As a trainer, I believe in the soft method of training
horses. Every time I get a new horse into our barn, I take that
horse to the round pen to evaluated the horses mind, and movement.
You can tell a lot about a horse by the way it interacts with you
and with other horses. I start all my colts in a round pen. We
have two round pens - a 40' and a 60'.
I saddle for the first time in the round
pen. I sack out all the colts and start them in a side pull
and ground drive them for the first week of their training. I
get them to do everything I want on the ground first before I
ever step foot into the saddle.
Then I will put a week's riding on them in the side
pull (draw reins) before graduating into a snaffle. I believe having a horse move
off face pressure first will give a softer response when
making the transition to a snaffle.
After I have them moving both directions at
each gait, and stopping and backing smoothly, I take them out of
the pen and ride them everywhere possible.
I take them over obstacles, through water,
around heavy equipment, in the mountains, though trees, around
the buffalo, pigs and around anything else that might frighten them.
By this time they might still be a little
nervous, but
you have a good enough handle on them that you can make them accept
a scary situation much easier. Most of the time our horses
don't care what they encounter because they have been exposed to
so many different things as a foal, it has become second nature to them.
Below are all the photos from our May Open
House this year.
Some are of spectators and some are of me,
demonstrating different training techniques.
BILL AND BROOK - WE JUST WANT TO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR
GRACIOUS HOSPITALITY! WE HAD A WONDERFUL TIME AND HAD A SAFE
TRIP HOME. WE BOTH FEEL THAT WE LEARNED SO MUCH, ESPECIALLY
ME! YOU TRULY HELPED BUILD MY CONFIDENCE AND I FEEL LIKE I
WANT TO TRY THINGS THAT I HAVE BEEN AFRAID TO DO BEFORE.
ANYHOW, THANKS AGAIN. IF EITHER OF YOU COME TO THERMOPOLIS,
MAKE SURE YOU LET US KNOW SO WE CAN RETURN YOUR HOSPITALITY.
ALSO - WE PLAN A RETURN TRIP WITHIN A FEW MONTHS SO YOU CAN
SEE HOW WE HAVE PROGRESSED!
WE WILL DEFINITELY TELL OUR FRIENDS WHAT A GREAT EXPERIENCE
WE HAD.
MIKE AND CINDY CLANCY
