Training a trail riding horse
The Training of a trail riding horse starts with the rider. Its his job, to supply the security that his or her horse needs. Fear is something we fear in our days like pain. But horses have a extremely good sense for fear and that is why it becomes an issue.
Avoiding any situation that scares us, is not productive. Fear is like a muscle that can be trained, and the question you must ask yourself is: does fear control me or do i control my fears. If your horse is supposed to learn to accept you as a leader, you have to be trustworthy and reliable. If your horse experiences anxiety with you all the time, it will have a hard time trusting you for leadership.
How do we learn to control our fears. Well there is only one way. Your have to confront your fears. You have to expose yourself in small steps to the things you fear. Be it the creek, the bridge, riding down a steep rock or stairs, all these things need to be handled fearless by you at the end, for your horse to follow without fear.
Comunication
We communicate with our horses all the time, and we are not aware of it. Horses in Greek are called "A Logo". Without words. But they communicate. We humans are voice oriented beings, yet we communicate with our body language, our emotions and our energy just like they do, except we do have no clue what we are talking. Now, they will not be able to learn to talk, but we can learn to control our body language, our emotions and our energy. (learn more about this at extremetrail.com)
Security
There is much talk about dominating your horse and being consistent.
While i see the need for consistency, if I ask my horses what they want, the answer is: security.
Your horse lives with his buddies and the group provides security. We take this horse out of the group and the security needs to be
replaced. By you the rider and leader. If you don`t provide it, your horse is going to look for security some where else. Worse case, its going back home to the group. Not because he does not want to be with you or disobey you, but because its in the group that he feels safe.
People with low self esteem have a more difficult time then people who feel secure about them self. Your personality is reflected in your horse. That is what makes working with horses so exciting. You cannot flee your reality. You must face it and work on your strengths and weakness. So like PP used to say. Play with your horse and work on your own personality.
Training of your horse.
Horses have simple needs. And they don`t have a new idea every 3 seconds like we do. Before you start working with your horse, be clear what you want. Make it simple. EG Have him stand still in your precence 3 feet away from you for the next 5 minutes. That s all.
but its hard, because you have to stand still too, if the horse moves, correct him gently. This is what you work on, till the horse understands what you demand. Please understand, this may take hours, days even weeks to accomplish. Next you lead him on a rope and the horse has to stay right behind you in 3 feed distance. When you stop, it stops. When you walk, it walks. While you working in this way there is two things happening: One, your horse starts understanding you and its position with you as you being the leader. Second, the more consistent you are, the more security you give it.
consistency creates reliability, reliability creates trust, trust creates Security.
The Training of a trail riding horse starts with the rider. Its his job, to supply the security that his or her horse needs. Fear is something we fear in our days like pain. But horses have a extremely good sense for fear and that is why it becomes an issue.
Avoiding any situation that scares us, is not productive. Fear is like a muscle that can be trained, and the question you must ask yourself is: does fear control me or do i control my fears. If your horse is supposed to learn to accept you as a leader, you have to be trustworthy and reliable. If your horse experiences anxiety with you all the time, it will have a hard time trusting you for leadership.
How do we learn to control our fears. Well there is only one way. Your have to confront your fears. You have to expose yourself in small steps to the things you fear. Be it the creek, the bridge, riding down a steep rock or stairs, all these things need to be handled fearless by you at the end, for your horse to follow without fear.
Comunication
We communicate with our horses all the time, and we are not aware of it. Horses in Greek are called "A Logo". Without words. But they communicate. We humans are voice oriented beings, yet we communicate with our body language, our emotions and our energy just like they do, except we do have no clue what we are talking. Now, they will not be able to learn to talk, but we can learn to control our body language, our emotions and our energy. (learn more about this at extremetrail.com)
Security
There is much talk about dominating your horse and being consistent.
While i see the need for consistency, if I ask my horses what they want, the answer is: security.
Your horse lives with his buddies and the group provides security. We take this horse out of the group and the security needs to be
replaced. By you the rider and leader. If you don`t provide it, your horse is going to look for security some where else. Worse case, its going back home to the group. Not because he does not want to be with you or disobey you, but because its in the group that he feels safe.
People with low self esteem have a more difficult time then people who feel secure about them self. Your personality is reflected in your horse. That is what makes working with horses so exciting. You cannot flee your reality. You must face it and work on your strengths and weakness. So like PP used to say. Play with your horse and work on your own personality.
Training of your horse.
Horses have simple needs. And they don`t have a new idea every 3 seconds like we do. Before you start working with your horse, be clear what you want. Make it simple. EG Have him stand still in your precence 3 feet away from you for the next 5 minutes. That s all.
but its hard, because you have to stand still too, if the horse moves, correct him gently. This is what you work on, till the horse understands what you demand. Please understand, this may take hours, days even weeks to accomplish. Next you lead him on a rope and the horse has to stay right behind you in 3 feed distance. When you stop, it stops. When you walk, it walks. While you working in this way there is two things happening: One, your horse starts understanding you and its position with you as you being the leader. Second, the more consistent you are, the more security you give it.
consistency creates reliability, reliability creates trust, trust creates Security.
The Challenge
The capability of your horse is limited by your imagination.
We have to expand our reasoning by the factor imagination. We limit our horses to what we humans think of as safe and reasonable. Anything above our own level of safety and reason, is simply blocked by us. But horses are not humans, and have abilities, way different from ours. Yes they can dance polka in a sandbox, and they can jump higher than the rim of my hat, but that just shows, how capable horses are doing our human things. If we permit them to be horses, and let them show us, what they are truly capable of, we will experince an new level of possibilities. Horses are so much closer to nature, than we humans, they are capable of finding or remembering trails that we cannot even see, they want and will solve problems of trail and nature in ways you cannot imagine, if you let them. Horses can clime, they can cross creeks and rivers, the can walk on the smalest trails and balance on wiggling rocks. They can do all these things, if we let them try and practice and that means to trust them.
Mark Rashid paraphrased
Many horses can learn ease. Ease is obedience under known conditions. If the conditions change they lose their ease. Gentleness is when the horse trusts you and obeys in all conditions. How do we achieve gentleness? Trust is based on persistence. Persistence means reliability. Reliability creates trustworthiness. If the horse trusts you, it is at peace with itself and you. Then it is gentle and does everything you want, under all circumstances.
The capability of your horse is limited by your imagination.
We have to expand our reasoning by the factor imagination. We limit our horses to what we humans think of as safe and reasonable. Anything above our own level of safety and reason, is simply blocked by us. But horses are not humans, and have abilities, way different from ours. Yes they can dance polka in a sandbox, and they can jump higher than the rim of my hat, but that just shows, how capable horses are doing our human things. If we permit them to be horses, and let them show us, what they are truly capable of, we will experince an new level of possibilities. Horses are so much closer to nature, than we humans, they are capable of finding or remembering trails that we cannot even see, they want and will solve problems of trail and nature in ways you cannot imagine, if you let them. Horses can clime, they can cross creeks and rivers, the can walk on the smalest trails and balance on wiggling rocks. They can do all these things, if we let them try and practice and that means to trust them.
Mark Rashid paraphrased
Many horses can learn ease. Ease is obedience under known conditions. If the conditions change they lose their ease. Gentleness is when the horse trusts you and obeys in all conditions. How do we achieve gentleness? Trust is based on persistence. Persistence means reliability. Reliability creates trustworthiness. If the horse trusts you, it is at peace with itself and you. Then it is gentle and does everything you want, under all circumstances.
Preparing your horse mentaly
Horses have not changed. The belong into the fast expances of the praire where they are feeding. Their sence of smell, their hearing and optical perseption is way better than ours. They will notice a flighting movement on the horizon, raise their head and run if needed. In modern civilisation they are confronted, with all kind of additional suspicios "dangers" that they have to get used to, if they are to be happy on the trail.
When you started your horse, you had it squeeze through narrow places in the round pen, get used to fences and plastic bags. It got to know, bisycles, dogs and cars.
Now you are ready for your first ride outside of your fence. And you are scared your horse is going to spook. And you are right, cause it will happen. The question now is, what do you do? Worst case, you decide to give in on your fear and return to the stable. What has your horse just learned?
Best case, you make it find out what that thing is, it spooked about. You make it understand, that this is not to fear. To be calm and slow, because you are there with him. Big machines, Dogs, fast moving people on bicyles with colorful trailers, the lonely cow in the field, the birds in the tunnel, all these things that scare it and scare you, are to be inspected and found “not dangerous”. Again your horse is learning two things: First: obviously about those things, second: I am secure with my leader and most of all, your making your horse more confident. Every time it has lived up to the challenge with you, its sense of “can do” has grown. So has yours.
Since we walk a lot in steep mountain areas, there is another thing we teach our horses. We want it to follow us on a long rope, 10 feed behind us, and listen to us eventually even without a rope, (join up type) and we want it to be able to walk in front of us, without feeling pressured. For this I take to long ropes and use them like a harness, while I walk behind it. Domesticated horse have less a problem with this, my mustangs are giving me a hard time on this one. Eventually I want to be able to hold their tail at the end, and have them pull me up the mountain side, walking in front of mee, being controlled by my voice and one reign. (See equipment).
Horses have not changed. The belong into the fast expances of the praire where they are feeding. Their sence of smell, their hearing and optical perseption is way better than ours. They will notice a flighting movement on the horizon, raise their head and run if needed. In modern civilisation they are confronted, with all kind of additional suspicios "dangers" that they have to get used to, if they are to be happy on the trail.
When you started your horse, you had it squeeze through narrow places in the round pen, get used to fences and plastic bags. It got to know, bisycles, dogs and cars.
Now you are ready for your first ride outside of your fence. And you are scared your horse is going to spook. And you are right, cause it will happen. The question now is, what do you do? Worst case, you decide to give in on your fear and return to the stable. What has your horse just learned?
Best case, you make it find out what that thing is, it spooked about. You make it understand, that this is not to fear. To be calm and slow, because you are there with him. Big machines, Dogs, fast moving people on bicyles with colorful trailers, the lonely cow in the field, the birds in the tunnel, all these things that scare it and scare you, are to be inspected and found “not dangerous”. Again your horse is learning two things: First: obviously about those things, second: I am secure with my leader and most of all, your making your horse more confident. Every time it has lived up to the challenge with you, its sense of “can do” has grown. So has yours.
Since we walk a lot in steep mountain areas, there is another thing we teach our horses. We want it to follow us on a long rope, 10 feed behind us, and listen to us eventually even without a rope, (join up type) and we want it to be able to walk in front of us, without feeling pressured. For this I take to long ropes and use them like a harness, while I walk behind it. Domesticated horse have less a problem with this, my mustangs are giving me a hard time on this one. Eventually I want to be able to hold their tail at the end, and have them pull me up the mountain side, walking in front of mee, being controlled by my voice and one reign. (See equipment).
Selecting and raining your horse physically
A healthy horse can do up to 30 mls a day on a regular basis. If it is trained properly and is the kind of horse, suited for this kind of work.
We basically have 3 or 4 types of horses. We have the long distance horses, like the Arabians, Berbers, Thoroughbreds, and all their variations. All of them have long withe muscular fibers, that are made for the long haul like marathon runners.
We have the herding horses, the quarters, the criollos, the Haflinger, or Freiberger, all horses use for herding sheep or cattle, that can accelerate very fast and have therefor short red muscle fibers that are fibers of body builders. Then we the horses that we bred for pulling things, all the draft horses and last but not least the horses bred for presentation or the carriage, like the frisian and their relatives.
Now depending on your prefered purpose, you choose a horse that fits that purpose best. That does not mean the others cannot do it, it just means more or less adjustment for the type of horse that you want to use for your purpose.
If you take a Arabian into the mountains the first time, he will loose a lot of weight, because he needs to rebuild his muscle fibre package, from long white to more short red. If you take your Quarter on the first trail and make him walk 30 mls a day, the same thing will happen, but he will produce more long white fibers. If the horse stays fit and if it continues to be used in that prefered fashion, it will keep that type of fibre and not loos that much weight again on the next long haul.
Training your horse for the long haul, means walking him up and down mountains, and cantering him to enlarge heart and lungs while it is 4-6 years of age. I trained my Arabians before i rode them on the carriage. Walked him daily up and down 1500 feet of elevation on a 10 mls trail. I checked their pulse and breathing frequency at rest and then had them pull the carriage walking up the hill. When their breathing frequency had trippeled, i would stop and check for pulse, measuring the time it took him to get down to 60 beats a minute. When it became obvious that is was regurarely below 5 minutes, i would start letting them trott for 1 minute every 5 minutes of walking. Extending the trotting time over the next 4 weeks, to full 5 minutes of uphill trotting, pulling the two seater carriage, always guided by he time it took for them to come down to the 60 beats per minute puls. After two months both horses where able to trott the entire 45 minutes up the hill, pulling the carriage. Then we begann the same process with cantering and walking, till we could canter for 5 minutes without brake and hold a steady puls of less than 120 b/m and getting down to 60 within 5 minutes.
A healthy horse can do up to 30 mls a day on a regular basis. If it is trained properly and is the kind of horse, suited for this kind of work.
We basically have 3 or 4 types of horses. We have the long distance horses, like the Arabians, Berbers, Thoroughbreds, and all their variations. All of them have long withe muscular fibers, that are made for the long haul like marathon runners.
We have the herding horses, the quarters, the criollos, the Haflinger, or Freiberger, all horses use for herding sheep or cattle, that can accelerate very fast and have therefor short red muscle fibers that are fibers of body builders. Then we the horses that we bred for pulling things, all the draft horses and last but not least the horses bred for presentation or the carriage, like the frisian and their relatives.
Now depending on your prefered purpose, you choose a horse that fits that purpose best. That does not mean the others cannot do it, it just means more or less adjustment for the type of horse that you want to use for your purpose.
If you take a Arabian into the mountains the first time, he will loose a lot of weight, because he needs to rebuild his muscle fibre package, from long white to more short red. If you take your Quarter on the first trail and make him walk 30 mls a day, the same thing will happen, but he will produce more long white fibers. If the horse stays fit and if it continues to be used in that prefered fashion, it will keep that type of fibre and not loos that much weight again on the next long haul.
Training your horse for the long haul, means walking him up and down mountains, and cantering him to enlarge heart and lungs while it is 4-6 years of age. I trained my Arabians before i rode them on the carriage. Walked him daily up and down 1500 feet of elevation on a 10 mls trail. I checked their pulse and breathing frequency at rest and then had them pull the carriage walking up the hill. When their breathing frequency had trippeled, i would stop and check for pulse, measuring the time it took him to get down to 60 beats a minute. When it became obvious that is was regurarely below 5 minutes, i would start letting them trott for 1 minute every 5 minutes of walking. Extending the trotting time over the next 4 weeks, to full 5 minutes of uphill trotting, pulling the two seater carriage, always guided by he time it took for them to come down to the 60 beats per minute puls. After two months both horses where able to trott the entire 45 minutes up the hill, pulling the carriage. Then we begann the same process with cantering and walking, till we could canter for 5 minutes without brake and hold a steady puls of less than 120 b/m and getting down to 60 within 5 minutes.