How I Train My Horse

Hello, friends!

Now I know that I talk a lot about my horses but…I’m about to do it again haha. I know that most of you know from many of the other posts from my fellow blogger friends that doing other things while college is going on is hard. However, trying to train your one year old horse, who you all know is my beautiful boy Star, is difficult.

Now before I start you all need to know that I love this little boy to death and I am not one of those trainers that you see on the internet that torture there horses into listening. I don’t do that; yes, I do hold a whip when I train him but that is only to encourage him to move, I would never whip him. The other reason is to protect myself. I am not afraid of him but I know my horse and he is very jumpy and scares easily. Any of you who know horses know that they can be very unpredictable.  If you are not a horse person then I will explain. Horses are prey animals and as a result if something scares them their instinct is to run. No matter how much you think your horse loves you, when they are scared they become dangerous and if he were to run me over I could get really hurt or die.

Ok, I’m done ranting now to talk about my training. With Star I’m mostly doing groundwork, which is when you make your horse either run or walk in a circle around you and give them cues. For example, lets say that I am having Star walk in a circle to the right and I cue him to trot and if he starts up I reward him but if he doesn’t then I have to get after him to make him do it and no, I do not hurt him.  He is getting very good at this and is able to walk and trot on cue. He is have trouble with loping both ways but he is getting better at it.

Some other things I do with him is head flexing, which is having the horse stretch his head to his shoulder. Once he flexes, you release and have him stretch to the other shoulder. I also do exercises to help him become more responsive and move off my commands, such as tapping his butt with the end of a whip to have him move in very small circles to the left and right. Star is a very smart horse and a fast learner and I know that he is going to be a great riding horse in the future.   

If you have any questions for me about my training or to just tell me my horses are pretty just leave a comment down below and I will respond!

~Aly