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Our farrier is a master farrier - Troy is also a really good bloke with a load of fabulous advice about training horses.

He does team roping, we do showjumping and dressage. He recommended the bloke who breaks in our horses, that guy does campdrafting, bronc riding and cutting. 

Some people might question how all those disciplines and philosophies work together…

As Troy, our fabulous coach Jenelle Waters and her great friend Peter Simmonds would say, ‘a horse, is a horse’ - work your warmblood World Cup show jumpers along the banks of the river, take them mustering, let them be horses.

A horse, is a horse - regardless of the discipline, the foundation and aim is the same. We all want safe, sound, rideable and willing horses. 

Back to the 1% rule.

Standing in the heat and the flies with our farrier, I was telling him about some glitches with my mare and he said ‘Sal, you’ve got to both breathe’ and then added ‘it’s the 1% rule’.

The 1% rule is - that if you aim for 1% improvement each day, over 100 days, you get 100% improvement. Don’t try to fix everything at once, you can’t and you’ll just create tension in your horse and yourself. Just aim for 1%.

He had told me to let the horses breathe on numerous occasions but if you know me, you know me #idiot

He then went got his immaculately trained team roping horse and it finally clicked.

He sat there and waited for the horse to relax and ‘breathe’.

He then ‘asked a question’ calmly and when the horse did it, that was it. No repeated practise or drilling. The horse’s reward, for doing the right thing, was release of pressure and a break. 

I noticed that he never repeated a movement more than once in a row - if he did a circle to the right, the next movement was a circle to the left. 

We also spoke about volume of work - less is more and speed (of training/ work) - slow is smooth, smooth is faster.