Surcingle Training Demonstration, Part 1

Alright. So now I let her go. Notice where the nose is sticking out and the head is high. Notice the head high. Notice the nose sticking out. There comes the head a little bit right there. There’s some more there. Notice how the ropes on on each side are going right, left, right, left. Naturally, as the animal moves his shoulder, it’s naturally making the right, left, right, left motion. There’s surely a way I can get away from this short, fat guy. Now watch places. Watch where the meal drops his head. That’s really key. And watch where he gets his nose because there’s places he’s starting to get comfortable. There’s his head dropping. There’s his head dropping. You see that always scare the crap out of these. So this ain’t going to be done like all right now, but I want to get you all an idea. Notice how as the mule walks, the ropes go right, left, right, left. So they’re rolling on the nose just like my hands was. And it’s basically saying to the and you’re finally going to recognize me. It’s basically saying to the animal, get your head down. Because you see those two knots on his nose is starting to make sense to him.

And the more you do something like this, like you could take your saddle and tie those twins twines up, they could have dropping his head and, and do this with them. The only problem is with just the saddle itself. If they roll on it, then they rolled on your $900 saddle or $1,000. There, look. See the head, see the head nose start to come on the vertical. You see the halter is working, not me making it work. You see that? So just the baling twine which weighs nestle is negligible is there. And it’s just enough to say get your head down, get your nose on a vertical. So my softening techniques is not battery reflection. It is not disengaging hind quarters. It’s doing what’s natural to the animal. You ever see an animal go around in circles trying to get away from somebody? I ain’t seen it. I ain’t seen it. Okay, natural Horsemanship, that’s called wrong. Dr. Miller wrote a book and we get a chance to see some of Dr. Miller stuff. He’s awesome. But he says natural horsemanship explained. He’s got one whole chapter in there about me, one whole chapter about Dennis Reese and some of the other guys.

And he’s saying, look, this is what natural Horsemanship looks like. This is what it doesn’t look like. He is so frustrated over this lateral flexions and peanut rollers and stuff like this. But like you said, Steve, I’m 87, 88 years old now. He says you’re just going to have to carry on with everybody else. Do you see it? How soft of a meal am I getting? I’m not up there doing it. The halter is doing the job. The back end is going to get up underneath. He’s going to be pushing off his hind quarters. It’s going to round out his back, all from the nose and the halter. Softness, softness, softness. The softness is there. We just have to communicate how to get it out. And you see all these big honking bits and stuff these guys have gotten. This one’s going to do it, and this one’s going to do it. But I like this. A couple of times he’s kind of come into me to kind of say, can you help me through things right here on me right brain, thinking, you’re awful nice, you are. You make me look real good. You all got the idea.

There what we’re looking for. If the halter is adjusted correctly, you’re going to get response. And if that response come in, it’s going to be very respectful towards you, and that’s what you want. Okay? That halter is your number one tool. Number one tool. Throw all your other nylon halters and all them other things away just to just one up using your trader. People say, Well, I don’t want to put it in a trader because they might hurt them. Well, I’ll tell you what. If you put the halter on, they’ll quit dinking around back there, all right? I’ve seen just as many animals be stuck on the ground in a nylon halter where I had to cut the halter and stuff off of them. If they didn’t get themselves hurt with this real halter they respected. Put them on a hitch and post. Let them stand there. They go to pawn and stuff. They’ll get over it. I like you. You’re a nice you make me look good. Does that make sense to you all? Does it? You see how simple it is? Okay, so we’re going to hang this up someplace to say never again.

Fill the weight of this and fill the weight of these two strings. I bet you all can feel the difference in it. And I’ve already showed you what a throat latch looks like and what it does. So do you see how these little things like this will make such a difference in your meals? Because you see, you putting those tools on them is uncomfortable. And they’re thinking, why in the world should I trust you? And pretty soon they start saying, oh, now I’m going to be comfortable. It’s a lot nicer. Things are a lot easier.

So by doing all this foundation with the halter, so when you do put the bridle on them, all that’s going to help you have control because now I’m putting it all together. She’s strong, and so when she’s writing her, she can go, there you are. That’s the part that scares me as.

An absolutely, I agree with you, Mr. Sure. Oh, you bet I know. I hear you, and you’re exactly right. But see, here’s the problem. Horse trainers tend to bluff one through, push one through, make it get done in 30 days, 60 days, something like this. And one of the things Dr. Miller says, he says, horse trainers tend to push one through bluff one through push and push and push. Them meal won’t allow that. They won’t allow themselves to get buggered. That donkey side comes out and says, whoa, just a minute. But you see what happens when I got all in a hurry and dinked around with this meal? I’m worried. Same thing. You got to worry. But I took my time, and I showed him every move was a picture. He goes, oh, got it, got it, got it. Next time, I need to go fast. He can trust me. I knew. So, yeah. Yes, ma’am. You see that throat latch? Okay? It’d be like trying to turn around a freight train, you know? Yeah, but when I change it and I change your bridle and stuff, the end result makes all the difference in the world.

I’m not up there touching this animal. The halter is doing the job, even with just Baline twine. And sometimes with some animals, this is too heavy. I’ll just put one strand on them because they immediately start looking for getting away from their nose. They’re so soft, especially colts that haven’t been messed with. Oh, man, they go so fast. But the ones have been messed with, you got to get through the junk, you know? So no lateral reflections, okay? You can do them home. Don’t do them here.

How often do you do this, then? Just until they walk around once you do it, okay.

Threes.

You do it three times.

Three times. Okay. When I start seeing my mule frame himself up, like, right there, I quit him. You watch how much he moved around, okay? Now, here’s my gate. I have him go around, and he comes around, and I see about half of the circle. He’s doing good. He comes around to the gate. I watch him. He comes around. He’s all framed up three quarters of the way. Now, I come around the gate. Now he comes around the whole round pin framed up, nose vertical framed up. You hear one framed up. Hip wither head framed up. Comes around here one time, comes around again two times, comes around again three times, framed up. Go back the other way, clockwise, counterclockwise, three times. You’ll see a difference with that brain compared to the other brain, okay? Now, the next time you bring it in, this meal is looking for it to get out of here. So as soon as he starts dropping his head and getting soft six times by here, I’m done 912. Got the idea, all right? But again, what did I do? In the very beginning, I just put him in here and let him walk around.

Let him think about it. Let him start feeling that pressure. And then pretty soon, he come over here and just kind of stopped. I could see he was dropping his head. Okay, now it’s time to move him. Of course, I would have normally moved him three times, but I wanted you all to see I didn’t take very long. Makes sense.

Suppose he fought it.

He stays in here until he does.

Okay. Would you make any adjustments to the way you set up the halter and the surfingle and the side range?

Pretty much the way I got it. Now, notice there’s no pressure, how loose they are. Okay. See how loose they are? I don’t make them tight. No, you make them tighter. You’re going to make them break. See, this way here, the halter works. Halter is doing the job. Little bugger snuck up behind me and nose me. Do you see that? He kind of found out that didn’t feel too good when he done that.

And you would always use something that’s not stretchy.

Oh, yeah. Nothing stretchy. I don’t want to pull on it. Okay. I don’t want to pull. Even if I do this, it’s still pulling. If I’m bumping, it’s not pulling. Anytime you do this, it’s pulling even with a string. So bumping. That’s what does it. That’s what thick is. It a surfing. Folks, this is a wonderful tool. Even my wife’s meal, even trained meals that I’ve had in the past, once, twice a week, sometimes even more, I turn them loose on the round pin. I do this to them. I let them frame themselves up. It’s a tune up. Do I know how to get in the saddle and frame them up? Yeah. Okay. But maybe my next school person that I have come into school, they don’t know how to do it. So this way here, I keep my meal tuned, and I don’t have to be on their back to tune. All right? Makes sense.

Do you ever use any cooper, however you want to pronounce it?

No.

Okay. Never mind. Your students answered it?

Yeah. Okay, here’s the deal. Tell Cooper everybody understands telecooper, right? Last year, I was amazed. Three people called me and said, I’m going to get your saddle, but does it have a place for a tailcooper ring? I said no. They say, well, we want you to put a tail cooper ring on. I said, no, this is my saddle. I designed it this way. Well, why don’t you like a tailcooper ring? I said, Because number one, the saddle moves two and a half inches forward. Number two, you got a good chance of breaking the meals back. One guy said, Son, I’ve been doing this for 30 some years. And he said, I never broke her back. One had another lady tell me the same thing. I’ve been riding all my life with a tail Cooper. The third one said, I’m just getting started. I want to use a tail Cooper. Okay? And I went through the whole mess with them. Understand, a tail cooper is only on bone. It’s not on muscle mass. All right, and I’ll talk about bridges and stuff later. But long story short, all three of them, people within a month called me and said they had to put their mules down because they had broken backs because of the tail.

The Cooper broke the tail. One guy said I loosened it up because it was rubbing the underside of his mule. He loosened it up. So now the tail was sticking up and it just snapped. And he said, I heard it snap. And he said, every one of them said I could feel the back end of the animal just dropped and literally scooped like this. That had to be horrible. Had to be horrible. And when I talk about breachings and adjustments, you’ll see why I use a breaching, because, you see, the breaching is not going to stay in one place all the time. Thank you.