Ashley Villmow Professional Reining Horse Trainer
Gillette, WY
Ashley Villmow is a professional reining horse trainer located in Gillette, WY. Kluz Performance Horses has been in business since 2008. Ashley specializes in training reining and all-around show horses. I worked with Ashley for three days and focused on rollbacks, lead changes, backing up straight and practice patterns. As with each stop along my trip Ashley help build my knowledge base as a rider. Irish also helped teach her horse Augie that being next to a horse he doesn’t know isn’t so scary.
Rollback
Taking a page from Ashley’s cutting horse background she used her horse Augie to incentivize Irish to depart out of the rollback faster. We lined both horses up parallel to each other, then backed them up so they had their weight on their back end. Ashley would than roll Augie back toward me and lope off down the straight line. I would have to shadow her by rolling Irish back toward her and chase them down the straight line and stop. Doing this exercise really helped get Irish to snap out of his rollback and depart more quickly in the opposite direction.
Lead Change
For this exercise, I made a figure eight shape around the arena. Starting on the correct lead I loped around one end and then turned to cut across the center of the arena on a diagonal into the other circle on the counter canter at the opposite end of the arena. I would then continue around and across the center maintaining the counter canter. Once at the opposite side of the arena I would be back on the correct lead. As I turned to cross the arena again I would ask for the lead change on the straight line just before or after I passed center. Once the lead change was done I continued around the circle and stopped as I started the next diagonal line across center. This exercise allows you to work on lead changes without the horse starting to anticipate the change. Click this link to see video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btt6swO5Xec
Stretching
Two exercises that we did were more for me as a rider. One was to help stretch my lower back and the other was to help balance my weight evenly in my stirrups. Ashley had me place my free hand on Irish’s mane and slightly round over to stretch my lower back as I loped around. She regularly does this to help loosen her lower back to allow her to move in fluidly with the horse. The second was done by lifting my butt slightly out of the saddle and asking Irish to back up. This helps to keep you centered over the horse and prevents you from shifting your hips from side to side as you back up. The goal is to help the rider to have correct body position which helps the horse to back up straight. Click this link to see video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDQ1_ab9IPk
Backing up straight
Backing up straight seems like an easy thing to do but getting your horse to do it does take some practice. It is important to have your weight balanced and look straight ahead as you back up. If you are leaning it can cause your horse to back up crooked. Once you are sure you are straight, ask your horse to back up. If they are leaning off to one side continue to back them up but turn them in a circle in the opposite to the way they are leaning. After repeating this multiple times, your horse will begin to learn that staying straight is easier and start backing up straight more consistently.
Pattern Work
Anyone that shows reining horses knows they need to work on patterns. Ashley’s method for pattern work is to do modified combinations of reining horse and horsemanship patterns. You can combine multiple maneuvers into to short combinations to practice moving through a pattern. Doing this helps you think about pattern flow without constantly repeating the patterns that you have to do in the show pen.
While at Ashley’s’ I logged 8 hours toward the AQHA Horseback Riding Program. https://www.aqha.com/riding
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While I was with Ashley Villmow I logged 6 hours toward my AQHA Riding Program Hours
https://www.aqha.com/trail-riding/programs/aqha-horseback-riding-program
Please visit the Kluz Preformance Horses website at http://kluzperformancehorses.com/ for more information about Ashley Villmow.