Working with a Grazer Bit

I'm reading a bio of the Hall of Fame trainer and showman, Don Dodge.  In the book,  he talks about his foray into cutting horses.  At the time, the early 1950s, there wasn't much cutting going on, especially in California.

Our "Grazer" Bit

Reining was king and the reiners used either a hackamore or a spade bit.  Don writes about using a "grazer" bit to train and work the cutters.  I wasn't sure what a "grazer" bit was, so I looked it up on Google of course.  It looks like one we have in our tack room, small port, leather curb, so I got it out and tried it on Scratch today.  (By the way, you could help by checking out the photo and offering your opinion on our bit.)

First, I checked YouTube for a video on how to fit the bit correctly.  I found one by Larry Trocha and made the necessary adjustments.

The first thing I noticed was how sensitive Scratch was to the movement of my hands. I was very aware of when I engaged his mouth.  It didn't take much movement of the reins to get a response and it was an effort to remind myself to give him the release.

Scratch and I worked on our stop and improving his response time.  One of the things we struggled with in the cow pen was rating the cow, stopping and rolling back.  It is imperative that he stop when I ask, even with all chaos going on in there.

Since it was his first real work with this bit, we didn't spend a lot of time working with it.  Actually, it was more for my benefit.  My eyes were often on the lower part of the bit so I could catch a glimpse of when the curb strap might be engaging.  That's a tough deal and now I know why they say all the really good trainers have soft hands.  We'll keep practicing and hope for improvement.

A Full Day of Fun

Bill Cameron has competed in many Extreme Cowboy Races.  (He's known for a whole lot more in Northern California - training, judging, competing.)  His ranch is about 90 minutes away and occasionally he opens the gates to the public for Obstacle Course Fun Days.  He has jumps, and obstacles spread out all over the ranch and riders are encouraged to use them all.  It's $40 a person for the day and you can add on a personal training session or a session with cows.  To top it off, there are miles of desert trails to ride.  The terrain is quite desolate.  My iPhone clocked the elevation at 2600 feet.  If you want to feel like you're riding in the old west, this is the place to do it.

We took Dusty and Scratch.  It was a big weekend of horse events around town.  There was a Cowboy Christmas event at one stable, a big barrel race at another.  As a result, we had most of the obstacles to ourselves.

We worked on our horsemanship approaching some of the scarier obstacles.  We worked on our timing going through the crossing obstacles.  Then, we played a game of Follow the Leader with each of us taking a turn at leading.  We went through cones, weave poles, up and down mounds, over bridges and dead fall.

Scratch and I worked the small herd of cows.  We used a breakaway rope and caught our first cow.  Very exciting.

After a short break from lunch, the winter day was quickly closing in, but we managed a 40 minute trail ride around the desert.  We got back to the ranch just before the desert temperatures began to drop.  All-in-all a very fun day.  And, from my last post, a excellent value!

More on Working Cows

Saturday Jessie and I went out back to pretend to do some cutting. I wanted to work on some of the exercises while they were still somewhat fresh in my mind.

It was pretty crazy. We found out that in order to work cows (pretend or real) we need to be VERY good at three things: the stop, the backup and the rollback. And, very good means very good. When I say "whoa" Jessie needs to stop quickly. When I ask for the backup, she needs to be quick with a collected frame. Looking back at the workshop, we could have worked on just these two items all weekend, because only one of us had these necessary skills and that was the teacher and the horses he rode.

Jessie and I worked on our stop for about 30 minutes trying to get it right. It was much better at the end of our session. We also did some loping just to break up some of the exercises. It was more fun for me than her because it was warm on Saturday afternoon.

We also worked on the backup up. Like many, we have a back up, but it doesn't change speeds much and she's not doing it collected. If I ask her to rollback at the end of the backup she is so much on her front end that it is just not going to happen. I tried using the fence to help us and it did a bit. It was a little better at the end of our session. We need a whole lot more work on this.

Sunday the temperature dropped dramatically and it was almost chilly on our ride. We went out to the development and loped around for awhile. We worked on a few things but mostly just enjoyed the ride, weather, and the company.

Working Cows

We spent the weekend in Tehachapi at a working Cowhorse/Versatility Workshop. We were able to get a lot of riding in and we learned a lot.

It's a very small workshop with only four students and we got a lot of one-on-one attention. We spent Friday afternoon going over Matt's positions #1-#4. I wished we had practiced this more. Matt gives instruction based on these positions and we were pretty rusty with them and it would have worked out much better if we had them down pat.

I struggled a bit trying to mesh my DUH techniques with his. He doesn't ask, "John, what cues do you use to get horse to do this?" He says, "Cue this way do get your horse to do this." So, it was easy for not only me to get confused, but I managed to confuse Jessie too. Still, we were picking up a lot of good information and my philosophy is "I'm not there to show him what I know, I'm there to find out what he knows. So, shut up and pay attention."

Saturday morning we worked more on the skill moves of getting our horses to roll over their hocks. Jessie is front loaded and we struggled with this. We did a lot of backing up. Later, we played with flag a bit before lunch and Jessie did just "okay".

Things were building to what would happen after lunch. We were going to work the flag as it was moving. Now, I was trying hard to follow Matt's instruction. Sometimes his instructions seemed to contradict each other and when I asked for clarification, I didn't really always understand his answers. He is really skilled at what he does on the back of a horse and I have neither the timing or feel he does and chalked up my confusion to this. Friday night he had pulled me aside and said he really wanted me to "step it up" with Jessie. I told him I would and filed this information away. Saturday after lunch we watched a cow working a flag video and when the horse didn't stop, the instructor (who shall remain nameless) said, "We can't make him stop, but we can make him wish he had" and it looked like a pretty aggressive move to stop his horse. I filed this away too. After lunch, Matt was the first to work the flag and when the horse he was riding didn't pay attention to him and he spun that horse halfway across the arena so she would pay attention to him. He had to do it a couple of times. I watched and filed that away. When it was Jessie's turn at the flag, we went across the arena, I asked her to stop, she ignored me, I took hold of her mouth, and Matt was all over me. "Don't. Don't do that!" "Well, crap", I thought, "what had I missed?"

He thought I was frustrated with Jessie and I wasn't. I did need to correct her for not stopping, I had my own way (which never came into it) and I had the way I had seen just a few minutes before and I wasn't able to use either one of them. He's asked me to step it up and now I wasn't really sure what anything meant. We eked our through that exercise, but I was thoroughly frustrated.

In the afternoon we got to track a cow and that's always a fun time. I was trying to learn how to read the cow as well as move my horse, so my brain was just a humming with activity.

Sunday morning we were scheduled to work the flag again. Warming up Jessie I noticed every time we came to the corner of the arena we had struggled in the day before, she would get wound up. We past the flag and she was nervous. So, we worked on those areas during the warm up. We loped a lot in that beautiful arena and I let her rest in the trouble spots. When it came time for us to work the flag I had my mind made up. Since I wasn't understanding what Matt wanted from me AND I felt I knew what my horse needed, I went out and worked the flag the way I wanted. We walked across the arena, stopped, the flag turned and we turned and we walked back across the arena. The whole time Matt was telling me to speed up, to get my horse going, to catch the flag. Jessie and I made four turns and had stayed calm and listening to me which was exactly what I needed her to do. We stopped, backed and turned off the flag. I had gotten what I thought my horse needed and it wasn't heavy handed (it also wasn't fast, but we can always get faster). Everyone else had worked the flag for three times the length I had and when they saw me end the exercise on my own they were a bit stunned. Matt asked me to explain myself and I did. He said if I had been having problems, I should have asked him. I couldn't tell him he was the genesis of my frustration.

He didn't let up however, and later pressured me some more, so I described to him the two reactions I had seen him make when a horse wasn't listening and how I tried to mimic those and we went back and forth with him explaining how his screwing a horse into the ground was effective and mine, which looked and felt the same only a little tamer, was completely ineffective. The conversation was civil, but I really didn't think he was seeing my point of view or really even listening to me. So after a bit, I just agreed with everything he said like I really understood it. It's a character flaw on my part, I know, but the conversation wasn't really going anywhere because I couldn't really see the difference in his reaction to a horse not listening and mine. And, because I had kind of disobeyed the teacher, I now had a lot more attention being paid to me than I wanted and I wanted it to just all go away. Let's move on.

My motivation for learning may be a little different than others. I want to learn how to be a better horseman. I don't want want someone to train my horse. Train me. I'll train her. This is a much bigger challenge. A lot of these guys who have been on a horse all their life can climb in the saddle and know what buttons to push. Teaching a rider whose only been on a handful of horses with only a few years of riding when and where to put his legs and hands is the really tough part.

Working the cows in the afternoon was a hoot. Jessie was solid. She was clam and curious. She showed an incredible amount of interest, whether our not she has the athleticism to be a cutter is something we'll have to see. We don't really have the maneuvers yet to effectively work a cow. (But we do know now what we need to learn).

Despite what I described above, it was a great time. I get very intense when I'm learning something new. I shut out what everyone else is doing and try to focus on what I think the teacher is trying to tell me. I put off a lot of people and I think some misunderstand my wanting to observe and learn as much as I can for thinking I know it all. Really, I only care about the tools I can use to convince my horse to do the things I want her to do. Matt's ranch and arena are a great place to work your horse and I feel very fortunate to have had a chance to take Jessie up there.