Twenty fives

Have not blogged in a while, but one thing thats helped a bunch when training horses and teaching others to train is twenty-fives. The bottom line is to ask a horse twenty five times - give him twenty five chances to be corrected or perform a low level exercise before moving on. Some examples would be: A chargy or fast horse- do twenty five relaxed rollbacks instead of punishing him. If twenty five doesn't work, do fifty.

For lead changes lope the horse the length of the arena twenty five times asking him to move his hip over on the straight aways, each way. If you did this for twenty five days lead changes would probably be easier. Besides whats the rush.

Twenty five is the minimum number. If twenty five doesn't work, do fifty, if that isnt enough do 100- I'm not talking about high pressure stuff- I'm saying repeat over and over and if the horse isnt getting it repeat some more- don't get in a big fight with the horse and punish him. Also, I'm not talking about doing strenuous stuff thats gonna run him out of air and over stress his hocks or injure him.

There is nothing special about twenty five of anything. It just makes you slow down when you get compulsive and want to rush. It works. Its as much for the rider as it is the horse.