The Equine Listenology Guide - Essential Horsemanship, Horse Body Language & Behaviour, Groundwork, In-hand Exercises & Riding Lessons to Develop Softness, Connection & Collection.
By Elaine Heney
5/5
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About this ebook
Enjoy this 'Listening to the Horse' inspired equestrian book, packed full of stories, lessons, case studies and training exercises for you & your horse. This book is the first book in the Equine Listenology trilogy, which includes a companion workbook & journal. Perfect for both English & western riders. This Listenology guide also includes lots of in-hand, groundwork and riding homework for you to try out at home with your horse. Plus all readers are invited to join our free online equestrian community & meet others who understand the importance of listening to the horse.
Book contents:
- The Listening to the Horse documentary
- 14 Cornerstone principles of Listenology
- Groundwork & in hand exercises
- 10 minute lessons and bad weather exercises
- The #1 lead rope mistake to avoid
- The no pull training exercise
- Confidence training & ground work
- Walking in hand with your horse
- Herd bound and barn sour horses
- Liberty work and partnership building
- Dancing with Matilda & horsemanship
- 6 Benefits of polework exercises
- Cavaletti training exercises
- Sideways exercises & dressage
- Lateral work & collection
- How to start shoulder out
- The Royal Stables in Cordoba, Spain
- Which bitless bridle is right for my horse?
- Does my saddle fit my horse?
- The comfort zone riding exercise
- How to use less rein cues
- Riding one handed
- The changing direction exercise
- Posture & the still shoulders exercise
- The lower back riding exercise
- The Holy Grail of horse riding
- Footfall sequence exercise
- Fun with Cones
- Fun with Polework
- The Balance Bootcamp
- Other books in this series:.
- Equine Listenology workbook
- Equine Listenology journal
- Equine Listenology diary
Elaine Heney is the #1 best-selling author, award-winning film-maker, director of Grey Pony Films, and creator of the 'Listening to the Horse™' documentary. She has helped over 120,000+ horse owners in 113 countries to create awesome relationships with their horses. Elaine lives in Ireland with her horses Ozzie & Matilda. Discover Elaine's series of world renowned online groundwork, riding & training programs at Grey Pony Films
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Reviews for The Equine Listenology Guide - Essential Horsemanship, Horse Body Language & Behaviour, Groundwork, In-hand Exercises & Riding Lessons to Develop Softness, Connection & Collection.
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Difficult concepts broken down into understandable chunks with exercises anyone can do! Will definitely refer back to this book.
Book preview
The Equine Listenology Guide - Essential Horsemanship, Horse Body Language & Behaviour, Groundwork, In-hand Exercises & Riding Lessons to Develop Softness, Connection & Collection. - Elaine Heney
The Equine Listenology Guide
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Elaine Heney
Horse books for adults
www.elaineheneybooks.com
The Equine Listenology Guide
Dressage for Beginners
The Listenology Guide to Bitless Bridles
Ozzie, the Story of a Young Horse
Conversations with the Horse
Horse Anatomy Colouring Book
Horse books for kids
Listenology for Kids age 8-14
P is for Pony – The ABC Alphabet Book for kids 2+
Horse Care, Riding and Training for kids 6-11
Horse Puzzles, Games & Brain Teasers for kids 7-14
The Coral Cove Series for kids
The Riding School Connemara Pony
The Storm and the Connemara Pony
The Surprise Puppy and the Connemara Pony
The Castle Charity Ride and the Connemara Pony
The Connemara Adventure Series for kids
The Forgotten Horse
The Show Horse
The Mayfield Horse
The Stolen Horse
The Adventure Horse
The Lost Horse
The Equine Listenology Guide
Copyright © 2021 by Elaine Heney
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
First Edition May 2021
Illustrations by Faye Hobson
Editing by Kas Fitzpatrick
Published by Grey Pony Films
www.greyponyfilms.com
About Elaine Heney
Elaine Heney is an Irish horsewoman, film producer at Grey Pony Films, #1 best-selling author, and director of the award-winning 'Listening to the Horse™' documentary. She has helped over 120,000+ horse owners in 113 countries to create awesome relationships with their horses. Elaine's mission is to make the world a better place for the horse. She lives in Ireland with her horses Ozzie & Matilda.
––––––––
Online horse training courses
Discover our series of world-renowned online groundwork, riding, training programs and iPhone and Android apps. Visit Grey Pony Films & learn more: www.greyponyfilms.com
Discover all Elaine’s books at www.elaineheneybooks.com
Contents
Directing a documentary
Horses in Ireland
The Australian adventure
Trips to England
The Principles of Listening to the Horse
Cornerstones
Eat the elephant
Ozzie and the pole of death
Homework:
Learning to help
The scary gap
The power of consistency
Homework:
Comfort zones
Homework:
Delayed gratification
Buying a new horse in Kilkenny
Homework:
Try & reward
Unlabel your horse
Horse’s health
Avoiding gadgets
Age and goals
The rollercoaster
Groundwork and in hand exercises
10 minute lessons and bad weather exercises
The #1 lead rope mistake to avoid
The no pull exercise
Groundwork tools
Halter and lead rope
The halter fit exercise
Confidence training
Benefits of a confident horse and rider
Walking in hand with your horse
The one mile exercise
Creating a confidence ‘to do’ list
The confidence exercise
#1 Confidence mistake to avoid
Homework:
#2 Confidence mistake to avoid
Homework:
Herd bound and barn sour
The herd bound issue
Homework:
Liberty work and partnership building
Liberty exercise
Magic corner exercise
Polework exercises
6 Benefits of polework exercises
The 1 pole challenge exercise
Cavaletti
Cavaletti exercise
Sideways exercises
Lateral work
Collection
Hello Dressage
How to start shoulder out
The Shoulder out exercise
Young, older and new horses
Older and retired horses
5 Common mistakes to avoid about collection
Riding
Spanish, English, Western, German or Californian?
Riding tools - The bit and bridle
Bitless bridles
Are horses really happier in bitless bridles?
Which bitless bridle is right for my horse?
Bitless bridle options
Rope halter and headcollar
Sidepull
Cross-under and cross-over
Hackamore (Jaquima)
Where to buy a hackamore
Hackamore size
Hackamore construction
The mecate
Hackamore fit
Hackamore care
Hackamore (bosal and mecate) pros and cons
Mechanical hackamore
Bitless bridle fit issues
Contact and the bitless bridle
Is groundwork preparation important?
The Saddle
Does my saddle fit?
Back health exercise
The saddle must fit the horse
Unwanted behaviour that can be caused by the saddle
3 mistakes to avoid when buying a new saddle
Saddle width
The horse width exercise
The saddle width exercise
The saddle test exercise
Saddle length
The last rib exercise
Saddle seat
The saddle seat exercise
Test drive your saddle
Don’t forget the rider
The Rider
Confidence levels
The comfort zone exercise
Using less rein cues
The leg awareness exercise
Riding one handed
Riding one handed exercise
Your seat
The weight in saddle exercise
Using our legs
The changing direction exercise
Posture
The still shoulders exercise
Freedom of movement
The lower back exercise
Sight & focus
Look where you’re going exercise
Breathing
The breathing exercise
The Horse
The Holy Grail of Horse Riding
Footfall
Footfall exercise 1: Swing
Footfall exercise 2: Standing
Footfall exercise 3: Visualisation
Footfall exercise 4: Stand still barrel exercise
The next foot strategy
Footfall exercise 5: Which hind foot will step first?
Improving direction
Perimeter track exercise
Fun with Cones
2 Cones exercise
8 Cones exercise
Fun with Polework
Polework exercises
The fast horse
The energy efficient horse
Walking race exercise
The Balance Bootcamp
The 10-9-8 exercise
Lateral movements
Shoulder in and out
The Shoulder out exercise
Conclusion
Congratulations
Resources
Directing a documentary
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5am in Orlando, Florida
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It was Monday, November 12th, 2018 in Orlando, Florida. I woke up abruptly at 4.30am, drenched in a cold sweat. Waves of anxiety had been pouring off me all night. Sleep had been elusive. I could already feel the nerves starting to gather in the pit of my stomach. The hotel room was pitch dark, the only noise being the whirl of the air conditioning.
My suitcase with its Dublin flight tags was lying in the corner of my room. Outside my window the Florida sun wasn’t scheduled to rise for another 90 minutes. As I rolled out of bed it felt like the whole world was asleep and I was the only soul awake. I turned on the room light, got dressed quickly, walked to the wooden table and sat down in front of my laptop.
Today was going to be one of the most important days in my life. And there were just 28 minutes left to go.
I took a deep breath as my computer monitor flicked into life. Soon thousands of computers around the world would be tuning in. I started to feel physically sick with anxiety.
I looked over at the clock on the wall. It said 4.40am. Just 20 minutes to wait.
I logged into the website and double checked that everything looked ok. The registration page was working. Episode 1 was scheduled to start playing at 5am.
Thankfully during the few hours I had slept there had been no major technical incidents. So far so good. It looked like the last few moments of my plan was working.
15 minutes left to go.
I checked my emails. About 40 emails had come in overnight, a mixture of lost tickets and time zone confusion. I replied to all of them, confirming the launch time and sending out new invitations where needed. Another little step on this crazy project was completed.
I stood up, pushed back my chair and walked over to turn the kettle on. It would be the first of many cups of green tea that day. I noticed that my breathing had gotten faster. I looked at the clock as my stomach clenched with anxiety yet again.
Now there were just 5 minutes to go. Time seemed to have gotten faster too. Outside the world was in darkness. Aside from my laptop whirling and the sound of the fan, there was silence in the room. My palms started to feel sweaty as I stared for the last few moments at the computer screen.
Then, just like that, the small clock on my computer screen changed to 05:00am.
I watched as tens of thousands of emails were sent to homes around the world. Each email contained an invitation to watch day 1 of the top secret project that I had spent months working on without any sleep - working 24/7 to bring it to life.
Now it was the moment of truth.
The whole world would decide what would happen next...
Horses in Ireland
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I had probably better introduce myself. I'm Elaine Heney and I live in Ireland. I sat on a pony for the first time at 6 years of age, to my great delight, and promptly fell in love with equines.
I spent many years growing up having fun with ponies. My family has always had horses too. Both my parents rode and my Dad in particular always had a young horse which he would ‘bring on’. ‘Bringing on’ is the Irish term for building confidence, introducing a saddle and bridle for the first time, doing their first rides and developing them into a happy riding horse. The whole process would take about three to four years.
My grandad had a theory that you should be able to ride your horse with two pieces of silk thread - instead of using normal reins. Your cues should be that small and subtle that riding with a silk thread could be possible.
As I was growing up I understood that it was necessary to always be patient and kind with the horse, treat them with consideration and look at life from a horse's perspective. So my horse riding dreams - even from a young age - were BIG. I wanted to have a happy and confident riding horse. But I also wanted to go even further.
● I wanted to be able to do some of those fancy dressage moves I saw pictures of in horse magazines.
● I wanted to help my horse stay healthy well into old age.
● I wanted to build a partnership with my horse, so they connected to me as much as I connected to them.
While my Dad taught me all of the most important principles of being with a horse from when I was very young, he wasn’t able to teach me the advanced dressage manoeuvres I wanted to learn. I had these crazy dreams of half-passing (a fancy type of sideways movement) across an Irish field with a beautifully balanced horse and swans flying overhead! As a teenager I was sent out to the larger world to get some traditional ‘horse riding’ lessons, to help me achieve my dressage goals. That’s when things started to go wrong.
● Pull her head in more.
● You need to get her more on the bit
.
● You need to get her ‘in a frame’.
● Actually, you just need a stronger bit.
● Nope, that doesn’t work, you need a double bridle (with 2 bits).
● That doesn't work. OK, you need to borrow a different horse.
So many technical terms were thrown at me that I didn't understand, let alone know how to achieve with my horse. Every beautiful dream I had as a child of having a gorgeous riding horse, seemed to disappear out of my reach. I got confused, I got stressed and anxious. The more I tried to do - using stronger hands on the reins, pulling on them a bit more to ask my horse to bring her nose in - just resulted in a more worried and stressed horse and a more worried and stressed me!
The more I tried to improve the worse everything got. It felt totally wrong. It wasn’t fair to my horse. She did not deserve all this force and pressure. I felt so guilty that I had put her through these lessons. So I retired from all competitions and professional lessons at the ripe old age of 23. I felt like a failure in the horse world. I was obviously the wrong person, with the wrong horse, for all these beautiful dressage goals I had! For a few years we did trail rides at home, but I had no plan. I had lost my path.
I still had goals. I still wanted to be a kind horsewoman who was able to develop that light, soft and amazing riding horse without any gadgets or force. However I had no idea if something like that was even possible. I had convinced myself that I just wasn’t a good enough rider (or maybe a tough enough rider) to be able to ride a ‘fancy horse’, doing fancy manoeuvres.
The Australian adventure
After a few years in my first office job in Dublin city I decided the time had come to go backpacking around Australia with some friends. It was the best decision ever.
I spent nearly three months travelling around Melbourne, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Uluru and Sydney. I took a flight up to Brisbane, on the east coast of Australia. Twelve weeks into my great Australian adventure I had a major issue. I’m a horse person, and after so many weeks of backpacking I was having serious withdrawal symptoms! I walked into an internet cafe in Brisbane and asked for an hour's web access. I sat down at a desktop computer and typed in www.google.com. Then I started researching websites of horse treks in Australia and New Zealand.
Anything to get near to a horse again!
I made a short list of about 25 horse treks, and wrote an email to each one, explaining who I was and asking if they had any horse trekking jobs available. Most people didn’t reply and the ones who wrote back to me were already full.
Then an email arrived into my inbox that would change my life. It was from Mt. Lyford Horse Treks in New Zealand, which was about two hours north of Canterbury. They needed a trail guide for their trek business, which involved bringing tourists on horseback around the Southern Alps. They offered me a job as a trek guide in exchange for room and board. It sounded perfect. I would get to spend time with horses again - I was so excited! I booked a flight from Brisbane that evening, and arrived over two days later.
When I arrived at Mt. Lyford I had NO idea what to expect. I knew pretty much nothing about their horse treks, aside from having some lovely pictures of horses and mountains on the website. In fact, it was a wonderful place. All the horses they had there were beautifully cared for and lived together in what I can only describe as paradise on the South Island of New Zealand. But what really astonished me was that all the horses they had there were ridden in rope halters.
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I had never seen a rope halter in my life! And I had certainly never considered using a rope halter, with no bit, to take out tourists. Many of them had never ridden before, and we were out exploring the southern Alps.
A rope halter is simply a halter or headcollar made out of a long piece of rope. The reins are usually another piece of thicker rope. When I was growing up in Ireland a halter or headcollar was something you put on a horse if you wanted to lead him somewhere on foot. It was not something you would use to ride in during lessons - and certainly not up a mountain!
The whole thing did not sound like a good idea to me. How wrong I was!
Over the three months I was there all the tourists were safe and happy. All the horses were happy and healthy. It was one of the most wonderful places to work in the world.
Then one day something really astonished me. The lead trail guide - who was a wonderful horsewoman -