The Ultimate Guide To Horse
Training
Round-Pen Training with Your Horse
by Eric Bravo
Horse Training Videos
The following is an exerpt from Teach Yourself Natural Horsemanship in 14 Days, a downloadable book available free with the purchase of Eric Bravo's Natural Horsemanship Video training software (available here).
Groundwork is a vital component of
training a horse, training yourself, and getting your horse to be ready
to be ridden safely. While we would like to just jump on our horses and
ride, the reality is we can't do that. A horse is not a dirt bike, its
a living being with a mind of its own. To maintain safety with your
horse, you need to be able to get inside her mind. We start this
process using groundwork. In particular, we can use groundwork to
accomplish several things with our horses:
It is important to always do groundwork with your horse. The amount of time and effort that you need to put in depends on two things:
Now let's think about groundwork solely in terms of the horse. If the horse is well trained, it won't be necessary to spend hours every week doing groundwork. You might run through a few exercises over the course of ten or fifteen minutes before riding. If your horse is really well trained, you might even perform the groundwork when walking the horse from the stall to your saddle.
In the beginning however, you should plan on putting a great deal of time into groundwork. This could mean a half-hour or hour session several times a week, until the horse becomes light and responsive.
Now given everything we've said so far, regardless of how well trained the horse is or how experienced you are, you should make groundwork a permanent component of your horse training with every single horse you handle. This will help to maintain trust, leadership, and respect, which will in turn lay the foundation you need for a safe riding experience with your horse.
Why Leadership?
Horse society is based on a strict hierarchy by nature. What this means is that horses live in a group where different individuals are in charge. If a given horse has a higher rank than you do, he is going to eat first, get water first, and have access to mares first. All the horses in the herd look to the stallion and/or alpha mare for direction. The leader of the herd is going to decide where to eat, how long to stay there, where and when to move. Horses by their nature will look for this kind of direction, but when you first start working with a horse they might be asking themselves who is in charge here? If you own a horse you don't want the horse asking this question, you want to communicate to him that you are the alpha. This is not mean-spirited at all, we simply want to become the leader of the horse. Doing this will help us build the loving, trusting relationship that we seek with our horses. If you don't establish yourself as the leader, you will be risking safety later on.
Thinking like a horse or at least understanding how horses view the world is a part of natural horsemanship.
The Importance of Body Language
As horse owners, we are often quick to give our horse a carrot or treat in an effort to get him to do what we want or to praise him for doing something we asked him to do. But ask yourself this question. Do horses in the wild have treats they hand out to the other horses to get them to move? Does the stallion or alpha mare hand out carrots when they want a horse to do something? Of course not! They do these things by using body language. A stud in the herd of horses can communicate to the herd when to eat, where to eat, to get out of the way, or when its time to move the entire herd just by using his body language. That body language can be harsh-we know all to well it includes kicks and bites. While we aren't going to bite our horses the idea you need to grasp is that using your body language to communicate with horses is a skill you must master. This is why we said earlier that part of groundwork is training ourselves. You can use groundwork to train yourself to handle horses properly while being in the relatively safe position of being on the ground.
This doesn't mean you can't give your horse a treat. But save the treats for when you're just visiting or loving on your horse. In fact shower your horse with treats when your just out saying hello, or after you've brought her back to the pasture after riding. But don't use treats while training.
Now that we understand the benefits of doing groundwork, lets jump to some specific exercises. The first exercise we will tackle is called the hook-on. We are assuming at this point that you can catch your horse and safely lead her to the round-pen. If you cannot, please skip ahead to chapter 2, Catching and Leading Your Horse, and return to this section after you have mastered that vital task.
The Hook-On Exercise
The first exercise we are going tackle is called the hook-on. In a nutshell, the hook-on involves taking your horse to the round-pen and having him run around in circles without his lead-line or halter. The purpose of this exercise is to establish you as the leader of your horse. Go out and observe a group of horses. What do the dominant horses in the herd do to the other horses on a regular basis? They make them move around. By doing this exercise, you will be doing this with your horse in a controlled fashion. When starting training, perform this exercise every single time you get your horse out. In the beginning, it might take a long time to have success-so hooking on may take an hour or more. You might only have time to do the hook-on and nothing else if this is the case. But don't loose patience-it is important to build a solid foundation. You wouldn't move on to building the frame of a new house if the concrete foundation had not set would you? So don't ride your horse if she will not hook-on. Let's proceed to the detailed steps of the exercise so you know what we mean.
Equipment
You will need a carrot stick or whip, or you can just use your lead-line. A carrot stick is preferred, but anything you can use to put pressure on the horse will work.
Exercise Summary
Have the horse canter around the round-pen about 5 times. Then we ask the horse to stop, walk up to the left side of the horse. The horse will then follow our every move without using a lead-line or halter.
To Get Started
Take your horse to the round-pen, and move yourself to the center. We perform this exercise at liberty, which means that there is nothing on the horse. So we are going to remove the halter and lead-line from the horse. Follow these steps:
To send your horse out to the left:
Start the hook-on exercise by having your horse move out to the left.
Body language is important when performing this exercise. We want to communicate to our horse that we are his or her leader. So be kind but assertive. This is done by:
Have the Horse move at a Canter
A horse can walk or trot all day long without working too hard. So, when doing the hook-on exercise, we want him to move out at a Canter. There are two reasons for doing this. The first is that the reward for the horse will be the release of pressure when we ask him to stop moving. So, if your horse moves out at a walk or a trot, put additional pressure until he canters. Do this using your carrot stick, or you can toss the end of your lead-line in the direction of his hip. Note that this is done humanely, we are not talking about hitting him with the carrot stick or rope, we are talking about swinging it say, in the direction of his hip. Your horse knows what this means and will take it as a signal to move out faster and with more vigor. Every horse is different, so the amount of energy you need to put into this process will vary depending on the horse.
Another reason we want the horse to move at a canter is that for most horses, when you ask them to move out in the round-pen at liberty, as we said earlier their natural inclination is probably going to be to walk or trot. A theme we'll return to many times in this book is that we want everything the horse to do to be our idea. This helps establish you, and not your horse, as the leading partner in your relationship. Take a deep breath and say this to yourself:
When Working, everything my horse does is my idea.
One way to get your horse to canter is to make a hissing sound like a snake. Many horses respond well to this as a cue to move out.
In the hook-on exercise, the speed at which the horse moves is our decision, and not his. So we make him canter. How long do we do this?
Have your horse canter about 5 times around
Do not let the horse drop down to a trot. If he does, increase the pressure. Then look for signs the horse is accepting your leadership. Where is the horse paying attention? Is he looking to the outside of the round-pen to see if a mountain lion is approaching? If so you need to keep him moving until his attention is focused on you. You can also look for these signs:
When the horse is paying attention to you and is relaxed, you can ask her to come to a stop. Letting the horse stop is her reward.
Signs you don't want to see
You need to keep your horse circling if:
Keep the horse moving in the direction you choose
We must keep everything our idea. The speed and direction the horse moves are our decisions, not his. If the horse decides to go to your right do not allow it. Keep the horse moving in the direction you want using your carrot stick or open the palm of your hand so that it is facing the horse. Then move your right arm up in down in a wide swinging up-and-down motion.
How to get the horse to stop
The first step to asking the horse to stop is to step back and get in her path. Do this by:
After you have positioned yourself in front of the horse, come to a stop and take in a deep breath. In natural horsemanship, you will use your breath to communicate relaxation to the horse. So breath in deeply through your nose. Feel your body rising up toward the sky as you do so. Then breathe out through your mouth. Make sure your exhale is loud and vivid so there is no doubt the horse can hear it. Let your body relax, feeling the energy move down toward the center of the earth. Look directly at your horse.
Your Horse Should Stop and Look at You
At this point you want your horse to stop, face you, and look at you. If she does not look at you, you need to send her out again to the left, and have her circle 2-3 more times, then repeat the process asking her to stop.
When the horse comes to a stop and looks at you, we stop asking the horse to move out.
The ultimate goal will be to have the horse come to a stop and allow you to walk up to him. In a moment, we will talk about the proper way to walk up to a horse. Right now, you need to know that if at any time while you are standing looking at your horse or approaching her, if she moves in any way then you need to send her out and start the procedure all over again. However, don't force your horse to stop. Maintain a reasonable distance and let her decide if she is going to stay put or not. If she decides she needs to move off, let her do so (but in the direction you want) and repeat the procedure until she understands that to rest, she will need to allow you to approach her.
If the horse moves when we've asked him to stop, ask him to move out again. If he attempts to change direction, put pressure. Here Eric is putting pressure using the rope in his right hand.
Tip
Suppose that you have your horse cantering around, and he drops down to a trot and looks at you. Its good that he is paying attention to you, right? Actually this is not good because it was his idea to move to a trot. If your horse does this, put pressure to get him back up to a canter and let him move about half-way along the distance of the round-pen. Then take some pressure off-lower your carrot stick, walk back away from the horse 2 or 3 steps, and exhale loudly. This will tell the horse he can drop down to a trot. But you've made it your idea. We call this process of taking an idea our horse had, then representing it to him as our idea stealing a thought. You should always look for opportunities to steal a thought from your horse. It will teach him not to do things you are not asking him to do, making him safer to handle and ride in the long run. Horses do not like to work, so we want to get him thinking in this exercise that if he decides not to do what we ask, he will have to work. But we are letting the horse choose. We ask the horse to stop, but leave the door open for him to run off if he wants to. We continue the exercise until he learns that the release of the pressure is when he pays attention to you.
If you horse stops, you can click or kiss to get her to look at you. The key idea is to have your horse paying attention to you by looking at you with both eyes. Now let's suppose that your horse comes to a stop, but begins to take off right away after looking at you or when you start to approach. Build on what you have by executing the following steps:
The second time the horse looks at you, wait a second or two before turning and walking away. Build on what you have, and after a few tries you should be able to have your horse stand still and look at you. Anytime the horse does what you ask, reward with verbal praise and by smiling at the horse.
Tip
If you ask your horse to stop during this exercise, and he stops, but then begins to move off, he is dictating to you that he can move off anytime he wants. Do you want to ride a horse that thinks this way? Probably not. You want to ride a horse that moves when you ask her to, not when she decides to on her own. Its safer to establish this in the round-pen, which is another reason we perform this exercise. We counter the desire of the horse to move off whenever she pleases by dictating the speed and direction of movement. Not to be too repetitive-but this means if she moves off to your right, you tell her to go left. If she moves off at a walk, you ask her to canter.
Approaching Your Horse
Now let's suppose that you and your horse have accomplished the following goals:
Having the Horse Hook-On
Now lets suppose that you are able to walk up to the horse and stand by her withers on the left side. This is the final stage of the exercise, where we ask the horse to hook-on, which means follow us without the lead-line or halter. If you are doing this for the first time, don't get greedy. Take one step forward and see if your horse will follow you. If he does, reward him by telling him “good boy!” and giving him a single pet (a swipe down the neck say). Then walk off with 2 steps. Keep rewarding each time he follows you. It will be pretty clear rather quickly if he is hooked-on or not. If he is, he will follow you with head down throughout the round-pen.
Remember, at any time he breaks, you need to start the exercise from the beginning. So if you take two steps and he stays behind:
When you have done this a few times and you and your horse get good at it, you will start to form a partnership. This will be evident because you will be able to take your horse out of the round-pen into an arena or even out in the open and he will follow you wherever you go.
Blending In
Not all horses will hook-on automatically. If your horse does not, place your hand under the chin. You should be standing on the left side of the horse. Then place your hand under the chin as shown below, and walk off toward your left, gently putting pressure on the right side of the jaw to encourage the horse to follow you. This works because we are getting the horse to move away from the pressure.
If your horse won't follow you immediately, put your hand under the chin so the fingers can put pressure on the right side of the jaw. Then walk away from the horse toward your left. This is called blending in. You are looking for your horse to follow you.
Lesson Summary
The hook-on exercise teaches the horse that we are her leader. This is because the horse moves when we ask, where we ask, and how fast we ask. It teaches the horse what we ask is our idea. When the exercise is completed successfully, we have taken the first step towards having a solid, loving, and trusting relationship with our horse.
This article is an exerpt from Teach Yourself Natural Horsemanship in 14 Days, a downloadable PDF book which is free with the purchase of Eric Bravo's Gentle Natural Horsemanship Video training software.
- It helps establish a line of communication between you and your horse. Doing this on the ground first is safer than trying to do it in the saddle.
- It builds trust. Your horse will learn to trust you and trust your judgement. This will help you build a relationship with your horse. Later on down the line, your horse will look to you for guidance in scary situations, rather than just following instinct and bolting or bucking.
- Groundwork builds respect. Does your horse crowd you? Does she get in your space or walk right past you? By doing groundwork, we can correct behavior problems like these and getting our horse to respect us. This is important for safety. Do you think a horse that crowds you on the ground is safe to ride? Of course not.
It is important to always do groundwork with your horse. The amount of time and effort that you need to put in depends on two things:
- How much experience do you have with horses.
- How well trained is your horse.
Now let's think about groundwork solely in terms of the horse. If the horse is well trained, it won't be necessary to spend hours every week doing groundwork. You might run through a few exercises over the course of ten or fifteen minutes before riding. If your horse is really well trained, you might even perform the groundwork when walking the horse from the stall to your saddle.
In the beginning however, you should plan on putting a great deal of time into groundwork. This could mean a half-hour or hour session several times a week, until the horse becomes light and responsive.
Now given everything we've said so far, regardless of how well trained the horse is or how experienced you are, you should make groundwork a permanent component of your horse training with every single horse you handle. This will help to maintain trust, leadership, and respect, which will in turn lay the foundation you need for a safe riding experience with your horse.
Why Leadership?
Horse society is based on a strict hierarchy by nature. What this means is that horses live in a group where different individuals are in charge. If a given horse has a higher rank than you do, he is going to eat first, get water first, and have access to mares first. All the horses in the herd look to the stallion and/or alpha mare for direction. The leader of the herd is going to decide where to eat, how long to stay there, where and when to move. Horses by their nature will look for this kind of direction, but when you first start working with a horse they might be asking themselves who is in charge here? If you own a horse you don't want the horse asking this question, you want to communicate to him that you are the alpha. This is not mean-spirited at all, we simply want to become the leader of the horse. Doing this will help us build the loving, trusting relationship that we seek with our horses. If you don't establish yourself as the leader, you will be risking safety later on.
Thinking like a horse or at least understanding how horses view the world is a part of natural horsemanship.
The Importance of Body Language
As horse owners, we are often quick to give our horse a carrot or treat in an effort to get him to do what we want or to praise him for doing something we asked him to do. But ask yourself this question. Do horses in the wild have treats they hand out to the other horses to get them to move? Does the stallion or alpha mare hand out carrots when they want a horse to do something? Of course not! They do these things by using body language. A stud in the herd of horses can communicate to the herd when to eat, where to eat, to get out of the way, or when its time to move the entire herd just by using his body language. That body language can be harsh-we know all to well it includes kicks and bites. While we aren't going to bite our horses the idea you need to grasp is that using your body language to communicate with horses is a skill you must master. This is why we said earlier that part of groundwork is training ourselves. You can use groundwork to train yourself to handle horses properly while being in the relatively safe position of being on the ground.
This doesn't mean you can't give your horse a treat. But save the treats for when you're just visiting or loving on your horse. In fact shower your horse with treats when your just out saying hello, or after you've brought her back to the pasture after riding. But don't use treats while training.
Now that we understand the benefits of doing groundwork, lets jump to some specific exercises. The first exercise we will tackle is called the hook-on. We are assuming at this point that you can catch your horse and safely lead her to the round-pen. If you cannot, please skip ahead to chapter 2, Catching and Leading Your Horse, and return to this section after you have mastered that vital task.
The Hook-On Exercise
The first exercise we are going tackle is called the hook-on. In a nutshell, the hook-on involves taking your horse to the round-pen and having him run around in circles without his lead-line or halter. The purpose of this exercise is to establish you as the leader of your horse. Go out and observe a group of horses. What do the dominant horses in the herd do to the other horses on a regular basis? They make them move around. By doing this exercise, you will be doing this with your horse in a controlled fashion. When starting training, perform this exercise every single time you get your horse out. In the beginning, it might take a long time to have success-so hooking on may take an hour or more. You might only have time to do the hook-on and nothing else if this is the case. But don't loose patience-it is important to build a solid foundation. You wouldn't move on to building the frame of a new house if the concrete foundation had not set would you? So don't ride your horse if she will not hook-on. Let's proceed to the detailed steps of the exercise so you know what we mean.
Equipment
You will need a carrot stick or whip, or you can just use your lead-line. A carrot stick is preferred, but anything you can use to put pressure on the horse will work.
Exercise Summary
Have the horse canter around the round-pen about 5 times. Then we ask the horse to stop, walk up to the left side of the horse. The horse will then follow our every move without using a lead-line or halter.
To Get Started
Take your horse to the round-pen, and move yourself to the center. We perform this exercise at liberty, which means that there is nothing on the horse. So we are going to remove the halter and lead-line from the horse. Follow these steps:
- Position yourself in the center of the round-pen.
- Have your horse directly facing you.
- Remove the halter, holding your carrot stick in your right hand.
- Send your horse out to your left.
To send your horse out to the left:
- Raise your left hand and point to the left.
- Raise the carrot stick with your right hand to put pressure on the hind end of the horse.
- If the horse does not respond, swing the rope or move the carrot stick in wide circles toward the horse. Tap the ground with the stick if you need to be more assertive.
Start the hook-on exercise by having your horse move out to the left.
Body language is important when performing this exercise. We want to communicate to our horse that we are his or her leader. So be kind but assertive. This is done by:
- Standing upright with good posture.
- Pointing assertively in the direction we want the horse to go.
- Look directly at your horse.
Have the Horse move at a Canter
A horse can walk or trot all day long without working too hard. So, when doing the hook-on exercise, we want him to move out at a Canter. There are two reasons for doing this. The first is that the reward for the horse will be the release of pressure when we ask him to stop moving. So, if your horse moves out at a walk or a trot, put additional pressure until he canters. Do this using your carrot stick, or you can toss the end of your lead-line in the direction of his hip. Note that this is done humanely, we are not talking about hitting him with the carrot stick or rope, we are talking about swinging it say, in the direction of his hip. Your horse knows what this means and will take it as a signal to move out faster and with more vigor. Every horse is different, so the amount of energy you need to put into this process will vary depending on the horse.
Another reason we want the horse to move at a canter is that for most horses, when you ask them to move out in the round-pen at liberty, as we said earlier their natural inclination is probably going to be to walk or trot. A theme we'll return to many times in this book is that we want everything the horse to do to be our idea. This helps establish you, and not your horse, as the leading partner in your relationship. Take a deep breath and say this to yourself:
When Working, everything my horse does is my idea.
One way to get your horse to canter is to make a hissing sound like a snake. Many horses respond well to this as a cue to move out.
In the hook-on exercise, the speed at which the horse moves is our decision, and not his. So we make him canter. How long do we do this?
Have your horse canter about 5 times around
Do not let the horse drop down to a trot. If he does, increase the pressure. Then look for signs the horse is accepting your leadership. Where is the horse paying attention? Is he looking to the outside of the round-pen to see if a mountain lion is approaching? If so you need to keep him moving until his attention is focused on you. You can also look for these signs:
- The horse is licking her lips.
- The horse is looking at you.
- She has her head in a lowered, more relaxed position.
- An ear on you. This is another sign the horse is relaxed and paying attention to you.
When the horse is paying attention to you and is relaxed, you can ask her to come to a stop. Letting the horse stop is her reward.
Signs you don't want to see
You need to keep your horse circling if:
- Your horse turns his butt on you.
- Does not stay moving in the direction you want (which we have chosen to be to our left).
- The horse does not look at you.
Keep the horse moving in the direction you choose
We must keep everything our idea. The speed and direction the horse moves are our decisions, not his. If the horse decides to go to your right do not allow it. Keep the horse moving in the direction you want using your carrot stick or open the palm of your hand so that it is facing the horse. Then move your right arm up in down in a wide swinging up-and-down motion.
How to get the horse to stop
The first step to asking the horse to stop is to step back and get in her path. Do this by:
- Walk backwards in a spiral path.
- Move on your spiral outwards so that you are approaching the fence of the round-pen.
- You want to get in a position so that you are in front of the horse.
After you have positioned yourself in front of the horse, come to a stop and take in a deep breath. In natural horsemanship, you will use your breath to communicate relaxation to the horse. So breath in deeply through your nose. Feel your body rising up toward the sky as you do so. Then breathe out through your mouth. Make sure your exhale is loud and vivid so there is no doubt the horse can hear it. Let your body relax, feeling the energy move down toward the center of the earth. Look directly at your horse.
Your Horse Should Stop and Look at You
At this point you want your horse to stop, face you, and look at you. If she does not look at you, you need to send her out again to the left, and have her circle 2-3 more times, then repeat the process asking her to stop.
When the horse comes to a stop and looks at you, we stop asking the horse to move out.
The ultimate goal will be to have the horse come to a stop and allow you to walk up to him. In a moment, we will talk about the proper way to walk up to a horse. Right now, you need to know that if at any time while you are standing looking at your horse or approaching her, if she moves in any way then you need to send her out and start the procedure all over again. However, don't force your horse to stop. Maintain a reasonable distance and let her decide if she is going to stay put or not. If she decides she needs to move off, let her do so (but in the direction you want) and repeat the procedure until she understands that to rest, she will need to allow you to approach her.
If the horse moves when we've asked him to stop, ask him to move out again. If he attempts to change direction, put pressure. Here Eric is putting pressure using the rope in his right hand.
Tip
Suppose that you have your horse cantering around, and he drops down to a trot and looks at you. Its good that he is paying attention to you, right? Actually this is not good because it was his idea to move to a trot. If your horse does this, put pressure to get him back up to a canter and let him move about half-way along the distance of the round-pen. Then take some pressure off-lower your carrot stick, walk back away from the horse 2 or 3 steps, and exhale loudly. This will tell the horse he can drop down to a trot. But you've made it your idea. We call this process of taking an idea our horse had, then representing it to him as our idea stealing a thought. You should always look for opportunities to steal a thought from your horse. It will teach him not to do things you are not asking him to do, making him safer to handle and ride in the long run. Horses do not like to work, so we want to get him thinking in this exercise that if he decides not to do what we ask, he will have to work. But we are letting the horse choose. We ask the horse to stop, but leave the door open for him to run off if he wants to. We continue the exercise until he learns that the release of the pressure is when he pays attention to you.
If you horse stops, you can click or kiss to get her to look at you. The key idea is to have your horse paying attention to you by looking at you with both eyes. Now let's suppose that your horse comes to a stop, but begins to take off right away after looking at you or when you start to approach. Build on what you have by executing the following steps:
- Click or kiss to get the horse to look at you when he is stopped.
- When he looks at you, take the pressure off. Turn and face the opposite direction and walk away from your horse 3-4 steps.
- Take a deep breath, exhale and repeat.
The second time the horse looks at you, wait a second or two before turning and walking away. Build on what you have, and after a few tries you should be able to have your horse stand still and look at you. Anytime the horse does what you ask, reward with verbal praise and by smiling at the horse.
Tip
If you ask your horse to stop during this exercise, and he stops, but then begins to move off, he is dictating to you that he can move off anytime he wants. Do you want to ride a horse that thinks this way? Probably not. You want to ride a horse that moves when you ask her to, not when she decides to on her own. Its safer to establish this in the round-pen, which is another reason we perform this exercise. We counter the desire of the horse to move off whenever she pleases by dictating the speed and direction of movement. Not to be too repetitive-but this means if she moves off to your right, you tell her to go left. If she moves off at a walk, you ask her to canter.
Approaching Your Horse
Now let's suppose that you and your horse have accomplished the following goals:
- She moves out a canter.
- She canters around the round-pen 5 times.
- She is paying attention to you and is relaxed. She looks at you, has an ear on you, is licking her lips and her head is not raised high.
- She stops when you ask and faces you, and does not move off when you stand and look directly at her.
- Start facing your horse with eye contact.
- Look down at the ground, and turn right. Walk right 2-3 paces.
- Stop and look at the horse. Take a deep breath and exhale. Smile and verbally praise the horse.
- Turn to the left, so that you will be approaching the horse at about a 45 degree angle. Look down and walk 2-3 paces toward the horse.
- Repeat the process, changing directions each time until you can position yourself to stand next to the withers on the left side of the horse.
Having the Horse Hook-On
Now lets suppose that you are able to walk up to the horse and stand by her withers on the left side. This is the final stage of the exercise, where we ask the horse to hook-on, which means follow us without the lead-line or halter. If you are doing this for the first time, don't get greedy. Take one step forward and see if your horse will follow you. If he does, reward him by telling him “good boy!” and giving him a single pet (a swipe down the neck say). Then walk off with 2 steps. Keep rewarding each time he follows you. It will be pretty clear rather quickly if he is hooked-on or not. If he is, he will follow you with head down throughout the round-pen.
Remember, at any time he breaks, you need to start the exercise from the beginning. So if you take two steps and he stays behind:
- Send him out! Make him go around twice at a canter. Then ask him to stop, and repeat.
- Keep doing this until he will follow you anywhere in the round-pen.
When you have done this a few times and you and your horse get good at it, you will start to form a partnership. This will be evident because you will be able to take your horse out of the round-pen into an arena or even out in the open and he will follow you wherever you go.
Blending In
Not all horses will hook-on automatically. If your horse does not, place your hand under the chin. You should be standing on the left side of the horse. Then place your hand under the chin as shown below, and walk off toward your left, gently putting pressure on the right side of the jaw to encourage the horse to follow you. This works because we are getting the horse to move away from the pressure.
If your horse won't follow you immediately, put your hand under the chin so the fingers can put pressure on the right side of the jaw. Then walk away from the horse toward your left. This is called blending in. You are looking for your horse to follow you.
Lesson Summary
The hook-on exercise teaches the horse that we are her leader. This is because the horse moves when we ask, where we ask, and how fast we ask. It teaches the horse what we ask is our idea. When the exercise is completed successfully, we have taken the first step towards having a solid, loving, and trusting relationship with our horse.
This article is an exerpt from Teach Yourself Natural Horsemanship in 14 Days, a downloadable PDF book which is free with the purchase of Eric Bravo's Gentle Natural Horsemanship Video training software.