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Post by jimmy on Dec 3, 2015 4:52:14 GMT
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Post by rideanotherday on Dec 3, 2015 12:53:23 GMT
He's very plain spoken, I really like that. I'd imagine his presentation style would be difficult for a lot of people because he was all about the horse, people not so much.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 5, 2015 15:34:43 GMT
I like Ray Hunt. It's interesting that I could be riding horses in America for over 62 years and I do not know much about his work. He said something that really hit home with me, "Sometimes you have to take a horse apart and then put him back together again". Great words to describe training. So many horses are incorrectly "assembled" from poor training or a lack of training. They've done the best they could, but some have so much more potential. Taking a horse apart piece by piece, for example separating the front pair of legs from the back pair of legs, is a process of identifying movement and isolating it with your horse. This creates a bond when you can isolate the use their of different muscle groups and then you "show" the horse how to reassemble how the parts work together. Whether it is a difficulty picking up a particular lead because the horse can't get his shoulder out of the way, or because he cannot reach under his belly enough with the outside hind foot, we find the parts that are not working well and strengthen them or tone them down a little until they fit with the other parts. It sounds simple when Ray it says it, and it can be simple with a horse, but it's hard to describe sometimes.
Ray Hunt's tone is very matter of fact, basic in how he describes his work. The image of the boat powered from behind is good. I feel that, how the bow lifts up a little from the power behind, a good feeling on a boat or in a horse.
Thanks Jimmy.
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Post by jimmy on Dec 5, 2015 16:22:04 GMT
Ray was a cowboy, pure and simple. His roots came from working cattle ranches in the west, Idaho, Nevada, Montana. It is a well known story how a horse named Hondo changed his life, and brought him contact with Tom Dorrance. Ray got a lot of working cowboys and outfits thinking different about how the started the young stock. His work was very uniquely American west. It came out of the American west. Many Europeans and Easterners didn't, and still don't understand it, specially compared with the new age view of horsemanship,natural horsemanship, which ironically, gets attributed to him. But he would have nothing to do with that. His colt breaking methods came from a world where you had a whole herd of horses to get going and put to work, and Ray figured a pretty good way to do that quickly, without being in a hurry. Visiting with people who spent a lot of time with Ray, and worked with him privately, Ray had a knack for turning chaos into order, and getting everything to smooth out and flow.But it was also a little bit of, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Ray had reasons for what he did, and learned ways to explain it as best he could. But there was also a side of Ray that just had that unexplaineable knack that other's could not duplicate, and still can't.
Taking the head around with the hind end going the other way, like the motor boat, was the simplest way of getting control of a wild little bronc. It was how he could get a pen full of clinic goers all jumbled together with unbroke colts to undercontrol. Yet Ray himself did not need to do this as often as he instructed others to do. You here him say, "you can't do that enough", But Ray was comfortable just letting a horse do what he needed to do to get comfortable, and if they meant bucking or throwing a fit, so be it. But he could handle it. He spent a lot of time at the colt breaking clinics keeping both people and horses out of trouble, or as he said, keeping them on just this side of trouble.
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Post by jimmy on Dec 8, 2015 5:02:32 GMT
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Post by horseguy on Dec 8, 2015 18:26:02 GMT
Ray Hunt said, "Don't start at square one, start at square zero". His explanation of how the horse is anticipating our commands and is aware of much more than we think and before we think it sometimes, is great. Horses seek unity unless they have been so poorly treated that they no longer want it because it comes from humans. I think he's talking about that horse impulse, and how it causes horses to get our preparation as much or more than our actual commands. The Army was big on preparatory commands.
I wish he would have said more about the difference between discipline and punishment. It seems today any sort of correction is considered punishment. It's not.
And most of all, how he talked about the horse earning his way was great. Thinking of training like you are running a business is the best. Horses need a job to stay sane, and if they are just pets without a job, they get weird fast, in my experience.
I like Ray Hunt. Thanks.
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Post by jimmy on Dec 8, 2015 20:01:00 GMT
Ray would sometimes say, the horse is your outfit, your corporation, you the manager. Or the ceo. It's up to you how you treat your employee. You take good care of him, he will take good care of you. Ray talked alot about personal discipline. He wasn't so much talking about disciplining your horse in that regard. He means personal character and discipline within your self. Self control. He was big on seeing the little things that could turn to bad things, and heading those off before any sort of correction was necessary.
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Post by jimmy on Dec 8, 2015 23:30:20 GMT
The zero to one deal was about a horse getting ready. He said before a horse does anything, he gets ready to do. If its something you want, you have to be able to feel him prepare, arrange his body, and give him time to prepare. It may only be a fraction of a second, but if you go through that feel, you get that brace, the next time you ask. In the same way, you can keep your horse out of some trouble, because you can feel him getting ready to go the wrong direction, or do the wrong thing. That is when you have the time to do something about it. After he does it, you're too late. So Ray would spend a lot of time on a horse getting ready. Then maybe he would turn loose of him and not ask. He rewarded the zero to one part. Once the horse is at one, now you could ask a whole lot more, within his physical capabilities.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 9, 2015 13:44:45 GMT
"The zero to one deal was about a horse getting ready. He said before a horse does anything, he gets ready to do. If its something you want, you have to be able to feel him prepare, arrange his body, and give him time to prepare. It may only be a fraction of a second, but if you go through that feel, you get that brace, the next time you ask. In the same way, you can keep your horse out of some trouble, because you can feel him getting ready to go the wrong direction, or do the wrong thing. That is when you have the time to do something about it. After he does it, you're too late. So Ray would spend a lot of time on a horse getting ready. Then maybe he would turn loose of him and not ask. He rewarded the zero to one part. Once the horse is at one, now you could ask a whole lot more, within his physical capabilities." I think this is perhaps the essence of horse training. It is what we do if we train a horse. "you can keep your horse out of some trouble, because you can feel him getting ready to go the wrong direction, or do the wrong thing. That is when you have the time to do something about it" That is what horse training is, it's "doing something about it" and thus improving the horse. Many so called horse trainers can't do something about it because they do not know when. They cannot feel the horse "getting ready to go the wrong direction". So, they get angry and beat on the horse (their lack of discipline), or they sell the horse and try another, or they work around their failure somehow with accommodation, denial, or with made up nonsense. This forum was started as a Discussion of the Principles of Horsemanship. I think this principle that Jimmy has raised with regard to Ray Hunt, is one of the most essential principles. Thank you Jimmy for getting us to this point.
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Post by jimmy on Dec 9, 2015 14:45:23 GMT
This is why Ray was so influential to so many horsemen. He got the essence of the horse, and the essence of our interaction with the horse. Feeling a horse getting ready. A lot of people would bring a horse to Ray's horsemanship clinics, with problems, or just wanting a better quality response. Ray would see that the problem they were having was the horse wasn't getting ready, and they weren't getting the horse ready. A lot of these people were good riders, or trainers, but there were spots missing, and those spots always had something to do with the beginning of the movement, and not the movement itself. Not just feeling the horse getting ready to do the wrong thing, but could you feel the horse getting ready to be right. That was the point that you got out of his way, you don't block him. "You fix it up and let him find it". Ray only scratched the surface at his clinics, because of the nature of clinics. Privately,Ray had so much more. I have recently had conversations with Carolyn, his wife, and encouraging her to write down some of her stories of her life with him, and those things she witnessed when no one was around. I would buy that book.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 9, 2015 16:01:05 GMT
I would certainly like to know more about how Ray Hunt thought about the nature of equine preparation for movement. It is the core of training. That, for example, is why in an era of anti-draw rein thinking, I am pro draw reins, because that tool can be used to set a horse up correctly in the case of a horse that continuously sets itself up incorrectly. Draw reins are a tool that can be used in a fraction of a second to effect preparation and then can be completely released so as to make them disappear. In that moment of the horse getting ready, we can use anything and everything, our weight in the saddle, draw reins, anything that works, to "show" the horse a different way. But instead of using tools precisely in an intermittent way to show the horse, tools like draw reins are used continuously to enforce a movement or balance long after that teachable moment of preparation has passed, which is the only moment when faulty movement or balance can be changed.
This is so essential. It's something so important that if you are training horses and you don't get this, then stop and do whatever it takes to get it. Learn to find that moment between square zero and square one, because that is really the only place that horse training occurs. If you are not effecting movement in that zero-one preparation moment, you are kidding yourself that you are a trainer, and you are probably just another horse bully. And I would include all the "trainers" who almost exclusively use the Parelli et al style round penning in my definition of horse bullies. Yes, round penning a horse into doing something may be a kinder form of bullying, but it is still bullying horses.
Horses can be trained to improve their movement, balance and effectiveness in their job. The problem in America is we have not produced many next generation horse trainers. We have instead produced horse sorters who can find and identify horses that do not need much improvement, and who can get them relatively safe for average riders and then sell them. We have also, thanks to DVD selling mass marketing Big Name Trainer businesses, produced new horse bullies who drive horses nuts so they will do anything to escape the boredom of confined circular games. Maybe there is one improvement in all this, we have managed to decrease the number of horses "trained" by means of outright beating them into submission, which was the old style horse bully, as a result of greater awareness. But still, most of what I see today are either horse sorters and new style horse bullies.
One note in defense of horse sorters, I do wish I had done more sorting and less training over my career training horses because it is easier and more profitable. Nothing wrong with that, and you get fewer broken bones as a bonus. Horse sorting does, however, raise the question of what happens to the horses that get sorted out? Some of the best horses I have every owned and trained were rejects, Riley, Mosby, Sprite, Mocha, to name a few, were rejects. Most of these were horses that prepared too quickly. Their square zero to square one elapsed time was so fast that it was almost imperceptible. I am thankful that somehow my career experience allowed me to get inside that space between zero and one with them and show them how to be useful. They had been sorted out, yet they provided me with the highlights of my career. So, if you are a horse sorter please consider what becomes of the "untrainable" horses that cross your path. You might be missing something.
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candy
New Member
Posts: 6
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Ray Hunt
Dec 10, 2015 13:32:08 GMT
via mobile
Post by candy on Dec 10, 2015 13:32:08 GMT
Thanks for posting the Ray Hunt videos, he was, from what I saw, a true horseman. I especially liked when he said something along the lines "that you have to take a horse apart and put the horse back together again", that statement makes a lot of sense, it also takes a a lot of knowledge, dedication, patients, and skill. I admire that in a horse person. I also have thought about his comment on starting not at square one, but at square zero. Very interesting, I would like to learn more about that. Bye
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Ray Hunt
Dec 10, 2015 22:28:24 GMT
via mobile
Post by rideforever on Dec 10, 2015 22:28:24 GMT
I have dealt with plenty of horses who were considered trained, but they were taught the whole maneuver, not the the parts that equal the sum. It is so frustrating for those horses. Because if the maneuver breaks, there is no language to tell them how to fix what's broken. You actually have to take them back to zero, and teach them how to learn all over again
I like Ray. He had a way of getting to the heart of the problem and how to be effective and efficient.
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Post by jimmy on Dec 13, 2015 15:53:16 GMT
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Post by horseguy on Dec 14, 2015 14:59:45 GMT
In reading the Western Horseman article I am beginning to understand, I think, the teacher/student relationship between Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt. The student, Ray Hunt, could ride anything and he could think a lot. That's unusual. I have found that the gifted, intuitive riders that I have known most often just ride and when asked what they are doing, often do not know. Ray Hunt apparently wanted to know.
Ray Hunt relayed something that Tom Dorrance told him, "The amazing thing is how sensitive the horse is. You can sit on his back and turn your head, and he can feel it right down through the saddle. You always try to do less and less with a horse, and first thing you know, when you think it, it'll happen. And Tom said, 'Ray, it ought to be like, when you get that horse right, you can ride him right down a badger hole or right up a telephone pole.' And that's how it works. You'd never do either one of them, but feel like you could." That's unity.
The part about, "when you get that horse right" is about establishing unity. Additionally, Ray hunt tells us, "At one colt-starting clinic he (Tom Dorrance) told me I should be willing to ride my horse down to the ground and to come up with it or I'd best not get on. Ray doesn't coddle his students." That's commitment.
What I am getting about Ray Hunt is he was able to feel unity and use it to stay on a horse, and Tom Dorrance taught him to commit to establishing unity no matter what. Hondo was a horse Ray Hunt had trouble committing to, it seems, and when Ray did commit as Tom Dorrance taught him, it changed his life.
That's what we need more of today. I had to laugh a couple times during the Hondo story. Ray had bought a good but very difficult horse. he was "stuck" with him. My old horse Sprite was like that. No horse has put me on the ground more than Sprite. I was young when I bought him, had young kids, bills to pay, life wouldn't allow me to sort Sprite out and get another prospect. My only way out of that "mistake" was to get that horse right. I had to train Sprite the gifted horse that was more athletic than I was.
Ray Hunt and Tom Dorrance, I feel, were real horse trainers. They didn't sort horses or come up with elaborate work-arounds like games and horseonalities. They got on a horse in their care "willing to ride their horse down to the ground and to come up with it". Ray went on to teach more riders about the commitment to unity. I posted a youtube of a child rider learning "to ride her horse down to the ground and to come up with it". I think few young riders today get this training.
I think we, particularly Americans, need more of this brand of learning to commit to unity with their horse. In the end, it's the only way to really ride and train. Everything else is pretend.
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