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Kandoo-Kansay

Training Balance

Kate Fenner - Friday, January 21, 2011


Focusing back on Gerber’s Technician today, I would like to look at how things often go awry with training because too much emphasis is put on this one role.

Have you ever know someone that loves to cook decide to open a restaurant only to find themselves out of money, energy and a business within six months because a love of cooking was not enough to make a successful venture? They also required an entrepreneur to have vision and direction for the business and a manager to keep the books straight and the staff on board.

Just as the Technician alone cannot build a successful restaurant, the Technician in you, if left alone without the support of the Entrepreneur and the Manager, will, in much the same way, have a difficult time training your horse. You may have some initial positive results but, over time, your success will diminish.

Below is a short video of Little Bear’s (Ima Little Rustler) first ride. This was done in a demonstration environment with helicopters landing less than 100metres away but the young colt handles it very well. The reason he does so is just as much a result of the planning and implementation of his previous lessons (Manager) and the vision and direction I have for this little horse (Entrepreneur) as it is the way this particular lesson is carried out (Technician).




Weekend Clinic

Kate Fenner - Monday, January 17, 2011
A busy weekend at Kangadoo with a clinic and young Kandoo Anything Mr (Kam) settling in.
For all residential clinic details see the Clinic page and for dates look at the News page.

New Year Resolutions

Kate Fenner - Thursday, January 06, 2011

Did you have any New Year resolutions this year? I had a few myself that I thought I would share with you here and keep you updated with on this blog as 2011 progresses.
NY resolutions usually involve giving things up for me - here are some examples: 
2006 - give up moving countries. Settle back home in Australia and stay put.
2007 - give up smoking. No-brainer really.
2008 - give up ..... marriage. SLF husband made this easy (Second, Final and Last, if you were wondering).
2009 - give up grog. 2008's resolution evaporated the requirement!
2010 - give up coffee. The only thing that gave me a headache!
You see what I mean? All very negatively stated. Don't get me wrong; very positive results but certainly time to start doing something differently.
This year I decided to make my resolutions more positive and focus on DOING something rather than not doing something. To that end, I have decided that my new year's resolution for 2011 is to 'share more'.
Don't worry, this is going to be quite specific 'sharing'.
I spend at least 5 hours a day working horses. As I am sure you know, training horses and working with horses is my passion. It is this passion that I would like to share with you through this blog for 2011.
With every horse I work I learn something that will be useful for another horse or another situation. Rather than just filing them away in my head, in 2011 I will share these useful snippets with you. Let me give you a couple of examples taken from the week before Christmas, just before my horses went on holiday (yes, they are all out there standing by their dams pretending they are in the Bahamas!).
1) I was starting Harry's flying changes and he was having great trouble changing from left to right. The usual repertoire of 6 different change exercises didn't seem to be assisting him and I came up with a 7th involving canter half-pass, travers and the arena fence that really seemed to help him. When I get back to this I will share that new exercise with you here on the blog.
2) I was brought a young horse for a week's in-house training in December. This horse had been ridden around the farm but the owner didn't feel that it knew very much and felt a little unsafe. He seemed like a sweet little thing but just from the initial handling it was clear that his training resembled a good swiss cheese (full of holes). When I put the surcingle on him he went off like a bronco. There are many things that I would like to share with you about this horse - from expectations and intuition to safety and the importance of foundation work.
I hope you will join me here from time to time and I welcome your comments, feedback and stories.

Marulan Kite Festival

Kate Fenner - Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Both Tally (Wellsdale Kandoo It All) and Bear (Ima Little Rustler) had their first ride today at the Marulan Kite Festival Demonstration. They both did very well indeed and ended with a relaxed trot both directions in a nice soft and safe frame.

Special thanks to the Australian Stock Yard Company for the round pen!!

Oh, if you were wondering, yes, that is a helicopter landing behind us – both horses did very well being about 100 metres away from the scenic flights!