Sunday, July 11, 2010

Liberty Photos and videos

Reasons I love Liberty work for hot summer days.
  • You can wear shorts and sneakers
  • Your horse is also working without tack
  • They can be freshly hosed
  • It is great exercise for you and your horse
  • If you are like me you don't have a chance of over heating your horse because running around with him makes you overheat before he even starts to sweat.

At last I have some photos of Bodhi and I working at liberty over fences in the pasture together. Yesterday was actually not as fantastic as the other day(but still so fun!). Bodhi was responding well of course but I felt like I was not cuing him as clearly and I think he had better form over the fences the other day as well. I should be changing the jumps around every session but I was lazy. Also don't worry when you see some of the early photos. I hosed him off before our session so that is not sweat! So enough talk...
Golden Moments...
Backing up during our warm up.

Start off with some cross rails

With a hop over the small vertical

Moving on to a larger vertical

Over one of our natural jumps.
Praise for a job well done.

How about some video!




12 comments:

  1. I'm very impressed! You hold Bodhi's attention well and he seems to be really enjoying himself. I've never done any at-liberty work and I'm very curious about it. Would you mind doing an in-depth post about how you worked with Bodhi to get him to this point?
    When I was working with Salem, I did a little bit of groundwork with him, and eventually managed to get him to halt on the longe using just body language, but I would like to learn much more. You and Bodhi are an inspiration!
    (Did you ever see Cavalia? In it, there is a lady named Sylvia Zorbini who does an at-liberty routine with eight stallions -- it is breathtaking!)

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  2. I was just going to ask for the same thing that Frizzle just did...an in-depth post about how you got here. I apoloigize if you have already done one, but I just started reading and havent gone back very far. But I am so impressed with those videos...he is such a cutie!

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  3. Thats great! I miss having my pen so I could do liberty. Soon soon!

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  4. Frizzle- Alright game on I will make it my next post. :) I will need to figure out my angle of attack. This was not a linear progression so I have to really think about what worked and what did not. Oh and I hear Sylvia being interviewed somewhere. How cool is she!! Dream job!
    Ashley- Thanks for the comment. No worries I don't think I have ever done a post like that. I guess you could read my tags like positive reinforcement, clicker etc to see some of our preliminary work but I will do my best to articulate the progression.

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  5. Very cool stuff - and he has a very cute jump!

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  6. I love liberty work (we probably do more stuff at liberty than anything else :o) You two look very much like a team, which is exactly as it should be - nicely done!

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  7. Simply amazing!!! Bodhi is adorable!

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  8. Love the Liberty pics!! What a cute expression that pony has on his face over a jump.....and good form, too! He looks like he's having as much fun as you are. Nice shady jumping area!

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  9. Wow, that is good stuff, he looks really good over that larger jump too, nice form!

    Thanks for posting the videos. I'm going to study them a bit to get some pointers for working with my mare. She'll reliably walk over ground poles and I've gotten her started trotting next to me. Next step is trotting over ground poles.

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  10. Great liberty work, he looks really good jumping too. It's a great way to work the kids and still stay somewhat cool in the heat. He doesn't have to wear a hot saddle and you get to wear comfy cool shorts, it's a win - win situation.

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  11. so cool Golden. You are an awesome horse woman. come to NC and train my kid :)

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  12. This is incredible, I've never seen anyone be able to to this with their horse. I do loose schooling over jumps, but not directing them over ones not on the edge of the school. Impressive!

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