The Art of Natural Dressage

The Goat On A Mountain Top is supposed to be done with the head down. Head up is a variation, done gradually, that was shown to me by my trainer friend, Paul Dufresne.

In the normal GOTM (Goat on THE Mountain), with the head down, stretches the topline wonderfully well. The balance point is the front feet...you can even see a horse wobble forward and back, balancing on the front feet. By bringing the head up, even slightly, you begin to shift the weight backward. Some horses (like Cisco) will take a very long time to become strong enough not to move the back feet further back as soon as you ask the head to come up a little.

Theoretically, if a horse learns to keep his feet still, then can raise his head to the point that the poll is the highest point, then they will be balancing almost entirely on the hind legs. It is a very tiring position, so with Tam (who is almost able to do this now), I use it only as a momentary transition into something else...like walking briskly forward out of it, or perhaps in the future, rearing up, piaffe, etc, in which they can then move the feet. If I want the position held for any length of time, the head pretty much has to stay down, or only slightly raised.

I transition to a brisk walk with Tam (not always so "brisk" but that is the goal), then halt, then back to GOTM, then back to brisk walk, etc, so he will hopefully learn, essentially, a partial GOTM in movement. The GOTM is on verbal cue (my cue word is "PUSH"), and through these GOTM/walk/GOTM/walk transitions, I hope at some point to be able to simply verbally cue a more exaggerated stepping under of the hind legs (or shift to collection) by saying the word "PUSH" while he is already in movement.

I'm assuming it will be a long time yet before he's made this connection (if ever).

But the true and original "Goat" as far as I know, is head down. I have also heard it called "End of the Trail", or "Elephant on a Ball", or "Stand On a Dime".

Thank you very much for the comments
That goat on the mountain I have to try

Donald- I love you sentence: love is trust, trust is all.
That is very beautiful and truth.

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Helen
http://wwwesprit.blogspot.com

That seems like very sad name for such an exercise...

And it's true that the original mountaingoat is with head down and hooves as close together as possible, but that there is also a more collected, higher mountaingoat. The thing is though that in order to be able to shift his bodyweight backwards in order to curl up the back in collection, the hooves need to be placed a bit further away from each other. With a higher neckposture and the hooves very close to each other, the horse will not have the room to lift his back correctly and instead of being truly collected, will just lift his head and sag in his back, becoming hollow in the back instead. About exactly the opposite that you would want to see.

Both Tam and Cisco scooch the back feet a bit farther back when I ask the head to come up. I feel they know where they must be, so I never got picky about it. Especially with Cisco, who has enough trouble doing a full goat with his head down, I do not ask him to keep the feet so close when he raises his head.

Well, I got confirm to this sentence by NHE School members, that we really need to tell the horse "wait, not now, we will do jumps after 2 or 4 years".
And what is the conclusion here? We wont develop further, we standstill or reverse. This is very "motivating"!!!!!!!

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Helen
http://wwwesprit.blogspot.com

All my videos are removed and you can see them in my diary:

http://www.artofnaturaldressage.com/viewtopic.php?t=683

_________________
Helen
http://wwwesprit.blogspot.com

Waw...
It is so amazing. I watched your videos. And they all are so stunning. It is really amazing.
Keep up, you are very talented!

Greetings

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I wish I knew your world