Paula Curtis (00:42)
This is Patrick King here that we are visiting with today. And I'm going to give you a little intro about Patrick and then we'll have him share a bit about his story. So from problem horses to grand prix movements, Patrick King has dedicated his life to true horsemanship, seeking deep understanding beyond the surface of training. With over 2000 young horses started and mentorships with legends like Ray Hunt and Mark Russell.
Patrick brings a unique blend of classical principles and field-based horsemanship. His mission to help riders connect with horses in a way that's both artful and effective. And we're really thrilled to have Patrick here today. Patrick. Thank you, Paul and Jack. This is great. It's so fun to meet with our presenters person to person because we appreciate all of them. And Patrick's been with us for multiple years and he's here for our seventh year, which is exciting.
to be celebrating seven years of having the online horse fair. And I'd love to know more about your personal journey. like what, what got you and what sparked your passion for horses and how, how did that start? And then arc to where you are at here today. gosh, do we have enough time for this interview? I know the first congratulations seven years already. That's fantastic that you guys have been going with this for seven years. So thank you for.
sharing all of this with everybody around the world through this platform. That's fantastic. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So my gosh, my journey, my learning, you know, years ago, growing up, we had, I was fortunate enough. grew up with horses and I was competitive in some of the local organizations and that sort of thing. And, you know, it was this idea of taking advice from, you know, everybody in your circle, in your, in your community, in the tribe.
You know, as the word that people like to use nowadays. And there was a horse that really was not too keen on the advice that I was trying to use. Right. And at one point I was late bringing him dinner and he trimmed the sides of my ears against his wall with his hind feet. He was, he was pretty violent, pretty, pretty aggressive. And there was a lot of past to that and to the reason why he was kind of who he was as a person. But that was the moment that really.
spurred me to look outside of that circle that I was in for information and for insight. And that really kickstarted for me the learning journey. So I started buying every book I could. At that point, it was VHS tapes and audio cassettes, right? For anybody who remembers those. Yeah. Yeah.
And I used them up. I used them until those little ribbons just frayed, know, stretched out and sounded funny. you know, what I was starting to realize was that there was a whole other world that was opening up to me that didn't sound like what I was hearing in kind of the local circles, right? And so one book would make a reference to somebody else's book or somebody that
they learned from. So then it was my quest to find that particular book. And this was when they were, it was starting out with, β you'd get the catalog in the mail from the book publisher, right? So I would make my wish list of all of the ones that I wanted and, and every chance I got, I would add to the pile, you know, and that ultimately eventually led me to Ray Hunt and Tom Dorrance and reading their books.
getting the access to the videos that we could find that were available there. And then ultimately to hosting a clinic with Ray. And of course, dabbling into, dipping my toe into any program that I could find, right? To help me with this particular horse. And I got a taste of a little bit of what everybody was doing or, you know, everybody in air quotes, everybody that I could find within the circles that I was searching for. And that really helped me to hear
many of the same things in several different ways. Right. And that to me was really impactful and helpful for the learning because it also caused me to think about each situation from several different perspectives. Even though I was looking at the same thing and I was still the same person, essentially looking at that same thing, but I could look at it, listening to what this person said about it and then what this person said about it. And so that same thing got
Kind of, kind of like the Instagram filters, right? It's the same picture, but you can see it in several different ways. And that really helped me to begin to understand this horse a lot better. and it was from that, that, you know, more horses started opening up. got more opportunities to work with more and things really started to grow from there. But my, my thirst for knowing more never, never quite got quenched. Yes. That's so interesting.
similar story to us and similar people. We found similar people. And I think you're right. go from one, it's like a chain. hear this person talk about this person and you move on to that. And so interesting because it really was maybe a similar path that we ended up taking as well. And of course, along the way we were showing and doing that type of thing and trying to blend and mesh this all together.
was really key for us. But that is, that is super interesting. If you could go back and sort of give Patrick's younger self a piece of advice about working with horses. If you could go back and change maybe your approach or something that you did, what would it, what would it be and what would you recommend somebody starting off that's maybe younger with horses that they, how, how should they start?
That's such a great question. And you know, I think I would give myself the advice that I give to several of my students. talk about there being four real big keys to anything when it comes to working with a horse, particularly when it comes to the educational side of things. that's slower, softer, weight and breathe. Right? Like I really feel like those are those four big keys, you know? And then I think always as well.
That there's three things that we can't rush as much as we try and as much as we want to, we can't rush confidence. We can't rush understanding. We can't rush acceptance. Right. We can nudge them along. We can try to help, but we can't rush them. You know, and I think if I would have learned early on to slow down even more than what I thought I was going, you know, I thought I was slowing things down and I realize now that boy, was.
I was. I think those are really great suggestions because it applies to everyone. And then, and then it's, really gets people to, you know, start observing. think when we're in a rush and in a hurry, we don't have that ability to really reflect, excuse me, reflect and, and be in a state of awareness because we're just, we're not in the moment. We're onto the next step. And all of those pieces.
that you just shared take us to that piece of really being able to observe what's going on. And then we can do like the Ray Hunt Observer member compare. So now we can make adjustments depending on what we see. But if we're not observing in the first place and remembering what took place, then when we get to reflecting back and making comparisons, how are we going to ever make adjustments? We weren't even aware of what happened.
Initially, and Ray used to talk about concentration, coordination, and reflexes. And, and so this goes, this ties into that as well. And, all those three ingredients, one has to find within themselves, especially coordination and reflexes. That's not something we can teach or force somebody to learn. It has to come from within themselves. And so that's all really good. We love what you have to say about that. it's, it's Ray. Ray said a lot of really great.
great things that stand with me always. absolutely. And, and to build onto that also, when, when we talk about that concentration coordination reflexes, I'm so glad that you brought that up. The concentration part, I think we can really easily get stuck in because oftentimes we have that concentration. Like you're talking about Paula, about the, you know, what we're focusing on and how can we compare it at the end of the day if we're lacking in our awareness, right?
When we're concentrating, I think it's important. we be peripherally aware of the goal, right? But primarily aware of the horse's understanding and the horse's confidence. think when it comes to the concentration, so often we get stuck in that where the primary focus is the goal, right? Rather than there's something I heard someone say many, many years ago. And it was actually, again, they were reflecting on a lesson they learned from Ray Hunt.
And it was the difference between the horse being the object and the horse being the objective. Right. And that's, that's one of those things that has, has always stuck as well. You know, it's like, it doesn't matter if I get X, Y or Z done. If the horse doesn't feel great about himself in the process. Yeah. I think that's great. And you know, we've been talking a lot about, you know, some of the philosophies of Ray Hunt and,
you know, those influences in horsemanship, but you've also explored a lot of the classical massage methods. And I'd love to hear how you have incorporated that with the teachings and horsemanship and been able to blend them because I think it's a really powerful combination. And I'd love to hear hear about that. Yeah. And, and I think that it's a natural combination. And, you know, again, going back to Ray,
And so many things do over the course of my learning, but going back to Ray, he used to talk frequently about books that he read, right. And people that he would try to learn from and observe. And one of the books he used to talk about frequently was Dressage by Henry Winmalen. And that's where that line about the horse getting the horse beyond plain usefulness as something that Ray used to say all the time. And that's directly coming from that book by Winmalen. And so when again, you know,
A book was mentioned, I got to read it. I got to, I got to find that book. Right. And so that started me on this idea of understanding a little bit more, not just the mental structures or the mental side of things for the horse, but then also the physical side of things for the horse. And I think there is, there is an important overlap, right? Because we can get that horse relaxed and we can get them accepting. But there's, I think about it now more as athletic relaxation, right? Rather than that whole.
You know, falling down in a puddle on the couch at the end of the day, kind of relaxed, you know, and so then what I began to learn more through the integration of the dressage is how can we get the horse mentally relaxed and understanding in the physical capability as well on the physical side of things that we can develop not only the mental faculties, but now also the physical faculties, right? How can we work the body? What is the, you know,
What are the angles that we want to work the body at? How can we help to support the joints in specific ways so that we can be building the muscles in specific ways and have that horse's mental engagement as again, as the primary focus, right? And that just seemed to fit so naturally. It's like, it's like the English side of things is so much was so much conditioning.
body, the physical rhythm, all these things are physical. And then we have sort of the horsemanship side of things, which is more philosophical and sort of for the horse. And it sounds like you really merged and sort of mesh those two together, which is brilliant. And that's, awesome. know, so thank you for, for that. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And I have, I have Mark Russell to thank for that. He was, he was such a fantastic inspiration from that side.
The way that we got to meet is I was starting some young horses in a little small town expo that was going on, like a conference event. And Mark was there working with kind of bridging the gap into dressage. And it it was such a fantastic combination, you know, because he had also had a bit of a natural horsemanship background and, and knew enough of so many things to be able to make these comparisons.
And it was just so inspiring when he first started talking about, know, I thought I'd learned how to see a horse and see what was going on. And when Mark would pick up on the rain and say, and did you see that? What? No, didn't see anything. And I thought I could see, right. And then digging deeper, digging into that feeling of, know, when you pick up, is it that invitation that the whole body releases into that? It's, it's one thing, of course.
to get that mind to follow you over there. But how is that mind following you over there, right? Is it that again, that deeper kind of acceptance where the whole chain of the spine softens into that? If you pick up on the rain, can you feel the hind leg release just because you've picked up on the ring of the bit, you know? And that's, really got me started down a path of seeing things a lot differently that way. Yeah, I think that's great. I think that, you know,
that idea of them releasing into it. so like the English disciplines, and we're generalizing of course here, but oftentimes because we're just working with the body and the mind's forgotten, you you'll have horses that break down quicker because if you are doing an activity as a person and you're doing it where your whole self is invested and you're having fun and it's a joyful thing for you to do, you're going to use your body in a way that is not nearly as hard as if you're, you know,
grudgingly stomping around doing it. so that this gets into the biomechanics of what you're just talking about, you know, that idea of the horse longitudinally coming through its body and stepping up into that and it's releasing that hind foot. Now we're talking about both English concepts and the horsemanship concepts and bringing it together in a way that really supports the entire horse as an individual, mentally and physically. And I think that's great that you're
You're bringing that all together because horses need it, you know, and so I'd love for you to share kind of a little bit about how your journey has changed in learning. Cause I guess as horse people, we realize, and I think as you start to get further along in any sort of thing that you do, you realize as you feel like you're getting more and more knowledge, you realize you actually know less and less and less because it gets
deeper and deeper and deeper. So I would love to hear how your story is changing because now we have new tools and new ways of learning, right? We can learn online. We're not using VHS tapes anymore and just playing the same thing over and over. Books, of course, are still very valuable and in-person learning is extremely valuable. So how has that changed and what sorts of things have you started focusing on more and more as your life is progressing and your journey's going?
deeper. That's a great question. it's like there, it would be easy to give you a really long answer to that. You know, we do, we're so fortunate now. I still have a stack of VHS tapes by the way, that I wish I could find a player to work with, you know, because there's such great, great things in there. But as technology has advanced us, like we're talking about, it has opened up so many new worlds for us, right? The ability to, you know, I spend half of my day now.
teaching lessons virtually. So I sit here at the screen just like this and you know, with riders over Zoom or Pivo or whatever, you know, whatever they're using, we're able to communicate back and forth and coach in real time. And so that's, that's been fantastic. And, and kind of along the way with this, there's been so much more as always, right? But it feels, even more now. we've got more of the learning obviously on the horse side of things and how the horses are operating, but then
Bringing in this idea of the classical equitation, there's been even more that focus on me, on myself, right? So it's been more time on the yoga mat, more time focused on diet and nutrition, fitness, that sort of thing for me as well. Bringing in that idea of, yeah, we want the horse to be the optimum for him. I need to be the optimum for him also.
Right. And that, to me, that spans the disciplines. That doesn't matter what saddle we have on. Right. Or the horse is wearing at that point. That's about who am I bringing to the table for the horse? And there was something I heard someone say, and I'll probably misquote it I don't remember who said it, but they were, they were basically talking about, I believe it was some sort of a relationship.
Quote, you know, they were talking about and it was I'll take care of me for you if you'll take care of you for me, right? Rather than just I'll take care of you, right? It's so the idea then is I'm gonna bring the best version of me to you and Can you bring the best version of you to me? And I feel like we're always asking that from our horses, right? We're always saying can you be better? Can you do more? Can you be more aware? Can you be softer, right? But then it's
Well, how did I ask that? And that again, takes us back to Ray and takes us back to these foundations of how are we presenting ourselves to the horse, right? And not just the question that we ask. How are we presenting the way that we sit in the saddle? How are we presenting? Like I get really big with the in-hand work. Now what's your intention behind your request? How are you asking? So there's, there's so much there for me that as you mentioned, the questions get just get deeper.
Right. The awareness gets deeper and it's like a spiral staircase, you know, and it's, I think it's exciting. We get to circle back on the same things and they have so much more meaning as we go. And now with the technology that we have, there's more ability to see long-term, what are we doing and how is it influencing the joints of the body? How is it influencing the muscles and things like that, that we can see more in, in real time. that's great. think, β you know, kind of getting into your, your presentations this year,
I think you're covering a wide array of topics and you're able to dive into some of these things. And just because you were talking about the person so much right now and, you know, taking care of ourself. think talking a little bit about, cause I was intrigued. I haven't watched it yet, but you have the trailer loading a meditation and I thought, β what a fantastic like presentation because trailer loading.
pauses us to have to slow down and reflect on ourselves and figure out like you just alluded to our intentions. And, and so I think it's cool because you were just talking to the, the fact that we circle back around to these concepts over and over, but it just gets deeper and more meaningful as we do it. And we start to come back to ourselves more and more and more and realizing that it's really us that needs to make the change. So I'd love for you to kind of.
Give us a little sneak peek about that presentation and maybe some of your other presentations as well. But what's in store? Cause I thought that was very intriguing and a unique take on trailer loading. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny. And I wanted to include that because as I say to my students all the time, that's everything. Trailer loading is everything. You know, we'll be talking about flying changes or preparing a canner pirouette or, or just walking down the trail. And I'll tell them constantly it's just like trailer loading.
Right? Like the idea. And so that's why I refer to it as a meditation. I say all the time, if it's not a meditation, it's an agitation. Right? And one of these days I'm going to make a t-shirt out of that, but it's, it's about how we bring us to that tape. Right? think our number one aid is our intention. And we see this happen again, trailer loading is such a classic example of it because it brings out the worst in people.
And it brings out every evasion the horse has ever thought worked to help them survive in the past. And so when we go into that idea of teaching the horse anything in this particular case, we're talking about the trailer loading, right? But it's, it's not our job to make them do the thing. It's our job to inspire them to do the thing. Right. For us or with us. And it's our job to
Constantly our number one job is to be constantly preserving and building our horses confidence as a learner and I think really that there is no better way to show that to see that then trailer loading right because it's how do we ask that question and do we recognize when the horse says I'm not confident with that Oftentimes that looks like no, I don't want to right
But so much of the time, what it really is, is I just don't feel confident with that. And where does that start? Sometimes that starts a hundred yards back, right? Where the horse says, Hey, I'm not okay with this. Right. So in that video that was taken from a clinic actually that I was giving, and it was great because the owner of the horse is kind of talking behind, behind me, beside me as we go in there. And she's asking these, I think, fantastic questions of, well,
Why don't we push from here? You know, he's part way there. Why don't we do more? Or when do we ask? it's like, no, take the emotion out of it. Right. Don't worry about that. It's, it's funny because when we take our immediate focus off of loading in the trailer, trailer loading becomes much easier. Right. Just like when we take our immediate focus off of the canter pirouette or the Piaf or walking down the trail, all of those things.
get much easier because it's basically the question that we're asking our horse. What does this mean to you in this moment? And it's funny when we start asking our questions that way, there is no wrong answer to that question. There can't be right. The horse just tells us very clearly, this is what this means to me. Maybe that's, know, what does it mean to you when I pick up on the lead and ask you to load in the trailer? Maybe that means in that moment to that horse anxiety tension.
pull back against the lead rope, resist, that sort of thing, because that's where their mind is in that moment. Well, I don't know about you, but I don't want a horse going in the trailer if that's the mindset they're in. And maybe it's because I've loaded thousands of horses and I've seen them in that mindset get themselves hurt or beat up the trailer or beat up me, right? As, as they're going in there. That's not the kind of mindset that I want a horse loading in the trailer with anyway. So it's, I joke all the time that we need to kind of be the Buddha.
Right. And, and just say, Hey, it's fine. We're not going to bring any kind of anxiety, any kind of worry to it. Is there a task to accomplish? Yes. And I also think trailer loading is a skill more than a task, right? It's not just, okay, check that off the list. No, this is something that the horse is constantly telling us how they feel about it and how they feel about the last hundred rides they've had in the trailer. Right. Where is there any residual lack of confidence that might be coming out?
And so many times, and you guys know this, and I'm sure that others that might be watching this have experienced the same thing. You can always feel the echo of the last person that held the lead rope or the last person that sat in the saddle, right? You can always feel the echo of the last person that tried to load that horse in the trailer also, right? Kind of laying under the surface, hiding under the surface. So can I bring to mind for the horse that idea of just being okay in their body?
and feeling confident in that case going in the trailer or whatever it is that we're asking. Yeah. So if it's not a meditation, it's just an agitation, right? And then an accident waiting to happen. So I think that's great. And I think that being able to see all the little nuances in the horse's response, doing simple tasks teaches us to actually read our horses. So you.
And you're saying, when you ask the question, what is the horse saying? And sometimes they're telling us, you know, they're feeling X, Y, or Z. Sometimes they're asking a question back to us and we need to be able to see that as well and answer their questions so that we're always in this constant conversation with them. And I love how you're really focusing on bringing the conversation back to the horse is safe. They're okay. I am not.
You know, I'm not going to ask them to do anything that they're not prepared for so that you're, you're increasing their level of trust. This goes back to, you know, when Ray Hunt's sayings where he said, there's something effective. You should be able to, your horse should feel like you can ride them down a golfer hole or up a telephone pole. It's, that amount of confidence that you're instilling in your horse because every question that you ask them ends up
building confidence instead of eroding. And then that trust comes through and now we've got a partnership where we can go do maybe something that we haven't done before, but because you're not getting those echoes that have come off of a partnership maybe that's been based on there's been some situations that haven't been so good, and now that echo is coming forward into the new situation, if it's been all really good stuff.
Then that new situation, the horse can only assume from its past that this is probably going to be all right as well. You know, for people, they can beat themselves up. can say, I did this to my horse and that's our horse. And we've all been there as trainers and you reflect back and you know, you're always doing the best for where you're at in your journey. So then what your, what your goal is, is just grow from where you are. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so glad that you said that too, that idea of, you know, people getting down on themselves.
There's a little bit this idea in a lot of our horsemanship circles that it's all on you. You asked the horse the wrong way. You presented yourself the wrong way. And to me, it's almost like there's a bit of a, this is gonna sound harsh, but it's like there's a bit of an ego there. Like, look, Johnny, like there's been 10 other people work with that horse before you got to him. It's not all you.
The horse brings his own baggage to the table, right? We can't go in there and expect now maybe if it's, if it's absolutely the first time for everything with that horse, then of course, but that's not often the case with most owners and most riders, right? So while it might not be your fault, it certainly is your challenge in the moment, right? And so to say it's all me, I did it wrong.
You know, I really try to steer riders away from that. Maybe you did, right? But it's, I just asked the question, how was it received? Right. Because in the end we can think that we're presenting ourselves in the best way possible, but who's the one who gets to say if the communication was received, not us, just because we sent it. Right. I forget who it was. It said that the, biggest misconception about communication is that it happened. β
That's like, no, maybe they didn't get the message, right? Maybe that horse because of past experience, you know, what does this mean to you in this moment? Maybe it means la la la la la stick my fingers in my ears and tune out out of self preservation. Right. So you might, you might extend your hand to shake my hand, but I've got baggage about hands being extended to me. Right. It's not that you did the wrong thing. It's that in the
past, I've built up these protective barriers that have now led me to react in that certain way. But I think it's so easy for us to beat ourselves up and to get so self-conscious of, I'm going to do the wrong thing, or I'm going to mess my horse up. And I try to tell students all the time, you can't mess your horse up. It has a brain. You want to see something get messed up? Let me deal with technology.
Like we saw at the start of this interview, right? Let me try to deal with technology. Let me try to deal with something that doesn't have a brain to think for itself. That's how things get messed up. You can confuse a horse, but you're not going to mess him up. Right? Now there are wild cases where we could say, that was a messed up situation. The horse got really bothered by that. But at the, at the grand majority, you're not going to mess him up. You'll confuse him.
You know, you might frustrate him. You might make him anxious, but that's not messing up. Right? Anything with a brain can make new decisions, right? Can make new distinctions. So that's what I try to get writers to think about all the time is like, don't be so afraid about messing it up. You know, it's one of my students said that in a zoom meeting we had last night, you know, dare to be right. Dare to try, right? Don't be so worried about being wrong.
all the time. And I think that's a really important thing to think about. Yes, of course, it's our challenge, but it doesn't mean it was our fault. And people are, when people are thinking about messing their horse up or that they messed their horse up or they might mess their horse up, they're thinking past, present and future all at the same time. And they're not in the, they're not in the present. And so saying like, trailering as a meditation, people have to be in the present. It's either going to work or it's not going to work. And to meditate is to become familiar with.
So it's all about being familiar with yourself and your horse in the present. So when people are thinking about all these, you know, I'm going to mess them up. They're not in the present. There's no way. So, so they've got to just get clear on visualization and then what they need to do to make so the horse understands. so, I like, I like everything you had to say. Well, I likewise well said that's, that's really important to about in the, in the being in the, in the now, right?
being in the is-ness of things as Eckhart Tolle would say, know, And to me, it's always as well, not, I'm going to fix this. I try to never get into a situation of I'm going to fix this or telling the horse, no, that's the wrong answer. I'm always coming at it with the idea of, let me clarify, right? Let me clarify. What's two plus two? The horse says 18. I said, β let me clarify. Rather than know you're wrong. If I'm...
correcting you, that comes with the assumption of, know, I, I try not to get into the whole domination side of things, but you know, if I'm correcting you, that's saying you're wrong and I'm going to fix you. Right? Say that to a prey animal, tell a prey animal they're wrong. Try to rush them in their learning. And you're going to see really quick how confidence gets thrown out the window and how now the body goes into self-preservation mode. Right? But if we come to it with the idea of let me
Clarify or let me help you feel this let me you know I think it make it changes like you're saying it gets us in that present moment Right rather than being all over the place and time traveling as it is, right? Who we try to do it all the time in our own head, you know, but but here we are here we are right? Yeah, and I think horses pick up on The when people are incongruent
And they're coming in with the energy of the last conversation that they had just on the phone right prior to coming in with their horse and, you know, and or, you know, the past, present, future thing where they're thinking about other things. It's very unrelatable for the horse. And so like just going into what you were just saying too, you're really coming to a place where you're entering in that conversation again, you're being relatable. You are understanding that a conversation is a two-way street.
So we need to be able to read our horse and see what they're saying, because like you said, sometimes they might be la la lying. And if we don't notice that, now we can't adjust our presentation in a way that's going to fit and allow them to or invite them back into the conversation. So now we're actually communicating again. Exactly. Yeah, just like this, back and forth, right? It's a dialogue, not a monologue, right?
That's it. A hundred percent. That's what the conversation is about. So any other presentations that you're giving this year that you'd love to touch base on or? Boy, I'm pretty sure that I submitted a presentation on the rain back. Yes. That's one. All of my students will tell you that I'm obsessed with the rain back. I like to joke that if we have 30 minutes to work with our horse and we don't do 87 rain backs, we just wasted our time.
Right. And obviously that's excessive and that's joke, but I try to present on that and I work with it on, with every horse and rider frequently. Because coming from the mental side, as well as the physical side, physically the rain back done well or done, I'll call it properly, right? Proper rain back builds and develops uses builds and develops every muscle that the horse needs to carry the rider forward in collection. Right.
The reason that I focus on it so much with students is that there's this undertone of rain back means no, you've done the wrong thing, right? So riders oftentimes they use rain back as a correction. back that horse up. know, he did the wrong thing. Back him up. Rain back, like to me, it's illegal. Rain back is not allowed as a correction, as a way to say you've done wrong because I never want the horse to think
that using their body in a collected way is wrong. Right? I want to always set the rain back up as that's a reset. Right? We talk often in dressage and in every discipline, but you hear it ad nauseam in dressage about half-hault. Right? Well, what's a half-hault? What does that mean? And there's a million different types of half-halts for a million different situations. But a half-hault is rebalancing. Okay. That's to me, that's the easiest way to refer to it.
The rain back is the ultimate rebalancing gate for the horse. And I think about it as a gate, not a movement. It's a natural gate that the horse has. It's just not one that we see them doing very frequently on their own. Right? And the rain back has, you know, all these elements to it where it is a forward gate, as people talk about, and forward is not about energy or speed moving in the forward frontal direction.
It's about the folding of the joints. It's about the activity in the joints and the body. Right. And so rain back is again, it's kind of an obsession of mine. When all else fails, rain back reset. Right. The rain back is the, for me, it's the reinforcement to a half halt that wasn't understood because it helps the horse to rebalance. Right. It's all about bringing that horse back into that state of balance mentally.
as well as physically. And so it's not about pulling back, right? If we're pulling back, we don't have a rain back. We're just taking a horse backwards. And there's a big difference between a horse going backwards and a horse in rain back. So a lot of people get really anxious when we talk about asking for rain back because, I don't want him to do this to get out of work or he's going to toss his head. He's going to do all these things. These, you know, he goes crooked. He, whatever.
That's only if the horse has been introduced improperly to the rain back to begin with. know, rain back is another one of those things that we could think about as a meditation. When you begin to ask your horse for rain back, do you feel the top line release? Do you feel the stifles soften and prepare to fold? Right? Does the horse begin to lift their back and grow taller in the withers or do they drop? Do they invert? Does the head come up? Do the hind legs get stiff?
If you try to continue with that, that's just a horse being drug backwards. That's not a horse actually in rain back. Right? So, so trailer loading and raining back are two of my, guess I could say my favorite things, but the rain back, think is essential and so often overlooked because in dressage, well, we just need four steps of it in that, in that one test and second or third level or whatever. It's like, no goodness gracious. You should be able to rain back the whole length of the center line. By the time you get to that level of the test.
And you should be able to rein back in serpentines if you want to. It's about really helping the horse again to release themselves. Like we talk about the horse being on the bit. I hate that expression. I think we should think about the horse coming to the bit. think that's a different story, right? And our rain back should feel the same way. Our rain back should feel that the horse can come to the bit with that and every other movement that we make. But so that's why I submitted the rain back as, a presentation for this, because I think it's
It's high time we learn a little more about it and stop being afraid of it. You know, start using it to the potential it has. It's got an incredible potential for our horses. and understanding the mental component of rain back or half-halt or downward transition or shortening stride is the mental and physical checking back, rebalancing physically, but mentally the ears and the eyes and the intention coming back to the rider.
So if one has a soft responsive rain back, their downward transitions will be better. Shortening stride will be better, slower tempo. Everything will be better because the horse is now more mentally balanced and coming back. And I wish when a lot of dressage trainers worked on half-hult, they would explain the mental components of half-hult and that the horse is mentally and physically checking back and re-balancing. But I think that'll be an awesome video. I can't wait to see it.
Yeah, and to what you just said, know, the down transitions, the shortening of stride, that improves, but so do the up transitions and so do the extension of strides because that proper rain back isn't being drugged back by the shoulders. It's being engaged and carried by the haunches, right? So you want to improve your canter transition. You want to improve your flying changes. You want to improve your Piaf, improve your rain back, right? Teach those hindquarters to
carry that weight, teach those joints to load and propel, and it's going to change everything. Yeah. I think that's great. And I think, you know, the understanding of the balance, the horse being over their top line, the joints actually folding because, you know, you'll see horses that are going backwards, but they're leaving skid marks in the sand when they're backing up because they're not carrying, they're not balancing, they're not active, they're not really using themselves in a...
biomechanically functional way. And, and so what's showing up, just like you said, in your backward movement is going to be showing up in all of the forward as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And so many of my teachers in the dressage side, when we're talking about, you know, really classically developing the horse, when you prepare for a cantor transition, you should also feel like rain back is under the surface of that. Right. If you feel like you could carry into rain back, horse is prepared.
for that cantor transition, because it means they're preparing to load those haunches. And I've often heard too that, you know, a couple of classical dressage concepts. One, feeling like you should be able to go from any one gate to any other gates immediately. And forward, think of forward as a willingness, a mindful willingness to move. But again, bringing the mental component to it. But the idea
of a plane taking off a runway. And so when we ride a downward transition, can we have that sensation of riding a downward transition as if it would feel like an upward transition, meaning that the horse is sitting back and lifting in the front. So these are all like classical concepts that I think we often teach and think about and sounds like we're just on the same plane here talking about this. Absolutely. And it's interesting to me, I find that
Horsemanship at its most basic level is all the same. Yeah. Horsemanship at the absolute pinnacle is all the same. In the middle, Ego is in BS. In the middle, gets muddy, right? But yeah, it doesn't matter, you know, whether you're wearing breeches or Wranglers, right? It doesn't matter to the horse, particularly. It's about the understanding. It's about the
Confidence it's about the acceptance at all ends of the spectrum You know the middle gets muddy because he goes get involved and we struggle for learning and things like that some you know some handle it in a different way, but But yeah at both ends of that spectrum the very beginning and the very pinnacle. It's all the same doesn't matter What hat you're wearing? it's not about it's not about costume. It's about here
Well, Patrick, we want to thank you so much for doing this interview today and participating in the fair. You've done multiple years. We love watching your videos. I know everybody else, we've got great feedback from your videos and we really appreciate you helping the horse and riders everywhere. So thank you. Well, thank you. And thank you guys again for doing this. Seven years is a great run so far and it keeps getting better every year. So kudos to you for that. Great job.
