Clinton Anderson Presents: The Bucking Stops Here

He's a very sweet horse. He's very personable. He's friendly. He really enjoys being around people. I think he tries to please. But when I asked him to trot, he bucked me off. A bucking horse is frightening to a lot of people because you can get seriously injured. It was on really hard ground, and I got hurt. Tore some muscles in my ribcage, bruised up my hip. It really shook my confidence. I sent him to a trainer in Colorado Springs who I thought might be able to work us through the problem. He had him for six weeks. He didn't lope him until the end, and when he did, the horse bucked him off twice. If he's too spooky for me to ride or if he's still got issues, I don't know what we'll do after that. When you've got that fear about breaking your neck or breaking your back, it can be pretty hard to get over. And especially when you're talking about a 1,200-pound animal. He's too dangerous for me to ride. I'm Clinton Anderson, and I have a method for training horses. Getting horses to behave is simple. It's training people that's the real trick. Join me as I tackle some of the most challenging situations with problem horses and with problem owners. Dusty, he's six years old, and I've had him since he was a baby. I own his mother. The first two years, he was basically out on pasture with the mare. When he was two, he had an eye injury, and so I had to get him in and doctor him. So he got halter broke and had a lot of handling then. And then he was basically just did a lot of sitting around until he was four. And I decided to try and start him then. Thought I had him going really good that we would be successful getting him going under saddles. I was just kind of playing with him, walking, and when I asked him to trot, he had bucked me off. He was on really hard ground. I got hurt, tore some muscles in my rib cage, bruised up my hip. Really shook my confidence and knew I wasn't going to be able to get through it on my own. A bucking horse is frightening to a lot of people because you can get seriously injured. When somebody's being bucked off a horse, they break a lot of bones, you know, just asking the ER nurse about all the people coming in the emergency room. So when you've got that fear about breaking your neck or breaking your back, it can be pretty hard to get over, and especially when you're talking about a 1,200-pound animal. So I just basically turned him out for a year and then brought him back this spring and took him to a trainer in our area. He worked with him for about six weeks, walked and trotted, but never asked him to lope until right at the end, and Dusty bucked him off twice that day. I'm hoping that Clinton Anderson will be able to get him through this bucking problem. I think with the training that he could get here, he could turn into a really nice horse. It's just he's too dangerous for me to ride at this point. Right now, these two are not working well together. The owner's fearful and worried about her safety. The horse is out of control and marching to the beat of his own drum. My job is to get them both on the same page and going down the trail safely. The advantage of having people bring horses in for training is that I can't train, you know, 100 horses, but I can get horses in here at the ranch and have my academy students train the horses with my method, but I oversee everything. I see every horse every day because these animals are very, very important to their owners. So even though I'm not actually doing the work myself, I'm overseeing it because my name's on the gate. I had Chris, one of my academy students, work with Dusty for six weeks, and I oversaw his training to make sure he was on track. I always tell people, try to fix a problem on the ground first before you get on it. You know, when you get on a horse, you're very vulnerable. If that horse wants to buck or rear or bolt, you're on a 1,200-pound animal that you can't control. But on the ground, you're a lot safer. Remember, by getting your horse respectful and using the thinking side of his brain on the ground, you can eliminate all these bad riding problems on the saddle. So that's what we did. We went back to the ground, established respect, established a foundation, and then when we got back in the saddle, we didn't have any problems at all. Well, today's a big day. I'm really looking forward to getting my new horse, Dusty, back. I'm looking forward to seeing a big change in him since I dropped him off at Clinton's Ranch six weeks ago. By the time the owner, in this case, it's Lisa, comes back to pick their horse up, the horse is very familiar with the entire fundamentals program. So when you have this horse trained by one of my academy students in clinician, you know it's as good as Clinton Anderson training himself. Check out our latest catalog from Down Under Horsemanship. It's filled with beautiful imagery and in-depth information on all the products used in this show. Visit our website or call this number and we'll send it to your door free of charge. When Lisa brought us Dusty to the ranch, he was obviously having trouble with a bucking problem. But really it was a respect problem showing up as a bucking problem. As one of the benefits to having your horse trained here at the Down Under Horsemanship Ranch, we want to make sure the owner is just as confident working with the horse as what we are. That's why we spend the entire day showing them everything the horse knows and then giving them lessons, giving them tips, getting them in the trenches so to speak, giving them a hands-on, one-on-one training with their horse. It's crucial for their success. I had Lisa work with Chris all day to make sure she was familiar with what the exercises were, what they should look like and how good her horse should be. He was really responsive when I did the groundwork with him and he was very calm as well at the same time. Sometimes he'd be a little overreactive to me at home and so you can tell they've done a lot of work with him and that he's very calm, he's not afraid, he's confident and it gives me a lot of confidence when he's like that too. With Lisa working with Chris, Chris could show her where the bar is. Chris could show her that her horse is actually really capable of doing these exercises at a high level. The next day was D-Day for Lisa. Time to get back on Dusty. Okay Lisa, today's the big day. Are you nervous mate? I'm a little bit nervous. Tell me, what are you nervous about? Well, the last time I tried to ride him, he bucked me off several times. Right. A little scared of getting hurt. Well, you know, they're a thousand pound animal and you get bucked off, it can hurt, it can be extremely dangerous. You know, the fact that you have a lack of confidence is not a big deal because we're going to overcome that today. I'm going to hand Dusty back to you and I'm going to start giving you that control and respect that you need from him. How you gain a horse's respect is by you moving his feet forwards, backwards, left and right. So we're going to do that through a series of groundwork exercises and riding exercises. And the first exercise I want you to work on is what we call yield the hindquarters stage one. Now this shouldn't be a big deal for him because we've already taught this to him. That's it. Walk a little faster, walk a bigger circle, bigger circle towards his butt. If he gets lazy, tap him on the butt with the stick. So are you nervous at all, Lisa? A little bit? A little bit, yeah. Okay, well don't worry about that. The nervousness will disappear once you get his feet moving. Okay, go ahead and yield his hindquarters. Walk towards it. Walk, walk, walk. There you go. Look down at his right front leg and see how it's pivoting? That's a great sign. His hind legs are crossing over, he's pivoting on that front end and he's yielding that hindquarters. He just is a lot more responsive. I think part of it was my problem that I wasn't walking a big enough circle around him and really making a definite cue for him to move his hindquarters. Lean forward and tap towards his eye and yield his forequarters. Tap him on the side of the neck if he doesn't move. That's it. Now it's the opposite. I want him to pivot on his rear end and move his front end. That's it. Excellent. Keep going around. See how his front end is moving and his hind end is staying relatively still? Backing is very important to get the horse's feet moving. So we'll start out with just tapping the air. I want the horse that when you tap the air like this, he'll respond by moving out of your personal space. Backing up, just plain and simple, gets your horse respectful. It gets him to move out of your personal space, it gets him to use the thinking side of his brain. The more you back your horse up, the more respectful they'll be, the more they'll listen to you, the better they stop and the better they're aware of your personal space. Horses that are dominant, they're always running over the top of you, always pushing on you, always butting into you with their head. You can't let a 1,200 pound animal do that to you. I can see a huge change in this horse. Can't you see a huge change in him? I do. He's a lot more respectful. He's responsive, he's willing. Step up your horsemanship with the Clinton Anderson Method. Now available in a complete set. Fundamentals starts you on your journey to ultimate control. As you learn to communicate with your horse, earn his trust and respect, and gain control of his body. Intermediate opens the door to ultimate performance. As you build on your knowledge to create a safe, willing, and supple partner, you control with a featherlight touch. And now, all new, Advanced delivers ultimate inspiration to fine tune your application of the method and reach the highest level of horsemanship. Clinton Anderson offers you the ultimate collection of his Wilder Training Method Kits at a packaged price. Okay, let's get his feet moving a little bit more now. Take him out in the middle here now, and let's do lunge him for respect stage one. Rightio, yield his hindquarters, get him to give you two eyes. Now back him up a few steps. Point, swing your stick, there you go. That's it, let him go around in a circle to your left. That's great. Now point again, spank him on the butt, he's a little close to you. Point, there. Spank him, come on, get his feet moving. There you go, excellent. I don't want him lunging around real close to you, Lisa. Just in case he would ever try to kick at you, you wouldn't want him to get you. Now pull and release on that lead rope just a little bit there, and walk a little bit smaller circle. You walk a smaller circle. I want you to get a lot more demanding with your cues now, okay? When you point and say speed up, when does that need to happen? Now. Not after Christmas, not when he feels like doing it, but right now. Okay, so get a lot more insistent about that. Now go ahead and slide your right hand down the rope, look at his hindquarters, lean. There. Send him the other way. Get ready at that point, ready? Come on, spank! There you go. I want him to take off like, yes sir, yes ma'am, I'm going to get going today. The key element when working with somebody that's lost their confidence or has a lot of fear associated around a horse is you've got to get them back in control again. You know, somebody can be fearful and you can say stop being scared, stop being scared, and you can yell at them all day long and they're still going to be scared. When you analyze why people are fearful around a horse, it's because they don't have control. When they don't want to move out, they get crabby with their mind. That's when they start getting pissy and crabby and start pinning their ears and they wish you'd die in your sleep, okay? Get those feet moving on the ground. So I don't worry about their fear issues, I worry about teaching them how to get control of their horse. When you get control of the horse, you get confidence. When you get control and confidence, you're no longer fearful. Send him the other way, point. Now see the difference that time? That time when you pointed, he immediately went, didn't he? That's great. You're getting better because you're getting more control of his feet. Going through the groundwork and being able to control him on the ground really helped to see that he's well trained and could carry that over into being under saddle and being ridden. Blake, come on, get those feet moving. Change directions again, right there. Better. Change directions again. There you go. Change directions again. There you go. Now he's moving those feet. You understand? Yes. Okay, pull and release. Come on, make him come to you. You're walking a bigger circle to him. Make him come to you. Remember, horse is a professional people trainer. He's training you right now. Okay? Make him come to you. So the big thing that I tried to get across to you in doing the Lunging for Respect, Lisa, was what do you think? Getting a prompt response. Yes, get those feet to move. The fact that you sent him to the other trainer and he didn't lope him for six weeks just blows my mind. The more you let a horse go at the walk and trot, the crabbier and pissier they get. But what we did is we didn't ride him for a week. We did nothing but groundwork for an entire week. And we made sure that we got his feet doing walking, trotting, cantering. And we made sure we got him moving out on the ground. So that way when we got on him and we asked him to lope, the chances of him loping and not bucking were relatively what high? I guarantee, Lisa, if we would have got on him on day one and just spanked him and asked him to lope off, I guarantee he would have bucked with us too. But that's why we did the groundwork first, to get rid of that lack of respect. When you go home, he's going to want you to think that he's completely dumb. He's not real bright. Because then you'll lower your standards. Does that make sense? Keep the standards where we set them. He's capable of doing it, but he ain't going to tell you he's that good unless you ask for it. Remember, he's a creature of habit. So if you don't set new habits for him, we've set the new habits for you. That's what we've done here with the method. But you've got to continue those habits. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay, Lisa, what we're going to do now, mate, is we're going to work on his flexing. Okay, I want to get him really light on the ground, so that when you go to flex him under saddle, he has that same lightness. I want him so light that you can't even take the slack out of the lead rope. Does that make sense? Pick up. There. When he figures out that you know what we know, he'll be like, oh crap, you know what they know. I can't be lazy with you. I've got to put in 110% effort. What do you think? Is it the same horse you dropped off? No, he's a lot more responsive. He's a lot quieter, willing to just stand here. Okay, mate, we've prepared him on the ground. We've got him using the thinking side of his brain. Now it's ready for the big step to get on him. Okay, Lisa, now is the moment of truth, mate. The last time you got on him, he bucked you off twice. Yes, he did. How are you feeling now? I'm a little bit worried. You're a little bit worried? But I also think confident as well. Yes. But you're confident on the ground. You look great on the ground. The worst case situation is you're going to die. That's it. It can't get any worse than that, mate, okay? Righto, come on up here to the mounting block, okay? When we first got back on, yeah, it was a little bit scary because, you know, the last time I got on, he had dumped me off. That's a girl. Excellent. And when you get on him now, I'm going to move this out of your road, I want you to start immediately flexing him. A little bit anxious just that first moment, but once you get on, you can just feel him that he was solid and quiet. It was a great feeling. Do you feel how light he is? Pick up with just two fingers. What do you notice different about how his mouth feels now? He's very light. You can barely feel him there. That's what I'm looking for. I have a craving to get my horses absolutely light as a feather. Light as a feather. So you remember, if anything goes wrong or you feel insecure or there's a problem, you immediately do a one-reign flex just like this, okay? Flexing the horse's head gets him to relax, it gets him to soften, and it gives you control. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. You still feeling nervous? A little bit, but, you know, he feels real solid underneath. Good, good. He is as calm as calm can be. From the minute I got on, I could tell that he was a lot quieter. When you get on a horse that's nervous, you can just feel it, and he just had that solid feeling under me, like he was just going to do whatever I asked him to. To begin with, we're just going to work on what we call our one-reign emergency stop. So you're going to walk him out, and then you're going to sit and relax, slide one hand down, pull it up to your hip. As soon as his feet stop and he softens, you're going to release it and then flex him the other way. So to make him go forward, there's three cues. You're going to squeeze gently with both legs. If that doesn't work, I want you to clock. And if that doesn't work, I want you to pick up the end of your Makati and just kind of spank him from side to side. So squeeze. Both legs. There you go. No need to clock. So put your spanker down. I'll kind of walk along with you to begin with. So slide your right hand down. Pull it up to your hip. As soon as his nose touches your foot, release it and flex the other way. Excellent. Now walk him off again. I felt a lot of controls, but, you know, we started out walking, did the one-reign stops. He'd listen to my seat when I sat down and relaxed. He'd stop. Let's just say he went to bolt or buck or do something silly. You can shut him down immediately. That's what gives you that confidence back because confidence comes from control. You know, to me, when she got back on the horse, the whole method came together. That's what I love is putting an owner and a horse back together again as a team. You know, they weren't a team when they got here. One was scared, one was bucking. They were ready to part ways and get a divorce. Six weeks later, now they're back to being a team again. When we trotted, he did the same thing. I'd sit down, he'd stop. And when I asked him to lope, he just stepped off into lope real nice, didn't make any sudden movements or anything, and then just loped along nice and quiet. And when we'd sit down and do the one-reign stop, he stopped really well. It was great to have that control. Your only job is to keep him loping. Look how nice and relaxed he is. Look at that nice little canter there. Reigns are just dangling back and forth. How does he feel? He feels great. She looked confident. She looked good on the horse. The horse was nice and relaxed. They looked like they were in unity together. That, to me, is the greatest thing about what I do. You look like a million dollars. You look confident. Horse looks like a million dollars. What a great success story here. Lisa's done a wonderful job with the horse, and yet again, we've proved to you that if you follow my method, you can fix any problem. It doesn't matter what age the horse is, what background, what breed he is. Follow my method, get the Fundamentals Kit, and I guarantee you're going to have success with your horses, mate. Until next week, take care of yourself, and we'll see you right here again on Down Under Horsemanship. If you'd like more information, mate, on any of the products you've seen on today's show, click on our website at downunderhorsemanship.com, and we'll send you a free catalog, mate.