Brittany Kupferer Horsemanship

04/25/2023

Love this!

We are excited to announce that Mike Major, two time Road to the Horse Champion, has joined Mustang Heritage Foundation as a Special Projects Advisor to our Board of Trustees! Welcome to the team, Mike!

03/31/2023

03/02/2023

🙌🏼

" Equitation is the art of looking good on a horse. It has little to do with being good on a horse". Kresney Ann
I give clinics on horse training and development all over the world. We work on many of the keys to the development of a well trained equine. Steering, speed control, stopping, spinning, lead changes transitions, gaits and movement as well as softness, positions, and gaining mental focus. I'm the clinician that watches the horse and helps you figure out how to build your dream. Or at least clean up your nightmare.
Not once in all my years of teaching have I ever given a riding lesson. That's someone else's job. It's always been my goal to make the horse look good, and sometimes in the process, it may not look pretty from an equation perspective. So what. Do I know how to look good on a horse? Of course, but I save that for when I'm showing. Up until then it's about riding in whatever way gets it done.
Sometimes my heels are up, sometimes I'm off to one side. I might be shoulders forward or back. Hands up, down, right or left. Standing up, sitting down, back arched or slouching. Basically I'll do whatever I have to in order to get the horse to free up, move the part I'm working on, and find the place or position I'm trying to get to .
I know that my position can affect so many things from their chin to their tail and from their back to their feet. That's called riding. To me training is about being good on a horse. Who cares what it looks like.
Occasionally however, I will get the student or attendee who is so hung up on equitation that it actually creates a problem for the horse. They think that if they have excellent posture and balance that the horse will suddenly be able to make magnificent changes. If only that were true my job would be so much easier. Wouldn't it be great if all we had to do was put our heels down and shoulders back, that suddenly our horse could do all the physical acrobatics that we hope for.
So my equitation advice at clinics is pretty basic. As long as you don't fall off, you're probably riding. So when does it become important to ride pretty? When your horse is fully trained and you're at the show. It causes the judge to watch the horse and not the ugly way you're riding. Up until then, and even in your warm ups and between shows, it's ok and even effective, to ride ugly. If your horse isn't riding pretty, it's not going to matter if you are.
My wife Kresney Ann said it perfectly in a lesson the other day when a student was having all kinds of issues with her horse and was mostly concerned if her heels were down. "Equitation is the art of looking good on a horse. It has very little to do with riding good on a horse ".

11/07/2022

💯

Yesterday we went to a roping and took as many as would comfortably fit in our stock trailer. They don’t get better staying at home!

If you aren’t sure if your horse is ready to be hauled to town, ask yourself two questions. Can they get on the trailer? And, can they stand tied without breaking their halter or the fence/trailer? If you’ve got those two things then you might consider starting to expose them.

One thing to consider if you, ”feel bad” leaving your horse tied for long periods of time…what would they be doing otherwise? Probably standing in their pen doing absolutely nothing, learning absolutely nothing.

Tying will help them learn to be patient and a horse learning to be patiently tied might be one of the most important skills a horse can learn.

I’ll leave you with this, and it will likely ruffle some feathers…we don’t follow the idea of tie them for 3 minutes the first day, then 4, then 5, etc. In our opinion it teaches a horse to, “hold their breath”. Instead of learning patience they learn to hold onto anxiety for longer and longer. You’re building their anxiety muscle instead of their patience muscle.

Same with trailer rides. Our preference for a horses first trailer ride is about 2 hours. Most of them can’t stay worried for that long so they learn to relax without us interfering in their learning process. Sometimes as a horse is learning to be patient and relax, every time we engage with them we restart the anxiety.

Haul them early and often! Feed and water them tied up and LET THEM LEARN to be patient. Stop getting in their way when they are working through things.

09/10/2022

Just want to show off my student Alexyus and her awesome gelding Rebel! They have been doing amazing in their liberty lessons! 🤩

08/09/2022

What is "flooding", and why can this concept be harmful?

In recent years the term "flooding" became a buzzword among many horse people. It started out with a distinct meaning; it was a helpful term to define overloading a horse's stimulus to the point he or she would end up mentally shutting down and going into flight mode, or introverting his emotions, instead of successfully working through pressure.
However, now it's tossed around so flippantly as an easy criticism by everyone and their brother that it's almost become harmful to the industry and good trainers who are doing a good job.

Just because someone is progressing with a horse faster than you know how to, doesn't mean they're flooding it.

Just because a horse is pushed beyond its comfort zone, doesn't mean it's being "flooded".

Just because a horse is naturally expressing nervousness or confusion during training, doesn't mean it's being "flooded."

Just because someone roped a mustang, instead of spending a month trying to get it to let them touch its nose, doesn't mean it was "flooded".

Just because you don't understand another trainer's process, doesn't mean that trainer is "flooding" horses.

Let me tell you how you can tell if a horse is being flooded or not.
Simply put, a horse who's being negatively flooded will progressively become more anxious and shut down about a particular obstacle or exercise over time.
Whereas a horse who's safely being pushed beyond his comfort zone, with the right feel and timing, will continually make progress toward confidence and relaxation.

You'll never truly know how to feel the distinction if you never make the mistakes that will teach you. On a weekly basis, I see people who have such little experience, ridiculing trainers who are making a positive impact on the lives of hundreds of horses.

You cannot become a great horseman, without first being a poor one. There's no way around it. As long as you're truly putting the horse's future and wellbeing ahead of your ego, you're on the right path. So let's stop constantly criticizing those who really have put the time in. I know it makes us feel better, and you may look holier on paper, but when the rubber meets the road, or the tarp meets the horse, you begin to find out that things aren't as simple as the buzzwords make them seem.

From the very first step of the very first exercise, our goal is to build confidence and relaxation in the horses we work with. The faster we can do that, the better.

Just because one person spends a year trying to instill trust and confidence with their horse, and another trainer does it in a matter of weeks, doesn't mean the slow training process was better. It was just slower. You don't get bonus points for slow.

Now that's not to say that there aren't some horses that require much more time to reach the same level as other horses. We regularly have horses in that, because of how they're wired, require a much slower foundational training process than the average horse. And that's okay, each horse let's us know how much it can handle. But I'm not really addressing that issue, so much as I'm talking about different training approaches as a whole.

My point is that fast isn't always bad, and slow isn't always good.
Slow and correct is better than fast and wrong, but fast and correct beats both.

The horse will always tell you if he's been flooded or not. Reassess and readjust as needed.

Let's keep our egos out of the way and the horse will always win. 👍

-Jacqueline Zacharias

04/06/2022

03/26/2022

Effective riding and equitation… Where do YOU sit?

Ask anyone who starts colts or rides performance horses, sitting pretty isn’t always where it’s at. We don’t want our shoulders ahead of our knees, ever, and we certainly don’t want to hollow our backs. One of the unfortunate aspects about judged hunt seat eq and western horsemanship, is the preponderance of riders who adopt the bubble butt! This unfortunate affectation blocks our forward flow and tends to 'hollow out' our horses, as well.

We become something stiff under which our horses labour, rather than a partner who does her best to help.

Don't get me wrong. Throughout the course of our riding lives, it behooves us to perfect our basic position. To have a knowledgeable pair of eyes from the ground point out our asymmetries (and yes, they exist within us all!), our leg position, where we plug our seat bones into the saddle, where our eyes lead and where our head, shoulders and elbows must be for optimum use by the horse. So, equitation is a fundamental part of horsemanship that does not go out of style, the minute we leave the junior ranks.

As we evolve as riders, however, form must allow for function. We have to be ready to change, smoothly and quickly, to ride anything livelier than a bar stool!

Our hips have to be ready to ride ahead of our shoulders, if necessary, to momentarily allow our seat and our forward intentions to be felt by the faltering horse. We must be ready, with a strong base of support, for our legs to keep us steady as we rise from the saddle, folding forward to allow our horse complete freedom as he jumps. These two everyday extremes must be practiced until they are instinctive.

Correct equitation is a keystone to good riding, yes, but there comes a point where, if we wish to progress beyond being mere passengers, our 'feel' and effectiveness must rise.

This brings to mind an equitation championship I watched many years ago. The judge asked the finalists, all excellent riders aged 14 to 17 years, to canter individually up the centre line and then, to perform an emergency dismount. Only two of the riders were willing to perform the task. The remainder were either in tears or appealing to their coaches to pull them out of there. I sat there, gripping my coffee, siding wholly with the judge. It was unorthodox but entirely reasonable of him to expect these beautiful riders to know how to safely get away from a wreck.

Sadly, they, like too many of us, were schooled only for moments of perfection. This sort of equitation is painted on; it is merely skin deep.

If you are teaching or paying for lessons, remember this. There comes a time when sitting pretty isn’t enough! We must evolve. Equitation is the basis, the absolutely solid foundation on which we build. As riders, we need the goal of becoming effective, of being able to make adjustments, knowing how and when to isolate our body parts.

Equitation must grow from merely sitting pretty, to knowing how and when to take the position that will best help each horse.

📷 Maggi McIvor.