I back my horses up every chance I get. In fact, I very rarely just lead my horse somewhere. Like most of you, I have a limited amount of time to actually spend with my horses, so as long as I’m with them, I figure I might as well be teaching them something. So I could drag a horse from Point A to Point B and would get to where I needed to go. Or I could back him there and I would still get to where I needed to go, plus he would have learned something by the time he got there. I try to use every opportunity as a training opportunity. It gives me a chance to gain respect from my horse as well as fine-tune the control I have of his feet. I’ll back a horse in and out of his stall, into the arena, all the way back to the barn, etc. The better a horse backs up, the better he’ll do everything else.
