COWBOY WAY
PART 1 OF SIX
HORSE TRAINING
Starting Your Next Great Horse Part 1: Building Trust By J.P. FORGET
It’s easy to overlook the importance of the first few weeks of training on a young horse. After all, the spectacular performances which take place at the spring branding, or the rodeo or show arena, do not happen for several months or perhaps even years after the colt was started. Yet, those first few weeks of training the young horse can delay his ability to perform to his very best by several months, and maybe even keep him from ever being the best he can be. In this series of six articles I will discuss the steps necessary to start a young horse and provide her with all the necessary foundation so that she can go on to be the best that she can be. This approach will save you hours if not months of re-training on your horses by relaxing the horse and building trust in you as a partner to the horse. It will build your horse’s confidence by the fact that any change in behaviour, however small, will be rewarded with a relief from pressure. Throughout this process you will show your horse that the desired response is more comfortable than all the other 28
undesirable responses. The horse will learn that the more she seeks to respond to your cues of “Let’s do this please,” the sooner the pressure goes away and the sooner she finds solace. The result is a horse that trusts you, has no fear, is relaxed through the body, willingly and readily moves away from your aids, and is able to perform any task to the very best of her ability. In this first instalment of the series I will address the topic of desensitizing.
Desensitizing
Desensitizing is the process by which a green horse becomes accustomed to the
sight and feel of strange objects about her and on her. The goal in desensitizing the young horse is to let it become her idea to stand and accept the saddle and various other foreign objects about her and on her. This is accomplished by allowing her to move when an object frightens her and by removing the pressure from the frightening object when the filly makes an attempt at dealing with it by diminishing her fright response, lowering the head, showing an interest in the object, and eventually relaxing. Since she is allowed to flee the frightening object, the filly is not trapped and has
Canadian Cowboy Country December 2017/January 2018
PHOTOS BY TARA MCKENZIE
Introduction
