Ever since Parelli burst on the scene everyone’s abuzz about horse training games. The idea behind the games is to play with the horse doing things he already does naturally. In short they are an encapsulation of how horses interact with each other, essentially designed to get humans to interact with horses correctly. Horse training games aren’t really about training equines, they’re about training humans.

While the following exercises might not exactly seem like playtime, they are based on the same basic principle. Interact with the horse in a natural way. We’re going to set up the following behaviors to interact with the horse in a way he naturally understands. Doing so builds communication and establishes leadership.

1. Round pen training “at liberty”

Round pen training can be used to establish leadership without even touching the horse. Eric shows how in this video.

2. Circling
After you’ve established yourself as a leader, the next of our horse training games is to turn lunging into an exercise that sets up communication between you and your horse. That communication isn’t for giggles or new age bonding, its to build a foundation for riding. In this video-which shows lunging with two different horses- Eric illustrates how to perform this exercise.

3. Leading a Horse
Next, turn your leading from simply dragging a horse from A to B and use it to gently establish leadership.

For more information see how Eric can teach you about horse training games for leadership