Ricky Quinn - Part 1

So I just spent four days riding my horse. Which sounds like a lot but in reality seems like nothing. Someone says they took four days of holiday and you say wow, you must be relaxed…

You say you rode your horse for four days, in a clinic situation and it is the opposite. It feels like work. It feels at times like you’re the best hand, and at others like you’re the worst.

We spent four days at Paicines Ranch down by Hollister. It’s a working cattle ranch, if there is such a thing anymore. Ricky Quinn was the clinician who is a carbon copy in many ways of Buck Brannaman. I am not saying that as if it was a bad thing. I think the more guys and gals that we have walking around out there who practice what Buck preaches is a good thing. It reminds us students of what we are trying to learn even through we are not getting the change to sit with “ Buddah “ per say.

Sometimes just listening and seeing the word is enough.. being reminded of what it does, the power of it, the precision, the timing and of course the feel.

One of the key lessons I think from these last four days has been the importance of getting down to the feet. Sometimes your lucky, and you get the mind, and then you get the feet. Other times though, when you hit a brace, you just got to get to the feet. You got to get the horse searching for the answer, hunting up the release, moving the feet to find the answer. Sometimes a horse can get so bothered that it does not know how to follow the feel. How to search for what the human is asking.. Sometimes the horse will just fall down. Because it is so bothered, it can not find its feet. Over this weekend I observed that. I observed a horse so twisted up by the human that the darn thing could not even work out a try for the human, it just flopped down when it got to a certain point. It had never been offered a good feel, never been offered a place to go, never been offered release at the right time, in the right place with its feet.

Another is that we should never stop being a student, never stop trying to learn how to get better, lighter, better timing, more life, better people and better horses.

We should try not to take it personal, and try to remember it from the horses perspective. Remember why we are there, why we want those feet to move, what purpose is there.

I know Ricky asked me that, and I said well they are my feet, so where I want to go, they should go... Of course I just pulled out a Ray Hunt saying, but it is what I thought too. Yet he said it should go beyond that, there should be a goal, a reason why... Yes... its thinking, we are thinking. We need our horses thinking, searching, trying to find the reason.

Hi Ho!

L