Training Exercise with Phil Webb - Part 2

This article is from the January 2021 Horse Deals magazine.

Phil’s journey with horses began in 1974 in South Dakota at the Yates School of Horsemanship. Now, in 2020, Phil feels privileged to have shown cow horses and cutting horses in the USA, Europe and Australia. Phil is a busy clinician, specialising in horsemanship and cow events.

Turning into the fence

Following on from last month’s exercise on the ground, we will now approach the exercise of turning into the fence from the saddle.

As outlined last month, the fence turns are a basic exercise for cow horse events, but they are also very helpful to help clean up your horse’s front end in the rollback.

When my horses are confidently turning into the fence in the round pen and are going kindly under saddle, I will start this exercise.

I normally start my horse into a solid fence or any arena fence at the walk, approaching the fence at a 45-degree angle. It takes lots of slow practice, so the horse can adjust to shifting its weight through its rounded back to its hocks. As he becomes more comfortable he will lower his head as he approaches the fence. Once the horse starts to turn, it must turn with the nose first, then push through the turn with the offside leg. I want the nose to lead all the way through the turn.

Once your horse is becoming comfortable at the walk turn, move up to a sitting trot increasing your speed slowly. Then I start making the angle a little sharper. If you work up slowly to this, as your horse becomes more efficient in the turn, as well as the angle, you will feel that the front end becomes really light and floating through the turn.

It is really important once you are at the trot, and faster, that you are really pressing your horse through the turn with your feet. He must have the nose leading into the turn before you add your leg pressure to push him through the turn. These exercises will also help your rollbacks in your reining patterns and your turn arounds.

Read part 1 here

Good luck! I hope you've enjoy these exercises and if you have any challenges achieving the best you can with your horse do not hesitate to contact Phil.
www.facebook.com/philanddawnwebb/

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