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 only think of one thing at a time. If your horse is thinking about eating grass, he’s not thinking about what you’re asking him to do. Personally, any time I’m doing any sort of training or working with my horse, there’s a strict no-grass policy.

It’s not the fact that the horse having an odd munch of grass is that big a problem. The problem is that the more you let the horse do it, the more ingrained the habit becomes. (Remember that saying: If it’s a good thing, it’s a good habit. If it’s a bad thing, it’s a bad habit.) Horses are professional cheats – give them one exception, and they’ll finagle their way to others. Have you ever seen horses become so pushy and disrespectful that they’ll lower their heads to the ground, walk off and drag their owners wherever they want to go? That’s the ultimate in disrespectfulness. So when I’m trying to teach my horse something, I want his attention on me.

Now, there are times when I’m at a horse show or somewhere with my horse when I want to get him out of his stall and allow him to have a little downtime. Then I’ll allow him to graze. It’s just him and me hanging out together, and in that situation, I don’t mind him eating grass. I’ll take him to a nice grassy area and relax. My horses know that when I relax my body language that they are not on cue at that point and they can graze. But when I change my body language to active and ask the horse to move his feet, he’d better quit eating grass straight away and respect my cues. I’ve got a lot of control of my horses’ feet, and even when I’m allowing them to graze, they’re not dragging me around.

As a general rule, I tell people not to let their horses eat at all because I’m trying to get people to be consistent. There’s a saying that goes, “Only break the rules when you know the rules.” And that applies to this situation. It would not be a smart idea to let a pushy, disrespectful horse that’s constantly flicking cigarette butts at you to graze. It is important to spend some downtime with your horse and just relax with him. But if I had a really pushy, disrespectful horse, I wouldn’t let him eat grass until I had him really respectful.