circles- take 10,000- Or using the thinking side of the Brain. Not the horses, MINE.

So Ive been struggling with Whiz and his circles - all of my horses want to drop their shoulder to the left- for a few days Ive been fighting with him wanting to look to the right, drift to the right or drop his shoulder to the left and go left= I couldnt turn the corner or guide him over in a circle with his nose going first without a tug of war. I got to thinking... geese, if I cant figure out why all my horses drop their shoulders to the left I'm gonna go stinking crazy. But it finally donned on my today while picking rocks in the arena that the problem is that I confront the problem head on while in the circles and make an issue out of it.

So instead of just starting out at the lope in the left problem circle- well, actually I did start out in that troublesome left circle. After a short, short warm up. I loped off and the second I noticed him dropping in I stopped and turned around a little- either way- some direct rein and outside leg to start and just got him thinking about turning or rolling back - either way didnt seem to matter- and I didnt make a big deal out of it- like confrontational I'm gonna pull you into the ground hard and pound on you to the outside in a turn around untill you keep the shoulder up. I turned both ways and instead of locking on the circle and drilling and drilling I loped a litte here. loped a little their, turned a little rolled back once- dinked around and just kept his circle frame in mind and low and behold he kept his shoulder up and was too busy thinking about other things besides wanting to drop the shoulder.

When I quit confronting issues head on and put on my thinking cap- and do it my own way things work much better for me and my horses. I was done in 15 minutes, two year old barely cracked a sweat. And I'll sleep better tonight even though I'm way less tired this evening.

Mike Helson and the turn around

I rode a couple horses that belong to a friend of ours named Raxanne Peterson who lives in Washington- We rode at Mike Helsons place. One of the horses I rode was struggling to turn around and I played with her a little and got her to get a little cadence going. I had her turning pretty cute but not too fast and Mike suggested I pull her face more - become part of the equation - meaning to help her tip her nose- not to bump the face over (which I was doing to keep her off the bit)and keep her pretty bent and go to her shoulder. This really helped to speed her up- and she stayed bent and turned better and harder. She did get a little hoppy to one side but overall it was an improvement. Roxanne said the filly was taken much bigger steps in the turn around. So thanks to Mike Helson and Roxanne.