Training Your Horse Our First Web Page - Jacquelyn Geyer & Amberleigh Million

Now you may be asking yourself "What are we talking about?" What we are talking about is that a horse is more than just a beautiful animal. A person needs to remember that a horse is usually much bigger and stronger than they are. Therefore it only makes sense that a person should train a horse to understand what it is that they want them to do. Love and kindness is the first step when working with all animals. For example, when a person has a dog and they teach it to sit or to lay down we call this training the dog. When you have a horse that you want to ride you must teach it to allow you to do so. This is sometimes called breaking a horse. It doesn't mean that people hurt their horses, it means that they are teaching or like we said before TRAINING their horse to do something they want them to do. Here are some ideas about how a person might train their horse.

To train a young horse you must first have patience. To train it to saddle and tack you must let your horse smell and look over the tack. Then very slowly try putting the tack on the horse, if it thows a fit take it off and rub the tack all over the horses body. Then try putting the tack on again. Don't think this will all happen in one day because it probably will not. Sometimes it will take a up to a couple of weeks before a young horse will cooperate with the tack.

If you are going to train your horse to ride than it must already be used to accepting the saddle. This can be accomplished in the same way as the tack. First you get your horse used to having a blanket put on his back. Many times you will have to rub the blanket on the horse. This sometime takes a few days before the horse will allow you to do this. Then comes setting the saddle on the horse. Have someone hold the horse or have them tied to a hitching post and gently set the saddle on their back. Don't be alarmed if it doesn't go right the first time. Eventually the horse will allow you to do this.

Once this is accomplished you can move to the next step, actually getting on. Everyday saddle your horse and pet your horse. Talk to your horse in a gentle voice. Once you think the horse is calm you will put one foot in the stirrup. Then swing your other leg over the horse and sit down very quietly. It is usually a good idea to let someone hold your horse while you are doing this. If you run into trouble while doing this get down and tie your horse to a hitching post. Let it stand there for a while. Then try and mount again. After you can mount and sit for a minute or two, try talking to your horse. Say walk and give it a nudge with the heal of one foot. If you get no response then have someone lead you and then try again by yourself. You may proceed with this process during your training. If you feel you need additional assistance then contacting a trainer might be the step you need to take.

Breaking or Training a horse takes a lot of work and sometimes it is better to contact a person who has a lot of experience with the training of horses. Locating a trainer can be accomplished by looking in the many Horse publications that are available where magazines and books are sold. Like we said before......

It's a job and you need to do it.

FANPLASTIC

HOME

BUYING A HORSE

CRAZY TALES

TRAINING

OTHER LINKS

AMBERLEIGH'S
WORLD

SADDLE &
TACK

WHAT IS
4-H

HEALTH &
SAFETY

GLOSSARY