Natural Horsemanship
Some of Barry's mentors have been the great Ray Hunt and Tom Dorrance. He has learned from them how to wait on a horse to think their way through a situation, ultimately the quickest way to teach a horse anything.
Some of Barry's definitions used in developing great horsemen:
Turning Loose
Removing all the braces that get in the way of working with your horse
Timing
Timing is so important and the key to becoming a great horseman. Without it your requests to your horse become just garbled communication.
Pressure
Horsemanship is all about applying the right amount of pressure at the right time and them releasing it as your horse thinks of giving the correct response. The amount of pressure you apply to a horse constantly changes, from situation to situation and horse to horse.
Release
So many times the human releases at the inappropriate time and the horse just doesn't understand.
Effective
Learn to be effective! Without it your horse will never respect you as their leader.
Leadership
Because of the horses' herd instinct they are always looking for a leader. If they can't find one in the herd, or if they aren't satisfied the other horse is capable of being a good leader, they make the decision to be the leader themselves and start taking over. They do the same thing with humans. Without good leadership your horse will always be insecure, looking for someone, horse or human, that is a better leader than they are.
Getting the Horse to Want to Be With You
Whether it's stop, go, load in a trailer or cross a bridge, before you can get your horse to do anything physical the horse needs to be with you mentally. We've all watched horses, including our own, get ready to not do something we ask. Often we set this up by not knowing when a horse is trying. Just as the horse is getting ready to do what we ask, the human blows it. So the horse quits trying and shuts down.
Barry can help you understand how to first get the horse ready and then how to ask them to try and most importantly, when and where to support the horse. One of the most important aspects of being an effective horseman is learning the importance of timing and release.
We want to get all horses felling like we could ride them anywhere, confidently and safely.
