Table of Contents
My first Quarter Horse training happened with Brego, who is the very first horse I started _ and I could not help to buy him finally as we clicked really well! I practised quite a lot of these horsemanship exercises: Groundwork of course, but also under the saddle work. I spent most of my time to teach him positions. I wanted him to respond and go from a walk to a jog to a canter, just by moving my hips.
- Name: Brego
- Breed: Quarter Horse
- Age: 4 years old
- Genre: gelding
Quarter Horse training | 30 hours
WARNING:
I am fully aware of the very low quality of this video. As mentioned, this was my very first film, made with our family video camera. I could have removed it from my website, but I think it is important to share all the steps I have been through from being a complete rookie to becoming a respectable rider and horseman.
This first video above is also my first video ever! Let me sum up the situation: I started working with horses on September 15, 2012 when I used to live in Sweden. In February 2013, I moved to Denmark and made a life changing decision: I had to buy my own horse if I wanted to really improve. Coincidentally (true, it was by accident), we moved in a house in Gilleleje, and our neighbour was a breeding farm called Turban Stud.
That’s where I met Brego, by then only known as Poco Hot Catalyst. I watched again and again the great DVDs Ray Hunt Colt Starting Series, and I thought it was time for me to try to start a horse all by myself. Long story short, I started Brego on March 7, 2013. Eighteen sessions later, that is about thirty and a half hours of training, I decided to film our progress.
Quarter Horse training | 60 hours
WARNING:
As for the previous video, I kept the original footage and editing to show you all the imperfections.
This second ‘chapter’ has been filmed after about 60 hours of teaching my program, mostly based on the exercises described and used by horsemen such Buck Brannaman, and Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt before him: Desensitizing, Backing up, Lunging (also inspired by Clinton Anderson‘s program at that stage of my personal learning process), Seat Stop or walking in harmony with the horse, moving the hindquarters, etc.
Quarter Horse training | 100 hours
This new chapter of Brego’s education process comes only 40 hours of work after the previous one. And that includes a lot of time spent just riding in the forest. These forty hours span over a period of more than six months, but we did quite a lot of progress: groundwork and basic moves (backing up in a Soft Feel, crossing the hindquarters, trotting and loping around) are smoother and more comfortable as transitions get better too.
We also started to learn a few new things: Moving the front end through (beginning of a rollback), side-passing, picking the right lead at the lope, and much more.
Quarter Horse training | 200 hours
And here we are in May 2016, and two years passed since the last video. Two years for only 100 hours spent together, not always working actually, just being together. This video shows different things I worked more these past few weeks: lightness, position of the horse and transitions.
I also included some footage from 2015 to show the progress with the transitions, trot, and canter.