The photo: You could break a saddle tree and make your saddle dangerous, so using a heavy saddle blanket, or bareback pad or a broken old saddle rather than your good saddle is an excellent idea. Also Val has no No Quite Rights in this instance about doing this at the gate like that. If Topacio had been in her Not Too Sure Zone, Val would have done this in a much more open space, giving her room to react safely if she needed to.
The Lesson
Once you’ve got the Release, Relearn and Re-Program happened in the last saddling lesson, then it’s time to find a Comfort Zone around high energy and the saddle.
Extreme saddling is about having our horse comfortable with a higher energy around the saddle than we would use in a normal saddling process.
Think of low energy being very quietly moving the saddle around your horse’s environment.
Medium energy would be pretty carelessly bringing it out, banging it over the gate, making the kinds of clanging noises a saddle makes when you’re not even thinking about it, maybe even falling off where you’ve put it every now and again (watch out that you don’t break the saddle tree being that careless though!)
High energy is what you will see in this Lesson – and I want MY horse able to say “ho hummmm…. what’s the big deal?” with this kind of high energy.
The more comfortable our horse is with this thing that we are going to sit on – the better off we will both be.
And if a saddle should ever fall off our horse because our horse moved while they were being saddled – well – extreme saddling speaks for itself in that instance.
Keys to Success
1. I suggest that you do your extreme saddling with either an old saddle that you don’t care about – or a softer pad like we did in the video. Here’s the thing… If you have worries about using a good saddle for this exercise, THAT worry is what your horse is going to be feeling. Does that make sense? I once heard a horse describing the person’s worry as like barbed wire. So how can they create a Comfort Zone with something that WE have a worry about?
2. You’re still going to BE present, be gently aware of what’s going on in your body and aware of your connection to your horse. Every time we do a session in a Live Seminar expanding our ability to BE Present, that ability will just naturally flow out into your horse work. So come on in, live or in the recording and if you have a question about this or would like extra help with it, then ask and I’ll add it in specially.
3. Follow the good feelings, take the time to soak them up where they arise bigger than before and use any Not Quite Rights to figure out what to change. If knowing what to change doesn’t flow in the moment, then physically back off, stop what you’re doing and wait for your horse to lick and chew.
Do I need to remind you of all the ways in which you may feel your own unique version of Not Quite Right? If you notice your breath tightened or your breathing faster? Does your posture change or go stiff? Does your heart rate increase? Do you feel any tension in your body, discomfort or even pain? Is there any feeling of anxiety or dread or frustration or sadness even that is your horse communicating with you? Do you feel nauseous like the owner of the little Arab that I spoke about earlier? Do you feel tired or flat or kind of pent up in your energy? Are you worrying about doing this task?
ALL or any combination of these feelings are ways that you may experience your early warning signal that something is Not Quite Right as a signal to stop what you’re doing, back off to the previous step or even all the way to sliding the saddle off and walking away from it and waiting for your horse to Release and signal that with their lick and chew.
4. Pay attention to the connection with your horse. Can you Feel yet when they’re connecting back with you? And when they’ve disconnected? Don’t worry if that’s not clear yet, it will become clear with practice and ask for some help with that on our monthly live seminar to get that more clear. If they’re not connecting back, then that’s a signal that WE need to back off, because this work needs their co-operation to be successful.
Safety Notes
1. Always stand on the same side of your horse where you are doing your extreme saddling. If your horse were to jump, we want the horse to jump away from the saddle and that being the same side as and AWAY from you!
2. Always, always, always hold the rope yourself. I do not recommend you ever tie your horse up for saddling but particularly for this exercise they MUST NOT BE TIED UP.
Up Next
In your next lesson, we look at the basics of something that is essential for riding as one with your horse: good saddle