Horseman’s Corner Radio

Now let's get to today's interview with aaster horseman and clinician from Texas, Mr. Van Hargis. On our last program, Van covered what he prefers in a bit. Now we ask him the question about saddles. So Van, what do you look for in a saddle? Is it fit or is it comfort for the horse? What is it?

 

Yes sir, what I'm looking for in a saddle of course, you hit the nail right on the head and I want to find a top quality saddle made by a very reputable and very top quality saddle manufacturer. And the reason why is that they're generally going to work a little bit harder with the saddle tree manufacturers to make sure that all points of that saddle to be even. In other words, it's like everything else and you've got to start with a great foundation. That saddle tree is the absolute most important thing there. After that we want to make sure we're using top quality materials. The best leather possible, those are things I look for. But really what I'm looking for outside of those things, I'm looking for something that fits my task. I really have to ask myself, what am I going to be doing in my horse the most? If all I do is race, barrels and the barrel racer, then by God it might just pay for me to go find me a barrel race in the saddle as opposed to a cut and saddle. So I want to match the saddle to the task that suits my need.

 

Master horseman and clinician Van Hargis; be sure to follow Van Hargis Horsemanship on Facebook.

Master Horseman and clinician from Texas, Mr. Van Hargis.

What kind of bit do you like to use, Van?

"Well, to me, I'm looking for something that's going to be extremely simple. I start all of my coats off. The first rides are usually with a halter and a lead rope and then I'll graduate to what I call a glorified loping hackamore, which is just a real simple one step above a halter. But the first bit I put in the horse's mouth is just a very simple smooth mouth snaffle. It's an offset D-ring snaffle. Well, I've got nothing against an O-ring snaffle. Almost every bit we ride a horse with outside of a snaffle is going to have some sort of straight edge on it on the corners of the horse's mouth. So if that's the case, I'm going to go with a mild bit of possibly cans that's got a straight edge on the side. There's probably not a better one out there that prepares my horse for the next bit, the transition bit that I would go to next. So what I tell folks to look for is this simplicity. Look for something very simple. Things that we know already work. Number one, smooth. I want smooth mouth because I don't want to flick more discomfort to a horse and this is what I absolutely have to. So I like a smooth mouth. First type of metal such as sweet iron seems to be very, very simple to a horse. It promotes salivation and it's porous enough that salivation isn't wasted, I guess you can say, for like a better turn. So I'll also look for enough smooth mouth snaffle that's with sweet iron metals. For my laziness aspect of it, I like for the cheap pieces to be stainless steel. And the reason I do is if they're quick and easy to clean, maintain a certain high appeal. And there's other bits out there that are pretty buggo that are stainless steel is just easiest and the quickest to keep clean. I like something like that. Again, just trying to keep my world simple as I possibly can for both of me and my horse."

Master Horseman and clinician Van Hargis.

Now here's a special treat, the late Howard Hale with an interview with Van Hargis. This is from an interview that I did with Van a couple of years ago. One of the things and one of the people that he talked about was Jack Brainaerd.

Gosh Jack Brainerd is an interesting horseman, isn't he? He's probably in his 90s van but really an interesting individual.

"One of my little dreams come true. I had an opportunity to do a clinic with Jack. He had Abilene Texas several years ago, I'll tell you a little bit about Mr. Brainard and his attitude toward horsemanship. He was probably in his mid 80s at that time and we had the arena divided in half and I'm looking at one end of the arena. My students were down there and Jack was looking toward the other arena or toward the other direction of the arena. His students were down on that side and we were standing literally standing side by side. One of my students made some sort of deal and I yelled at them some instruction and I thought at first I must have said something wrong because I saw the corner of my eye. I saw Mr. Brainard shaking his head and I'm thinking, oh, I must have said something wrong."

"Mr. Brainard, what's on your mind?"

"He said, Van, you know, I'm just afraid I'm going to die before I learn everything about these darn horses that I want to learn."

"And at that point I was so humbled to sit there and think, here's a guy that's 86 years old, I think he was at the time who had probably trained more trainers than most of us have trained horses and yet he was still on that journey of learning and horsemanship to the point where he was concerned about not getting a chance to learn everything he wanted to learn. And that's when I realized, you know, at that point in time, you know, I've got a long way to go. We all, it's a never ending journey. It's a journey that yields nothing but happiness and success which stay on it and stay humble."

Texas clinician and trainer Van Hargis with the late Howard Hale. That's it for today's Horseman's Corner.

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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Good morning everybody, this is Van Hargis with Van Hargis Horsemanship and welcome to the Ranch Road. We have a lot of students that come out to the ranch, and oftentimes on their applications, one of the first things they do to lend themselves some sort of credibility is tell me two things.

 

I've been around horses my whole life, and then second is I love horses.

 

Now, both of those are important, right? But they're not really qualifiers. And what I mean by that is, is I'll just give you an example. My entire adult life, I've owned a welder because a lot of our equipment I hear at the ranch is metal. We've got pipe and sucker rod fencing for our horses. We've got a lot of metal things that we fix and we repair. And even though I've owned a welder my entire adult life, I would never insult the welder by calling myself a welder, even though I've owned one.

 

When I mention that to my students is that I'm not interested in how long you've been doing it. What I'm really interested in is how well you've performed while doing it. Have you developed your skills enough to where you are making progress toward becoming the horseman that you want to be? But it kind of goes for everybody. It doesn't really matter how long you've been doing something. That just shows that you've got either tremendous patience and or passion, which are both good.

 

Most importantly though is what have you learned along your journey? How can you perform that of which you've learned? So just take that tidbit, we didn't appreciate you guys. And until next time, this is Van Hargis with Van Hargis Horsemanship.

Visit Equine Podcast Search sponsored by Van Hargis Horsemanship to find hundreds of great interviews with top horsemen and women from around the globe. Here's Van with a message from his program called "The Ranch Road"...

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www.vanhargishorsemanship.com

 

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