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Charlie Snell

3K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  Smilie 
#1 ·
I audited one day of a Charlie Snell clinic in my area. I'd seen him before. He has worked with all the old timey guys; Ray Hunt and the Dorrance bros, and he also works with Harry Whitney, who is my trainer's mentor. it's a small world, the world of horse training. folks get to knowing each other.

Charlie is a been there done that sort of guy. he even jockeyed as a young man, which doesn't surprise me as he's about 5' 4 and maybe 90 lbs or bone and muscle. his face shows the years out in the sun and the dust, and he has that way with horses where the animal just feels better standing next to him.

here are my notes. they are not elegantly arranged. may not make much sense at all. in fact, I'm wondering if I should even post them . . . . h m . m . m . . . . oh well.



Charlie Snell clinic, March 25th 2017- one day’s notes from auditing

First working with a nervous, sensitive fox trotter mare:
Petting horses, and ‘leaving’ horses
When you go to pet her, make sure she’s looking at you. Don’t pet her if she moves her head away to avoid you. Don’t go pet her shoulder if she’s still trying to move her head away. She’s saying she is still looking for a way out, and can barely tolerate your touching her. Get her looking right at you, pet her once or twice, then move away from her. Do not pet her so long that she leaves you.
This applies to unhaltering a horse when you are putting them back into their pasture/paddock after a work session: you get them to look right at you, pet them once or twice, then take the halter off and YOU leave THE HORSE, not the other way around. (I’m not 100% sure of the importance of this, but Charlies says it makes a huge difference to the horse) If you allow the horse to leave you, you are still ‘there’ and yet you are allowing the horse to take his thought away from you when you are still ‘there’. this sets him up into thinking that he can do this , here and in other situations.

So, don’t pet your horse a lot, don’t pet them when they are trying to avoid being petting (get them to give you two eyes), and YOU leave the horse, not the other way around.
Round penning that little mare, he noticed that she had a fixation on one side of the round pen, where she was wanting to look outward more. In all her moving around the pen, she had her neck bent so that she was always NOT looking inward, and Charlie didn’t do a whole lot to force her to look his way, but, eventually , he went and offset himself into the area she wanted to be in, saying, “this is mine now”, and she got more agitated and more willing to try looking at him. It was as if she had been ok in the round pen not giving the human any kind of real part of herself because she was mentally ‘in’ that area, even when actually circling the whole pen. But, when she could no longer own that side, she had to turn and look at him, (he was in HER space, and she HAD to look). Then he could start getting to consider looking that way more and more, and this lead to him being able to walk up to and pet her (two eyes). He was very soft on her, but very ‘on’ her. Meaning, as he approached her, if she moved the tiniest bit off to the side, he’d say, “she’s fixing things up to leave”. Meaning, she was getting ready to make the decision to run. Charlie would back up infinitesimally, and she’d be drawn back to looking at him.
Hard training = Hard horse
Eventually, he got her hooked on him enough to spin around and KEEP him in her two eyes, but she didn’t’ want to actually walk around behind him much. She had her hind legs stuck into that sand. Charlie said he could get ‘harder’ on her and MAKE her follow him, but she had probably had some hard training put on her in the past, and ‘the harder you put training on a horse, the harder will be their reactions. “ . He said, he sees horses who come from the training where they’ve been shown the choice is between “a rock and a hard place” (both HARD), instead of a “good place and a not so good place”, as he likes to train.
Moving the horse’s thought right then left
When she was standing next to him, after finally allowing him to come up to her and pet her a bit, he asked her to ‘look right, . . . look left”. I asked about this, and its value. He said it helps the horse ‘turn loose’ and pointed out how as he did this, her head got lower and lower. And, he said, it’s not that you want the horse to ‘snap right, snap left, as they might do if they are avoiding you” No! You want the horse to THINK left, THINK right, so you really want to see where their eye is going.
All this is part of the foundation of this training and that is:
CAN YOU GET YOUR HORSE TO LET GO OF ONE THOUGHT AND TAKE UP ANOTHER.
There are many ways to do this, no ‘right’ one, just what works. Practice it because it might save your life.
The more you practice getting your horse to do this, the more accessible their mind will be to you in ANY circumstance. And that translates as being safer.
While we do repetition to cement training, in reality, if the horse is in the right frame of mind, all you have to do is show them something once or twice and they’ve got it. The repetition is in part for the human, and in part to be sure that you can get the response in any kind of situation.

Next horse:
Large, pinto Fresian mix mare. Green horse, heavy and resentful
One of the first things Charlie noticed was that the owner , when leading the horse, moved off before having the horse’s attention. He said, get the horse’s attention first, then walk off. If you move off while the horse’s mind is outside the pen (somewhere else), you can move the feet, but you’ve left the mind behind. Any time you separate a horse’s body/feet from his mind, you are looking for trouble.
Getting some life into the resistant horse
In lunging this horse, on a line, the horse had a lot of resentment at the handler’s way of applying too much constant ‘whirling and flipping’ of the line in the non-leading hand. Charlie said, use the line to put a forward feel (and he spent some time showing people the different hand positions that seem the same to us, but make a world of difference to the horse). Mainly, not to have our arm out in such a way that we are pulling the horse in front of us, onto us. Rather, you give a forward feel that is extending your arm out at about a 45 degree angle from your shoulder, instead of so much off to your side, more toward the horse.
Charlie wanted her to offer the feel, then if no change, use her rope, or slap her thigh, once or twice and look for a small change and be sure to do nothing for the times that the horse is making even the smallest try. You build on this, little by little , to get a horse that will become more willing to move out. It’s tempting to get harder and harder, to ‘insist’ that the horse go, but then you just get the horse coming back at you harder and harder with resistance and resentment.
After doing some lunge work, the owner wanted to rider her. So, they spent quite a long time working at the mounting block.
“Lunging at the mounting block”
. Charlie said that you can do a ton of work at the mounting block to get your horse’s mind with you, maybe as much as you could do in a round pen session. Several of the horses at the clinic had issues lining up at the mounting block, with some of them coming in too close, and pushing into the rider. So Charlie had them get their horse positioned well. He had them work on what I call a ‘figure 8 exercise”. you send the horse one way, get the hips to disengage, the front to step back around, and then repeat going the other directs. It’s the commonly done exercise called ‘front end, back end’, but you do it from a static position, as if you were standing on or near the mounting block. He said, it’s as if you were sitting on a fence, getting the horse to line up to the fence. Charlie said this is a good exercise to practice anywhere, anytime; that of getting your horse to line up to you as if you were a mounting block.
The important thing about doing this, either for practice or for real mounting, is to do it slow. One step at a time. Get the horse to wait for instruction, and have him ‘thinking his way through it”.
Mounting up
At the mounting block, Charlie showed how to pull the saddle, slowly but firmly, no jerking, toward you and away from you to test that your horse is well squared up and balanced for you to mount. Then, when you do mount, get up and on promptly. Don’t lollygag with your weight hanging off the side. He talked about how it’s a bit harder for women to mount from the ground due to the shape of the hips and how it makes it hard for them to bend the leg and get really close to the horse when one foot is crooked up in the stirrup .

At this point, I think I do not have coherent enough notes to try to approach this in a horse by horse report on what was done for each. I’m going to just write down important points he made. .
Tying to saddle/groom
Never saddle or groom a green or troubled horse while it is tied. When you ‘tie’ a horse, you take away his self-preservation, and he could feel more troubled about that. Just keep his lead rope draped over your elbow (never over your shoulder), and work. That way, you can also keep him connected to you when he’s mentally drifting away. And, the horse becomes mentally connected to the post, not to us, when he is tied. Of course, once they are well trained, you can tie. For convenience. But, having him stand loose, on a lead line, gives many training opportunities. You require him to stay looking at you or straight ahead, NOT way out somewhere else. You develop his connection to you.
Charlie demonstrated how to bridle a horse, but I won’t’ describe that now. It’s more something you need to see
Forward cue
Riding the horse, the cue to go is NOT digging your heels into his side. It’s taking the WHOLE leg off his side and bumping against his side, rhythmically. If he doesn’t go, you don’t get harder, you just stay there in that thumping rhythm, until he moves, and you stop. Eventually, he will know the cue. Eventually, he will get good at it, and he will move from feeling you take your leg OFF of him (as you lift it in preparation to thump him). But, not heels digging into his side, and definitely not further back. He said he sees too many people, women, leaning forward onto their forks, with lower legs back, digging into the horse’s side, and how the horse really hates that.
positions in the saddle;
1 is way forward, like at a fast gallop or over jumps
2 is sitting vertical, for forward movement
3 is more back on your pockets, for halt and for just standing in neutral
Halting; rein and seat
Regarding halting: Get your seat into position 3, then use reins. Charlie talked about how a horse needs to be taught first to stop off the reins. Then you add in the seat. He demonstrated how people that try to stop their horses with seat alone end up with a horse that will often throw his head up and hollow out his back. The horse needs the rein support to help teach it to stop soft and rounded. He also said, if you can get a little bend in the horse, just an inward flexion of the head, it makes it easier for the horse to stop , because he can step under his belly a bit better when he is bent (thus the value of circles in training)
3 stride transitions
In the transitions, he said it is good to think of them happening within 3 strides, and he says he even counts it out. So, from trot to walk in 3 strides, walk to trot, 3 strides. I assume that means 3 strides from the time you ask , and the time they comply.
Starting off with the inside hind
Also, when you are standing around on your horse, and you ask them to start off walking, another good exercise is to have the horse step under themselves with the inside hind right before stepping forward. The idea is to get the ‘step off’ to be originating from the inside hind. So, before allowing the horse to move forward, you do whatever it takes to get a slight inward step with that inside hind, then immediately ask for a forward push off. I found this idea intriguing and think I would like to try that.
Charlie talked a lot about rein positions. He said that he is often criticized for having too busy hands, but that he feels a ‘static hand creates a stiff horse’. He showed the different positions for asking the horse to step to right or left, or to flex its head , bend into a hip disengagement. He talked about making sure that the outside rein does not interfere with things when you are asking a horse to bend and look inward. And, he really worked with the students on making sure that when they ask for an inward ‘look’, that they wait to see if that is really happening, or if the horse is tipping head in, but still looking outward to NOT release at this place. This can manifest by a sort of ‘tilting ‘of the head, with ears pointing one way, and muzzle the other. Charlie reminded folks of the cardinal sin of bringing the reins across the wither line, and how it puts the horse in a bind. He asked that if you take up a shorter inside rein, that you advance your outside rein equally, so that it does not say one thing, while the other rein says something else. Or, drop the outside rein, to avoid any conflicts with inside rein. He kept emphasizing how the snaffle is meant to be used one rein at a time.
Getting the horse to ‘look’
He had riders practice a LOT of just lifting one rein and waiting until the horse just LOOKED that way, . . then the other side. It’s the same concept as working on the ground. He said, “every time you can lift a rein and get a horse to look that way, you’re putting money in the bank” . He emphasized that it doesn’t have to be much of a bend. The ‘looking’ is more important than the bending, and in fact, those folks that flex the horse ‘s head side to side, in so-called ‘suppling’ are only teaching the horse to do something on autopilot. The horse swings his head over real fast, since he knows that what is wanted. He isn’t ‘listening’. What if you only wanted him to move his head a little and ‘think over there, go over there’. The automatic ‘flexer’ just isn’t thinking , he’s just ‘doing’. You always want a thinking horse.
So, practice, practice, practice having the horse just bend a tiny bit and LOOK in the direction of the rein you lift.
Don’t bump or jerk or pull him when he resists the rein to one side
At one point, he also talked about a horse that resists the rein by taking his head the other direction. He said, you just ‘go with him’. Meaning, you have put some resistance on the rein, some ‘ask’, the horse reacts by actually pulling away to the other direction. You DON’T increase your pull, nor do you jerk or snap the rein. you just keep it the same. In order to keep it the same, you must follow his head with your hand, neither yanking, snapping, bumping NOR allowing slack. The horse puts himself in a bind. You don’t make it worse, you just wait for him to find the way out. The instant he gives, but very sure you don’t take the slack back. You give, infinitesimally, in your hand. Then return to asking softly for the inside bend.
Charlie said there is a difference between softness and lightness
Softness is a mental state, where lightness is having a hair trigger reactiveness.
The very forward horse
If you have a very forward horse, sometimes that horse, even when walking fast, is really ‘running away’ from you. To think about that, with regard to having a horse that wants to walk out a million miles an hour all the time, or need to be in front of the group. Asked how one would know if the horse were actually running away when it walks out so forward, he said the test is to ‘take the bridle off and see if he stays put’.
We got no takers on that one.
LIFE verse DIRECTION
We talked about how we are , when riding, doing two things; putting life into our horses, and directing our horses. Which one comes first? Why putting life into your horse, of course. Trouble happens when we are trying to do both at the same time. A skilled rider can, but the amature gets the horse mixed up, bound up, upset and things fall apart. Get life first, THEN direct it.

I stopped taking notes at this point. Ran out of paper and needed to stand and walk around due to mighty cold feet. Charlie worked with some riders mounted in the round pen, working on position and did quite a bit of work on how to get the leg yield, which is a very important thing to use in training.
I’m afraid I don’t remember enough detail to write it down. Notes are essential when you get this much information thrown at you in one day.
The long and the short of it is that it was a wonderful day. Charlie Snell is a delight to learn from. He knows of what he speaks, coming from a lifetime of real world experience. He teaches these ideas very well and shows a great deal of respect and compassion for his students and meets them at the place where they ARE at any one time. He’s kind, funny and patient. Just a wonderful teacher and great guy!
 
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#7 · (Edited)
I'm just glad to see a topic on some other trainer then CA! Thanks for that!
Far as the info, not really new or different, except in a few areas, and that is okay, as we all take from each clinic as to what works for us.
A lot of what he is saying, is basically just the same thing ,accepted as good horse training, in perhaps a slightly different way.
Of course, you can't start in the beginning, and have a horse stop just off of seat and legs, any more then you can train any horse from the start,doing any maneuver, on a loose rein, even if that is the end goal of riding that horse as a 'finished horse!
A correct stop, is a hind end stop, and bit barrier teaches the horse to stay light in front, thus off his front end, while engaging his hind end. EVENTUALLY, you can then stop the horse off of seat and legs alone, with the horse respecting an 'imaginary bit barrier
Never getting into a pulling match with a horse, is a basic principle. You hold, and use legs, as needed
Far as the mounting block, as they say, there is more than one way. I just teach a horse a solid respect of the word'whoa'. If they swing hips away, ect, while learning, even if I still can get on, I don't. I take them away from that block, correct by making the horse back, or do several hard turns over the haunches, and take them back, position and give them a chance to do the right thing-with whoa meaning the entire body does not move

Far as the entire concept of teaching a stop, having the horse consider that bit barrier as an invisible wall, holding, never pulling, I think the video by Larry trocha , that I have posted before, teaches that concept as well as any I have seen.

 
#9 ·
Far as three stride transitions, one can apply, the 'not always
When ahorse gets to a certain level of training, there are times you ask for a stop to lope transition. What is important in transitions, is to teach a horse to execute them by driving up from behind, versus trying to use forward momentum to fall into them
A good example is a horse picking up the lope by trotting faster and faster, until he falls into it, versus a horse rocking weight back and driving up into that lope departure from behind
Flexing ahorse's head and neck, endlessly , while standing still, I agree is over done by many NH trainers in particular, and done incorrectly, can be a negative, but it is not 'one or the other', as far as training, anymore then a counter canter as a training exercise, and does not replace a correct lead canter.
Yes, when you are teaching 'guide' to a horse, you only want to tip the nose slightly in that direction of turn, and then have the rest of the body follow through in correct alignment, using legs as needed, to teach this
Because you teach a horse to give his head, as you might need to do, in something like the one rein stop, does not mean the horse then will just over react, versus respond to a very light rein cue when ridden, following through with his entire body
Again, watch some videos by Larry Trocha (he has them readily available on youtube, and that is why I refer to him often )
In his vidoes on dealing with spooking, you will see him take the head away on his horses, along with the correct use of body control, to get a horse back to him, versus having them try to buck, bolt, ect
At the same time, watch any of his training vidoes, and those horses stay in correct aleignment, which means never over bending head or neck. You have to know how to use any tool correctly, and also teach the horse the difference
 
#10 ·
I have seen that L. Trocha video before. it is good.

I think much of what I am talking about pertains to people who are not training for any discipline. in fact, they are low leverl riders, who are just looking to have better communication skills with their horses.

Charley isn't about you training your horse for quicker stops, though if his students were further along, he might go there.

he's talking about things that I consider much lower, more foundational. it has to do with how you think about your horse, how aware you are of him, and how he thinks about you. and how you can improve that by deep clarity, and that starts with the horse's mind. that is what he talks about .

for example, having the horse who is flexed side to side, deeply, eventually gets to the place where the horse 'whips' his head over, side to side, because he wants to get through it all faster. he isn't really in there, thinking on what he's doing. he's going through automatic motions. also, as the horse whips its head around, it will rotate the head in such a way that real stretching doesn't happen, and the horse's weight gets thrown onto the opposite shoulder: the weight gets heavier on the forehand, which makes him less able to move his shoulders over, less ready to rock back onto his haunches for the next move. when the horse 'whips' through this so-called 'supplying' he goes past the point of thinking, of 'getting ready' for your direction.

so, what Charley is saying is that all you really want is for the horse to be able to have enough conscious connection to the rein that he flexes and becomes ready, at which point you may decide to pull him all the way around, and if you do, he is THERE , on the rein, mentally. but the horse doesn't make that decision. yo9u may decide to ask him to step off in the direction you've flexed him,. or you may ask for a leg yield off the other way. but, your ideal is to get him to give softly , just enough and to be ready and available for further direction.

the mounting exersizes are not to GET him to be by the mounting block. they are akin to an small amount of lunging you might do to kind of test out your horse's mental state , before you do mount up. he was just saying that yo9u can do it from the mounting block, which gets your horse used to being focused on you AND the mounting black as the center of direction. there are many ways to make a horse stand still by a mounting block. some involve such things as having someone stand on the other side, basically 'forcing' the horse to do that. others make not standing there so uncomfortable the horse wants to stand there. many ways to get him to stand for mounting.

and with regard to 'taking the horse's head away'. it sure is a useful tool to have. (just yesterday I had to use that when my friend's horse spooked and wanted to buck under me. I hadn't ridden him in ages and he was very fresh)

but, it works best when the rein becomes connected to the hind end, so you can get that disengagement, to disconnect the 'engine' from the car. and, Charley wants to work on that process slowly, asking the horse to 'think' his way through each part of the stepping over and disengaging. if you watch Buck Branaman, he does it the same way.

in any case, the stuff that Charley is presenting is not meant to be necessarily a 'program' for training for success in any discipline. it's about the small things. about the many ways that we miss the chance to be on good footing with our horses.

for example. his emphasis on YOU leaving the horse, not having the horse leave you was a real eye openner to me, and yet, I now practice this and I think it is a better way. small thing.

and, having the horse's two eyes/ears before you pet the face. its a small thing, but the horse is keeping his escape avenues open, and you want him to commit to you, even if it's only for a minute. there's something important in that.

these are things I never even think on, but they make a difference. you watch folks like Charley use them and you see how much happier the horses are with him.
 
#11 ·
Hi Tiny
I sure never meant to infer that what Charlie is saying is not just good horse sense but just like NH, nothing really new, far as fundamentals good horse trainers just 'know;
I can see where it simplifies things for people that ;t really have not had the time to just develop good horse sense, able to read a horse and use that connection, while understanding the basic innate things that govern a horse, because of the innate creature he evolved to be.
The 'leaving the horse', is a concept we have used to start colts for along time
When we first get on a horse, we alway just stepped up in one stirrup'perhaps bounced up in it a bit, all the while observing the hroses comfort level, then stepped off, before we passed that comfort level, and walked away.
The horse would follow.
Repeat each side,before finally swinging on, always stepping off,letting the horse absorb, and the hrose would always follow as we walked away. This is one example of the correct use of join up
Far as whipping the head around, that is an example of doing lateral flexing to the extreme, and incorrectly, and I also agree that it is best done riding, while using body control also. If you watch the video by Larry trocha on spooking, that is exactly what he does
I am glad that you enjoyed the clinic, and tookthe time to share!
 
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