I watched a horse starting competition on video the other day. One of the trainers left his saddle in the round yard with the horse, explaining that this allowed the horse to look at the saddle and get ‘used to’ it. When the horse walked over and sniffed the saddle, the crowd clapped as though … Read more
If you want to learn how to lunge a horse, don’t use a round yard; your horse will simply run round and round the fence without learning anything. To lunge a horse, start in a twenty foot square yard with a plain headstall and lead rope on your horse. Teach him to walk a circle … Read more
This video shows the basic ground lessons you can teach every horse. Learn more here:
Most people feel apprehensive when they start a horse under saddle. The last thing they want to do is actually get on the horse’s back, because they’re worried he might buck. So they spend days and sometimes weeks chasing horses with waving flags and flapping tarps. They saddle horses and drive them in long reins … Read more
How Smart is Your Horse? How intelligent is your horse? Are some horses smarter than others? Are humans smarter than horses, or are horses smarter than humans? Horses think all the time and maybe we should take a hint from that. Yes, horses do think differently to humans. Not less, just differently. If a horse … Read more
If you go to a rodeo and ride a bucking horse for eight seconds, you could be in the money. Eight seconds is all it takes and that’s not very long. Count it out and see. Rodeo horses only have to work for eight seconds, once or twice a week. A rodeo horse is allowed … Read more
When you ride your horse, many trainers would have you believe that the biggest problems to overcome are plastic bags blowing in the wind, umbrellas suddenly opening and a world covered in plastic tarps. The first thing these trainers do is frighten young horses with plastic bags, flags, tarps, umbrellas and goodness knows what else. … Read more
THE HORSE’S LAMENT By Neil Davies He puts a dreadful halter on, it’s made from rope and knots And when he jerks and jerks my head, it really hurts me lots He flaps a stupid flag each day, I don’t know what to do And though I try to please him, he hits me … Read more
The biggest problem to overcome in horse training is human behaviour. Humans come up with all sorts of theories and methods, then try to make every horse fit their set lessons. Many people cling to traditional theories and set methods, no matter how their horses react. Instead of trying to make horses adapt to … Read more
We’re often told that horses are mimics and will copy whatever their ‘leader’ does. I’ve seen trainers run along in a trotting motion when they want a horse to trot alongside them. Even better, when they want the horse to canter, I’ve seen trainers skip along pretending to canter, thinking that the horse will copy … Read more