Training Tips

Training Tip: Respect Without Fear

You want your horse to respect you, but not fear you. If a horse is afraid of the person training him, he’ll spend more time worrying about the situation and trying to escape it than trying to figure out how to do the lesson. People are the exact same way. It’s nearly impossible to learn […]

Training Tip: A Good Stud Makes a Great Gelding

One of the best things my mentor Gordon McKinlay ever told me as an apprentice was “If he’s a good stud, he’ll make a great gelding.” I have never forgotten those words, especially when I established my breeding program. Ninety-five percent of the studs out there should not be studs. I know I’m going to […]

Training Tip: Approach Training Sessions Smartly

Begin and end each training session with desensitizing, and desensitize your horse between each sensitizing exercise. The desensitizing exercises work best if combined with the sensitizing exercises because after you’ve moved the horse’s feet, he’s looking to stand still, relax and get a rest. If every time you let him rest you desensitize him, it […]

Training Tip: An Important Rule to Remember

A horse never gets any lighter than the first amount of pressure you put on the reins. If you want a soft horse that responds immediately to light pressure, you have to be that way from the start. Let’s say I want the horse to flex to the side. If I always ask him with […]

Training Tip: Reward and Respect Must be Balanced

In general, the more you spoil your horse, the less he will respect you. People often make that mistake when they first start working with their horse. They think, “Surely if I just rub on him long enough he’ll know that I love him.

Training Tip: Unstick Your Horse’s Feet at the Arena Gate

At some point or other, almost all horses develop a magnet to the arena gate. To deter your horse from hanging out at the gate, make being next to the gate feel uncomfortable to him. Right now, your horse is attracted to the gate because he knows that’s how he gets out of the arena […]

Training Tip: Build the Thinking Side

Imagine the thinking side of your horse’s brain as a big muscle. The more you use a muscle, the stronger it gets. Let’s say I went to the gym every day for a year, and I lifted weights with my right arm. At the end of the year, my right arm would be bigger and […]

Training Tip: Train Your Horse on the Trail

Trail work is so much more interesting to your horse than ring work because he doesn’t have to stare at the same four walls every single day. When you constantly work in the arena, you run the risk of drilling on the same old thing until both you and your horse are sick of it. […]

Training Tip: Respect: The Foundation Of Control