Q: How do you feel which lead your horse is on while under saddle? Watching you in person and on video, I am amazed at how you can feel which lead your horse is on in front or behind. Any clues will help!
Whether your horse is kicking up to demonstrate his lack of respect or truly bucking out of fear or habit, there are several ways to fix the problem. If he’s kicking up because he doesn’t want to go forward (which is most often the case), go back and get his feet moving better on the […]
Q: I show my horse in western pleasure classes, but he doesn’t want to keep his head down anymore. He’s so energetic that he wants to look at everything. How can I convince him to keep his head down?
Training Tip: Should You Let Your Horse Eat on the Trail
Invariably, whenever the subject of correcting a horse for snatching grass or eating on the trail is brought up, someone always asks if it’s OK to ever let a horse graze while you’re with him. Here’s my take on the situation: I don’t like a horse eating grass when I’m working with him. Horses can […]
Regardless of what obstacle you come up to or what your horse is having an issue with while you’re working with him, stay with that obstacle or that particular hazard until your horse is comfortable using the thinking side of his brain. If you let the horse jump the gully in a hurry and you […]
A safe, dependable horse takes everything you do in the saddle in stride. If you need to put on a jacket, you should be able to do so without worrying about your horse spooking and taking off. If you need to pick up a trail map, you shouldn’t have to worry about your horse catching […]
You don’t need to have a big fancy obstacle course at your disposal to introduce your horse to a lot of the obstacles he’s likely to encounter on the trail. Most obstacles can be made fairly easily and inexpensively. You just have to put forth a little effort and creativity. For example, you can use […]
Training Tip: Water Crossings: Practice Makes Perfect
The key to teaching your horse to navigate any obstacle, including water, is to give him enough practice so that he gains confidence. Go over a stream or through a pond a hundred times. Go over it again and again, from different angles, at different speeds, and from all sides. At the ranch, we end […]
Training Tip: Understand Why Your Horse is Fearful of Gullies
One of the main reasons horses find gullies so frightening is because of their vision. Horses have monocular vision, which means that they use each eye separately. That’s why your horse may spook at something that he’s already walked past and reacted to once: He’s seeing it for the first time with his other eye. […]
