Today we are talking about opening a gate while mounted from horseback.
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What’s going on guys! Hey, we were just about to work Thunder out here. We’re going to canter him around, and I thought hey, we need to do a gate opening video. Thunder is a spooky little joker that likes to booger out from under you. It’s about time for him to learn how to open and close a gate. So we’re going to show you how we like to approach it from the very beginning.
BAsics Before opening a Gate
By this time you would already have gone through the respect series. You have left and right, you have his head, you have his butt. You have a backup on him. Pay no mind to the German martingale that is on Thunder. It has nothing to do with the gate opening and closing. That just has to do with his performance and canter work that we’re about to do. You can do this exercise of opening a gate with the natural horsemanship halter, a snaffle, or anything that you’re working with.
The Approach
I want you guys to get this ideology so I’m going to come up beside this gate. I’m going to ride head towards the open end. I whoa him and I want to get him to stop square and straight beside this fence. His shoulder should be about even with the front of the gate. I’m going to reach over and open the gate. I’m going to grab the gate and what I want to do is, I want to back him up towards the hinges. By doing this the gate opens wider for us to fit through it. I keep my hand on the gate and then use the gate to bring him over and through the gate.
If you use the gate like that to move your horse around, you can get very young and very green horses to get comfortable opening and closing gates. That’s the easiest way I’ve seen to open the gate.
Any other way that you approach this gate you’re going to have to have a better side pass to open a gate. You’re going to have to have better leg control. If you open the gate like this where you’re using the gate, It’s the easiest way. Think about this, whenever we open it we’re going to be backing towards these hinges over here and whenever we’re closing it I’m going to be riding him towards the hinges over on the other side. Right here he wants to kind of booger away so I’m going to bump him over until he’s straight. There he is going to try to booger away from the gate. When he gets stuck looking at the gate I flex him away from it to get him unstuck.
Get The Horse Comfortable With The Gate
There we go stick with it, stick with it, that’s it. As we push the gate I need his head and his body to push into it. I need his head to stay away from it because if he turns and looks at it then the gate moves away from me. I see what he wants to do to this side. I’m going to re-open it and I’m going to try to turn his head away from it. There we go, so notice when he tried to face the gate I flexed him away from it. Now I want to ride back through, head towards the hinges. Now we see exactly where our issue is. He relies on this right side, it’s a little stiff. So, whenever we do these things, he really wants to look left. There we go, notice how I keep him facing towards the hinges.
Drive him right back to the gate just like so. I’ll just hang out with this gate until he gets comfortable with it. Good job! Remember guys, a lot of times when we point our horse’s head towards something just like a boat, it takes their body away from it. Let’s do it one more time.
Keep Your Hand On The Gate
Bring him right here make sure he’s square and even to the gate. So I’m thinking about backing his butt up towards the hinges where the gate is attached. Then using the gate to move his front end around. Remember you want to get used to trying to keep your hand on the gate. Any competition that you go to you’re going to get docked points if you take your hand off of it. If you can get a young green horse to do this, that’s great! This guy here is pretty green and spooky. A lot of people wouldn’t be able to do that if they have any other ideology of opening a gate.
In Conclusion of opening a gate
If we’re using the gate to our advantage and pulling the gate towards us and using the gate to move our horse around. It’s going to be a very easy and quick way to get our horse opening and closing gates. Guys thank you so much for watching! See you on the next video!
Thank you so much for joining us in learning how to open a gate while mounted from horseback. I’ll see you next week!
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HOW SAFE IS YOUR HORSE?
Can you control every part of his body, even if he’s scared or unsure?
There are some specific things that I believe every horse should be able to do before he or she is considered completely safe to ride. So that you can see how safe your horse is to ride, I’ve created this FREE Horse Safety Checklist.
