Miniature Horse and Pony Clinic 03-15-08
Then, we headed to the round pen. After Chelsie explained and demonstrated the round penning techniques we would be using, each participant took a turn round penning their own horse with Chelsie helping. We were all impressed with how fast the horses picked up on the communication techniques that Chelsie taught us. By the end of the morning we were all comfortable asking our horses to walk, trot, and canter through upward and downward transitions, disengage their hind quarters, and come to us when invited!
After lunch, we all gathered in the arena, and learned many tasks including having our horses move their shoulders and hindquarters away from steady and rhythmic pressure, back up, send in a circle, leg yield, and squeeze between us and the rail. We also learned how to send our horses over obstacles such as a wooden bridge.
All in all it was a very successful day! After all, what could be better than an arena full of adorable mini's and ponies!!! We all left with tools and knowledge that will improve our horsemanship skills tremendously!
Despite the windy and cold conditions, a great time was had by all! We started the day by watching Chelsie do a demonstration with her Miniature Horse, BooBoo. Even though she had only been working on the skills demonstrated for a couple of weeks, we were all impressed with what she could get him to do! We then learned skills such as how to property tie a rope halter, and how to use phases when asking our horses to perform different tasks.
