Horseman’s Corner Radio

Saddle Fit - Jeff Gollehon

Jeff Gollehon is with us. He has Grizzly Saddlery at Great Falls, Montana. It's a full service shop, but they also make custom saddles, and he finds a problem with saddle fit that's a little bit different and kind of interesting.   "One of the things that is, to me, that I have found over my career that is probably one of the most important things, the stirp slot on the tree, on the underside of the tree where your stirp leather goes up over the tree and back down, and that's the part that has the holes in it for your stirp leather adjustment, that piece of leather has to go up over the top of the tree and back down, and it sits under the tree between your sheepskin and the wooden tree. And that's actually what holds the weight of the person when that person is riding. And what we are seeing in a lot of trees, whether they're factory-made companies that we carry in the store, or even some of the custom trees that we see come through, that bar slot that has to be relieved for that stirp leather, from my experience, is usually not deep enough."

Timing - Vaughn Knudsen

Join co-host Nelseena Lehmann as she asks our guest, Vaughn Knudsen about the keys to great horsemanship.

Riding with Equal Pressure

On this interview, the late Howard Hale had Ron Knodle, the unknown horseman, talking about his training methods. Let's check in on that conversation. Nebraska horseman Ron Knodle is our guest today.   Ron, give us some of your thoughts about how you ought to use your hands and your legs, particularly on that young horse that you're starting. The two-handed stuff, whether you're in a hackamore or a snaffle, the more that you keep pulling on one rein, the more that they fall to the outside, and you're not going to be able to, for example, make a reining horse when you need to push him through the turns. So one of the things that I've been doing really strong with most of my people that I've been working with in the later years is using almost equal pressure with your inside and outside rein and do more trying to push the horse through the turns than to pull him through the turns so that he was not as apt to fall out to the outside.   And what are your legs doing in that situation? I ride my horse as one-legged. For example, when I start a young horse, I open and close doors as a pre-signal. So if I'm riding a young horse along and I want to go to the ride, the first thing I do is my right leg comes off, the left leg comes on.   The right hand and the right leg work in unison. They come off of the horse and the left leg would come on if I was going to the right and vice versa. Trainer and clinician Ron Knodle with the late Howard Hale.

When To Release Pressure

The timing of the release is everything.

Bryan Neubert on Pressure

We have horseman and clinician Brian Neubert on the program today.   After more than 20 years of training these colts, is there anything new that you've learned? Well, I don't know if it's something new, but more sensitive to the importance of observing, detecting the horse efforts toward what I want to accomplish. It's whole thing really amounts to encouraging thoughts and actions you want and discouraging thoughts and actions you don't want. And I suppose until I'm done working with horses, I'll probably get, hopefully, more sensitive on that aspect.   Relieving the pressure when the horse even has a thought in the direction that I want to go. And I don't guess I'll ever try to get more sensitive on that, but that's where the efficiency comes in and it makes it or breaks it. That's just very, very important.   Veteran horseman and clinician Brian Neubert on the Horseman's Corner. That's going to do it for today's program, but there's more on the web at horsemanscorner.com. And don't forget about that Facebook page, Horseman's Corner Radio and Podcast. Visit and follow today.