going to bring his life up a little bit more. See if I can just send him off with a little more life at the canner. There, I might get a little length. Good, I'll take that. And then I'll step out of the center. If I turn towards him and get tall, it makes sense to halt. It's kind of like a traffic guard saying, stop, wait. It's the same thing. Come with me. Wait. Good. Very good. Very good. And you can see he's bringing his life down. So as much as we would bring the horse's life up, it's really important that we can also bring their life down. So here I'll bring his life up a little more. See if we can get him to think about sending off, see how little I can do. Want to help him get the answer? Good. Good. He's thinking about me. Let's get one more canner in here. As I'm content with the canner, I'd come back to the center and I'm trying to show him that I like his canter so much that I'll step out of the center and you can come to me. He's understanding that quite well now. It's nice. Well, a discussion that I get into frequently with people is training versus life experiences. Where I think of experiential learning. Training sometimes can be on the side of a bit more mechanics repetition. People start getting into conditioned responses and all that stuff and that's all. That's all. You know, maybe that works and that's useful and I can't avoid training. I mean, of course, we're training. But there's more to it than that. If I want to get my horse to where I could trust him in any situation, like the unknown. Well, training is a small piece, but our life experiences together that accumulate over time, they add up to be the big picture, our relationship. So if he can always be calm with me when I'm in a situation where we're not sure he's not sure, he'll look to me. Rather than looking to training, it's more like look to me. We've been through a lot together. So I like to really get our life experiences together in such a way that they're calm if I can help it. It's looking really good. When people mount up, there's a couple points that I really want you to take away. And one is, both reins are short enough to where if he were to walk forward and shift his weight forward, you could just pick up on the rein and stop him. But I also like the inside rein a little shorter so I can see his inside eye. So I could tip him to me and his rump would swing away to the outside. So it's very important that as I mount up, his feet are square. So he's relatively square. So you can gently just push on the feet a little bit or you can have him step up a little bit. And you'll find that a horse will get their feet more square. So that's important. Inside rein a little shorter than the outside rein. And then as I step up, I want to sit down really soft, tip his nose towards me. Now he walked off a little right there, but I was able to pick up on that rein and ask him to halt. I still have his head bent around to my left. And I'm still sort of looking at him in that left. Now as I reach for my irons, he tends to think that that means go forward. And so that's just some old racehorse nervousness. But the point to that is that I'm able to balance him in such a way that I can get on. A concept that I like to teach people is to go forward. Don't squeeze your legs. And it seems like we all learned or many of us learned when we want to go squeeze your legs and go forward. Well, think of this. What if we save squeezing our legs for later with the horse? What if we squeeze our legs to get suspension and elevation, to get the horse soft or rounded? What if then we were able to slowly close our legs up? But to go forward, let's not necessarily squeeze our legs. Now you've heard inside leg to drive. So what if we did this? What if I sat tall, tuck my tailbone, tuck my seat under, and wiggle my inside leg? Let's try this. So I might sit tall, tuck my seat, and I might swing my inside leg. Now I saw him. We could feel him increase tempo. That was nice. Show you one more time. I'll sit tall, wiggle my inside leg, and see what he come forward. He does come forward. And then when he does, I settle right back down again, and I just sort of bring him back. Easy does it. I could squeeze release the reins and my abdomen. I'm exaggerating, so you can see. But I could squeeze release my abdomen, my reins, and just see if he could slowly find a halt at the same time. He's feeling a little squeeze in the saddle, but just a little squeeze. Squeeze release. To go forward, I'll stand tall, tuck my seat, swing the leg. My leg will open a little. Ready? Sit tall, tuck seat, open leg. Now did you see that leg swing? So if I swing the leg, it could be the inside leg. It could be both legs on a young horse. But if I stand tall, when I go to swing the leg, he understands movement. And that makes a lot of sense for horses, because when I move my leg, they move their legs. Let's work out this technical difficulty here. He's looking at me on both sides. He's, it's good that it's good that he's looking at me out of his left side and his right side. And if I look over to my right and I bring, just bring my headlight over a little bit, would he look over there? Good. Very nice. To slow down, I might squeeze, release the rain, like water out of a sponge. And my abdomen, I might set, very slightly set my elbows in. To walk, I'll sit up, tuck the seat, open leg. That worked out really good. If your horses don't understand that, you might have to kick. It's easy to bump a little, because your leg is already off and swinging. So if I sit up, open leg and swing it, if he doesn't go, I could bump him. But it makes sense to the horse, because once again, my legs are moving, so his legs are moving. Now, to walk, I might think of exhaling, breathing and sort of melting down into the saddle. Remember, he's young and green, or green. And to halt, I'll squeeze, release the rain. Now, the mounting block, that's a handy place to have him stop every once in a while. But let's stop over here. So you can watch the aid there, the squeezing. I'm using my abdomen and my, all at the same time. Squeezing, releasing. Squeezing the rain, setting my elbow. Here we go. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release. And there it is. To go forward, sit up, open the leg. I could swing the leg and the leg could bump him. Well, I hope that made sense. I hope that you're able to get your horse to go forward without squeezing. I'm hoping that you're also able to slow your horse down by not necessarily pulling back, but setting your elbows, squeezing the rain, and giving, so that he finds that halt.