Is this WILD MUSTANG Ready to Ride?

This is a big day. Very big day. Okay, let's get to the fun part. I think you can ride that. I think so. I think I can handle that. We still want to set this guy up for the most success as we can. Otherwise we'd be doing him a disservice. Now this is where you don't want to dilly-dally. Because things can go south quick here. There we go. A little more live here. Okay, now that I wouldn't want to ride. Alright guys, so I forgot what day we're on here. But either way. Six-ish, somewhere in there. Yesterday we saddled, or Jake saddled. And it went really well. Everything went super. I do think there's a, in the spirit of trying to not have to make a bronc ride, I think there's a few more things we could go a little deeper on to build some exposure to some other things. So we got a ball in here today. We got a tarp. There's a couple of rope things we're going to do. And I think if you work on these things, it'll set us up to next week have some smooth rides. Perfect. We'll be riding on week two, hopefully. That'd be awesome. Sound like a plan? Sounds like a plan. Alright. So I'm going to mess with him a little bit, and I'll just show you a few things that I do to kind of build a little more depth of understanding. Okay. So I'm just going to kind of get him warmed up here a little bit by just walking around. He actually seems a little bit more elevated mentally right now compared to how he has been. A little bit higher headed. Doesn't look quite as relaxed. It's cooler out this morning. There's a storm about to roll in here, so we might get cut short. So some of those factors kind of affect how they're behaving. And so maybe it's probably a good day to not saddle and try to ride anyways. You know, when you're starting green horses, like, pick your battles. Just because you were somewhere yesterday doesn't guarantee you get to start there today. So you've got to stay flexible, and that's the first principle of horsemanship that I follow is just work with the horse where they're at and try to build up from there. And when you don't have expectations, you know, of expecting to just advance it, if we just said, oh, well, we're for sure going to ride today, and then you come out and he's a lot more hoarse, like, well, it might not be the best day to ride. We have plenty of time, and I feel like we're early with things. We're ahead of schedule. And so the goal is to get him really gentle. Like, what he has to deal with when we go to Fort Worth to show in January is, like, tremendous amount of activity. I mean, I'm talking, like, groups of kids from school because it's during the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo at the Mustang Magic last weekend of January. Get your tickets soon. So we're going to be having a good time there, but, man, it is chaos in the Iowas. I mean, we're talking full on. We are in town. Everything is going on. I mean, just people and traffic everywhere and what they have to handle. And, I mean, it really blew me away of, like, just how much activity there was there for that event. I mean, there was just thousands of people everywhere. So he has to be really prepared to not kick anybody. So we're not just preparing him to be ridden. We're also preparing him to handle that environment. So I'm looking to hire a 4-H club that has about 5,000 people to come and walk around our pasture with us. Just kidding. No, the idea is that if you get really good yields and have a lot of control, and then you also build a lot of depth of understanding and exposure and building confidence with things, they can handle that environment. So we got the ball here, and this is a good exposure tool for, you can do this before you saddle them, you can do it after you saddle them, and use it to simulate that kind of stuff, to simulate the rider, however you want to use it. And, again, I'm not trying to scare him. We're still in what I would consider to be more of a teaching phase of this stuff. We're just trying to build him up and build confidence. And then someday down the road, we'll focus on exposing him to more pressure. But right now, we're still in what I would say the teaching stage. Wow, what a chill dude. Like, he's never seen this before, ever. This is the first time we've ever brought this in here. What a good boy. That is about, I would say that is the quickest I've ever seen a horse that's never seen the ball get comfortable with that glint. I mean, you could take horses that are good riding saddle horses that don't stand there to have this done. But even this, he doesn't really want to come forward. You can build a little bit of depth of understanding by giving him a little bit of a challenge to that. There you go, that was a good kick. He's like, huh, look at that. There you go. Now he's getting it. There you go. Man, what a cool horse. Just follow it one more time, and then we'll move on to the next one. Obviously, this one was super hard and stressful for him, but I think we can handle a little bit more today. There you go. All right, moving right along here. So the next thing I like to prepare him with is the tarp here. A little bit scarier than the pad. It's a little noisier, a little less consistent. But see, this is what you want. You want to be able to work through some of this stuff. You don't want to just always present them with things that they're never going to be scared of. See there, he kind of looked at it. He got a little braced, then he looked at it with some curiosity, and I'll take it away from him. And it's all just about that feel and timing. I've presented to him in a way that is a bit achievable. So here, I'm on his bubble here. He got a little defensive. I'll just stay here until it switches to a little bit of curiosity. Right there. Take it away. He doesn't like the noise, it seems like, as much. And I like that he feels comfortable to just drift away like that without just leaving, skipping town. Yeah. You know, some horses are just a little more dramatic about how they leave, or they decide to turn and kick it instead of move away from it. I prefer him to know he can just drift away. Yeah. Like, that's okay. And that's why it's so important to have this slack in the line here and not try to hold. You know, as soon as they feel like you're just holding them in. But this can work well, too. It's like, sometimes the pad can be pretty easy to get on them. But if you have a horse at home that has a little more trouble with the saddle, getting him used to the tarp where it just wiggles around is a little more floppy, and obviously you can let it out and make it kind of as floppy as you want. Man, he tries so hard, though. He does. He's really kind of a pleasure to work with. Now I'm going to put on a longer rope here. And I want to work from behind him a little bit. One of the things that people tend to do is spend a lot of time kind of in front of them. And you're not going to ride him from his nose. And so I like to do some things where I'm spending time on the side of him and behind him. And so we're going to, which we've already done that a bit, we're just going to build that out a little bit more. And I think I'm going to do it with the flag. I don't know if you've worked him with the flag a whole lot, but... Not in the last day or two, but... I'm going to use the flag as my tool of choice here. And I'm doing this to make it what I'm going to try to do with him a little bit harder. This is just a good visual exposure tool. It also has the noise element to it. I'm just going to kind of work with him a little bit more regular style here with the flag. So when he softens, I'll soften it. When he gets worried, I'll just keep it going. So right now he's a little worried. There, he softened, so I softened it. So at this stage, you probably could get a ride on him, but would he probably get a bit bothered with you up there and maybe have some reactions and gooses and spooks? Probably. Yeah. Where if we spend a few more days just getting him a little more comfortable and settled with things, there's a real good chance we can have a nice ride without any drama whatsoever. Yeah. Because you can see as good as he is, he still gets worried about things at times. There, he's having a good release. And again, we've just started with him. I mean, we're less than a week into all this. So he's just being a rock star. Man, he's handling that so well. That's incredible. Hey, I'm Ryan Rose, and for over 20 years, I've been helping people improve their communication with their horses. Whether you're wanting to fine tune advanced skills or help solve common behavioral issues, my Patreon page is a great place to get some help. I post a new video there every week. I answer your questions regularly, and there's a great community support. So if you want to start your free trial, click the link below, and let's get back to the video. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to come over by the fence, and I got this longer rope, and he's going to get some exposure to ropes touching him in different places, and he's going to get some exposure to me being behind him. So I'm going to send him out ahead of me, and it kind of looks like I'm asking him to side pass, but I really want him to turn away. So I'll do a little pressure. So now my intention is telling him to drive away. So you can see there he got a little worried when he saw me out of that new eye. And then right there, it presented an opportunity for me to set a boundary and go, you got bothered. You can't just leave and run off. That's a really good one. And not teach him to pull away. Yeah, yeah. But where I kind of got this idea of building more depth of understanding was I was halter starting a bunch of, I don't remember if they were weanlings or yearlings, with one of my mentors, Doug Jordan. And we had a, they were in a pen. Then there was an alleyway going up to a round pen. And so what we would do is get them haltered in there and then lead them down the alley up to the round pen. And there was a few of us doing it. And Doug was standing in the alley, and he had a flag. And so I had taken this colt up and around the round pen and back down a couple times. And then I walked by Doug, and right as the horse kind of cleared behind him, he took the flag and he went, like that. So the colt jumped out ahead of me, and I had to hold on and set a boundary, and it turned and faced. And I looked at him like, what was that? Everything was going good. Why'd you scare him? And he's like, it was going to happen. At some point, something was going to bother him, and he was going to try to leave. And he's like, I'd rather you be on the end of the rope than the owner, because that's what he was, the job was, was to get these horses halter broke for the owner. And he's like, well, go do it again. So I took him around the round pen again, back down the alley, and turned around, went back up by Doug again, and Doug did it again. I walked by him, he takes the flag and does one of those, and the horse shoots out ahead of me again, but this time doesn't hit the rope as hard, and turns, turns and faces. And so we pet on him a little bit, and then walk back up and around, and then the third time he did it, he does this, and the horse still went ahead, and just turned around and faced, without challenging. So we shortened that horse's flight zone, and taught him that he couldn't just pull away and leave when he wants to. And so that was that idea of building more depth or depth of understanding. And it's like, the thing is, there's just never going to be perfect conditions all the time. At some point, something's going to bother the horse. You may or may not be ready when it happens. Yeah. And so, if we're not doing a thorough enough job in here, we're not going to be prepared for that situation. You know, look how well he's handling this. So he's getting used to that rope being behind him. He's seeing me out of his right eye and his left eye. Here, I'm going to set a boundary. Man, he thinks through that so darn well. So now I can give him some exposure to the flag back here. That's why I chose this tool versus the stick and string. Now there, he got concerned and he faced me. No problem. Because this is just an exercise. Like, I don't care if he gets really great at turning away from me. Right. I actually want him to get comfortable turning and facing me. But, and again, may happen, may not happen, but he just learned. There's a shorter flight zone there than he thought. Yeah. Also, imagine if you're riding on it, riding him, there's a good chance you're going to reach for a rain. If he gets goosey and goes to goose off. Well, I'd rather him be used to somebody taking a hold of them quicker. It's like we all like to think that we're going to have this amazing, perfect timing and slide our hand down the rain and slowly close our fingers and just bend them, you know? Well, the reality is if they spook off and you get scared and you got rains in your hands, you're going to get ahold of them. You know, if you're cold starting and your hand, you know, your rain's down and you're holding onto the back of the saddle, you may not reach for him there. But someday, 20 rides from now, we might be right now across the playground and something spooks him and gets done. It could be anything, you know? And, uh, they take off. It's like, you want them to be able to handle like what if all of a sudden we need to stop now. Um, and so just building some of that depth of understanding. So even when those situations happen, I don't think of that as a negative, like that's part of the reason I'm doing this is to set up some of instigate some of those situations where he might get startled and try to get out ahead. And for him to learn that there's a boundary there. And so essentially there, I'm just teaching him not to pull away. Uh, when he gets that bothered, you're just shortening that flight zone. And again, he's getting so good here at seeing me out of both eyes. You could also say that this is preparation for ground driving him, right? We're back here and he's getting comfortable with that. So it's kind of like whatever your purposes are. If I felt like he had an issue with it, I could even bring, bring his life up like that and then ask him to stop. And man, I could have used two fingers on that. He barely put any pressure there, you know, because it didn't work out the first two times he tried it. And so you could even instigate some of those situations a little bit. And again, that building that confidence with steady pressure is just one of the most critical components of any well-trained horse. Once you come on in here and work the left side a little bit with this. And, um, I don't think you and I've done this together. Yes. I'll just give it a try. So Colt starting is very, you know, kind of where we're at with this Mustang is really in Jake's comfort zone. He's, he's worked, trained several Mustang. So he's been through the team process many times. Um, but he's done hundreds and hundreds of Colts. Um, so he's very experienced with this, but I like to just give him more tools. You know, you never know when you're at a clinic or something and come across a situation that you haven't seen before, just different ways to play the game as a horseman. You just can't have too many arrows in your quiver. It's pretty hard these days to surprise me with something. I've just worked with so many difficult horses, but every anytime somebody shows me something new, I'm like, Ooh, it's almost like I got a new toy. You know, it's like a new, a new technique, a new way to set something up and, and just build more understanding with our horses. So yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. Go ahead and give that a, give that a go. I think we're on a borrowed time right now with the weather. So. Okay. Just kind of see if he can get a little something started on that side. Nice. Yeah. And just don't start anything too big with that. Just kind of go along with that and let them be right for finding that answer. Cause I think we're gonna have to wrap up here pretty quick before we get chased out of here. Yup. Set that boundary there. There we go. Oh, he thinks through that so well. Really good. Yup. Go ahead and stop them there. Really nice. Good work, Jake. All right. What'd you think of some of those? That's cool. I've never done that one before and I see how beneficial it'd be to, cause you kind of get to swap eyes for the first time, which is going to happen on your first ride. Yeah. Change directions and that's, and you're getting behind them, which is pretty important. Yeah. I like that one. Yeah. I had a, I worked with a horse in Italy that had an issue with, she wasn't super tame. She had been ridden quite a bit, but would get goosey and get worried and just kind of, kind of squirt off. And that little exercise made a big difference for her. And that's kind of where I figured that out. Yeah. That's a good one. Started messing with it, but yeah, it works pretty good. Cool. Well, he's looking really good. Um, I think we'll keep chipping away at exposure to all those things, handling his feet, the bareback mounting. And, um, I think we'll be ready to maybe put a ride on next week. That'd be awesome. Yeah. Then when you feel like the conditions are great, go ahead and saddle him up. Okay. Where Jake's going to be working with him consistently over the weekend. And then, um, Monday we'll be back at it again. Awesome. Good work, man. Thank you. Sounds good. All right, Jake. So last time I worked with you and him, I gave you some things to keep going on and working with. Do you feel like he's, you've done your homework and he's ready to ride? Yes, I think so. All right. I'm ready. Maybe you can play soccer with him for part of your freestyle, Jake. Yeah, maybe. And try not to scare him too much while you do this. You know what I mean? It's like, you don't want them just freaked out the whole time. It's interesting. Now that he's not as scared, he's actually seems like a little shorter to me than I first realized. I'm like, Oh, you're actually not that big. It's funny how when they're scared, they look even bigger. Yeah. Well, you know, they got their head and neck up so high. Right. So what? He's probably 14 hands, 14, one. That's what it says on his paperwork. 14, one. Yeah. You're so chill about everything.