Horseman’s Corner Radio

Starting Age - Mike Bridges

Now let's check in with this archived interview with the late Howard Hale and Oregon trainer and horseman Mike Bridges. The same question today that we've been asking the rest of the horsemen this week. What age do you start your horses?

 

"When I was a kid and a young man, you didn't start horses till they were five, six years old. Sometimes four, but most horses were five or six when they were started because they had to go do a day's work. You rode every place. We didn't have trailers and you rode to your work and you rode back. So horses had to be older when they were started. They were much tougher to start because their mind was set. They already knew where they fit in the herd and they were more reluctant to step down."

 

"Today, we start these horses at two. You have to be careful not to ride them very much and to be cautious of them until they're four. But the mind is much more pliable when these horses are two-year-olds. They don't, they don't, they have no idea. They don't know where they fit in the herd yet. They're still trying to shake out their position and depending on their personality. So they're much easier to create the starting process of it."

 

Oregon horseman Mike Bridges.

 

Mike has a clinic going on this week. Find the information below!

Starting Age - Craig Carr

The Horseman's Corner is an original production of Howard Hale Broadcasting, on the air since 1994 with over 7,000 episodes with people involved in the world of horses. I'm Howard's son, Brian, and we welcome you to The Horseman's Corner. The Horseman's Corner is brought to you by Mantz Creek Horses of Douglas, Wyoming.

 

On today's program, Craig Carr from Colorado. So Craig, when do you start your horses? 

 

"Usually get mine going when they're late two-year-olds and ride them some as they're three. I don't really have deadlines on my horses.

 

We don't really have any age limits in this Rocky Mountain deal. We have a rookie class, a cowboy class. Cowboy class is like a $500 limited winnings, and then you'll go to a Snafflebit-Hackamore class, and there's no age limit on how old that horse will be, because some of these cowboys might have an eight, nine-year-old Hackamore horse, a horse that might not have got started until he's five, six years old.

 

I think part of the longevity in these horses is we ride them, we might do some ranch work on them, but we're not pounding them. They're not really being called on hard until they're about five years old. Instead, so many of these three-year-olds and four-year-olds are pretty much burnt up in the show world by the time they're five or six."

 

It's always great to hear from Craig Carr. 

 

Hey everyone, this is Brian Hale. If you've heard this program before, you know I have been offering website help for many years.

 

In fact, we've been in the business for over 20, and we'd love to help you. For anything website-related, even if you just need some advice, it's free. Email support@halemultimedia.com or call 940-224-6315.

 

Portfolio, pricing, and contacts, all on halemultimedia.com. That's going to do it for today's Horseman's Corner. There's more on the web at horsemanscorner.com. 

 

Thanks again for listening, and may God bless. I'm Brian Hale.

 

 

Starting Age - Ricky Quinn

You bring those babies in, you ween them off their mom. First thing we do is toss a little rope around their neck, their foot, but just toss them that rope on there, start and roll the hind quarters in the beginning and allow them all the horses to learn how to come off of the feel to understand that that rope can touch them and it's not the end of the world and just start that mind kind of coming your direction. Working off of pressure, understanding a release of pressure, starting to get them to hunt that release and start drawing that mind in the direction you want it to go.

What age do you start working them?

They're born in May and they start getting halter broke sometime in the November timeframe. We'll be done halter breaking hopefully end of the December timeframe, take a couple months. Once we go through that process, they get bumped out. We'll bring them back in as two-year-olds, they have a crew of guys that come in December. They'll start anywhere from right around 40 head of colts in December as twos, put a handful of rides on them, they get kicked out. So then the threes from the previous year come in at the same time and then from then on they really kind of get camped on as three-year-olds and they get ridden and more moving forward with them into the five and six-year-old mark. So as a three-year-old, three and a half-year-old, they're getting used more, we start introducing to the feed yard, start introducing them to the outside ranching and then really by the time they're five and six they're pretty mature and they're working full-time.

Horse trainer Ricky Quinn with some great information. Find that full interview on Horsemanscorner.com.

The Making of a Good Snaffle Bit

On the program today, bitmaker Tom Balding is gonna walk us through how to make a good snaffle bit. 

 

"Well, you start with some quality material."

 

"When I had my welding shop in California, I did a lot. I was certified and did a lot of welding on aircraft parts and did a lot of fabricating of government aircraft parts and actually a lot of race car and motorcycles. I bought a lot of my material from kind of a specialized distributor of steels out of Los Angeles, and it's all certified quality steel and different alloys."

 

"Whenever I can, use as much iron in the mouthpiece. I use a mild steel. So you select the 7 16th is the diameter of our standard snaffle mouthpiece, and you would cut it to length and you would grind a taper in it, and then you would machine little slots. We actually weld in the copper." 

 

That was Tom Balding on the old snaffle bit. For more interviews like these and longer extended versions, visit our website at horsemanscorner.com.

Small Bits vs Bigger Bits

Texas Horseman and clinician Craig Cameron is our guest today on an archived interview with the late Howard Hale.

 

You do a lot of clinics, Craig. See a lot of different people, and what are some of the things that they're doing with the bits that you think need to be maybe changed?

 

"I think they're trying to take that old shortcut there, you're going to try to get a bigger bit to try to make it happen, but most folks are asking for way too much, way too fast of not only the horse, but of themselves. I think an understanding of the bit, in other words, we're going through the mouth to try to get to the feet. So I'm not trying to see how much bit I can use, I'm trying to see how little."

 

"And as I go up in bits, see, it's not so I can pull harder, it's actually so I can be lighter with my horse. And again, that's the old Vaquero style right there, see how little it takes, not how much. If I could only have one bit in my barn to use on my horses, what would that be? If I only had one bit, I believe I'd just have to go with that old snaffle bit."

 

"I think that's the old true training bit, and I've known some great horsemen that never used a snaffle bit, but they were really good with their hands, they had the experience. But I think for a lot of great trainers, and anything from intermediate to advanced to beginning riders, that snaffle bit, when you learn how to use it."

 

Craig Cameron with the late Howard Hale on today's Horseman's Corner.

Bill Oliver on Bit Usage

Bill Oliver celebrated a birthday yesterday, and he has been a frequent guest on the Horseman's Corner Radio program sharing over 45 years of experience on horsemanship, education, covering the psychology and natural language of horses. Let's listen into an interview that Howard Hale did with them years ago, but still applies today.

 

Howard asked Bill what kind of bits he prefers.

 

"As far as bits go and all that, we ride all of our young colts and stuff in a snaffle bit. It doesn't really matter to me if it's a D-ring or O-ring snaffle. And of course we're focused on direct pressure, a horse coming to direct pressure. And so everything's pretty much at that point in their training. A direct rein. You know, you're typically pulling the horse. And then as we transition to the training where the horse, you know, we'll work into, I write quite a bit with a bosal. Three different sides of bosals, but also ride my horses in a transition bit, which would be something like a short shank. An Argentine snaffle or a Tom Thumb or something comparable to that in the transition phase there. And of course at that point, we're starting to introduce a support rein and a support foot and some things like that. And so that's really where we start to push the horse a little bit rather than always just pulling on him."

 

Wyoming Horseman Bill Oliver.

Debate Over the Snaffle Bit

Listen in for a few different perspectives on the old Snaffle Bit.

Backing Your Horse with Van Hargis

Good morning everybody, this is Van Hargis with Van Hargis Horsemanship and welcome to the Ranch Road.

"For years I've earned a reputation of getting horses to be good stoppers at a fairly young age and people have always asked, well how do you get those little young horses to stop so big? And number one, I don't really work on it in particular, I just work on the basic fundamentals. Number one, I want every horse to understand first and foremost why they're going. It's less of all, you used to say all the time, you make them going and let them whoa. So I don't really force a horse or ask a horse to stop, I just simply let them. And number two, I really believe in what I refer to as my three steps to stopping, which is number one, quit making them go. Number two, the magic word, whoa. And then lastly, we support with our hands to reinforce what the first two things indicated. And then every time I back a horse up, I actually say whoa, and then I draw them backwards. Whoa, and then I draw them backwards. After about 30 rides or so, what whoa means to the horses back up. So now let's move forward to say you're loping them out. And then you say the magic word, whoa. Now what is a horse thinking? Not whoa, not stop, but they're thinking back up. But what have they got to do before they back up? They've got to stop. So to me, just working a lot of backing a horse up, working a lot on getting a horse very come about backing, both on the ground and in the saddle, and then reinforcing the word whoa when we go to back them up. And they stop thinking about what it is we're asking to do next, which is in this case, to back. Appreciate you guys. Until next time, this is Van Hargis with Van Hargis Horsemanship."

 

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