Natural Horse Training

Young horse training is really no different than what you would do with an older horse. You want the horse to lead well, and teach him to respond to the basic yields. This means helping him understand yielding to pressure applied to the forehand, mid-section, and hindquarter. Getting him to understand these cues is an important step for getting him ready to be ridden later on. Its also important to teach the horse to be relaxed on cue. This can be accomplished by dropping the head, which is also a gentle way to teach submission.

A great exercise to do when training a young horse is circling. But rather than using mindless lunging, the exercise can be designed to teach several things:

• Attentiveness
• Relaxation
• Changing speed and direction on your cue
• Desensitization

When circling you don’t want your horse to just trot out of there, have him start at a walk. You can get him to start listening by alternatively asking for walk, trot, and canter. Another way to keep him paying attention and getting him used to different stimuli is to make the circle alternatively large and small. Also, look for an eye on you and bump with the rope to get his attention if he’s looking elsewhere.

When the circle is small, reach out and pat your horse on his midsection. This helps desensitize the horse.

Changing directions can be used to incorporate other training tools. Ask for a backup, drop the head, and flex the horse. Flexing is a vital tool when training a young horse. It will teach him to respond lightly to the reins, and develops an “emergency stop” that can be used to shut him down in a runaway situation.

In this sample young horse training video, Eric demonstrates the circling exercise.

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Leading a horse is one of the most important training activities we do with our horses, yet so many people pay little attention to it. Next time you’re around people and horses watch everyone and see how things are going for them-you’ll be able to tell instantly who is in charge of the two-member human-horse “herd”. Does the horse fight with the person by being stubborn, pulling back or dragging on the lead rope? Or does he blow past when the person comes to a stop? If so, the horse is in charge and not the human. If you aren’t in charge while leading a horse, do you want to be on his back and wonder if you’re in charge then?

Here’s a test you can do. Walk out with your horse and lead him around for a bit. Then come to a sudden stop. Does he stop with you? Or take one or more steps? If its the latter, then you’ve got a problem. Look for the nose to go past your shoulder. If the nose goes past your shoulder, then he’s leading you.

Another thing to look for is where is his attention? Are both his eyes focused on you? Is he attentive looking to see what you’re going to ask, or is he looking off in the distance? If he’s not keeping his attention on you while you’re leading then that’s another sign he’s not seeing you as the “alpha” of the herd.

Leading a horse is an excellent training opportunity because its an easy situation where you can work to establish your leadership. In this sample clip, Eric is working with a disrespectful horse that had come in to a rescue ranch.Watch how Eric talks about keeping the attention of the horse. A

In this next video, also shot with a rescue horse, Eric demonstrates three simple exercises you can to to get your horse to see you as the alpha of the herd. This includes walking backwards away from the horse, changing leading positions (including a “driving” position) and backing up the horse.

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Lunging a horse can be a lot more than simply having your horse run around you in circles. How many people do you know that lunge their horses to wear them out? So many people use the exercise to take the “hot” out of the “hot blooded” before a ride, when the truth is lunging a horse can be used as a training exercise that teaches a horse to listen to you and look to you for guidance. Both of these are key for safe riding. Here are some tips for things you can incorporate into the exercise to take it to a new level of training.

1. Start off at a walk
Don’t just let your horse trot or canter out of there. Start slow and easy. The purpose of this is to have your horse listen to you so he knows how fast to move, rather than just taking off. This will make the horse more attentive when you’re riding him. When he walks nice and easy for you, then you can ask for a trot.

2. Open and close the circle
Instead of just having your pony running around you at a fixed distance, reel him in and have him walk closer to you. You can even pat him on the side as he’s going by. This helps desensitize him to uncomfortable stimuli.

3. Don’t just send him out the other direction
The point where you ask him to go the other direction is an opportunity to work on other exercises, to keep him calm and relaxed, and paying attention. Instead of just sending him out the other way, ask for a back up first. Then drop his head and flex both sides, and then send him out.

4. Alternate walk, trot, and canter
Use lunging to teach your horse to pay attention for cues so that he’ll do it automatically while being ridden. Don’t always have your equine cantering around to wear him down. Instead, regularly (and unpredictably) ask for walk, trot, and canter, and mix it up.

5. Keep an eye on you
A horse that’s paying attention to what’s happening around the corner rather than paying attention to you isn’t safe. Keep an eye on you by bumping the rope when he’s not paying attention.

Here is a sample clip to illustrate some of these ideas you can incorporate into lunging a horse:

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We’ve all had problems catching a horse at one time or another. And if you’ve watched other people doing it, you’ve seen them out there with carrots begging their horse to come in, or rounding up a posse of friends to try and chase down the horse and corner him when he’s worn out. These methods may or may not work, but wouldn’t you rather catch a horse from a position of leadership and trust, where your horse catches you instead of you catching him? I thought I’d share these tips for catching a horse with you. After reading them check out Eric’s video clip where he shows you how to apply them. If you’ve got some tips of your own, I’d love to hear them from you in the comments section.

1. Push The Horse
Yep its kind of counter-intuitive, but its a great way to establish leadership. In wild horse herds, the dominant or “alpha” horses move the other horses around. It sounds crazy, but when you encounter a hard-to-catch equine, start by pushing him.

2. Look for Signs of Acceptance
The goal of pushing the horse isn’t to wear him down. Instead, look for signs of acceptance-signs the horse is catching you. These include licking the lips, flicking an ear at you, or an eye on you. Back down the pressure when he shows signs of acceptance.

3. Come to a stop when the horse stops and looks at you
The big sign to look for is the horse looking at you. If he stops and looks at you, instantly take the pressure off. Taking pressure off is a big reward for a horse.

4. Walk in lateral movements instead of straight on
The impulse people have is to walk right up to the horse. Walk laterally instead. Predators go straight on toward prey animals, and walking straight up to your horse triggers the instinct to get away. Walking laterally reduces fear and will actually stimulate his curiosity.

5. Play hard to get
Think back to your high school or dating days. The fact is, girls don’t wan the boys they already know they have. Nope they want the aloof cool dudes that act like they really don’t need women. Playing hard to get will help you get the girl, and it’ll help you get the horse too. When you take your attention off the horse you start getting their attention. The horse assumes an attitude of “hey look at me”. Taking your attention of a hard-to-catch pony will actually draw him in.

6. If he moves again, instantly put pressure
Always push the horse if he shows signs of movement away from you. Help him figure out where the rest is-which is with you.

7. Don’t intend to catch the horse
Horses can pick up on our deepest intentions because they shine through our body language. If you’re frustrated about getting that lead rope and halter on, change your attitude and focus on something else. Think about playing golf or plan your shopping list when you’re in the pasture with that difficult equine.

In this sample clip, Eric demonstrates these methods for catching a horse.

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Effective horse training methods focus on developing a communication link between human and horse. The goal is to have a horse that’s light and responsive, attentive, and safe. You begin by building a foundation on the ground, and this is true regardless of what riding style you’re using. While there are going to be some specifics to Western, English, Trail or Dressage, let’s review a few horse training methods that are so fundamental that they apply regardless of what style you’re using.

The first is to teach your horse basic yields. The horse doesn’t know if you’re English, Western, or Australian or care what kind of saddle you have. But all horses respond to pressure by their nature. So the first task in training a horse is to set up a system by which the horse understands what you’re asking him to do when you apply pressure, and that he yields to the pressure as appropriate.

There are only a few basic areas where we need to apply pressure and teach the horse to respond. Think about the horse’s body. We need to control the nose to control where we’re going. We need to control the hind to control how fast we’re going, and we’re also going to communicate with the horse via the mid-section. Control each of these areas and you control the movement of the horse.

The best way to start teaching a horse about yields is to begin with ground training. I’m sure you’d rather have your horse to learn to disengage the hindquarter on the ground the first time, rather than when you’re sitting on his back, making him confused and frustrated.

Teaching basic yields is simple: apply pressure, then release at the right instant. You want to time the release perfectly, because horses learn from the release. The instant you release is what you’re teaching your horse to look for. In this sample horse training clip, Eric shows how to use pressure and release to teach basic movements on the ground.

You’ll also want to incorporate other basic movements like backing your horse up. Here is another clip from the same video, where Eric talks about body zones and does some backing up of the horse:

Although Eric is a “natural horsemanship trainer”, I’m sure you’ll agree that these horse training methods are actually quite general. Ground training isn’t a “natural horsemanship” thing, its just a good common-sense way to start teaching a horse the behaviors we want.

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In this sample video, Eric shows how to teach a horse to side pass. First, he discusses the difference between shoulder in and the side pass. Then he talks about how to do both exercises and demonstrates how to side pass a horse. These exercises are both done in the saddle. Beginners should note that they can start teaching their horse how to side pass on the ground first.


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Before you get that loving, trusting bond with your horse that you want, you must become a leader. Being a leader not only builds trust with your horse but helps with safety and makes your horse light and responsive. It follows that your horse will be good to ride.

Personal Space

You can go into the personal space of the horse, but he can’t go into your personal space. This not only establishes you as a leader, but promotes safety.

Movement

Control the feet, control the horse. By controlling movement you establish leadership. Control how fast, when and where.

Consistency
You want your horse to be confident in your leadership. This requires consistency. If you’re consistent, he will always know what you want and be confident in you.

Timing
Horses yield to pressure, and we teach him cues by applying pressure and giving a release when he does what’s asked. If you release at the wrong instant, at best you confuse the horse and you may even end up teaching the wrong thing. Release the pressure at the instant the horse starts doing what you ask.

Hang In As Long As You Need To

If you apply pressure to ask a horse to move or lower his head, and he resists, don’t give up to early. That teaches the horse that he can get release from the pressure by resisting. Hang in there long enough until he figures out where the release is.

Being prey animals, horses have their eyes located more on the side of their head. This gives them the kind of vision they need in the wild to spot threats. When it comes to horsemanship, this has a practical aspect we need to be aware of. If you’ve got one eye you’ve only got half the brain. If you’ve got two eyes, you’ve got the full attention of the horse.

If the horse is looking at you only with his left eye, that means at least some of his attention is devoted to what’s going on in his right visual field. In the wild this could suit a horse well, because he could be paying some attention to the herd and also looking out for a predator lurking in the brush.

But when it comes to the human-horse herd, as part of establishing leadership for our safety we want the complete attention of the horse. After all, if your horse is not paying complete attention to you out on the trail he’s liable to be paying attention to something happening off in the distance, and that could spell trouble for you. We can build attention by getting two eyes focused on us. One area where you can work on this is while backing up your horse. If the nose isn’t pointed toward you, give a little bump with the lead rope to bring the nose toward you to get two eyes. Then praise the horse and release the tension in the rope as a reward.

This concept also plays into any training you do with your horse. If you teach the horse to disengage the hindquarter or to move the forehand, be sure to to it with both sides of the horse.

Its almost February which means that riding season will be soon upon us. The time to start brushing up on what you’re going to do with your horse this spring is now. With that in mind I’ve compiled my top 3 list of horse training books.

1. Natural Horse-Man-Ship by Pat Parelli

If you’re looking to brush up on natural horse training this book is a must read. In fact despite all the videos and courses that have come out in the intervening years, if you can only take one thing about Parelli with you this book is it. An excellent introductory chapter describes the core ideas of natural horsemanship and gets you thinking like a horse, or at least understanding how horses see things.

From there we go into ground training, covering six yields, sensitizing and desensitizing, lateral longeing, and trailer loading among a wide variety of other topics.

This is followed by a long chapter on riding to get you doing natural horsemanship in the saddle.

The book is written in a nice conversational tone so its easy to read. Its only around $12, and you’ll learn everything about Parelli you need to know.

2. Communicating with Cues by John Lyons

Communicating with cues by John Lyons is an excellent book that will give you a thorough introduction to natural horsemanship. While its no longer in print, used copies are floating around and its possible to snag one from amazon.

The book actually comes in two volumes, and I confess at this point I’ve only read the first volume. It covered natural horse training techniques on the ground, with an excellent chapter on round pen work. A deep discussion of desensitizing your horse is given, using an instructive example of touching a horse’s ear.

Like the Parelli book, its easy reading.

3. Breaking Your Horse’s Bad Habits by W. Dayton Sumner

This books a little older than the first two, and maybe that’s a good thing. Its packed with old-age wisdom from a man who spent a lifetime around horses. The first chapter, titled “Why Horses Act The Way They Do” is excellent reading and the understanding of horses you’ll gain just from this is worth the price of the book. Other insightful chapters include “How Horses Learn”, “How Habits Are Formed”, and “How Habits Are Changed”.

From there the author discusses what to do with various bad behaviors your horse might be bothering you with, such as not walking, balking, runaways, buckers, rearing, shying and so on.

A great $12 investment for the horse owner.

When working with a horse, especially a “green” or unbroken horse, avoid putting too much pressure. Apply pressure to ask for what you want and then back off. Then apply pressure again. This technique is known as Approach and Retreat. It can be applied to any work you need to do with your horse, including holding and trimming feet, desensitizing the horse to having her ears touched, or when trying to catch a horse that doesn’t want to be caught.

To understand approach and retreat a little better lets consider approaching a young horse that’s not used to being handled. When first interacting with the horse, you need to let her know that you’re her leader. Begin by pushing the horse. Keep the horse’s feet moving, then look for signs of submission. A real good sign of submission is when the horse lowers the head. Dropping of the head also indicates relaxation. Other signs of relaxation and acceptance are licking of the lips and blinking. Also look for an eye or ear on you. This indicates the horse is paying attention to you, having a conversation with you so to speak to try and figure out what you are asking. Its the first step to building trust and communication with the horse.

When pushing the horse by having her move her feet, make sure she sees you as a source of comfort. You do this by letting her rest when she shows those signs of relaxation we mentioned earlier. When she does this, take the pressure off and let her stop. You may then begin to approach the horse, but here is where we use approach and retreat. Don’t go straight on up to the horse until the pressure builds so much that she decides to move off. Instead, when you feel the pressure building, or she shows positive signs such as looking at you, retreat and take the pressure off.  In other words back off and walk away from the horse. Then approach again and get a little bit closer.

When working with horses all too often people react to what their horse is doing. Turn this around-you want your horse reacting to you rather than the other way around.

In this natural horse training video, Eric demonstrates approaching an unbroken horse.