Leather gloves are an essential tool when handling lariats and training horses. When you’re working with a lariat, you’ll want to have a pair of gloves on to provide better grip and control as well as to protect your hands. There are several points when using the Method to train a horse that we might need a lariat.
Colt Starting
When starting colts, particularly wild horses or horses with little to no handling, we’ll use a lariat to safely catch the horse so we can start working on gaining control of his feet and earning his respect.
Leading By the Feet
We use the lariat when teaching our horses to lead by their feet. This is an exercise we teach all horses to give to pressure and serves as a safety precaution in case a horse ever gets his feet hung up in a fence. Rather than fighting against the pressure, the horse learns to relax and yield to it. It’s a really good exercise to practice with colts because it’s not only another way to get them giving to pressure, but it also starts preparing them for their feet to be handled.
Laying a Horse Down
We’ll also use a lariat when teaching a horse to lie down. Teaching a horse to lie down quiets him very quickly and gets him to use the thinking side of his brain. It’s a very humbling experience for a horse. As prey animals with a flight or fight reaction, horses would always rather run from danger. If they can’t run, their only other option is to fight – kick, bite, strike, do whatever they can to survive the situation. Horses depend on their legs for survival, so when you take the horse’s legs away from him, especially a wild horse, he feels very vulnerable. What’s the last thing a horse does before he dies? He lies down. So if you can show your horse that you can take his legs away from him and let him get back up without harming him, it will really build his confidence and will also make him much more submissive.
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