Well, since it is Monday, I figured I'd better do a write up of my
night last night. For those of you who know how to train horses,
you may want to move along, but for those who are new to it like me,
there might be some useful information here.
I have joined a riding club that is sponsored by my work. There are
some great people in it, and I would really like to ride Lily more
often. This next saturday, they are having a training session where
you bring your horse, and a guy goes over very basic beginner level
stuff in regards to training a horse. One of the gals in the group
is as good as gold, and she offered to give Lily and I a ride to the
workshop. Her trailer is totally enclosed, with living quarters and
a saddle rack in the rear which leaves a narrow entrance to load the
horse. Because of this, we planned for her to come over last night
so we could get Lily used to loading in this trailer.
When she showed up, she brought 2 other guys with her, who really
know their stuff. All 3 of them kept commenting on what a huge
horse she was. In my head I just kept thinking that many of you
have much bigger horses you ride since Lily is only 16 hands and
1700 lbs. Anyway...
First things first ... one of the guys took the lead rope, and
walked to the trailer with Lily. She stepped up in it fine with her
front hooves, but then she stalled, smelling all the new smells
inside this trailer. After letting her check it out, he tried again
to get her to go all the way in, but she still had a hesitance about
her. This is where the guy taught me the first thing. He never
made Lily get in the trailer. He said it was very important that
she does it by herself, without him making her do it. She still
resisted a little bit, so he backed her all the way out, and did
some ground stuff with her.
He started by trying to make her turn in circles with just her rear
legs moving in an X fasion. This was a new concept for Lily and it
took her quite a while before she figured out what he was trying to
do. The other guy was explaining to me what was being done. He
said that one reason you teach them to turn like that, is because if
the rear legs are crossed in an X, it is impossible for them to buck.
After a bit of that, he stopped and loved on her for a bit, then he
started basically throwing the end of the lead rope all over her.
Basically softly whipping the rope all over her legs and back and
what not. At first Lily wasn't too sure about this, but soon enough
she relaxed. This was the next thing I learned. He said that when
ever you do any type of training activity, you do it untill you see
that the horse is totally relaxed, and he gave me 5 signs to look
for. 1-one rear hoof will not have any weight on it, 2-head will
lower, 3-licking lips, 4-chewing, and 5- eyes slightly drooping.
He said that the more of these signs you see, the more relaxed the
horse is. Very good to know!
So after doing this for a while, he turned and took her back to the
trailer. He walked right inside, and Lily followed without any
hesitation. It was pretty cool to watch. Then he backed her out,
and did it a few more times. Each time, they said you wanted to
make sure that there was no hesitation, and the horse followed you
right in.
She did great, and soon he had her back outside and was doing more
of the rope whipping type stuff, but this time with a thing that
looked like a whip, but only had rope tied to it. He used that to
just wrap the rope around her legs, over her back, and neck, ect.
Then, he started working on getting her to turn her head/neck to one
side. He put one hand on her withers, and the other over her nose,
and started to put some pressure to get her to turn her head all
around to the side. Lily was confused by this at first, and wanted
to turn in backward circles, but he just kept the pressure on till
she did what he wanted. Soon enough, she let her head go back, and
when she finally relaxed, he let off. This was the next thing they
taught me. They said that when you are doing something that the
horse needs to relax to do (like turning a head to the side) you
need to let up on the pressue the instant that they relax. He said
that they train the fastest when they know that when they are
relaxed, the pressure goes away. It was cool to watch him do this
stuff with Lily.
Needless to say, soon enough the guy had me doing all these things.
It was awesome to work with Lily and feel like I knew exactly what I
was doing. Lily was a great girl. By the time the session was
over, this guy could walk Lily up to the trailer, throw the lead
rope over her withers and say "get in", and she would load in the
trailer on her own. He couldn't get her to back out on command, but
we couldn't get everything in one day now could we. LOL.
So ... that was what I did last night. I will keep working all of
this stuff with Lily every night this week so that when I go to my
training activity this saturday I will have that stuff down and be
ready for the next thing.
I'm also very excited to have the biggest horse at this event.
LOL. Is that a guy thing? LMAO.
I know this was a long read, but I thought it was awesome and
thought I might share my experience for someone out there who might
be like me and be completely green to all of this.
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